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Expository Writing courses introduce students to the principles of academic argument and guide their practice as they learn to embody those principles in their writing. Each individual Expos seminar focuses on the strategies and techniques of college writing; all courses in Expository Writing help fulfill the university writing requirement. 060.100 (H) (W) INTRODUCTION TO EXPOSITORY WRITING Introduction to Expository Writing is designed to help less experienced writers succeed with the demands of college writing at Johns Hopkins. Classes are small, no more than 10 students, and are organized around three major sequences of instruction. Students work closely with their instructors on how to read and summarize texts, how to analyze texts, and how to organize their thinking in clearly written essays. Introductory seminars do not specialize in a particular topic or theme; students gain experience in working with different types of evidence and a variety of texts. The emphasis is on analysis and the skills that analysis depends upon.
060.113 (H) (W) EXPOSITORY WRITING This course teaches students the concepts and strategies of academic argument. Students learn to analyze and evaluate sources, to develop their thinking with evidence, and to use analysis to write clear and persuasive arguments. Expos seminars are organized around four major essay assignments, each of which guides students’ practice through pre-writing, drafting, and revising, and includes in-class discussion and workshops. Students also learn how to document sources and how to navigate the university library. In addition to its central focus on the strategies of argument, each seminar offers its own intellectually stimulating topic or theme. Please see the following list of individual course descriptions to decide which sections may be of most interest to you.
060.113.16 Reprogenetics and the American Family (ThF 9:00) On March 14, 1996, the British journal Nature published an article claiming “that the growing power of molecular genetics confronts us with future prospects of being able to change the nature of our species.” Today, this power is hotly debated with talk of stem cells, cloning and reprogenetics, a remarkable science in which advances in reproductive technology, combined with genetics, could enable prospective parents to select for genes conveying such traits as athletic prowess, mathematical ability, or AIDS-immunity. In American society, where it has long been held that individual liberties and individual talents, along with hard work, determine what we can accomplish, scientists and fertility specialists fear to speculate how genetic engineering of children may be implemented in the marketplace. Could the manipulating of DNA lead to a gradual splitting of the human species as wealthier individuals create a richer race, stacking their sons and daughters with genetic gifts unattainable by less well-off citizens? In this writing seminar, we will consider these questions and others as we contemplate the potential for genetic engineering to transform the American family. We begin by analyzing several short arguments about the ethical implications of technologies that allow for sex selection of embryos. Next, we examine Lee M. Silver’s Remaking Eden, considering how genetic engineering could soon permit parents to pre-design their children. For the third essay, students will develop a multi-source argument about some of the legal and ethical implications of stem-cell research and human cloning within the context of the family unit. In the final essay, students will explore a question of their own choosing, within the topic of the course.
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