by Amos Epelman

I am a senior at Emory University studying biology and economics. Education is essential but while all education is created equally, not all people are. Some individuals learn in different ways than others. As a member of the Emory University Honor Council, I hate seeing people cheat because they thought that was the only way for them to get a good grade in a course.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, an action is worth a thousand pictures. We say that we are honest people, but do our actions speak the same way?

I believe the education system speaks of great success, but its actions fail those who put their trust in it. Educational institutions advertise themselves as the gateway to success in life, but many students leave university with crippling debt and a lack of functional knowledge in their work field. As a member of the Honor Council, we are quick to judge students who are accused of cheating but seldom ask the question of why. Do people cheat because they enjoy breaking the rules or because they feel the need to cheat to achieve the level of academic success that is expected from them?

Education is one of the fundamental keys to success in life and any educational institution would agree, but their actions do not follow. For students, education is a burden, a constant suffering of competing with your peers to achieve monetary and life success. Education should be inspiring and diverse, not repetitive and stressful. It is time for these institutions to take a deeper look at themselves and ask if what they are doing is truly life changing, or just a way of making money.

Now imagine yourself sitting at a table with five friends, each of you working on a separate assignment. It is 10 p.m. and you open the assignment due the next day at 10 a.m. You have 12 hours, but all the previous assignments only took 30 minutes to complete.

It is now 11 p.m. You have completely underestimated the workload of the assignment. You have convinced yourself that your friends are distracting you and that is why your assignment is taking so long to complete. You return to your dorm and begin to work alone.

It is now midnight. You begin to panic. It has been two hours and you have barely made a dent on the assignment. It has three parts, and you have barely cracked the first part. You take a glance at the other parts in the hope that the assignment will only get easier, only to have a deeper sense of despair as you realize it only gets worse from here.

It is now 1 a.m. You are starting to feel tired. Your friends, all ready for bed, ask if you want to hang out, and you reluctantly say no. You finally finish the first part, but panic really sets in. If you even want a chance of a good night of sleep, you need to finish the assignment in one hour.

It is now 2 a.m. You ask yourself, “Why haven’t I been working on this assignment throughout the week?” only to remember you just took two midterms, each worth 25% of the total grade of each class. Your eyes are now burning from exhaustion but you power through finishing the second part of the assignment, only for the third part to loom over your head. You contemplate asking a friend for the answers, but you have just enough honor inside of you to try and power through.

It is now 5 a.m. You finally finished the assignment. You submit it and get ready for your four hours of beauty sleep. All of this, for an assignment worth 5% of your total class grade.

I used to believe in the education system. Now I believe it is time for change and for everyone to be conscientious of each other’s needs. Not all students learn the same way and not all teachers teach the same way. However, what unites us all is a passion for learning, but the system we live in now needs to change. We should take pride in learning, even if it does not come in the way or time you would hope it does. Students must be proactive and teachers must be willing to help and understand.

I believe that each student’s potential is locked behind a door, and the lock cannot be opened by a key that is one size fits all. Every student is different and it is time for the education system to adapt to that. 

by Anshuman Swain

My name is Anshuman Swain. I am from Poughkeepsie, New York, (mentioned in Friends and How I Met Your Mother), and I am majoring in chemistry and math. In my free time, I like to dance (on the Emory Karma Bhangra team) and watch horror movies.

“Anshu, why is the sky blue? Why can’t we breathe underwater? Why do we exist? Why? Why? Why?”

“I’ll tell you later. Please, just let me sleep.”

Every summer morning, I would wake up to my cousin yelling that one word in my face: “Why?” One day, I decided to entertain him. I answered all his questions –well, I tried anyway. I realized that I didn’t know much about the simplest things around me.

I didn’t know why the sky was blue, and existential conundrums were out of the question.

I learned a valuable lesson that day.

I learned about the power of the word “Why?”

I learned what I valued.

I learned about my curiosity.

My cousin, like every other child, constantly questions the world around him. He is driven by his curiosity, and this curiosity is fundamental in shaping his interests, his knowledge, and ultimately who he is.

I strive for this level of curiosity, and as a college student, I am on the pursuit of finding who I am and what interests me. This constant curiosity—this constant craving for knowledge—defines me.

I use it in my research, formulating questions to expand on what is already known or testing the theories we deem as true. I use it in class, questioning all the concepts my professors present. I even use it when browsing the news or Facebook, questioning the current Democratic debates and even Cardi B’s latest outfit.

All of my questions revolve around one central word—the central word—“Why?” I think this word is crucial in understanding almost anything. For example, I listen to a lot of rap music, and for people who don’t listen to rap, the artists may seem like they are regurgitating a thesaurus mingled with some bellows and sprinkled with some adlibs. But looking into why the rapper uses these lyrics, these ad libs, and looking into his background helps me understand the purpose of those lyrics.

I also believe that teachers are the gatekeepers to curiosity. Throughout high school, I would hear my peers complain about the teacher assigning homework, or teaching a topic that didn’t seem relevant or something that they “would never need to use.” However, teachers hold the power of knowledge, the—one thing, the only thing—that can quench curiosity. While my peers went on their iPhones during class or skipped school to get high in the park, I would try to absorb all the information my teachers presented to me. This not only translated to the knowledge I gained, but to my work ethic and desire to be—for lack of a better word—curious.

I always think back to that morning when my cousin woke me up, jumping on my chest and yelling like a maniac.

I think about my throbbing ribs and desire to strangle my cousin. But I always remember loving that moment. I remember the “Why?” the eagerness in his eyes, and my own budding curiosity.

Sometimes I imagine the curious cat, sitting on the windowsill, staring at me, staring into my mind, staring into my soul.

I imagine what it’s thinking about, its curiosity about me, its curiosity about my curiosity.

And then I remember that curiosity killed the cat, but if that’s the case, then that cat died in the most valiant way possible.

by Joshua Serrano-Ildefonso

My name is Joshua Serrano and I grew up in Gainesville, Georgia. I am a current sophomore at Emory University majoring in finance. My hobbies include tennis, music production, film, and investing.

I believe in internal happiness, something I couldn’t understand growing up. As a kid, I radiated towards tangible objects: my phone, clothes, shoes, and food. Mom, can you buy me the new iPhone? Dad, I want new Nike shoes. Let’s eat out for dinner at an Italian place. I asked and demanded anything I thought gave me happiness. After a while, I came to a revolutionary conclusion. Objects don’t define who I am. More importantly, objects should not be my source of happiness. It took some meditating and lots of honesty with myself to discover inner peace and happiness.

We all have experienced glimpses of inner peace. They are the moments you are taken aback and wish to stay forever: moments like watching the water from the showerhead stream onto your body, hearing an entrancing melody from your favorite song or spending the day with the people you love.

My descent into the world of inner happiness began on a road trip. My friends and I were headed to Destin, Florida, for the week. As we drove along the Florida coast, I had lots of time for gratitude and reflection. The ocean was a reminder of tranquility and peace. Truly, the ocean was a reminder of the intangible—my friends.

Again, one of my happiest moments in life was playing tennis. My high school team was playing their last match of the year. I was playing a doubles game with an incredible teammate who was able to hit fast and deep serves. Yet, I somehow found myself serving to the opponent. About two feet from the middle of the baseline, I bounced the fresh neon-yellow ball three times before tossing it up into the air. As the ball reached its peak and started to descend, my arm arched up to slice serve it over the lofty net. The ball kicked off the ground away from my opponents and right smack into one of the holes of the fence. Game. It was my last year on the team, and I was happy from the relationships and memories I had made.

It was my choices that ultimately led me to be in these circumstances, but it was through my gratitude that I discovered inner peace. “Be grateful for what you have,” I can already hear my mom repeating this famous saying. There is so much meaning in it. With technology and new toys coming out every day, there has been a noticeable cultural shift towards materialism. However, I still believe in friendships, relationships, laughter, and love. I believe in intangible things. The things we should really hold onto.

I think everyone is born with happiness, but life’s externalities drain it. Life is truly abundant, and it was through darkness and chaos that I learned to find inner peace, to bring balance and love back into my life, and to appreciate the power of the human spirit. In the end, I took responsibility for my life and chose how to feel about it—the same choice everyone has.

by Mark Betts

I am a senior at Emory, studying Political Science and Economics. I enjoy tennis, hiking, and rock climbing. I also like to keep up with current events.

I believe in getting perspective from others.

Last summer, I had two jobs. A finance job where my eyes would get tired completing the latest excel spreadsheet in my little beige cubicle. And a waitering job. At the waitering job, there was a number of characters. Among them, was a waitress from Georgia, the country—not the U.S. state. She had one of those tough but charming personalities. One of the first things she told me was “I hate Putin.”

One night, when the restaurant was empty, she explained why. She said, “When I was much younger, Russia invaded and bombed my city. My father, mother, sister and I had to take cover crouching underneath a table while we felt the walls around our house shake from the bombs exploding around us.” She must have seen the shock in my face because she looked at me, smiling, and said, “But I’m sure you have bad things happen to you, you know, like falling off your bike.”

From that experience, I much more appreciated my privilege as someone who has never had to worry about his safety in the way she had to. And now, I appreciate things I had taken for granted. I know from that story, I now appreciate the smaller things more.

While, she and her family had to restart their lives in the United States, I have been lucky enough to get to go to school where we have subsidized outdoor Emory trips. I remember one a sunrise hike from not too long ago. We hiked, bone-tired, on a boardwalk by a highway in mostly darkness with flashlights from our phones and inclined up this mountain.

At the peak, there were all these wildflowers and little water basins scattered. And as the sun peaked just barely onto the horizon, the sun rays made the water basins shine and made the flowers light up to a vivid red. It woke me up a little bit to witness and gave me a sense of completion and peace. 

The Georgian waitress had to leave her friends in Georgia behind to come to the United States, but I’ve been lucky enough to be able to keep up with my high school friends. In fact when we come back home from college, we usually get together on a Wednesday or a Thursday at a Wingstop or Buffalo Wing Factory. Some of you probably know, they have this unlimited deal where, you can get unlimited wings for like 10 bucks. And so we do that, and we also get a pitcher of Budweiser. 

After that, we start to just roast each, often using the nicknames we gave each other in high school. I’m “twiggy” ‘cause I was really scrawny in high school; one friend is “moose” because he grew up in Canada; and a third one “snake” because he was always instigating fights among us. It’s all pretty stupid. But I always look back on those times with a lot of warmth. It may have been the Budweiser pitcher, but more accurately, I believe it was the fact that we could all hang with no pretending necessary because we’d known each other for so long.

What I gathered from that waitress from Georgia enriched my life so that I could slow down to appreciate things as simple as a dinky waitering job, a tiring hike, and a high school friend group. So now whenever I shake someone’s hand, I do it, appreciating the perspective I can gain from listening to them.

by Justin La

My name is Justin La and I was born and raised in Palo Alto. For those who don’t know where that is, it’s home to Stanford University, Steve Jobs, Larry Page, and Mark Zuckerberg. You can already assume how much technology has dominated my hometown. I am currently a sophomore studying Quantitative Sciences with a concentration in Economics. I am of Korean descent and I love to dabble into new things.

Hello, I am Justin La and I believe in the power and magic behind family. Not the magic in Harry Potter with the wands, but the sense of magic that kids get at Disneyland. Yes, it is that magical feeling of utter happiness, complete content, and absolute fulfillment. I learned that the happiest moments in my life were usually the most common moments at the time.

It wasn’t when I received my first phone, got an A on an exam, and opened up my birthday presents. Instead, it was when I cooked Korean side dishes with my mom on the marble kitchen table, watched Netflix past midnight with the family on our L-shaped couch, munched on my mom’s homemade kimchi on the dinner table, and walked the park with my adorable 6-year-old mini poodle along with some poop bags. I guess the worst part at the time was losing rock-paper-scissors to my sister and being forced to pick up poop on the cold grass field.

The list of the most simple things at the time just goes on and on. If you don’t believe me, I will keep going. If you noticed, out of the four instances on this endless list of my happiest moments, my mom was in two of them. And if the list were to become endless, the number of memories with my mom would become endless as well.

In early elementary school, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer stage three. And for those who don’t know, there are four stages, four meaning the tumor has grown into the chest wall and into the skin. This caused me to spend most of my time with my father and sister growing up. And if my father was at the hospital, I was with my grandmother.

At the time, breast cancer was something that was hard to understand. I knew the word meant trouble, I knew the word meant my mother was sick, and I knew the word was fatal. Visiting my mother in the hospital was so valuable and I took advantage of every second with her. This experience emphasized the importance of family in my life and showed me how thankful I should be to have a family, a happy family. More specifically, I was thankful to have a mother who is now a breast cancer survivor, a father who works extremely hard to support the family, an older sister who looks after me, and a mini poodle who provides happiness to all of us (despite having to pick up her poop all the time).

Looking back, I noticed how fast time flies and the importance of living life to the fullest. So what do we do? I say we enjoy life, be thankful for even the smallest things in life, and cherish the present. To wrap it up, family is in fact “The Happiest Place on Earth,” not Disneyland.

By Shayna Gutridge

Hello, my name is Shayna Gutridge and I am a hopeless romantic! I am a sophomore at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Originally from Potomac, Maryland, I grew up spending magical summers in Bethany Beach, Delaware. I live my life following my heart and intuition to the people, places, and ideas it leads me to, which is what inspired me to share this story. Music: “With You” by Monk Turner. 

I believe in an instinctual knowing. A divine assurance that transcends notions of logic, propriety, and predictability. An inflicted rumbling lodged between your ribcage that quivers up your neck and rattles around your head, only to be tamed through the art of ignoring your mind and trusting your intuition. What I speak of possesses a power so frightening to humans that the telling tales told are considered merely myth.

My tale begins in coastal Delaware, during a summer framed in blues and yellows. Blueberry ice cream stuffed into homemade waffle cones, our pale yellow townhouses that appeared flat in front of the blue sky, the ever-present golden sun that sat afloat the inland bay.

One June morning, as I rolled out the door in a honey yellow t-shirt, my gaze was met with something it was not familiar with. In the streets in front of our townhouses, I first witnessed the blue-haired boy. He had a smile that created embers around his face and ocean eyes that matched the top of his head. What captivated me about the blue-haired boy was the freedom and weightlessness of his aura, one that danced and twirled through life on the pursuit of happiness.

Perhaps it’s the media’s money making schemes to sell hallmark happy-endings that makes even me skeptical to believe in the substance of a sixteen-year-old’s summer love. But in this moment, it was not about the validity of a future love. It was an ease of clearness that spoke only in concise certainty. A gravitational pull that would be disobedient to the universe to ignore. It was a knowing that lacked logic, a love that may very well be improper, with a future that was unexpected.

Eventually I would go on to meet the blue-haired boy and share sacred summer nights with him, but like all summer loves it was destined to come to an end. When I retuned to Maryland, he returned to Chicago. And while the blues and yellows of the summer faded, my pull to him had no give.

From 700 miles away, I was entranced by love at first sight.

Months later this overpowering knowing would lead me onto a flight from Baltimore to O’hare, where me and the no-longer-blue-haired boy would solidify the feelings that dizzied our minds since the first day we had met. When I landed and saw his blue eyes against the morning sun, my doubtful mind had settled, my intuition boasted, and my heart rejoiced.

Perhaps it is true love, and perhaps it is not. I do not claim to believe in any aspects relating to the quality or guarantee of love, but rather the power of the intuitive knowing of love.

To this day, I live my life following my intuition to the people, places, and ideas it draws me to. Through listening to my own voice, as well as the forces of the universe, I have begun to weave myself a beautiful life colored with many great loves. 

By Khanh Vu

My name is Gia Khanh Vu and I am from Hanoi Vietnam. I am a sophomore at Emory University and I am majoring in Quantitative Science with a track in Economics.

I am Khanh Vu, and I am a firm believer in the power of unity. Everyone must have heard of the phrase: “United we stand, divided we fall,” but what does it truly mean? We as human beings are fragile and vulnerable to the negative forces in our life as despair, desperation, and loneliness can easily overwhelm anyone when we are alone. One person might be weak; however, when a group of people stands by each other, they have the courage, strength, and teamwork to overcome the problems that one person would never be able to solve.

This does not only apply to us human beings but also the animal kingdom. A single ant would never be able to build a colony. The bees work together to bridge gaps when there is not enough room to fly. A lone wolf cannot bring down a herd of bison without being vulnerable to injuries or even death. Therefore, it is undeniable that unity is important for survival.  

In fact, unity has always been present in our lives ever since we were born. We were raised by the unity of our parents. The unity between us and the friends that we meet creates an unbreakable bond that leads to life-lasting friendship. Throughout my whole life, I was taught that independence is necessary for growth. Therefore, I tended to overcome problems on my own. When people offered to help me, I refused, thinking that I cannot be dependent on anyone besides myself. It was not until my sophomore year in high school that I truly learned about the power of unity.

During Christmas break, my Vietnamese friend Jason and I were flying back home to Hanoi, Vietnam. Due to my carelessness, we missed our flight in Chicago and were forced to stay in the city for an extra day to wait for a new flight. Although the airline did not charge us for the new ticket, we were stuck in Chicago without a roof over our heads. It was around midnight; the temperature outside was 10-degree Fahrenheit. The airport felt like a freezer, and all our winter jackets were in the luggage that we had already checked in. Both of us did not want to spend money on a hotel room, so we decided to stay at the airport that night.

I remember that all the restaurants were closed, and we were starving since we did not eat anything on the plane to Chicago. However, instead of being mad at me for causing him to miss the flight, Jason handed me a pack of chestnuts from his backpack and said: “This is all I have, but I think it will do us for the night.” As the night progressed, the temperature got even colder. I offered Jason the blanket that I was going to use on the airplane since I had a lot more layers of clothes on than him.

It was not a fun 8 hours, but that was one of the most memorable moments in my life. It was the power of unity that pushed us through that cold night. If Jason and I had fought over missing the flight, we would not have stayed through the night that easily. By myself, I am vulnerable and powerless against the negative forces in my life. Yet with the support of my friends and family, I know that I have the strength and courage to accomplish great things. Because when you choose to help others, others will also help you.

By Elijah Sterling

I was born and raised in Georgia. As such it is in similar fashion, I was brought up on the values of human kindness. Thus, in my essay I implore the multitude of forms and reactions it can cause.

I believe in human kindness. Even though, it may seem at times to be as rare as a blue moon, it can be easily found; with only so much as a proper reference point.

A common misconception of kindness is that it is as drastic as the act of donating a life sustaining organ (i.e. kidney) to a stranger, but it can also be as simple as a wave to a bus load of kids.

To continue with my metaphor of kindness being as rare as a blue moon, I would like to take this chance to present two different definitions of such; so as to prompt the listener to a higher understanding of my purpose. First, a blue moon (in the rare sense) can be defined as when the moon takes on a blueish hue in response to blue vapors, whereas another much more common occurrence of a blue moon, is one of a second full moon in one calendar month.

While every day I may not witness someone donating a kidney, every day without fail – I am able to witness a simple act of kindness. On one such occasion it took place when a young women; wearing all blue, from the sky blue shirt draped over shoulders, to the standard issue blue jeans, with eyes of a brown chestnut color that matched her hair, with a perfume that smelled of a sweet flower that one could imagine adorning an entire field with.

The young women complimented me for my shirt, and truth be told I wasn’t a particular fan of that shirt (as it was laundry day and I was reaching at the bottom of the barrel). But, with that one small kindness for the rest of the day my walk was filled with just a touch more bravado.

This would in turn result in me playing a small yet benevolent part in other people’s lives throughout the day; an almost hasty fashioned “return of compliment” so to speak. As I was unable to thank the women in sky blue before her departure. Thus, throughout the day I would become the bearer of optimism, compassion, and most of all human kindness.

My point being, that despite the act ensuring no return value for the women in blue, the small act of kindness inspired an avalanche. Examples include me lending a pen to the girl next to me in religion, who was wearing a cozy brown sweater, holding the elevator in my dorm hall, for two guys wearing matching polo shirts.

Thus, in summary, while an occurrence as a moon with a blue hue deserves awe, so does the commonplace second full moon. As an organ donor may be as rare as a literal blue moon, it can also be much more common, as say a second full moon. That is why so long as we are open to kindness, and willing to pay it forward, kindness will always be as common as a blue moon.

In our fall 2019 class in Oral Communication at Emory University, my students and I began our time together by looking at narrative’s function in oral discourse. Our first work together was an examination of this genre of oratory—reading a script to an unseen audience. No gestures, no eye contact. Only the voice. We spent time learning how to write and edit a draft, to practice speaking, to make technology work for us as writers/speakers, and to mark the script for effective reading. Along the way, we have learned by doing about narrative and its quiet power. Below you’ll find our work. They are written and performed for a public audience; therefore, some students asked to withhold their names. We are honoring those decisions. As in the spirit of This I Believe, commenting is turned off. The essays below continue this rather meditative practice begun so long ago. Best wishes, from all of us. May your life’s journey have quiet moments of reflection and story.

I believe in my students. I’ve been a college teacher for an awfully long time—over 20 years. And in that time, I have learned never to walk into my class with a great deal of fear. I trust these students of mine.

But there have been times when I worry. Just for a while. Sometimes I might have a mixture of students that does cause me some concern.

Recently I had a college writing class—the typical class that most first-year college students have to take when they enter the university system. Often these classes are taught with topical themes combined with intensive writing practice within that theme. Often we faculty use personal writing as a door into the academic writing we want our students to practice. Writing and sharing personal writing always opens the door to potentially tough conversations, but mostly I find that it is community building rhetoric.

This particular semester, I had an unusual mix of students. About a third of the class were from Asian countries, another third were from primarily Muslim countries, and the last third were students from the United States. I wasn’t sure how this was going to work. I had chosen an unusual theme for me, a risky theme—that of “forgiveness.” I had included in my syllabus texts that would challenge their notions about forgiveness as both a personal rhetorical action and a cultural one as well. These texts were bits and pieces from the Bible, the Qur’an, prayers from the Jewish tradition, fables from various traditions, and we did a deep dive into the Amish schoolhouse shooting. I scattered my net wide in an effort to represent the human experience with forgiveness—both struggles and embrasures.

Forgiveness seemed to me a good topic for writing and thinking in the current polarized political climate. However, I was slightly concerned about two of my students. One was an extremely conservative Muslim from an Arabic country and the other a conservative Evangelical Christian from the American Midwest. On the first day of class, they found seats next to each other. Like magnets the two opposites seemed almost attracted to the other.

As the class periods progressed, I began to realize how deeply seated their political and religious attitudes were, and we were going to be engaging some of the values they held in the readings of the class. The writing assignments and group work, I feared, might cause them distress or create responses that might damage the forward movement of the class.

When I looked at their writing near the class beginning, I confess that I feared that neither of them might be able to be open to the texts and ideas I had selected. Would they be able to graciously listen first and respond critically after first remaining open? I wanted them to make arguments and not just assertions. Would they be able to meld facts, data, and evidence into their reasoning with a reader in mind? I steeled myself for a challenging semester.

But we progressed on through the semester in spite of my misgivings. Over the course of the semester, those two lovely men surprised me at every juncture. In fact, they taught me so much.

They taught me that when you are in close proximity to someone with drastically different beliefs, it changes you. They also taught me that sometimes what you think is a radically different belief, is actually quite similar to other beliefs, with a slight twist. These two young, smart, caring men honed and sharpened each other in group work. They grew to love each other. They found common ground. And in finding common ground, they both began to grow, becoming different people.

They didn’t give up their beliefs. Contrary to the statements of fear-mongers in our culture, persuading students to leave their beliefs is not the purpose of education. Rather, through their friendship, they learned how to argue better, how to think more clearly, how to express themselves while grounded in ethics and community-spiritedness. They reminded me that leaning in to the “other” with hospitality causes all of us to modify, adapt, and change all the time—it’s a natural part of growth and fuels the development of real personhood within a community.

When that class ended, they were the best of friends. I watched them in their subsequent years of college off and on. I’d see them laughing and debating as they walked across campus. They even chose to become roommates. They continued their friendship and continued growing and learning.

That gives me hope for our communities and the world. And that that is why I believe in my students, year after year. They shore up my own faith in my fellow human beings in spite of hate and distrust I see and hear around me. I am so grateful for them, and I continue to be grateful that I have the opportunity to participate in that wondrous re-making year after year.  

Our writing program has moved to some current ideas as points of connection between all the first-year classes we run. Asking students to write in multiple genres and couching the learning in our classes in terms of “transfer” have increasingly become important to the consistency of the program. I’m hoping to revise this class so that it addresses these rhetorical moves in healthy ways, using texts as models to help the students write. Even though this class relies upon texts, I’m still categorizing it as 101 because the texts we are using aren’t fictional, but rather “paraliterary,” to use a term one of my lit professors used once.

Joonna Trapp

English 101.011 “Enacting Forgiveness”

Fall 2015, TTh 8:30-9:15 a.m., Callaway N204

In this class, we’ll continue to learn to write in interesting and compelling ways, ways which draw a reader in. We’ll apply what we learn to a topic that seems to get short shrift today—we’ll consider together the topic of forgiveness. Forgiveness as applied in personal, communal, and national contexts will provide insight to a kind of ethic which enacts powerful change. You will read a variety of “texts,” write multiple drafts of several papers, and also write less formally by reflecting about your own writing and the readings. Your writing will be read by me and by other students in our class. Seeing how others handle the same assignment can often help improve your next assignment and your overall writing and thinking skills. And most of all, you will learn how to write in various contexts and in different genres and how reading and research feed and provide the support needed for the assertions and claims you make. You will learn that being able to argue is powerful and especially so when it is in the service of others and done ethically. Texts begin considered for this class include a documentary, “The Prodigal Son,” a book about the Amish school house shooting, works by Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela, and web texts of organizations such as the Garden of Forgiveness in Beirut. We will also use Elbow and Belanoff’s Being a Writer: A Community of Writers Revisited (McGraw-Hill).