Expository Writing
Faculty of the Subcommittee on Expository Writing
Susan Pedersen, Professor of History (Chair)
Peter Buck, Senior Lecturer on the History of Science
Leo Damrosch, Harvard College Professor and the Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Literature (on leave fall term)
Patrick K. Ford, Margaret Brooks Robinson Professor of Celtic Languages and Literatures
Anne Harrington, Professor of the History of Science (on leave spring term)
Gordon C. Harvey, Senior Preceptor in Expository Writing and Associate Director of Expository Writing (ex officio)
Stephen M. Kosslyn, John Lindsley Professor of Psychology
Susan W. Lewis, Director of the Core Program and Director of the Freshman Seminars, General Education, and House Seminars (ex officio)
Barry C. Mazur, Gerhard Gade University Professor
Elizabeth Studley Nathans, Dean of Freshmen (ex officio)
Nancy Sommers, Senior Lecturer in Expository Writing and Sosland Director of Expository Writing (ex officio)
James Wilkinson, Lecturer on History and Literature
Jeffrey Wolcowitz, Senior Lecturer on Economics and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education (ex officio)
Other Faculty Offering Instruction in the Expository Writing Program
Christine Edwards Allred, Assistant Senior Tutor in Pforzheimer House, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Joshua Manuel Barkan, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Patricia M. Bellanca, Preceptor in Expository Writing (on leave fall term)
Nancy Ellen Bernhard, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Daniel H. Bosch, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Michael A. Brown, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Christopher P. Bush, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Kathryn Ann Chadbourne, Lecturer on Celtic Languages and Literatures
Kim Cooper, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Michele D. Cotton, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Jeremy Fantl, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Mark Gaipa, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Faye S. Halpern, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Paul L. Harding, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Gordon C. Harvey, Senior Preceptor in Expository Writing and Associate Director of Expository Writing
Karen Leigh Heath, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Charles W.M. Henebry, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Thomas R. Jehn, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Jeannine Johnson, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Patricia Kain, Senior Preceptor in Expository Writing
Ann Keniston, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Soo La Kim, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Katherine J. Milligan, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Judith A. Murciano, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Mohammad Nezam-Mafi, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Emily D. O’Brien, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Lisa Ratmansky, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Maxine Rodburg, Senior Preceptor in Expository Writing and Director of the Writing Center
Augusta Rohrbach, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Julia B. Rosenbaum,
Jane A. Rosenzweig, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Eliezra Hava Schaffzin, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Steve Shoemaker, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Cheryl Colleen Smith, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Nancy Sommers, Senior Lecturer in Expository Writing and Sosland Director of Expository Writing
Janet H. Sylvester, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Thaddeus F. Tuleja, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Thomas Andrew Underwood, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Eric A. Weinberger, Preceptor in Expository Writing
Suzanne H. Young, Preceptor in Expository Writing
For Undergraduates Only
Expository Writing 20 fulfills the basic requirement in Expository Writing, a requirement for all undergraduates in their first year of residence. No Expository Writing courses have midterm or final examinations.
Expository Writing 10. Introduction to Expository Writing
Catalog Number: 6344 Enrollment: Limited to 10 students per section.
Members of the Department
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
A rigorous, intensive elective that helps students prepare for the demands of college writing. In small classes, students work closely with instructors on developing and organizing ideas; analyzing sources; and writing clear, lively essays. Students read essays, articles, and short stories and receive a great deal of individual attention.
Note: A limited enrollment elective. After taking Expository Writing 10, a student must pass Expository Writing 20 to meet the College’s Expository Writing requirement.
Expository Writing 20. Expository Writing
Catalog Number: 5518 Enrollment: Limited to 15 students per section.
Members of the Department
Half course (fall term; repeated spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Aims to improve each student’s ability to discover and reason about evidence through the medium of essays. Since writing requires an intellectual occasion and familiarity with some subject, each section focuses on a particular theme or topic, as described in the Guide to Expos Courses and Registration (available from the Expository Writing office). All sections give students experience in formulating questions; analyzing both primary and secondary sources, and properly acknowledging them; supporting assertions with strong and detailed evidence; and shaping clear, lively essays. All sections emphasize revision.
Expository Writing 52. Style and Styles in Prose
Catalog Number: 0674
Gordon C. Harvey and staff
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 16
For students who have completed Expository Writing 20 and wish to continue thinking about the art of writing and about the style of their own prose. Readings include pieces by distinctive stylists past and present: Bacon, Browne, Johnson, Emerson, Dickinson, Twaine, Lawrence, Woolf, Orwell, Baldwin, Didion, Gass and others—including contemporary journalists and professors. Class discussions consider the technique of particular sentences and passages, and ponder fundamental but sometimes ambiguous concepts like clarity, voice, vividness, cliché, rhythm, “academic” style. Students attend regular one-on-one conferences on their own writing.
Note: Graduate students may be admitted by permission of the instructor, but this is not a course on academic composition or on English grammar.