Welcome to GIS 140: Writing Ready (Section D Early Fall Quarter 2006-07 Archive)

Ursula K. Le Guin once wrote, “First sentences are doors to worlds.” In a manner of speaking, GIS 140 is the first sentence, the first words of your university experience. This class is a first step, a first look, and often a first in-depth exploration of your transition to college, of academic reading, writing, research, of campus resources, and of critical and scholarly thinking.

In this course, you will learn to become critically conscious of your specific relationship to and encounters with writing, reading, and learning. Through thinking about and reflecting on the the writing, reading, and analytical skills you bring to this class, you will learn to assess who you are as a writer, a nascent scholar and develop your skills to engage with and to perform more effectively in college writing courses like English 131, 121, or 111.

GIS 140 promises a fast-paced, compressed quarter of writing, reading, discussion, research, asking questions, more writing, revision, more reading, more discussion, critical thinking, analysis, fun, and even more writing and revision. We will engage texts small and large, everyday and theoretical. This particular incarnation of GIS 140 also promises a healthy inclusion of popular culture, cultural studies, politics, gender studies, new media, and experiential learning. By the end of the quarter, the hope of this course is that you realize that learning and knowledge and experience are more than just rubrics, rote, numbers, syllabuses, tests, grades, and graduation requirements—that learning and knowledge are fundamentally interconnected, intertextual, personal, political, cultural, and mutually enhancing.

For a detailed description of the class take a look at the Course Policies and Syllabus.

Message of the Day

Important class announcements, notes, comments, and suggestions will be made in-class and via email. Please be sure to check your email regularly for messages of the day. Messages will have "[GIS 140]" in the subject line. MOTDs will also be archived here.

About the Instructor

Edmond Chang is currently a English Literature graduate student pursuing his Ph.D. His main areas of interest are digital studies, cultural studies, gender studies, film, literary nonfiction, visual rhetoric, myth, and popular culture.

He has extensive teaching experience at the university level. He taught English 131 at UW last year. This year he will be teaching English 111.

Prior to coming to UW, he taught English 101: Introduction to Academic Writing at the University of Maryland for a total of eight years while he worked on his Master's in English. In total, Ed Chang has taught thirty sections of English 101. In addition to the standard ENGL101 class, he has taught sections for the Honors program, for the First Year Focus program, and for the College Park Scholars program. He has also taught sections of ENGL 101X for English as a second-language students. He has received consistent and excellent evaluations from students, peers, and supervisors.

While at UMD, he also served as a graduate academic advisor for the Division of Letters and Sciences, which serves freshmen and sophomores who are undecided or applying to a limited enrollment major. Furthermore, he taught UNIV100: The Student and the University, a transition course for incoming freshmen, for Division of Letters and Sciences. In the summer of 2005, he taught a three-week, intensive ENGL101 preparatory course for the Scholastic Transitions Educational Program (STEP).

In addition to teaching, Ed Chang is also committed to student affairs and student advocacy. He served a year as faculty advisor to the P.G. County Community College student literary magazine Reflections. He has also served a year as facilitator for University of Maryland's Safe Space, a peer support group for LGBT students. He also worked as a member and panelist for UMCP’s Speakers Bureau program and the newly created Rainbow Terrapin Network.

Ed Chang has written and self-published a book of poetry, Lost One Found One, and two role-playing games Tellings and Archaea: Live-Action Role-Playing and Wargaming. He is a four-time participant and "winner" of National Novel Writing Month. He is also a freelance writer and desktop publisher.

> Home

Course Policies
     Download Policies
     Download Syllabus

MOTD

Class Blog

Assignments

Readings

Links

Email Instructor

© 2005-06 Edmond Chang. All original material. All rights reserved. Email the webmaster of this site.

These pages are best viewed with Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer. Open your browser to the largest viewable area.

These pages are hosted by the University of Washington Computing & Communications system.