Welcome to English Studies ND Governor’s School, Summer 2013

During the Next 6 Weeks… 1.You’ll get a crash course in the disciplines that make up “English Studies.” 2.You’ll then complete an Independent Project in the discipline of your choice, working with one or more teacher-mentors. This project could be anything from an extended letter to the North Dakota legislature, to a short book of original poems, to an electronic photo-essay, to an analysis of the mythic connections between Twilight and the fiction of William Faulkner. —And— 3.You’ll create your own online magazine, working from the ground up on nearly all phases of its creation— and submitting your own work (written during the next 6 weeks) for publication in it.

And that’s not all… 4.You won’t have to be embarrassed anymore for enjoying books, being a good writer, and in general going cuckoo for language. 5.You’ll decide that you want to spend the rest of your of life studying one of the fabulous disciplines in English Studies. Well, maybe

This experience at Gov School (in English, anyway), isn’t about “smartest” —or not only about “smartest.” It’s about… Oh yeah, and did I say “curious”? CURIOUS IMAGINATIVE BROAD-MINDED AWAKE AMBITIOUS ENGAGED CURIOUS CURIOUS CURIOUS ODD

Our Schedule in Brief: This is also our public homepage, where photos etc. will be displayed.

Mornings, we will most often meet HERE, in IACC 116. For occasional special activities we’ll move around some—especially in the 3 rd week. Afternoons, almost always in FLC 313.

Our WordPress Site The place where we DO what we DO.  It’s where you’ll find your assignments and post your work for each discipline.  It’s where you’ll draft your Independent Project.  It’s where you’ll converse electronically with your classmates.  It’s where you’ll freewrite, muse, sulk, sing, scratch your head and swim around in language.

Jade will be telling you lots more.

Ok. So. What is “English”??? Or what is “English Studies”? ? ? ? ? What holds everything together in English Studies? What makes it a unified field? Why is one class studying the development of Ophelia’s character in Hamlet, another class is watching old Daffy Duck cartoons, and still another class is examing literacy statistics for Lithuania?

This “Tour of the Disciplines” is no small thing…

RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION: study of language which informs, persuades, and motivates. o SOCIAL MEDIA or NEW MEDIA WRITING: whole new ways of writing when one is texting, facebooking, twittering or otherwise facing a screen, & whole new kinds of human communities. LITERATURE STUDIES: study of language art. CREATIVE WRITING: the writing of language art. LINGUISTICS: scientific study of language. Social linguistics: study of speech communities. Why do North Dakotans say “awnt” instead of “ant”? What new “languages” are developing in a digital and globalized world? Psycholinguistics: the study of how our brains learn, understand, and use language. Historical linguistics: study of language change—helps us understand why English spelling is bonkers & nonphonetic! Take the word COUGH What’s with the goofy “ou”? Why doesn’t one letter—“a”—represent the “aw” sound in English? Where did this “ou” come from? Or why don’t we use “au,” “aw,” “ah,” or “o” instead—all of which are used in the spelling of other English words? And then there’s the weirdness of the “gh”: why not just use an “f”? And why is it sometimes “ph”? Not to mention the “c”: why not a “k” and why is it sometimes “ch”? Historical linguistics helps us understand language irregularities. Also helps you feel less dumb if you’re a poor speller!

And then we’ve still got: CRITICAL THEORY CULTURAL THEORY COMPOSITION STUDIES LITERACY STUDIES JOURNALISM/MASS COMMUNICATIONS: writing for newspapers and magazines—often housed in English. TECHNICAL & PROFESSIONAL WRITING: study of how to write for different professions (doctor, lawyers, chemists, farmers, engineers, artists). Also how to write instructions, memos, pamphlets. ENGLISH EDUCATION: how one learns to teach English.

For tomorrow in Creative Writing, 1-2:30, please visit this site and browse through the quotations: Select the one which you feel best represents your own understanding of creative writing or the artistic process. Write it down (or have it available on a laptop), and bring to class.