340195 UE Text Competence written: English (2020S)

Textually literate ..., are we? And: What is good writing?

We can all weave our own texts, kélims, and I am sure you are all hungry for an edge. There are many ways … of writing … reading … Let’s be like foxes, making “more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction” (Berry 1991) ...

In this class on textual literacy, you will experience a challenging but cooperative, collaborative and supportive environment in which you can experiment with your own individual communicative resources (metaphor of repertoire: whatever you bring to this class—let’s play with it, strengthen it, further develop it!). Classroom cohesion will be of vital importance because it contributes to reducing the fear of embarrassment. We shall aim at group accomplishment—with regular peer reviews in and out of class.

It is important to note that peer reviewing does not aim at intervention and (immediate) change (i.e. we won’t discuss do’s and don’ts; no simple cause-effect relationships). Peer reviewing can help us to gain a more realistic assessment of our own (textual) agency. It strengthens reflection on matters of choice, alternative, and consequence: intended (we—as writers) and experienced (we—as readers). Two maxims will guide our work in class: clarity & impact.

“Language [and in our case: textual interaction] isn’t about words, or information, or things” (Cooke 2011)—it is always about us and our readers. To us, texts are social events (not sealed containers or manufactured products). Before we charge a text with a certain function we will need to create a fabric that readers would like to touch in the first place, something they would like to keep ...

The story of our class goes like this: ‘There and back again. A writer’s tale.’—From empty page to idea … character/letter, morpheme, word, collocation/expression/idiom, clause, sentence, paragraph, text (multisensual, including visuals), (discourse) … … … and all the way back to 'clean slate revisited'.

In your weekly assignments, you will be dealing with everyday life writings (including text-speak), academic articles, art creations, business compositions, and health texts.

Our classroom work will take us from reflex to reflexion: ‘Know your readers!'—is there really a way? ‘Communicate effectively!’—to whose benefit? ‘Act authentically!’—how to when you have to tell somebody else’s story?

What about this course catalogue entry? Is this good writing? You doubt it? Let's discuss it in class ... So, I see you there.