Fundamental to Expository Writing is the understanding that writing is an instrument of thought and, as Kurt Spellmeyerand Richard Miller note in the “Preface” to The New Humanities Reader, the “movement from the known to the unknown is the essence of all learning” (xix). This semester has required us all to move “from the known to the unknown” like never before and in ways we couldn’t have expected. What, then, might we learn about the “unknown” of the present moment, given the writing you’ve done throughout the course? How might the thinking we’ve done together in Expos this semester help us understand this unprecedented time?
In this exercise, explore any aspect of your or our (collective) experience during the Covid-19 pandemic.The goal is to understand something of what you have experienced by analyzing your experience in light of something that resonated with you in one of our readings. Here are some reminders of key themes in each of our texts, any one of which could provide the “lens” through which you explore what you have experienced.
Nafisi: Finding individuality and (partial) freedom through literature and independent thought