When you read a good memoir, it speeds by, and without even realizing it, you’re learning all about how the author identifies—their upbringing, their communities, their religion, their relationships, their jobs, their obsessions. Through expert use of narrative structure and detail, you trust the writer: a skill just as relevant to vibrant college writing. College writing uses research to give any story a richer context, helping to engage the reader as deeply as possible. In this course, we will read from a diverse range of creative non-fiction, analyzing the writing to help develop our own research, writing, and editing. We will use facts and arguments to investigate our own identities and tell stories relevant to our communities. We will marvel at the effect of concrete details and short sentences and feel the excitement of finding the perfect source. We will work through multiple drafts of our own work, helping each other and building a safe writing community through regular peer editing. Expect lots of in-class writing on topics of your choosing, and to end the semester much less scared of a blank page. Expect: memoir by Audre Lorde, Kiese Laymon, Leslie Jamison, Patti Smith, and profiles of Jake Paul, Frank Sinatra, and others.