Great Books Program students all need to know how to write a well-reasoned, coherent essay. This course introduces students to the art of defining a topic, doing high-quality research with limited resources, and writing an engaging and solid college-level paper.

Academic Writing from the Ground Up: From Grammar and Composition to Writing Great Essays. The course will start with establishing good writing habits in the context of five paragraph essays: the Swiss Army Knife of academic essays. The course will progress through building multiple types of essays and establishing a good personal style. We will also cover writing research papers, with an emphasis on identifying and locating good sources and avoiding plagiarism. The final section of the course will be a review of great essay writers like Sheen, Chesterton, and Shelley with an emphasis on literary criticism and recognizing quality writing