Course Description

This course is designed to give students an Honors-level experience in translating their everyday experiences in an unfamiliar cultural landscape into lucid, well-written essays. As part of this course, students will discover the city of Perugia and their place in it; contemplate the intertwined etymologies of the words “travel” and “travail” while reflecting on how traveling’s challenges create personal growth; and push beyond the accepted wisdom of Italian food’s basis in long-standing history to evaluate whether food needs to be “traditional” to be good, and how food is linked to personal identity. 

The writing done in the course begins with more straightforward reflection and follows a trajectory towards more professional and polished material, augmented by personal experiences and observations, and the examination of scholarly literature. In short, the course calls for hands-on, primary-research focused experience in the city and surrounding areas, while translating that field-based work through writing and comparing your experiences to the written experiences of local and international authors and relevant academic works. Students will engage in research, writing exercises, and debate that will be built from first-hand experience of the city, culture, and peoples in Perugia and Italy. 

The course also offers numerous opportunities for sharing of writing as well as a final, collective reading to the Umbra community.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

1. Explain the difference between different textual typologies and writing styles;
2. Learn and use key rhetorical concepts through analyzing and composing a variety of texts;
3. Understand and use a variety of writing styles to address a range of audiences; 
4. Learn how to identify and structure an essay, using research tools and skills;
5. Implement strategies to compose texts that integrate the writer’s ideas with those from appropriate sources;
6. Deliver professional presentations to public audiences in a confident and effective way.