WRI 101 Model Course A

Typically, we think of democracy as a political arrangement based on particular ideals, a mode of participatory governance first enacted in ancient Greece and valued today for its commitments to communal decision-making, civic inclusivity, and its preference for freedom over tyranny. In the case of the United States, the promise of democracy is echoed in the words of the Declaration of Independence, which sets forth “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” as the primary virtues to be cherished and preserved for all citizens.

But democracy is more than abstract values and governmental procedures. It is, as we will argue in the course, a way of engaging in social life—in a very real sense, a mode of being, or at least a generative idea around which much of our lives are managed and measured. How has democratic life in the United States been experienced by persons who find disjunctures between democracy’s promises and their everyday lives? How have citizens addressed their frustrations, disappointments, and critiques of democratic life, and what are the special challenges of publicly representing those interests? Likewise, how have citizens, in articulating such concerns, enacted the rhetorical promise of open inquiry, critical thought, and autonomous self-governance which lies at the heart of the Declaration itself?

Students will be invited to respond to a variety of discourses that disentangle the complexities of democratic life, among them Susan Griffin’s Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy, Danielle Allen’s Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration in Defense of Equality, and Tony Kushner’s Angels in America. In four major writing projects, students will analyze how the experience of democratic life has been variously represented in discourse, will argue about how independence and autonomy are carried out in social contexts. The course has been designed to help students identify and respond to others’ claims and arguments in order to activate their own intellectual sensibilities, informed points of view, and rhetorical interests as writers.