The Garden in the Machine
Welcome to Warren College Writing 100, a course designed for transfer students coming of age in this fraught moment. To begin, let me outline course inspirations and traditions that will guide us.
Life Out of Balance
This course takes your college motto—toward a life in balance—as inspiration. Implicit in this motto is that life is out of balance, that the scales have tipped, that a counterweight is needed.
The signs of imbalance are all around us: economic growth at the cost of ecological devastation and species extinction; companies hoarding wealth while working families struggle to survive; job markets rewarding greed over care; work cutting away family and leisure time; consumerism replacing participation; virtual life replacing real life; surveillance abolishing privacy; the efficient life overshadowing the examined life.
This imbalance is not just witnessed. We feel it as we move through the world. The exhaustion of grinding and hustling. The pressure to make ourselves marketable. The anxiety when tuned to the news. The hopelessness that requires tuning out. The dopamine highs as we click through virtual space. The lows that require more clicks. The distance you feel between you and those next to you. That numbness hard to name.
This course will give you a chance to articulate, through writing, the feelings that come from a life out of balance. But we will not stop there, with the scales tipped. Facing this imbalance, we will turn to a tradition that provides a counterweight.
Counterweight
The humanist tradition tends to those facets of our species atrophied by the imbalance: to our minds and hearts, to our existential struggles and freedom dreams, to art capable of expressing these.
Connecting with this tradition, we will recall and reclaim what it is to be human. We will slow our pace, talk and listen to each other, think through social and existential problems, learn from wise folks who came before us, and practice articulating our inner worlds to flesh and blood people.
It will be exciting to see what you are capable of when you resuscitate the essential parts of yourselves that have been forced into dormancy—what you are capable of writing but also what you may be capable of righting in a world of much wrong.
Humane Writing
Writing in the humanist tradition will bring you and your reader back into the writing process.
I write “back” because, even before AI, you were required to remove yourself and your reader from the writing process. You were told not to use “I” or “you” or “we.” You were taught formulaic structures that molded your words into a gradable product rather than a vehicle of insight. You were taught to write for the grade rather than for a real reader. It’s no wonder why so many offload such mechanical writing to a machine!
We will take a more organic approach to writing that brings you—a human being with history and experience, existential fears and longings, ancestral traumas and wisdom—into writing. Rather than writing for the grade, you’ll write for real readers who could gain insight, and possibly a lifeline, from your words.
What the Machine Cannot Capture
You are a one-of-a-kind person with history and experience, with reason and creativity, with sensations and a voice, with knowledge and wisdom.
AI can emulate humanity, but it can never replicate these elements that make you you. AI can produce writing that seems written by human hands, but it can never capture the spark moving your hands.
You will reclaim that spark this quarter. When this spark infuses your words, your writing will enlighten readers.
To reclaim the spark, I crafted assignments that invite youbackinto your body and into your writing. These assignments work best if you avoid AI for writing (I suggest using it only for basic questions that you then vet).
This will lead to more human writing. “Human” doesn’t mean perfect. In fact, the imperfections are far more impactful than polished algorithmic writing. They show your reader that you are there in the words. As Leonard Cohen sings in “Anthem”: “Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light comes in.”
What We’ll Write
Journal
Each day of class, you will handwrite one journal entry about each assigned material (3-4 sentences). These entries are the first step to writing the main assignments. They allow you to encounter the materials through the prism of your human experience. Write something only you can write: What catches your eye? What questions comes to your mind? What insight emerges in your consciousness as you relate the materials to your life? I will collect your journal, so please keep it separate and organized.
Written Assignments
The course assignments will be completed through a mix of in-class and at-home writing. Instructions will be distributed at the beginning of each unit. For now, here is a description of the learning objectives with each assignment.
Assignment 1 Critical Eye on Everyday Life
With this assignment, you will treat everyday life as an object of analysis. You will shift scales to contextualize your experiences, practice experiential and analytical modes of writing, and connect your written and spoken word.
Assignment 2 Mapping Dystopia
With this assignment, you will practice criticalthinking by identifying dehumanizing aspects of your social world. You will practice off-screen journaling and writing to an actual person who will benefit from your observation and insight.
Assignment 3 Little Things, Big Visions
With this assignment, you will contemplate an object from your everyday life that contains hidden meanings that relate to the course. You will unpack that meaning for yourself and your reader. An emphasis will be placed on writing a reader-friendly essay and on engaging with the themes of the last unit.
Materials
1. Winter 2026 Course Reader (available at UCSD Bookstore)
2. Fido Nesti. George Orwell’s 1984 The Graphic Novel
3. Physical notebook for journaling and in-class writing
Grading
We use a contract grading system in this course. What this means is that I will show you the labor required for each grade. You will then determine what path makes sense for you. I hope this process demystifies the grade and makes the course expectations transparent. Here are the paths:
Grade Paths
Path to an A
· Complete all materials before class.
· Write journal entries before class.
· Participate weekly by sharing your insights or questions in class or office hours.
· Being present in all classes (except for sickness or emergency).
· Beingpresent while others share insights.
· Fulfill the objectives of each assignment.
· Complete suggested revisions on assignments.
· Your journal and assignments demonstratea thoughtful encounter with the materials, themes, and class conversation.
· Attend office hours for all absences (when healthy and when emergencies are resolved).
Path to a B
· Complete all materials before class.
· Write journal entries before class.
· Participate by occasionally sharing your journal insights in class or office hours.
· Mostly present in class.
· Mostly present while others share their insights.
· Fulfill the objectives of each assignment.
· Complete suggested revisions on assignments.
· Your journal and assignments demonstrate a genuine encounter with the materials, themes, and class conversations, but some gaps in understanding are noticeable.
· Attend office hours when absences exceed two (when healthy and when emergencies are resolved).
Path to a C
· Conditions make it hard to complete materials.
· Attend most classes but it will be hard to be fully present.
· Writing reflects partial encounter with course materials and class conversation.
· Writing reflects partial understanding of unit themes.
· Unable to make suggested revisions on assignments.
Path to D or F
· Conditions make it impossible to be present in class.
· Conditions make it impossible to complete materials and assignments.
· Situational difficulties lead to incomplete understanding of course themes and class conversation.
· Writing reflects situational difficulties.
· Journal and major assignments have a generic, formulaic, or algorithmic tone.
· Unapproved use of AI.
Pledge
Please pledge to a path by week 2. Be honest with yourself when choosing, but don’t yield to doubt. There’s no judgment in needing to take the B or C path, especially if doing so removes the guilt of attending to pressing needs or obligations. If you can’t pledge to a C, I advise taking the course when conditions change.
Attendance
More than two absences will make it difficult to fulfill the criteria for an A or B. In the event of an extended sickness or emergency, pleasegive me a sense of your situationand I will accommodate within reasonable bounds.
Accommodations
The course is designed for everyone. If you have special needs or require accommodations, please let me know. If you have divergent ways of thinking, processing information, or communicating, please let me know so we can tap into those gifts.
Technology
I ask that you refrain from using phones, laptops, or tablets in class, unless you need accommodations. This will allow us to talk in a more focused and unmediated way.
For those gaining fluency in English, I welcome the use of translation tools in office hours and class. But I do ask that you avoid using AI tools to translate or refine your writing.
If you have special needs or require these accommodations, please let me know.
Presence
Presence is the most important aspect of the course. Being present is more than merely attending. It means coming at the materials with your full self—as a person with history, experience, and sensation. It means connecting the course materials to your life rather than regurgitating data. It means adding your thoughts and voice to our class conversation. It means asking questions and listening more than saying the most or giving the “best” response. It means writing in your voice rather than relying on formulae or algorithms.
Calendar
Part I. Learning to Spell
Week 1
3/31
Introductions
4/2
Read “Learning to Spell”
Read Moores’ “Morning of the Mind”
Read Tang-Bernas’s “\’in-glish\”
Week 2
4/7
Read How Scholars Write Chapter 1
Read Blasso-Gieseke’s “Enambered”
From Brevity:“The Birthday Place” and “Success and Prosperity”
4/9
From Brevity: “If You Find a Mouse on a Glue Trap” and “Place” “Suspended” and “Cheekbones”
Project 1A First Draft and Grade Pledge 4/12
Week 3
4/14
Read and listen to Joyce’s “Araby”
Read and listen to Liu’s “The Paper Menagerie”
4/16
Writing Workshop
Read How Scholars Write Chapter 9
Part II. Texts that Teach Us to Be Human
Week 4
4/21
Master and Man (begin in class)
4/23
Master and Man (up to page 86)
Project 1A Final Draft & Reflection Letter Due 4/26
Week 5
4/28
Master and Man (up to page 104)
4/30
Ikiru (begin in class)
Week 6
5/5
Finish Ikiru
When Breath Becomes Air (begin in class)
5/7
When Breath Becomes Air Part 1
Mid-Quarter Reflection Due 5/10
Week 7
5/12
When Breath Becomes Air Part 2
5/14
When Breath Becomes Air Epilogue
The Art of Living (begin in class)
Week 8
5/19
The Art of Living
5/21
The Art of Living + How Scholars Write Chapter 10
Project 2A Ideas + Outline Due 5/24
Week 9
5/26
The Art of Living + Sharing Texts
5/28
The Art of Living + Sharing Texts
Project 2A First Draft + Course Reflection (24 hours before conference)
Week 10 (Conferences begin)
6/2
The Art of Living + Sharing Texts
6/4
TBD
Finals Week
Conferences Continue
Project 2A Final Draft Due