Stanford Pre-Collegiate Summer Institutes - Media and Social Justice

This course explores how language and writing can enable historically marginalized individuals to articulate traumatic experiences, protest unjust conditions, and reshape others' perceptions. We will focus on the relationship between language and power as we analyze the rhetoric of people with often differing goals. On one hand, we will see how oppressive language is reproduced through history, culture, and institutions; on the other hand, we will explore how language can also become a powerful tool of agency and intervention. Students will be prepared for the kinds of formal, academic writing and reading required in college-level courses and civic discourse. They'll master the elements of composition and rhetoric to write thesis-driven argumentative essays, reading, analyzing, and discussing important literary texts to explore problems and expand their scope of reference. Students will emerge with improved writing skills and a more critical eye, with a keener ability to make, weigh, and dissect arguments.