In this intensive writing course, students will learn how to critically evaluate persuasive writing as well as how to write well-reasoned, persuasive writing of their own. Students will study informal reasoning and develop their own abilities to give good reasons in writing for their own views. Students will develop their reasoning and writing skills through sustained engagement with a particular theme. This quarter's theme will be the place of "new media" (mainly, the Internet, its various highways and byways, and the myriad portable means of accessing it) in a reflective and responsibly engaged life within contemporary society.