Learn to make Web sites by directly coding HTML and CSS. We will focus on Web standards and accessibility, with a designer’s priorities.

Credits awarded: 4 credits in Web design

Learn to script for more Web functionality and accessibility, using JavaScript, the DOM, and server requests. We’ll focus on useful techniques rather than full coverage of the language.

Credits awarded: 4 credits in Web scripting

Are American children ruder and lazier than they used to be? Have privileges become problems? This course introduces the idea that childhood is a historical phenomenon. Even the concept of “development,” which is often taken as a biological fact, was invented in the 19th century and has shaped modern conventions of child rearing and education. This course questions the idea that there is a “right” way to think about children. Guest speakers include professionals and private citizens who work with children. Students who enroll for 8 credits will complete an ethnographic study of childhood which entails field work, research, regular consultation with faculty and colleagues and the completion of a 10-15 page paper. This course meets the history prerequisites for students applying to the MIT program and human services programs.

Credits awarded: Either 4 or 8 credits in American history or sociology of childhood

This class uses four productions at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival to examine our own culture and others, and to think about the difference between live and recorded dramatic performances. In Ashland, Oregon, we’ll see two Shakespeare plays, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Coriolanus; we’ll also see the contemporary surreal comedy Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner by Luis Alfaro and a two-thousand-year-old drama translated from Sanskrit, The Clay Cart. This course should provide prerequisite credits toward upper division coursework in theatre study, theatre history and/or performance studies.

Credits awarded: 2 credits in theatre studies

This course, taught by the Wilderness Medicine Training Center, is designed to meet the needs of wilderness guides, expedition leaders and outdoor instructors. We will study a wide variety of problems encountered in wilderness situations including trauma, the treatment of wounds and shock, and allergic reactions. Each student will also develop hands-on skills in treating patients in varying environmental conditions. Students who successfully complete the class will receive nationally recognized WFR and CPR certificates. This course could provide credits for the MIT science prerequisites.

Credits awarded: 6 credits in wilderness medicine

Students will learn the basic skills of using a variety of carving and sculpture tools, and how to approach various woods as a medium. A sharpening workshop will teach care and feeding of knives and gouges. Design sessions will develop skills in 3-D thinking, model-making and sketching ideas in clay, plaster and other materials. Students will create original projects as they learn traditional techniques. Second session activities will allow students to expand their skills, and is open to experienced carvers with more ambitious projects.

Credits awarded: 4 credits in sculpture techniques

This intensive writing workshop will ground both beginning and experienced writers in the study of major poets and poetic forms. Working from a variety of forms, both traditional and modern, we will ask, How are poems brought to life? How are they crafted? How do poets invoke the senses, emotions, and imagination? How do poems transform culture, society, and the healing arts? What is the art of word magic? We will tap into word play—images, sounds, shapes, patterns and rhythms—as we write and study poems. Our explorations will include narrative, lyric and contemporary poetic forms, and we will draw on examples from a variety of cultures and historical time periods, with an emphasis on culturally diverse American writers and translators of poetry. This course is intended for students who are serious writers, who want rigorous academic study, or who are preparing for graduate school, MFA programs or MIT programs.

Credits awarded: 4 credits each in creative writing and literature

“The First World War,” noted historian A. J. P. Taylor, “explains the second and, in fact, caused it, in so far as one event causes another.” Other historians have called it Europe’s Second Thirty Years War. This program will explore and analyze the causes, course and consequences of the global war that began in 1914 and nominally ended in 1945. We will study the European and Pacific theaters of the war and will consider how the war led to the decline of European hegemony and affected the global standing of the United States and Russia.

Credits awarded: 8 credits in both history of World War I and World War II, 1914-1945

This class will enhance writing skills needed for communicating with academic and popular audiences. During first session, students will study effective editing and composition, with an emphasis on projects associated with the dissemination of community resource materials such as editorials and position papers. During second session, students will study creative writing, focusing on creating a credible protagonist, building tension, plotting and reading their work aloud. This course will hone writing and editing skills essential to success in upper division classes and in graduate school.

Credits awarded: 4 credits in either advanced composition each session or creative writing each session

This class will enhance writing skills needed for communicating with academic and popular audiences. During first session, students will study effective editing and composition, with an emphasis on projects associated with the dissemination of community resource materials such as editorials and position papers. During second session, students will study creative writing, focusing on creating a credible protagonist, building tension, plotting and reading their work aloud. This course will hone writing and editing skills essential to success in upper division classes and in graduate school.

Credits awarded: 4 credits in either advanced composition each session or creative writing each session

This course provides a supportive environment for students from any discipline to find their voices as writers. Participants will engage directly with a public medium of their choice, including but not limited to newspapers, academic journals and literary magazines. All students will meet regularly with writing partners. Students opting for two to twelve additional credits via individual contracts will meet weekly to discuss essays by professional writers in addition to the writing partner meetings. This course prepares students for upper level work and/or for graduate school applications and publication.

Credits awarded: 4 credits in advanced critical or creative writing, depending on student’s area of interest

We all know what it’s like to have a teacher or editor write “please clarify” in the margins of our papers. This class will demystify this frustrating request by focusing on clarity and the concrete practices that constitute well written prose. To this end, students will master agent/action analysis, cohesion and coherence, concision, coordination, force and elegance. This course is intended for students from all disciplinary backgrounds and provides clear and concise writing skills in all areas of study.

Credits awarded: 4 credits in writing and compositional rhetoric