AIDS has been a part of life for almost twenty years, impacting how we think about health care, sex, privacy, relationships, and so many other issues that are a part of each day we live.  In this course, we explore the larger effects of AIDS on American culture (with a few forays into other countries for comparison).  We examine HIV and AIDS from a variety of perspectives and disciplines, talking about art, literature, public policy, law, history, medicine, and other ways of examining this disease.  We also investigate how our understandings of AIDS are shaped by larger social issues such as race, sexual identity, gender, and class.  In the first half of the semester, we read (and sometimes view) an assortment of texts from various disciplines and practice different writing strategies that will enhance skills in reading and critical thinking.  In the last half of the course, each student designs and completes their own research project, writing a paper that explores a particular aspect of AIDS from their own perspective.  Students can take any angle they wish in this project, looking at areas such as business, psychology, art, social policy, or just about anything else that comes to mind.

I have two goals for this website:

• First, I hope my students find it useful not only if they lose their syllabus or essay prompts but also when they begin designing and researching their own project in the second half of the semester.
• Second, I hope instructors at other colleges and universities interested in addressing issues related to HIV and AIDS find my approach to the topic helpful.  If any instructors have questions, feel perfectly free to email me.

  Course Syllabus

  Course Schedule

  Midterm Portfolio Assignments

  Guidelines for Revision

  Research Portfolio Assignments

  Research Ideas

  UIC Library Resources

Note to Instructors Outside of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC):  You may be wondering what's going on here.  Why does a course called "English Composition II" have a focus on AIDS?  Isn't the focus supposed to be on composition?  Well, yes, but we in the Composition Program here at UIC follow an inquiry-based model when designing our courses.  In other words, each section of English 161 centers on a specific topic selected by the instructor.  This enables students to work together, learning how different disciplines and different genres approach that particular topic.  Then, they write their own papers on a particular aspect of the same topics, bringing all of their reading in the first half of the semester to a project of their own design.  For descriptions of English 161 courses offered this semester, click here.