Writing and Rhetoric: Writing about Sports
MIT's introductory writing course uses sports as its subject matter to teach argument, analysis, and revision. Students read writers including Hank Aaron, John Updike, David Foster Wallace, and Malcolm Gladwell on baseball, boxing, football, tennis, and running, examining the cultural meanings of sports in American life. The course centers on three essays, including an investigative piece, each revised at least once, plus one short oral report. Discussion covers how sports function as both personal memory and big business, even within college athletics. Materials include the syllabus, assignment prompts, and reading list from MIT OpenCourseWare, freely available with no enrollment cost. The emphasis throughout stays on craft: building an argument, marshaling evidence from assigned readings, and tightening prose through repeated drafts rather than treating sports writing as a novelty subject.