In this workshop, students sharpen their skills as storytellers, drawing from their own experience and linking their narratives to larger, timely themes -- bringing together the personal and political. Students keep a journal, each week concentrating on a different aspect of craft. Three student works are carefully critiqued in every session. Assigned readings explore race, class, post-colonialism, and war, among other subjects, and include short essays, memoir, reportage, and travel writing by Katherine Boo, Atul Gawande, Haruki Murakami, Studs Terkel, Liao Yuwi, Svetlana Alexievich, George Packer, V.S. Naipaul, Jonathan Raban, Gay Talese, Ryszard Kapuscinski, Sherman Alexie, Emmanuel Carrere, Adam Phillips, Claudia Rankine, and others. This Riggio Writing & Democracy Honors course is open to all undergraduate students.