Writing to Heal This writing-intensive course examines writing as a catalyst for healing after loss or grief. In a workshop focused on student writing, we will analyze fiction, drama, poetry, and creative nonfiction as a basis for discussions.  To this end, we will read creative non-fiction, memoir, and novels.  Assignments for this course will include formal analytical essays, creative work (published online), and oral presentations.

The Rhetorics of Death In this course we will examine a number of issues that arise once we begin to reflect on our mortality. Are we, in some sense, immortal? Would immortality be desirable? How should the knowledge that I am going to die affect the way I live my life? What is the place of grief? The goal of this course is to examine creative approaches to these questions in Literature and Philosophy. The purpose of this examination is to enable deep reflections on a meaningful life when understanding that there is an end to it. We will engage in discussions and share our writing as a means of understanding “the good life.” Student writing will emerge from discussions of course texts.

Writing and Power Power: who has it, who doesn’t, and what does it have to do with your writing? This course both instructs students in how to access power in academic contexts and to critique power structures. We’ll learn how power connects to literacy, and how it's shaped through rhetorical contexts. Students will explore their own power as writers and thinkers while engaging in meaningful personal, reflective and argumentative writing. The professor will work with each student extensively on their writing process and development, and we'll create a writing community. This course bears elective credit but does not fulfill the college writing requirement.

Writing On Contemporary Issues: Writing, Editing, and Publishing Online This course is an introduction to writing prose for a public audience.  Students will create both critical and personal essays that feature strong ideas and perspectives. The readings and writing will focus on American popular culture, broadly defined. Essays will critically engage elements of contemporary American popular culture via a vivid personal voice and presence. Readings will address current issues in popular culture – Gladwell, “Brain Candy,” Klosterman, “Campus Confidential,” for instance. ReMix: Reading in Contemporary Culture is the central text. The end result will be a new online magazine of writings on American popular culture

Media, Sports, & Identity       In this course we will examine the relationship between media, sports, and the formulation of one’s identity. We will examine issues pertaining to gender identification, violence, and hero worship. Reading critical essays on the subject, studying media coverage of sporting events, and writing short analytical essays will enable us to determine key elements concerning how sports are contextualized in American culture. Student essays will form the basis of a more in-depth inquiry that each student will then present, using media, at the end of the course.

Writing and Experience: Exploring Self in Society The reading and online writing for this course will focus on what it means to construct a sense of self in relation to the larger social world of family and friends, education, media, work, and community. Readings will include nonfiction and fiction works by authors such as Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Andre Dubus, Tim O'Brien, Flannery O'Connor, Amy Tan, Tobias Wolff, and Alice Walker. Students will explore the craft of storytelling and the multiple ways in which one can employ the tools of fiction in crafting creative nonfiction and fiction narratives for a new online magazine on American popular culture.  This magazine will have been created by students in Writing on Contemporary Issues.  Narratives about self and society will therefore lean towards aspects of American popular culture. 3 hrs sem.

Social Class and the Environment In this course we will explore the consequence of growth, technological development, and the evolution of ecological sacrifice zones.  Texts will serve as the theoretical framework for in-the-field investigations, classroom work, and real-world experience. The Struggle for Environmental Justice outlines resistance models; Shadow Cities provides lessons from the squatters movement;  Ben Hewitt's The Town that Food Saved describes economy of scale solutions, and David Owen's The Conundrum challenges environmentalism.  Texts will guide discussions, serve as lenses for in-the-field investigations, and the basis for writing. We will also travel to Hardwick and Putney, Vermont, to explore new economic-environmental models.

Hector Vila

Reviews and ratings for Hector Vila at Middlebury College.Hector Vila teaches Writing To Heal, The Rhetorics of Death, Writing and Power and more.  Explore top rated instructors and find the best for you.Is Hector Vila good ? Find out on MiddCourses.

I took this course to fulfill my CW and Professor Vila was highly recommended by my friends. He is clearly passionate about the subject and cares a lot about his students and how they are doing. We had 4 readings and 4 short papers throughout the semester and spent a good amount of time on each reading to really go in depth and have interesting conversations in class

Hector is great. He's passionate about the topics we cover in class and very encouraging of our writing. I enjoyed our analysis of various writers' styles in a range of texts and felt like it helped me better understand my own writing style better. We write a lot of essays, but the prompts are very flexible. The class is very casual and he loves athletes. 

Vila is awesome, one of the best professors at the school. Very relaxed class but the material is very interesting. Even though the class is pretty laid-back, you still learn a ton. Overall, Vila is just a great guy and everyone should take a class with him.