Who is allowed to write? What gender and ethnic identities? What sexualities? What ability statuses? The authors read in traditional English classes tend not to represent the students reading them. This course seeks to open students' views on the kinds of writing and the kinds of writers that can and should be read. Course will involve reading works of primarily minority writers both well-known and somewhat more obscure. Writings will draw heavily from contemporary experience. (James Baldwin, Alice Walker, Amy Tan, Siddhartha Mukherjee, etc.) In addition to reading, students will write their own personal essays in a workshop format. This may help with students preparing to write a college application essay, or who are interested in writing as a profession.