Tutorials

In the tutorial every entering student explores a topic of interest to the student and the instructor in a small group, discussion-intensive setting. The objectives of the tutorial are to illuminate methods of inquiry rather than to cover topics comprehensively, focusing particularly on writing, critical reading and oral communication. In addition, the tutorial initiates the process of planning for a liberal education at Grinnell through advising conversations between students and their instructors. By promoting close working relationships between tutorial instructors and their students and by combining the roles of instructor and academic adviser, the College provides students with academic advisers attuned to the interests and abilities of their advisees.

A tutorial (4 credits) is required of all students who enter Grinnell as first-year students and of all transfer students below third-year student standing whose previous work does not qualify them for an exemption. A student must complete the tutorial with a grade of C or higher to meet the tutorial graduation requirement and to be eligible to enroll in a “Plus-2” or independent project. Students who receive a D or F in the tutorial must earn a grade of C or better in a course designated or approved by the dean’s office as Intensive Writing (IW).

Tutorials are offered only in the first semester.

The following tutorials are offered in 2018–19: 

• Castles, Foundations, Freedom: Walden and the Liberal Arts (Andrews)
• Creative Couples (Anger)
• A New & Golden Age: 21st Century Television (Bakopoulos)
• Drawbridge Up or Down? Global Citizenship in 2018 (Brottem)
• Nature & Resilience: Environment in Literature and the Arts (Caradec)
• Music, Interdisciplined: Toward an Integrative Approach to Music Studies (Cha)
• ‘The Empire Writes Back’: On Modernity, Humanity, and Belongingness (Chou)
• Archaeoastronomy (Christensen)
• Humanities I: The Ancient Greek World (J. Cummins)
• Crisis, Liberation, Justice and Leadership (Drake)
• Human Interest Stories: The Evolution of Domesticated Species and the Nature of Our Relationships With Them (Eckhart)
• Knowledge, Skepticism and Science (Fennell)
• Missing Out (Garrison)
• Music, Myth, and Legend (Gaub)
• Psychology of Humor (Gibson)
• The Contested Waters of the American Southwest (A. Graham)
• Words and Non-words (C. Hansen)
• Exploring the Magical World of Calvin and Hobbs (Hutchison)
• Far from Flyover: The Literature of Iowa (P. Jones)
• Tell Your Story (Lacson)
• Criminal Brains (Lindgren)
• You Can’t Go Home Again: Epic Heroes’ Journeys (Mercado)
• Identity and Belonging in Iowa (Michaels)
• Coping with Climate Change: How Science, Politics, and Ethics Interact (Moyer)
• Death, Sex & Money: Advice from Social Scientists (Oberlin)
• The Rise and Fall of American Manufacturing (Ohrn)
• Almost Heaven: West Virginia (Paulhus)
• The College Movie (Petrus)
• Human Rights in the Modern World (Prevost)
• Cult of Grinnell (Rietz)
• Babylon Berlin (Samper Vendrell)
• Animal Personality: How Cross-Species Research Informs the Study of Human Personality (Sinnett)
• The Great White Way (Thomas)
• Detecting Art Forgeries by Visual and Scientific Analyses (Trimmer)
• Icelandic Sagas (Wolf)