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 2019–20: 

• The Lord of the Rings (Arner/Turk)
• Humanities 101: The Ancient Greek World (M. Cummins)
• The Alternative (T. Dobe)
• Crisis, Liberation, Justice and Leadership (Drake)
• Is it only a game? Soccer, Identities, and Nationalism (Escandell)
• Table-To-Farm (Saba)
• Life is a Road Trip (W. Freeman)
• African-American Literary Ties to Russian Intellectual Thought in the 19^thand 20^th Century (Greene)
• What Makes You, You? (Gregg-Jolly)
• Montaigne’s Questions (Harrison)
• Exploring Our Tiniest Allies in the Microscopic World Around Us (K.Jacobson)
• Adulting (S. Jones)
• Science Fiction and the Self (Kamunde-Devonish)
• Blues People (Lacson)
• Janelle Monáe and Afrofuturism (Laver)
• Still Bored? A Golden Age of Board Games (Lee)
• The Retreat of the Elephants (Luo)
• Our Environmental Responsibility (Marzluff)
• Coping with Climate Change: How Science, Politics and Ethics Interact (Moyer)
• Film and Philosophy (Neisser)
• In Search of the Midwest (Phan)
• Rise or Fall? (Powell/Montgomery)
• Farm-to-Table (Levondoski)
• Spectacle and Surveillance: Cracking the Black Mirror (Quinsaat)
• Dilettantes, Decadents, and Dissidents – The Stories of Thomas Mann (Reynolds)
• … And the Rest is Drag (Rivera)
• Flat Earth, Ancient Aliens and Other (Crypto) Sciences (Rodriguez)
• Animal Music (Rommereim)
• Violence (Sala)
• The Origins of Capitalism (Silva)
• Word and Image (Simpson)
• Animal Personality: How Cross-Species Research Informs the Study of Human Personality (Sinnett)
• Old English Re-Imagined (P. Smith)
• Love, Loss, and Enlightenment: Reading the Great Chinese Novel Dream of the Red Chamber (Tang)
• Chocolate: Indulge yourself with the Liberal Arts (Valentin)
• A Critical Analysis of Pokémon (Vostinar)