Orange Alert

Fall 2021 WRT courses

Fall 2021
Linked course titles have extended descriptions. Syllabi provided where available.
Course Title Day Time Instructor Room Syllabus Description
WRT 114 Writing Culture Multiple instructors Nonacademic writing; creative nonfiction, memoir, the essay. Students write texts experimenting with style, genre, and subject; read contemporary nonfiction texts by varied authors; attend lectures/readings of visiting writers.
WRT 115 M001 Writing, Rhetoric, and the Environment TTh 11:00am-12:20pm Chris Feikes Rhetorical study and practice of critical, research-based writing in response to environmental issues and their material and discursive contexts. Emphasizes audience and genre-awareness to produce persuasive, culturally situated interventions in environmental debates.
WRT 116 M001 Writing, Rhetoric, and Social Action MW 12:35-2:05pm Amy Murphy Examination of persuasive strategies of written arguments and genres intended to support and promote social action.
WRT 255 M001 Advanced Writing Studio: Advanced Argumentative Writing  TTH 2:00-3:20 Tony Scott Intensive practice in the analysis and writing of advanced arguments for a variety of settings: public writing, professional writing, and organizational writing. (Core Requirement for Majors & Minors.)
WRT 301 M001 Advanced Writing Studio: Civic Writing: Social Movements, Protest, and Civic Discourse MW 12:45-2:05 Genevieve García de Müeller Our course goal is to answer the question: How do activists effectively strategize for social change? We’ll do this by focusing on the ways activists enact new languages, logics, and actions for social change. We will begin with a consideration of how activists address practical problems in a variety of contexts, from protest movements to direct action, political lobbying to philanthrocapitalism. To inform these experiences, we will read and analyze texts by the Combahee River Collective, Angela Davis, and Judith Butler, and engage with guest activists and scholars in our classroom. Through collaborative and creative coursework, students will gain experience in intersectional thinking, community organizing, and collective action by conducting teach-ins, writing their own social justice manifestos, and planning a campus-wide action. (G&P)
WRT 302 M001 Advanced Writing Studio: Digital Writing MW 6:45-8:05 Rajendra Panthee Practice in writing in digital environments. May include document and web design, multimedia, digital video, weblogs. Introduction to a range of issues, theories, and software applications relevant to such writing. (Core Requirement for Majors.)
WRT 307 Advanced Writing Studio: Professional Writing Multiple Instructors Professional communication through the study of audience, purpose, and ethics. Rhetorical problem-solving principles applied to diverse professional writing tasks and situations. (Core Req for Majors.)
WRT 331 M001 Writing Center Peer Tutor Practicum MW 2:15-3:35 Ben Erwin In this course, students will discover more about what it means to be an effective Writing Center tutor. The course covers a mixture of Writing Center history, theory, and pedagogy, with an emphasis on real-world experience and application. The course culminates with students serving as consultants in the Writing Center. (G&P)
WRT 340 M001 Advanced Editing Studio (Intertext) Friday 9:30-12:15 Patrick W. Berry What does it take to produce a publication from start to finish? In this course, we will explore publication processes: reviewing past issues of Intertext, analyzing audience, reading and selecting submissions, editing copy, finding and creating visual content, designing layouts, and developing supplemental editorial content. We will also explore production and manufacturing costs as well as issues pertaining to marketing, social media, promotion, and advertising. The ultimate goal is to create the 2021 issue of Intertext along with a supplemental Web-based component. (G&P)
WRT 413 M001 Rhetoric and Ethics MW 3:45-5:05 Tony Scott Introduces historical conversations concerning rhetoric's ethical responsibilities and explores complications that emerge as assumed historic connections between language and truth, justice, community, and personal character are deployed in various social, political, cultural, national, and transnational contexts. (Core Requirement for Majors.)
WRT 422 M001 Studies in Creative Nonfiction: Writing with a Sense of Adventure TTH 11:00-12:20 Eileen E. Schell Classic nonfiction adventure stories often involve feats of endurance, travel, risk, and exploration. But what does adventure writing mean in a world that is increasingly confined, settled, and steeped in the mundane? How is adventure a useful metaphor for understanding the ways we live our everyday lives? We will work with an expanded definition of nonfiction adventure writing to include the fantastic, the risky, and the unusual, but also the everyday and familiar, focusing on memoir, profile writing, place-based writing, travel writing, photo essays, and multimedia writing. (G&P)
WRT 424 M001 Studies in Writing, Rhetoric, Identity: Disabling Rhetoric TTH 9:30-10:50 Lois Agnew The vision of the “ideal citizen,” often imagined as an able-bodied white male, haunts Western rhetorical history. This course will consider the norms for writing and speaking that make it difficult for many people to be seen and heard and to explore how an expansive sense of embodied performance offers new possibilities for speaking, writing, and advocacy. Our readings and discussions will focus on how long held cultural values create images of “ideal” bodies and minds that fail to capture the complex reality of human experience. Making disability visible is an important step in our pursuit of more inclusive rhetorical spaces. (H&T)
WRT 437/637 M001 Rhetoric and Information Design: Beyond the Visual Tuesday, Online Synchronous 12:30-1:50 Krista Kennedy We live in constant streams of data, working to extract pertinent information from a swift current of text and visuals. We also face the challenges of getting our own messages to readers dealing with information overload and anxiety. This course introduces the concepts, vocabulary, and tools for effective presentation of data-driven information in print and digital contexts. Together, we’ll consider a number of approaches to information design and create audience-centered products that account for usability aspects and accessibility for disabled audiences. We will meet synchronously on Tuesdays for discussion and development work before completing the rest of the week’s work asynchronously. (H&T)