Orange Alert

Fall 2022 WRT courses

Fall 2022
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 Writing, Rhetoric, and the Environment MW 3:45-5:05 Patrick W. Berry 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 Writing, Rhetoric, and Social Action TTh 11:00-12:20 Eileen E. Schell Examination of persuasive strategies of written arguments and genres intended to support and promote social action.
WRT 255 Advanced Writing Studio: Advanced Argumentative Writing TTh 9:30-12:20 Eileen E. Schell 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 Advanced Writing Studio: Civic Writing: Social Movements, Protest, and Civic Discourse TTh 9:30-10:50 Lenny Grant WRT 301 is a course that focuses on genres, practices, and rhetorical skills and situations of civic or public writing. In this iteration of WRT 301, we’ll study and produce civic writing projects that conceptualize, research, explain, and act upon the problem of community health care justice in Syracuse, the U.S., and around the world. We’ll consider various ways in which writers define and represent health disparities to prompt civic action and will develop projects that engage the infrastructures and social determinants of health in our own communities, including our communities at the University. (G&P)
WRT 302 Advanced Writing Studio: Digital Writing TTh 12:30-1:50 Lenny Grant 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 311 Photography & Writing TTh 3:30-4:50 Brice Nordquist This course partners with SU Art Museum’s PAL Project to bring students into local public schools and community centers to offer training in visual rhetoric and multimodal composition, including photography and writing, and to work with youth to develop projects that explore issues of identity, culture, and community. The course offers resources for local youth to tell stories on their own terms and provides SU students opportunities to develop deeper connections to individuals and communities in the city and region and improve their own writing skills through research, teaching, and mentorship. (G&P)
WRT 400 Frame Work: Place and Memory MW 3:35-5:05 Kevin Adonis Browne This course examines the spatial rhetorics of place and memory using primarily visual means. This can include photography (fine art, portraiture), visual art (painting, sculpture, found objects), video (documentary, essay, interview), or combinations of these. Visual texts will be supported by and enhanced with written forms and genres (lyric essay, nonfiction, poem). Students will select sites of historical significance, formulate key questions, conduct targeted research, and produce a critical series of multimodal texts. Final Projects will be a cumulative exhibition of work produced over the course of the semester. (H&T)
WRT 413 Rhetoric and Ethics TTh 11:00-12:20 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 Studies in Creative Nonfiction: Boom!: Black Sonic Rhetorics MW 12:45-2:05 Kevin Adonis Browne This course examines the classical and contemporary rhetoric(s) of Black Sound present in a range of musical/performance genres, namely AfroBeats, Dub, Flamenco, Funk, Hip Hop, Soca & others. Vibing on the vast influences of the Black Atlantic in African, Caribbean, Latin American, and US sonic traditions, we will listen to albums of critical acclaim and survey the depth and complexity of their various rhetorical frameworks. Students will conduct research and produce a series of sonic texts, adding shape and texture to their inquiry. Final Projects will be a multimodal analysis of a topic of interest to the student. (G&P)
WRT 428 Studies in Writing, Rhetoric, and Literacy: MW 5:15-6:35 Alicia Hatcher If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many would you spare for a book cover or a movie poster? a corporate logo? an Instagram post? emoji? In this course, we'll explore the rhetorics of visual communication and think about how images "speak" to us. We'll consider the subtle ways that design can frame the world around us, for us, and to us. And we'll investigate the "language" by which pictures, images, and visual media operate. This course will challenge the idea that what you see is what you get--we can "get" a lot more by looking closely at the images that surround us. (H&T)
WRT 437/637 Rhetoric and Information Design: Tuesdays 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 several approaches to information design and create audience-centered products that account for usability aspects and accessibility for disabled audiences. This hybrid course meets once per week on campus and asynchronously online. (H&T)