The University of Michigan's Upper-Level Writing Requirement (ULWR) prepares students to develop advanced writing skills within their chosen program of study. But upper-level writing courses face a unique pedagogical challenge: they must serve students who have committed to a disciplinary path while also preparing them for the complex, multidisciplinary writing they'll encounter beyond that discipline. Writing at the upper level occurs at the edge of an open choice—not the choice of a major, but the far broader choices students will make in professional and civic life.
Inventive upper-level writing courses can engage with these conditions in multiple ways: through a specific disciplinary perspective that looks outward rather than within; through hybridized perspectives that reflect the inevitable collaboration shaping real-world work; or by identifying gaps in what and how we know and considering how writing might address them. This winter, the Sweetland Center for Writing is offering four ULWR courses, each representing a different facet of these approaches.
Designing for the Community (Jackie Kauza)
In a multimodal world, writing and design are inseparable: both use text, image, and audiovisual elements to communicate through intentional design. Taught by new colleague Jackie Kauza, this Writing 400 course addresses how organizations—particularly small businesses and local nonprofits—represent themselves and engage their communities. Students partner with a local organization to create designed materials including brochures, how-to guides, and custom media portfolios. Through this community-engaged work, students explore design principles like contrast, alignment, and typography as communicative tools, developing practical skills for multimodal outreach and information-sharing across contexts.
Field Research Methods and Ethical Design (Julie Babcock)
How do we learn from communities responsibly? Julie Babcock guides students through the many forms fieldwork can take—from interviews and surveys to observation-based research—while attending to ethical issues arising from complex, intersectional dynamics. Students in this Writing 400 course read published field research across disciplines, considering both possibilities and potential misuses of fieldwork, including in arts-based work. This semester, students will attend a dance performance inspired by a copyright infringement lawsuit against the videogame Fortnite, exploring how field research intersects with creative practice. Through hands-on application in their own research projects, students develop thoughtful commitments to the communities they seek to learn from and serve.
Understanding Water Issues (Larissa Sano)
Despite water's recognized importance as a human right, almost 800 million people worldwide lack access to clean water. In this Writing 410 course that meets both the Quantitative Reasoning/2 requirement and the ULWR, Larissa Sano helps students explore the causes, consequences, and potential solutions to water crises across time, space, and human populations. The course fuses quantitative skill development with communicating disciplinary knowledge: students analyze data behind water crises and learn to interpret and translate quantitative information for specific audiences in a variety of genres, providing enriched context for water-related matters as they manifest urgently in all aspects of our lives.
Stuff, Items, Objects and Junk (Raymond McDaniel)
Each object you own came into your possession via means at least partially opaque: where is it from, how was it made, of what, and what is its likely future? Raymond McDaniel’s Writing 410 course uses students' belongings as touchstones for exploring how every manufactured thing exists as an expression of multiple disciplines—supply chains, recycling processes, cultural production, environmental impact, economic systems. Students investigate their objects' provenance in analytical and personal essays, improving research skills while placing disciplines in conversation with one another. Through this investigation of what's immediately at hand, students learn the costs, consequences, and implications of material life in the contemporary world.
These courses reflect an understanding that well-designed upper-level writing instruction must account for a fundamental reality: most students will not work exclusively within their major's field, and professional and civic life demands writing that crosses disciplinary boundaries. Each course offers something of value to students across majors fostering the adaptable, inventive practice that a world defined by variety demands.
