New, exciting topics that satisfy the FYWR
Writing 160: Multimodal Composition
This small seminar emphasizes individualized instruction and gives students practice communicating in a variety of social situations and media, as well as opportunities to explore their own interests and ambitions as writers. Students will improve their ability to understand various modalities and compose in a variety of media. (4-credit)
Topics this term include:
- Trails and Tales: Walking's Intersections with Writing and Argument
- Multilingual Writing
- Communication and Conservation
- Food for Thought
- Identity & Autoethnography
ULWR Courses
400.001 - The Peace of Wild Things: Writing for Nature and the Climate
What is your relationship with nature? What do you want to learn and create to communicate how systems of power work to oppress people, plants, and animals, AND how people are working collectively to bring about positive environmental change? What can you do through research and writing to make sense of and possibly take action on the global issue of the climate crisis? This is a research and writing course that uses rhetoric and genre studies to analyze and create different types of communication (e.g., poetry, news articles, policy reports, podcasts, etc.) about nature and the climate crisis.
400.002 - Deep Dives
When it comes to thinking and learning about any topic with which you might be preoccupied or even obsessed, how far can you go in any one direction before you inevitably encounter unforeseen paths? This Deep Dives course allows you to pursue a topic of interest while complementing that inquiry with both material concerns (interviewing real people, going into real archives, visiting places that actually exist) and scholarly ones (combining two or more disciplinary perspectives to think about what you choose to research). If you’ve ever wanted permission to investigate a topic, idea, event, object, or concept in ways that demand thoroughness and imagination, consider putting on your pressure suit and take a deep dive into the (as yet) unknown with similarly adventurous colleagues!
400.003 - Writing and Research in the Sciences
Communicating scientific information calls for a keen awareness of audience expectations. Writing in the Sciences intends to prepare students interested in science to write in a variety of professional disciplines. Students in this course will write in at least two forms of science communication, an academic article, and an independently-designed public-facing communication project, in order to build skill identifying and targeting a specific audience. Class discussions will focus on the structure of these forms and their intentions as well as elements of scientific style on the sentence level. Students will practice writing and revising in these two situations, as well as deliver a brief oral presentation at the end of the term.
Invaluable 1-Credit Writing Course
Writing 229 Editing & Style in Academic and Professional Writing
Writing 229 Editing & Style in Academic and Professional Writing, is designed to help students practice English academic and professional writing in a supportive environment, with a focus on editing strategies and stylistic choices. This course runs on a discussion format, in which you explore the rhetorical effectiveness of stylistic elements commonly found in American academic and professional writing. To achieve this goal, you will participate in an online core grammar program, practice fundamental editing strategies, read exemplary essays, and discuss their stylistic features. Additionally, you will identify and practice styles of writing in different contexts, such as writing in science and business. (1-credit)
Writing with Digital and Social Media
Writing 200.001 - The Art of Zines
Do you like making things? Are your ideas waiting for a way to be expressed? You may be ready to make some zines.
Our making-centered course will be a chance for you to experiment with creating your own zines–and with creating and being part of a zine community. As we get our bearings, we will take a look at zine history, to begin to understand why zines can matter to individuals, communities and movements, from the past to today. We will explore zines from DIY culture, punk, and Riot Grrrl, including photo zines by Eric Nakamura of Giant Robot, comic zines by Ben Passmore, and perzines by Alex Wrekk and many others. We will start with a perzine experiment, and then from there, each zine maker/zinester will choose what zine experiments to try next. We will write, draw (stick figures welcome!) doodle, and collage; we will use photos, sharpies, washi tape, and found objects/ephemera; we will try out typewriters, sticker art, button-making, creating flyers/handbills, chalk-art, and postering. Our class will focus on process and experimenting, with lots of feedback and collaboration, as we self-publish our own zines.
Writing with Digital and Social Media minicourses
Writing 201.001 - The Art of the Photo Essay
Art of the Photo Essay is a half-semester mini-course wherein we experiment with different ways of making meaning and telling stories with photographic images. Technically, this course will introduce you to the many elements of visual composition, from timing to technique and everything in between. Narratively, you will learn how to craft complex essays using both images alone as well as combinations of image and text. Throughout the course you will keep a google site that visually documents the evolution of your projects as well as your development as a photographer. This class is very social and collaborative: we will make progress in the craft of the photo essay by regularly discussing our successes and failures as we workshop formal studies, in-class labs and photo essays. While this process is aimed at improving your technical skills and vision, you will also draw inspiration from seeing how others in class are handling the assignment.
Writing 201.002 - The Rhetoric of Instagram: A Workshop for Content Creators
Aristotle defined rhetoric as the faculty of observing, in any given case, the available means of persuasion. In this course you will experiment with different ways of making meaning on Instagram by identifying and interrogating all of Instagram’s available means of persuasion. We’ll do so by performing regular deep critical reading of Instagram posts, reels and stories from a wide variety of genres, always with a mind to identify possible creative “moves” that we too may use in our own evolving accounts. You might think of this class as a social media laboratory, one in which we will learn by experimentation, conversation and reflection.
