In this class, we’ll examine a variety of texts and genres, unpacking key rhetorical concepts and strategies along the way. You will learn how to write effectively for multiple types of audiences and in a variety of forms so that you will be better prepared to identify and work across numerous writing contexts, whether academic, professional, or creative. You will learn to identify and effectively address an audience, to conduct research and engage with source material, as well as revision strategies.
As the semester progresses, we’ll focus less on other authors’ works, and more on developing well-researched works of our own and in our own voices. You will be asked to choose a major sociopolitical issue to explore and which you will use as the basis for your final project. In the end, you will produce a research-based piece of writing in which you construct a conversation about the issue you’ve chosen, and you will weigh in on that conversation in informed ways.
In total, you will have produced 5,000 words of finished prose over the course of the semester.
Course Assignments:
*Subject to change
- Reading Responses
- Rhetorical Creation + Analysis
- Personal Essay
- Research Paper or Literature Review
Student Learning Objectives:
Students will be able to…
- Identify the purpose, audience, major claims, and kinds of evidence offered in a variety of texts;
- Participate in academic discourse, as well as other forms of writing, by producing text with a clear purpose and audience, supported by evidence acceptable to that audience and, when applicable, using an appropriate citation style;
- Develop recursive writing and researching processes, including identifying a controversy within a conversation or discourse community, conducting appropriate research, planning, drafting, critiquing, revising, and editing – taking into account written and oral feedback from the instructor and from peers;
- Demonstrate essential information literacy skills, including discovering subject-specific information and arguments, understanding how information and arguments are produced and evaluated in relevant academic communities, critically evaluating claims in sources, and using source material effectively in creating new knowledge and participating ethically in communities of learning;
- Locate resources for the continued support of their development as writers; and
- Develop credibility by using appropriate language and diction, by effectively incorporating source material, and by portraying ideas in clear and clean prose.