Writing Program Spring 2022 Class Descriptions - Emory Writing ...
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Writing Program
Spring 2022 Class Descriptions
Course: ENGRD 101 - Rhetorical Comp/Critical Reading
Section: 1
Topic: Composing Place: Imagination and Perception
Instructor: Francis Ittenbach
Meets: MWF 8:30 A - 9:20 A
Description: Joan Didion once wrote that “a place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest,
remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically
that he remakes it in his own image.” How do the ways we think about place(s) – both physical
and imaginary – shape our perceptions of the world? How do our own experiences and beliefs
affect how we identify with particular locations? This course will develop students' writing skills
through examining how the spaces we dwell in, pass through, and even imagine influence our
daily lives. Through course texts in philosophy, memoir, journalism, poetry, and film, students
will learn to approach writing as a process, critiquing their own and others’ work and adapting
genre and style to appropriate rhetorical situations. Students will engage with texts by artists
and writers such as Joan Didion, Gaston Bachelard, Hayao Miyazaki, Alice Oswald, Jimmy
Santiago Baca, and Daljit Nagra (among others). In drawing on these creators’ methods of
evoking places both physical and immaterial, students will compose pieces in a variety of
genres including personal essay and research article, along with a final portfolio and reflection
on the development of their own writing process.
Course: ENGRD 101 - Rhetorical Comp/Critical Reading
Section: 2
Topic: Resisting [,] Retelling: Learning the Power of Reshaping Existing Narratives
Instructor: Jareema Hylton
Meets: MW 10:00 A - 11:15 A
Description: In this course, we will critically read texts that respond to and attempt to reshape
dominant cultural narratives. We will analyze literary appropriations of classic texts, as well as
critical written and audio commentaries on the literary canon and cultural gatekeepers. What
techniques do writers deploy to productively redirect conversations? Why and how do they
reimagine key themes or scenes from the 'original' narratives? Our readings will extend from
the colonial period to the contemporary moment and cover a range of genres, including letters,
plays, poems, essays, and digital news articles. Potential authors include William Shakespeare,
T.S. Eliot, Toni Morrison, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and others who will help us understand
and develop argumentative and revision strategies in our writing process. We will evaluate
genre conventions, purpose, and implications behind revisionary writers’ additions and
omissions as negotiations of authority. Building toward compiling a final portfolio, students will
produce a literacy narrative, a research project, and a playlist to practice close reading skills and
to shape recognition of audience.
1Course: ENGRD 101 - Rhetorical Comp/Critical Reading
Section: 3
Topic: Activism: Argument, Art, and Affect
Instructor: Kathleen Leuschen
Meets: MWF 1:00 P - 1:50 P
Description: The position of the writer is one much like a doorway; writers are the conduits
between the discourses and demands of the outside world and the dreams and logic of one's
own inner landscape. Author Ta-Nehisi Coates describes the act of writing as "the art of
thinking" which surpasses the mere transcription of words, sentences, paragraphs, and ideas.
Writing, as Coates explains, can be and often "is a confrontation with [one's] own innocence,
[one's] own rationalizations." In this expository writing class, students will learn to embody
writing as a personal 'art of thinking' space. Students will write to explore concepts like genre,
rhetoric, revision, academic discourse, and critical thinking, while further developing and
honing their own methods and styles of writing. Students will achieve this through a thematic
exploration of the argument, art, and affect of historic and contemporary activism in the United
States.
Course: ENGRD 101 - Rhetorical Comp/Critical Reading
Section: 4
Topic: Detecting Crime in All its Phases: First Year Writing Investigators
Instructor: Kareem Joseph
Meets: TuTh 8:30 A - 9:45 A
Description: In this class, we will analyze, critique and interpret crime as a concept and
construct. Put differently, we will learn how crime has been largely constructed and circulated
as a socio-political tool, in order to inform our own writing practice. We will engage a variety of
genres and forms of writing: social media posts, news reports, interviews, and documentaries
to explore different rhetorical approaches to writing about crime, while foregrounding a
multimodal approach to investigating crime, and its prevalence, across different mediums. We
will ask the following questions throughout the semester: What is crime? What is the
relationship between race and crime? How is crime circulated as a socio-political tool? And how
has can we use the concepts of rhetoric and composition to deconstruct crime as currently
understood by popular culture? We will also explore existing representations of crime across
genres in order to learn what is a discourse community and how to strategically write within it.
As we read and write within these genres, we will work to identifying why writers utilize
different genres to advance certain arguments regarding crime. Such an approach will get us
beyond a surface level engagement of crime and into emphasizing the metacognitive and
rhetorical elements that are foundational to particular genres and forms, such that we can
begin to recognize that thinking about writing is just as integral to writing itself.
2Course: ENGRD 101 - Rhetorical Comp/Critical Reading
Section: 5
Topic: Identity: Experiences with Reading, Writing, and Language
Instructor: Mahmuda Sharmin
Meets: TuTh 8:30 A - 9:45 A (online)
Description: How and why we write, what we think about writing, and how we make sense of
texts are impacted by all that we have done and experienced. Our experiences with writing and
language are part of our identity. People who have experienced dominant culture can often
have very positive literacy experiences. However, if people come from immigrant families, they
may start school without dominant literacy experiences. Prior experiences with writing create
our attitudes and feelings about writing. In this writing course, we will explore how the
accumulation of our experiences with reading, writing, and language can impact what we think
about writing and how we feel about ourselves as writers. This course is designed to give you
opportunities to practice writing, reading, critical thinking, and visual analysis. In this course, we
will read a variety of texts written by writers from both dominant and nondominant cultures to
understand rhetorical approaches and writers’ unique experiences. By the end of the course,
students will complete personal narrative essay, research writing, multimodal project, and
portfolio reflection letter.
Course: ENGRD 101 - Rhetorical Comp/Critical Reading
Section: 6
Topic: Identity: Experiences with Reading, Writing, and Language
Instructor: Mahmuda Sharmin
Meets: TuTh 10:00 A - 11:15 A (online)
Description: How and why we write, what we think about writing, and how we make sense of
texts are impacted by all that we have done and experienced. Our experiences with writing and
language are part of our identity. People who have experienced dominant culture can often
have very positive literacy experiences. However, if people come from immigrant families, they
may start school without dominant literacy experiences. Prior experiences with writing create
our attitudes and feelings about writing. In this writing course, we will explore how the
accumulation of our experiences with reading, writing, and language can impact what we think
about writing and how we feel about ourselves as writers. This course is designed to give you
opportunities to practice writing, reading, critical thinking, and visual analysis. In this course, we
will read a variety of texts written by writers from both dominant and nondominant cultures to
understand rhetorical approaches and writers’ unique experiences. By the end of the course,
students will complete personal narrative essay, research writing, multimodal project, and
portfolio reflection letter.
3Course: ENGRD 101 - Rhetorical Comp/Critical Reading
Section: 7
Topic: Digital Black Feminisms
Instructor: Ariel Lawrence
Meets: TuTh 11:30 A - 12:45 P
Description: In the past 20 years, Black Feminists have created thriving communities across the
internet. We will explore the critical and complex online world of Black Feminism through social
media, YouTube, and blog/magazine writing. Students will read foundational Black Feminist
texts from authors like Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, and more alongside more recent scholars
and writers like Brittany Cooper, Roxanne Gay, and Tressie McMillan Cottom. Students will read
and respond weekly and ultimately construct a revised portfolio of their work.
Course: ENGRD 101 - Rhetorical Comp/Critical Reading
Section: 8
Topic: Queer Intimacies Around the World
Instructor: Rohit Chakaborty
Meets: TuTh 1:00 P - 2:15 P
Description: Queer intimacies have been written about, painted, performed on film, and
photographed for decades. Museums and libraries, including Emory’s, are gradually
incorporating their own wings of LGBTQ archives where you can access narratives of queer
activism and living. As the years roll on, visibility of and discussion around queer lives are
becoming more prominent. This course is designed to help you participate in the discussion.
This course will offer texts in multiple modes (art, photography, literature, cinema, archival
materials) to hone your skills of observation and analysis. It is aimed, first and foremost, at
developing your reading and writing skills, and refining your techniques of criticism -- of your
own work and those of others'. By engaging with work composed in multiple modes, you will
encounter different kinds of “texts,” not just the written word. And, you will respond
accordingly, by learning how to write in different genres. Across this semester, you will have
assignments due before class, three major assignments, and a final portfolio & reflection letter
that you will turn in at the end of the term.
Some materials we will be studying in this course include the following: paintings by Sola
Olulode, Louis Fratino, et al, Sunil Gupta’s photographs, Andrea Lawlor’s Paul Takes the Form of
a Mortal Girl, films by Akosua Adoma Owusu and Tammy Rae Carland, and archives at the Rose.
4Course: ENGRD 101 - Rhetorical Comp/Critical Reading
Section: 9
Topic: Disease and Discourse
Instructor: Ruixue Zhang
Meets: TuTh 1:00 P - 2:15 P
Description: In the time of COVID-19, what can writing do for us? How do various
representations of disease across genres and media inform or even change our understanding
of humanity and society in an age of anxiety? In this course, we’re going to closely examine
different works across genres and think about the two essential questions: how do diseases (or
“dis-ease”) become metaphors in our social and cultural discourses about race, gender,
sexuality, class, and other living species? How is humanity redefined through literal and
metaphorical diseases? Students are expected to conduct a comparative analysis of texts about
disease, write a research article on disease discourses across cultures and history, adapt the
research paper into a multimodal project combining words with images or sounds, and
generate a final portfolio. Through close reading and critical writing, we will explore how
diseases in different historical and cultural contexts are used as metaphors for political, social,
and psychological problems, and how humanity survives, triumphs over, or fails to rise above
individual and social crises.
Course: ENGRD 101 - Rhetorical Comp/Critical Reading
Section: 10
Topic: Disease and Discourse
Instructor: Ruixue Zhang
Meets: TuTh 1:00 P - 2:15 P
Description: In the time of COVID-19, what can writing do for us? How do various
representations of disease across genres and media inform or even change our understanding
of humanity and society in an age of anxiety? In this course, we’re going to closely examine
different works across genres and think about the two essential questions: how do diseases (or
“dis-ease”) become metaphors in our social and cultural discourses about race, gender,
sexuality, class, and other living species? How is humanity redefined through literal and
metaphorical diseases? Students are expected to conduct a comparative analysis of texts about
disease, write a research article on disease discourses across cultures and history, adapt the
research paper into a multimodal project combining words with images or sounds, and
generate a final portfolio. Through close reading and critical writing, we will explore how
diseases in different historical and cultural contexts are used as metaphors for political, social,
and psychological problems, and how humanity survives, triumphs over, or fails to rise above
individual and social crises.
5Course: ENGRD 101 - Rhetorical Comp/Critical Reading
Section: 11
Topic: Naming Nature
Instructor: Melissa Yang
Meets: TuTh 2:30 P - 3:45 P (online)
Description: This rhetorical composition course explores how language is used to culturally
construct the natural world. Course materials will include nature writing, science journalism,
environmental humanities scholarship, and more. Assignments include critical and creative
projects drawn from inquiry and research, and reflections. Students will have ample
opportunity to research and write about the environmental topics they are curious and
passionate about.
Course: ENGRD 101 - Rhetorical Comp/Critical Reading
Section: 12
Topic: Nature & Environmental Writing
Instructor: Christopher Merwin
Meets: TuTh 4:00 P - 5:15 P
Description: This intensive writing course focuses on nature and environmental writing with
readings from (mostly) American nature writers and conservationists, contemporary academic
articles, and public policy about the environment. We'll focus on thinking about environment
philosophically, through Native American writers like Luther Standing Bear and Black Elk, along
with American transcendentalists like Emerson and Thoreau, conservationists Aldo Leopold and
Nan Shepherd, and the impact of environmental policy on peoples of color, all the while
translating our writings into environmental ethics, advocacy, and activism. Throughout the
course we will hone our writing skills through multimodal reflections on/in nature and
environmentally focused papers, narratives, and projects.
Course: ENGRD 101 - Rhetorical Comp/Critical Reading
Section: 13
Topic: Nature & Environmental Writing
Instructor: Christopher Merwin
Meets: 5:30 P - 6:45 P
Description: This intensive writing course focuses on nature and environmental writing with
readings from (mostly) American nature writers and conservationists, contemporary academic
articles, and public policy about the environment. We'll focus on thinking about environment
philosophically, through Native American writers like Luther Standing Bear and Black Elk, along
with American transcendentalists like Emerson and Thoreau, conservationists Aldo Leopold and
Nan Shepherd, and the impact of environmental policy on peoples of color, all the while
translating our writings into environmental ethics, advocacy, and activism. Throughout the
course we will hone our writing skills through multimodal reflections on/in nature and
environmentally focused papers, narratives, and projects.
6Course: ENGRD 101 - Rhetorical Comp/Critical Reading
Section: 14
Topic: Food Writing
Instructor: Mitchell Murray
Meets: MW 11:30 A - 12:45 P
Description: When we eat and communicate about food, we learn more about our social and
cultural selves. Food connects us and bridges cultures. But it also divides and hierarchizes. Food
has been at the center of colonial conquest, and many cuisines we now celebrate were
invented by necessity by the poor, working-class, and enslaved. When we eat, we also
participate in these legacies of violence and expropriation. Yet, at the same time, cooking and
eating are acts of creativity and community-building. In this course, students will grapple with
the fraught histories of food while entering the world of food writing.
We will focus on questions like: What does food tell us about consumerism? What can
delicacies like nutmeg or matsutake tell us about capitalism and colonialism? What does foodie
culture have to do with white supremacy? What are consequences of culinary industrialization?
How does climate change affect food production and culture? Can we eat ethically and
sustainably in an unethical and unsustainable system? Can we build the political will to feed
everyone on Earth? Finally, we'll take advantage of Emory’s location as we explore how food
has lately shaped the southern foodie city of Atlanta.
Readings will include historical and contemporary cookery, food journalism, foodoirs, TV, and
digital media. Assignments may include rhetorical analyses of cookbooks, reviews,
collaboratively creating a cooking channel—and yes, actual cooking.
Course: ENGRD 101 - Rhetorical Comp/Critical Reading
Section: 15
Topic: Food Writing
Instructor: Mitchell Murray
Meets: MW 2:30 P - 3:45 P
Description: When we eat and communicate about food, we learn more about our social and
cultural selves. Food connects us and bridges cultures. But it also divides and hierarchizes. Food
has been at the center of colonial conquest, and many cuisines we now celebrate were
invented by necessity by the poor, working-class, and enslaved. When we eat, we also
participate in these legacies of violence and expropriation. Yet, at the same time, cooking and
eating are acts of creativity and community-building. In this course, students will grapple with
the fraught histories of food while entering the world of food writing.
We will focus on questions like: What does food tell us about consumerism? What can
delicacies like nutmeg or matsutake tell us about capitalism and colonialism? What does foodie
culture have to do with white supremacy? What are consequences of culinary industrialization?
How does climate change affect food production and culture? Can we eat ethically and
sustainably in an unethical and unsustainable system? Can we build the political will to feed
7everyone on Earth? Finally, we'll take advantage of Emory’s location as we explore how food
has lately shaped the southern foodie city of Atlanta.
Readings will include historical and contemporary cookery, food journalism, foodoirs, TV, and
digital media. Assignments may include rhetorical analyses of cookbooks, reviews,
collaboratively creating a cooking channel—and yes, actual cooking.
Course: ENGRD 101 - Rhetorical Comp/Critical Reading
Section: 16
Topic: Food Writing
Instructor: Mitchell Murray
Meets: MW 5:30 P - 6:45 P
Description: When we eat and communicate about food, we learn more about our social and
cultural selves. Food connects us and bridges cultures. But it also divides and hierarchizes. Food
has been at the center of colonial conquest, and many cuisines we now celebrate were
invented by necessity by the poor, working-class, and enslaved. When we eat, we also
participate in these legacies of violence and expropriation. Yet, at the same time, cooking and
eating are acts of creativity and community-building. In this course, students will grapple with
the fraught histories of food while entering the world of food writing.
We will focus on questions like: What does food tell us about consumerism? What can
delicacies like nutmeg or matsutake tell us about capitalism and colonialism? What does foodie
culture have to do with white supremacy? What are consequences of culinary industrialization?
How does climate change affect food production and culture? Can we eat ethically and
sustainably in an unethical and unsustainable system? Can we build the political will to feed
everyone on Earth? Finally, we'll take advantage of Emory’s location as we explore how food
has lately shaped the southern foodie city of Atlanta.
Readings will include historical and contemporary cookery, food journalism, foodoirs, TV, and
digital media. Assignments may include rhetorical analyses of cookbooks, reviews,
collaboratively creating a cooking channel—and yes, actual cooking.
Course: ENGRD 101 - Rhetorical Comp/Critical Reading
Section: 17
Topic: Ethnography: Interrogating Culture through Writing
Instructor: Sean Dolan
Meets: MW 1:00 P - 2:15 P
Description: Ethnography is a type of research writing that focuses on social life. Its primary
focus is cultural diversity. In this course, we will explore ethnography as an approach to writing
applicable to different rhetorical aims and fields of research. In addition to analyzing examples
of ethnography, students will conduct ethnographic projects by writing about social and
cultural events in Atlanta.
8Course: ENGRD 101 - Rhetorical Comp/Critical Reading
Section: 18
Topic: Ethnography: Interrogating Culture through Writing
Instructor: Sean Dolan
Meets: MW 2:30 P - 3:45 P
Description: Ethnography is a type of research writing that focuses on social life. Its primary
focus is cultural diversity. In this course, we will explore ethnography as an approach to writing
applicable to different rhetorical aims and fields of research. In addition to analyzing examples
of ethnography, students will conduct ethnographic projects by writing about social and
cultural events in Atlanta.
Course: ENGRD 101 - Rhetorical Comp/Critical Reading
Section: 19
Topic: Ethnography: Interrogating Culture through Writing
Instructor: Sean Dolan
Meets: MW 4:00 P - 5:15 P
Description: Ethnography is a type of research writing that focuses on social life. Its primary
focus is cultural diversity. In this course, we will explore ethnography as an approach to writing
applicable to different rhetorical aims and fields of research. In addition to analyzing examples
of ethnography, students will conduct ethnographic projects by writing about social and
cultural events in Atlanta.
Course: ENGRD 101 - Rhetorical Comp/Critical Reading
Section: 20
Topic: Visual Narratives
Instructor: Telsa Cariani
Meets: MW 5:30 P - 6:45 P
Description: In an increasingly visual world, interacting with texts and images is an integral part
of everyday life. This composition course explores how comics, graphic novels, and other visual
narratives leverage pictorial and semantic elements to convey meaning. We will pay particular
attention to the ways in which sexuality, gender, race, and other categories of difference are
communicated visually.
You will engage with the course theme through assignments designed to develop your critical
thinking and analytic skills. We will begin by reading a few chapters from Scott McCloud’s
Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art to give us a framework for approaching graphic texts.
We will then turn our attention to graphic novels like Spinning by Tillie Walden. After analyzing
graphic texts, you will have a chance to construct your own visual argument (no prior artistic
experience necessary). Assignments include: essays, discussion posts, presentations, a digital
project, and a final portfolio.
9Course: ENGRD 101 - Rhetorical Comp/Critical Reading
Section: 21
Topic: Argument and Global Audiences
Instructor: Olivia Hendricks
Meets: TuTh 4:00 P - 5:15 P
Description: In recognition of the broadening range of audiences that communication
technologies allow (some) writers to address directly, we will analyze arguments by writers
from throughout the world, such as Argentine cultural critic Beatriz Sarlo, Nigerian public
intellectual Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Malaysian politician Lim Keng Yaik.
In turn, you will develop your own theory for how to ethically approach processes such as
research, critical thinking, revision, and reflection when crafting writing that will cross borders.
As a portion of the course, you will use research and writing as learning tools to enhance your
current events knowledge and cultural competencies related to a country context of your
choosing.
Writing assignments will emphasize genres that writers often use to address audiences across
country contexts. These may include: a research-based op ed, a grant or policy proposal, a
cultural criticism essay, and a TED Talk, among other possibilities.
Course: ENGRD 101 - Rhetorical Comp/Critical Reading
Section: 22
Topic: Nature & Environmental Writing
Instructor: Christopher Merwin
Meets: TuTh 11:30 A - 12:45 P
Description: This intensive writing course focuses on nature and environmental writing with
readings from (mostly) American nature writers and conservationists, contemporary academic
articles, and public policy about the environment. We'll focus on thinking about the
environment philosophically, through Native American writers like Luther Standing Bear and
Black Elk, along with American transcendentalists like Emerson and Thoreau, conservationists
Aldo Leopold and Nan Shepherd, and the impact of environmental policy on peoples of color,
all the while translating our writings into environmental ethics, advocacy, and activism.
Throughout the course we will hone our writing skills through multimodal reflections on/in
nature and environmentally focused papers, narratives, and projects.
10Course: ENGRD 101 - Rhetorical Comp/Critical Reading
Section: 23
Topic: Composing Disability
Instructor: Stephanie Larson
Meets: MW 5:30 P - 6:45 P
Description: In her edited collection Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-
First Century the disability rights activist Alice Wong reflects “To me, disability is not a monolith,
nor is it a clear-cut binary of disabled and nondisabled. Disability is mutable and ever-evolving.
Disability is both apparent and nonapparent. Disability is pain, struggle, brilliance, abundance,
and joy. Disability is sociopolitical, cultural, and biological.”
Taking a cue from Wong, students in this course will use writing to critically engage with the
multiple meanings of disability. The semester will begin with an introduction to the medical,
social, and cultural models commonly used to frame understandings of disability. Students will
use writing to evaluate each model while attending to the rhetorical strategies deployed in the
writing they encounter. Using the major models of disability as their framework, students will
spend the remainder of the semester analyzing and writing about cultural representations of
disability. The texts students encounter will span genres including, but not limited to literature,
film, theory, art, medical case studies, and social media. Students will gain experience
composing a variety of texts using a number of composing technologies while producing their
own arguments related to cultural representations of disability. Assignments will include
weekly reflections, a research project, and a final portfolio.
Course: ENGRD 101 - Rhetorical Comp/Critical Reading
Section: 25
Topic: Enacting Forgiveness
Instructor: Joonna Trapp
Meets: MW 8:30 A - 9:45 A
Description: In this class, we’ll continue to learn to write in interesting and compelling ways,
ways which draw a reader in. We’ll apply what we learn to a topic that seems to get short shrift
today—we’ll consider together the topic of forgiveness. Forgiveness as applied in personal,
communal, and national contexts will provide insight to a kind of ethic which enacts powerful
change. You will read a variety of "texts," write multiple drafts of several papers, and also write
less formally by reflecting about your own writing and the readings. Your writing will be read by
me and by other students in our class. Seeing how others handle the same assignment can
often help improve your next assignment and your overall writing and thinking skills. And most
of all, you will learn how to write in various contexts and in different genres and how reading
and research feed and provide the support needed for the assertions and claims you make. You
will learn that being able to argue is powerful and especially so when it is in the service of
others and done ethically. Texts being considered for this class may include a documentary,
“The Prodigal Son,” a book about the Amish school house shooting, works by Desmond Tutu
11and Nelson Mandela, and web texts of organizations such as the Garden of Forgiveness in
Beirut. We will also use Elbow and Belanoff’s Being a Writer: A Community of Writers Revisited
(McGraw-Hill). It is no longer available, so textbooks will be provided.
Course: ENGRD 101 - Rhetorical Comp/Critical Reading
Section: 26
Topic: In Someone Else’s Shoes
Instructor: Levin Arnsperger
Meets: TuTh 8:30 A - 9:45 A
Description: An important quality for students – and for any responsible citizens and critical
participants in public discourse – is to be able and willing to engage with other people's
perspectives in an effort to foster compromise, understanding, and learning. In this first-year
writing course, you will have the opportunity to address multiple opinions on particular topics,
and you will be asked to consider the life experiences of people with very different backgrounds
as well as identities. As an instructor, I invite you to analyze and critique your own arguments,
while I also encourage you to both empathize with other people’s viewpoints and learn from
them. You will encounter and produce work in diverse modes over the course of the semester:
you will read and compose shorter and longer texts, but you will also deliver oral presentations,
debate with classmates, actively reflect upon the writing process, conduct interviews, and
create and discuss visual materials.
Course: ENGRD 101 - Rhetorical Comp/Critical Reading
Section: 27
Topic: You Are What You Eat: Writing Food, Identity, & Culture
Instructor: Bailey Betik
Meets: TuTh 1:00 P - 2:15 P
Description: Students will define, explore, and analyze representations of food and its role in
crafting narratives of identity, culture, and community by conducting close readings across
genres— poetry, fiction, food journalism, and television. With an emphasis on digital
composition, we will work to better understand our relationships with others, our writing, and
ourselves through a food memoir timeline, a rhetorical analysis, a research-based podcast, and
a final portfolio gathering our work for the semester.
Course: ENGRD 123R - Communicative Grammar
Section: 2
Instructor: Jane O’Connor
Meets: Asynchronous online instruction only; class does not meet
Description: ENGRD 123R is an intensive grammar course designed specifically to prepare
12students for whom English is an additional language for the communicative expectations and
challenges they may encounter over the course their academic careers. This course will focus
on researching, analyzing and practicing English grammar in order to develop students'
knowledge of form, meaning and usage, while providing continuous and responsive feedback.
Through a variety of activities and texts we will study, practice and refine grammatical accuracy
for the purpose of expressing clear and precise meanings. At times I will use lecture and
focused activities to introduce specific grammar points that are important for additional
language learners; in other lessons, students will discover the nuances of grammar usage by
reading texts or using corpus linguistics; additionally, students will have ample opportunity to
practice and apply what they have learned to revise and refine their own academic writing. We
will look at both more serious global concerns that can affect a reader's general comprehension
of the work (such as verb tense) and less serious local concerns that can result in an
impreciseness of meaning (such as verb form). What are the choices we make as we construct
meaning and how can different choices affect meaning?
Enrollment by permission only from Jane O'Connor. Class to be taken with ENGRD 101.
Course: ENGRD 219 - Gateway: Portfolio
Section: 1
Instructor: David Morgen
Meets: TBA
Description: This course serves as an introduction to the Rhetoric, Writing, and Information
Design minor, in which students begin to create the writing portfolio that will be developed in
more advanced courses across the minor.
Course: ENGRD 221RW ELL - Advanced Writing Workshop
Section: 1
Topic: Communication Across Borders
Instructor: Levin Arnsperger
Meets: TuTh 10:00 A - 11:15 A
Description: In this continuing writing course for English language learners, we will discuss key
aspects of translation and cross-cultural communication. What happens when we translate
arguments and ideas across countries and cultures? How do people of different backgrounds
communicate with each other? What makes these interactions effective or ineffective? We will
talk about what might be gained and lost in moments of cross-cultural and/or transnational
communication, and we will address responsibilities and opportunities for the individuals and
groups engaging in communicative endeavors. We will read/listen/watch different relevant
materials that encourage students to reflect on these issues and themes. Through a variety of
tasks and assignments, students will have the chance to improve their own writing and
communication skills.
13Course: ENGRD 223 - Rhetorical Grammar
Section: 1
Instructor: Christopher Merwin
Meets: Asynchronous online instruction only; class does not meet
Description: Through a study and analysis of grammar's impact on rhetorical effectiveness,
students work with their own writing as they learn to make and adapt grammatical choices to
fit audience, purpose, constraints, exigencies, and timing. The notion of good grammar makes
most of us think of getting it right or being correct. In reality, grammar is all about choices, and
these choices are made to forward your argument, help you find an audience, and make a
difference with your writing. Grammatical choices are part of the writer's toolkit, helping the
writer make meaning in collaboration with a reader.
Enrollment by permission only from Joonna Trapp.
Course: ENGRD 223 - Rhetorical Grammar
Section: 3
Instructor: Mahmuda Sharmin
Meets: Asynchronous online instruction only; class does not meet
Description: Through a study and analysis of grammar's impact on rhetorical effectiveness,
students work with their own writing as they learn to make and adapt grammatical choices to
fit audience, purpose, constraints, exigencies, and timing. The notion of good grammar makes
most of us think of getting it right or being correct. However, Grammar is all about choices, and
these choices are made to forward your argument, help you find an audience, and make a
difference with your writing. Grammatical choices are part of the writer's toolkit, helping the
writer make meaning in collaboration with a reader.
Enrollment by permission only from Joonna Trapp.
Course: ENGRD 223 - Rhetorical Grammar
Section: 4
Instructor: Mahmuda Sharmin
Meets: Asynchronous online instruction only; class does not meet
Description: Through a study and analysis of grammar's impact on rhetorical effectiveness,
students work with their own writing as they learn to make and adapt grammatical choices to
fit audience, purpose, constraints, exigencies, and timing. The notion of good grammar makes
most of us think of getting it right or being correct. However, Grammar is all about choices, and
these choices are made to forward your argument, help you find an audience, and make a
difference with your writing. Grammatical choices are part of the writer's toolkit, helping the
writer make meaning in collaboration with a reader.
Enrollment by permission only from Joonna Trapp.
14Course: ENGRD 302W - Technical Writing
Section: 1
Instructor: Benjamin Miller
Meets: TuTh 11:30 A - 12:45 P
Description: Technical Writing for Data Science - This writing-intensive course provides
students with practice developing effective and ethically sensitive communication in genres
that characterize professional activity across and outside the university with a focus on
technical and quantitative information. No prior technical knowledge is required.
Students should complete one of the following forms for an enrollment permission number:
QTM 302W (only QTM majors/minors): https://forms.office.com/r/UhnG2BB437
ENGRD 302W (only non-QTM majors/minors): https://forms.office.com/r/iJE62N6t2i
Course: ENGRD 316W - Literacy & the Rhetorics of Resistance
Section: 1
Instructor: Kathleen Leuschen
Meets: MW 2:30 P - 3:45 P
Description: History is rife with prohibitions and laws that prevented groups of people from full
access to the practices of reading and writing. Consider this, why were African slaves forbidden
to learn to read and write? Why did Victorian doctors link women's reading to physical
maladies? This continuing writing class investigates literacy practices as rhetorical endeavors of
resistance to power structures that attempted to control and deprive certain populations from
the pleasure and agency of meaning-making.
Course: ENGRD 380W - Topics in Writing, Rhetoric, and Literacy
Section: 1
Topic: The Rhetoric of Misinformation
Instructors: Sarah Morris, Sarah Harsh, and Christopher Merwin
Meets: TuTh 2:30 P - 3:45 P
Description: Misinformation is a complex and challenging facet of our current information and
media ecosystems. Misinformation is, essentially, information that is incorrect, false, or
misleading. But part of the complexity of misinformation stems from the many forms it can
take. Misinformation can be intentional or unintentional, can appear in social media posts or
full-scale campaigns aimed at obfuscation. In the 21st century, misinformation has adopted
new forms and poses new challenges. This course will explore the rhetorical forms and features
of misinformation in order to provide deeper insight into what misinformation is, how it
functions, and how we can overcome it.
In this course we will unpack the media and information ecosystems that shape the forms of
misinformation that we currently see, delve into the rhetorical trends, forms, and features of
misinformation, and develop information and media literacy skills to better recognize and
overcome misinformation. This course is organized in three distinct modules. In the first
module we will look at the rhetoric of misinformation and evaluate how language is used to
15manipulate audiences. In the second module, we zoom out to understand how that rhetoric
serves and is propagated in information ecosystems. Finally, in module three we look at the
relationship between propaganda and truth. Assignments include regular reflections, analysis
papers, and a multimodal final project which teaches and empowers regarding misinformation.
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