Fall 2008 (click a title to learn more)

   
Arguing Publicly, Arguing Personally—WRT 255: Advanced Argumentative Writing

Eileen E. Schell
TTH 11:00-12:20, #39520

What arguments make you sit up and pay attention, and which ones do you tune out? Who is the “person” or community behind specific arguments, and why does the “personal” matter? In this course, we will address how writers navigate the challenges of making personal arguments in public settings.  Along the way, you will have the opportunity to study different theories and approaches to making effective arguments that matter personally to you. Finally, we will examine how arguments work to build solidarity, drive wedges, and create specific kinds of communities and social worlds. This course also will help students explore options for constructing and maintaining electronic writing portfolios.

Writing the Election—WRT 301:Advanced Writing Studio: Civic Writing

Lois Agnew
TTH 9:30-10:50, #18001

We are told that in an election, every vote counts.  Yet many people believe that their voices aren’t really heard, even in an election year.  In this course, we will contest that assumption by writing our way into the 2008 Presidential election.  During the course of the semester, we will define and debate issues central to the campaign, analyze political discourse about those issues, discuss how changing audiences and contexts affect political conversations, and discover how writing can provide us with ways of becoming active participants in those conversations.

Writing in Digital Spaces—WRT 302: Digital Writing

George Rhinehart
TTH 5:00-6:20, #17390

 
The technologies of writing have changed, are changing, will change. Ideograms to page to screen. Today's "new media" is tomorrow's old news. Readings will explore cognition, the history and future of writing technologies, visual design, and information architecture. Writing media will include blogs, tagging, mashups, wikis, video, animation, webpages, podcasts, and whatever new happens between now and then. Prior experience with these technologies is neither required nor expected, but creativity and willingness to experiment are.

The Rhetorics of Research—WRT 303: Research and Writing

Tricia Serviss
TTH 3:30-4:50

How is research used to shape beliefs about pressing national issues such as the Iraq war, immigration, and health care? How does research operate as a persuasive tool in public discourses? We will explore the ways in which research is conducted and used to shape audience perceptions. As we grapple with questions such as—What counts as credible research? What purposes do different genres of research serve?—we’ll develop a rhetorical awareness of how to conduct and employ research in our own work. Students will design and implement their own research projects in creative ways that attend to the demands of their unique audiences.

WRT 307: Professional Writing

WRT 307 is taught by multiple instructors at various times. The following is the catalog description:

"Professional communication through the study of audience, purpose, and ethics. Rhetorical problem-solving principles applied to diverse professional writing tasks and situations."

Writers Beyond the Classroom—WRT 331: Peer Writing Consultant Practicum

Jason Luther
TTH 2:00-3:20, #18816

This course is an excellent resume builder, ideal for those seeking real teaching experiences outside of the classroom. Throughout our course, you will acquire the skills needed to work one-to-one with a variety of writers, helping them shape and form voices which serve the diverse needs of their audiences and classroom or community, professor or politician. You’ll accomplish this by exploring your own writing habits, reflecting and comparing our writing experiences (in and out of the classroom), investigating current theories of consulting, and most importantly actually applying these consulting practices when working with student writers at SU (through our Writing Center) and in the city of Syracuse.

Stranger than Fiction—WRT 422: Studies in Creative Nonfiction

Minnie Bruce Pratt
MW 12:45-2:05, #18817

This class in reading and writing creative nonfiction emphasizes texts and themes from lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) lives. Creative nonfiction is a genre particularly congenial to students who write from multiple perspectives, complex bodied identities, varied ethnicities and nationalities, several sexes or sexualities, multiple or trans gender experiences, and layered locations and/or languages. Reading focus is on LGBT creative nonfiction, and writing focus is on students' exploration of themes of bodies, genders, and sexualities through CNF. Students gain CNF skills using techniques of fiction, memoir, poetry, drama.

Writing in the City—WRT 428: Studies in Composition, Rhetoric, and Literacy

Steve Parks
MW 5:15-6:35, #24309


What are the theories and insights which inform writing designed for urban audiences to produce change? How do marginalized urban communities organize, theorize, and actualize writing projects designed to alter their political and social position? This class will attempt to answer these questions by reading theories of social change and by studying how urban communities in Syracuse have addressed such issues as disability rights, labor conditions, and public school reform.  Depending on student interest, the possibility of a community-based project can be considered.

Rhetoric and Politics of the Black Sermon—WRT 440: Studies in the Politics of Language and Writing

Adam Banks
MW 3:45-5:05, #17391

Using the upcoming 40th anniversary of James Cone's Black Theology and Black Power as a context, this course will examine the rhetorical history of Black Theology as a movement that had the explicit goal of uniting the radical democratic aims of the Civil Rights movement with the Black Power movement and various strands of Black nationalism.  The course will also explore the depths of the Black sermonic tradition as an instrument of liberation, from the language and discursive patterns to the persuasive strategies employed in individual sermons and rhetorical texts by public figures appropriating elements of the Black sermon.

 

Prior Semesters

2007-2008

Spring 2008

Argument and Community—WRT 255 : Advanced Argumentative Writing

Lois Agnew

Civic Space in New City—WRT 301: Civic Writing

Christina Feikes

Scholarship in Action—WRT 303: Research Writing

Madeline Yonker

WRT 307: Professional Writing

Multiple Instructors

It's All About How You Say It—WRT 308: Style

Molly Voorheis

Life, Love, and Liberation —WRT 423: African American Rhetoric

Adam Banks

Rap, Race, Rhetoric, and Identity—WRT 424: Studies in Writing, Rhetoric, and Identity

Gwendolyn Pough

Writing the Digital Divide—WRT 426: Studies in Writing, Rhetoric, and Information Technology

Iswari Pandey

 

Fall 2007

Writing for Local and Global Audiences—WRT 255 : Advanced Argumentative Writing

Iswari Pandey

Engagement Through Writing—WRT 301: Civic Writing

Adam Banks

Writing the Digital Zeitgeist—WRT 302: Digital Writing

Ty O'Bryan

Writing for Enthusiasts—WRT 303: Research Writing

Henry Jankiewicz

WRT 307: Professional Writing

Multiple Instructors

Writing Beyond the Classroom—WRT 331: Peer Writing Consultant Practicum

Jason Luther

Stranger Than Fiction—WRT 422: Studies in Creative Nonfiction

Minnie Bruce Pratt

Writing in Schools and Communities—WRT 428: Studies in Composition, Rhetoric, and Literacy

Jonna Gilfus

Writing About The Media—WRT 440: Studies in the Politics of Language and Writing

Steve Thorley

2006-2007

Spring 2007

Writing For Our Local and Global Communities: The Word, the Image, and the Screen—WRT 301: Civic Writing

Eileen Schell

Research Writing in an Online World—WRT 303: Research Writing

Kurt Stavenhagen

WRT 307: Professional Writing

Multiple Instructors

Stylin'—WRT 308: Style

Jeff Simmons

Writers Beyond Classrooms—WRT 331: Peer Writing Consultant Practicum

Jason Luther

Public Intellectuals, Cultural Critics, and “Pop Culture”
Analysts: Writing Self and Society—WRT 422: Studies in Writing, Rhetoric, and Identity

Gwendolyn Pough

Troubling Bodies: Race, Gender, and Sexuality—WRT 424: Studies in Writing, Rhetoric, and Identity

Elisa Norris

Writing for Web 2.0 —WRT 426: Studies in Writing, Rhetoric, and Information Technology

Collin Gifford Brooke

   

Fall 2006

The Active Writer—WRT 301: Civic Writing

Lois Agnew

The Digital and Its Links—WRT 302: Digital Writing

Derek Mueller

Radical Syracuse—WRT 303: Research Writing

Nance Hahn

WRT 307: Professional Writing

Multiple Instructors

Peer Consultant Practicum—WRT 331: Peer Writing Consultant Practicum

Jason Luther

Where Do We Go From Here? Contemporary African American Rhetoric—WRT 424: Studies in Writing, Rhetoric, and Identity

Adam Banks

Authors, Writers, Heroes—WRT 428: Studies in Composition, Rhetoric, and Literacy

Rebecca Moore Howard

Class Warfare: Campus & Community—WRT 440: Studies in the Politics of Language and Writing

Steve Parks

2005-2006

Spring 2006

From Spray Paint to Blogs: Activist Writing —WRT 301: Civic Writing

Steve Park

Research Noir—WRT 303: Research Writing

Jeff Simmons

WRT 307: Professional Writing

Multiple Instructors

Constructing Style—WRT 308: Style

Lois Agnew

Advanced Editing Studio—WRT 340: Advanced Editing Studio

Chris Madden-Feikes

Writing a Sense of Place: A Creative Nonfiction Workshop —WRT 422: Studies in Creative Nonfiction

Eileen Schell

Race, Rhetoric, and Technology —WRT 426: Studies in Writing, Rhetoric, and Information Technology

Adam Banks

 

Fall 2005

Writing for Change—WRT 301: Civic Writing

Molly Voorheis

Jacking the Frame (Technological Remediation and Re-culturation)—WRT 302: Digital Writing

Madeline Yonker

Argument in the 21st Century—WRT 303: Research Writing

Rebecca Moore Howard

WRT 307: Professional Writing

Multiple Instructors

WRT 331: Peer Writing Consultant Practicum

Vivian Rice

WRT 427/627: Writing in Design and Development Environments (Online)

George Rhinehart

Sermons, Standups, and the Spoken Word: Rhetoric in the African American Oral Tradition —WRT 424: Studies in Writing, Rhetoric, and Identity

Adam Banks

Black Women and Literacy—WRT 428: Studies in Composition, Rhetoric, and Literacy

Gwendolyn Pough

Language and the Public—WRT 440 : Studies in the Politics of Language and Writing

Lois Agnew

2004-2005

Spring 2005

</writing>—WRT 302: Digital Writing

George Rhinehart

WRT 307: Professional Writing

Multiple Instructors

Experimenting With Styles—WRT 308: Style

Rebecca Moore Howard

WRT 340: Advanced Editing Studio

Eileen Moeller

The Art of Creating Memoir—WRT 422: Studies in Creative Non-Fiction

Maureen Puetzer

Paul Robeson, the Black Left, and the Movement Between the Movements—WRT 424: Studies in Writing, Rhetoric, and Identity)

Adam Banks

WRT 430: Advanced Writing Consultation

Vivian Rice

Fall 2004

Environmental Activism—WRT 301: Civic Writing

David Nentwick

Language, Culture, and Information —WRT 303: Research and Writing

Tennyson O'Donnell

WRT 307: Professional Writing

Multiple Instructors

Peer Writing Consultant Practicum—WRT 331: Peer Writing Consultant Practicum

Vivian Rice

Memoir and Public Voice —WRT 422: Studies in Creative Non-Fiction

Amanda Brown

Self-Presentation/Media Representation —WRT 424: Studies in Writing, Rhetoric, and Identity

Burgess

Writing, Schools, and Power —WRT 428: Studies in Composition, Rhetoric, and Literacy

Jonna Gilfus

Last modified: Feb 25, 2008