WRH: Writing and Rhetoric

WRH 197. Becoming a Peer Writing Mentor. 1 Credit.

A training course for "peer writing mentors" who are working with students in WRT 123. Concurrent with taking this training course, peer writing mentors will be paired with a faculty member who is teaching WRT 123 and will mentor writers in that professor's course. This course is open only to students who have taken WRT 120 or 123 within two semesters prior and who also have a professor's recommendation to become a peer writing mentor.
Pre / Co requisites: WRH 197 requires prerequisites of WRT 120 or WRT 123 (taken within two semesters prior) and a professor's recommendation to become a peer writing mentor.
Consent: Permission of the Department required to add.
Typically offered in Fall & Spring.

WRH 199. Transfer Credits. 1-10 Credits.

Transfer Credits.
Repeatable for Credit.

WRH 201. Introduction to Rhetoric. 3 Credits.

This course introduces students to a range of rhetorical traditions, concepts, and theories, both ancient and modern. Students will apply rhetorical principles to analyze arguments in a range of modes, as well as in digital and non-digital contexts.
Typically offered in Fall & Spring.

WRH 205. Composing Cyberspace. 3 Credits.

Students compose websites and blogs and examine the unique intersection of visual and verbal rhetoric that informs composition in cyberspace.
Gen Ed Attribute: Writing Emphasis.

WRH 210. Multicultural Writing. 3 Credits.

This course focuses on understanding the role that writing plays in shaping a multicultural society. Assignments will ask students to write for diverse social contexts and will help students expand their repertoire of genres and writing strategies.
Gen Ed Attribute: Diversity Requirement, Writing Emphasis.

WRH 225. Introduction to Professional and Technical Writing. 3 Credits.

This course will introduce students to professional and technical writing as an area of scholarly inquiry and as a professional practice. To these ends, they will be required to read scholarship in and about professional writing and do the kinds of activities that professional writers do: engage a range of technologies, work collaboratively with others, develop a range of written materials, and practice problem solving.
Gen Ed Attribute: Writing Emphasis.
Distance education offering may be available.
Typically offered in Fall & Summer.

WRH 301. The Rhetorics of Black Americans. 3 Credits.

This course views the language of Black America as a form of cultural expression and means of resistance to oppression in the U.S. Using historical and thematic frames, students will relate their understandings of Black linguistic and rhetorical practices to Black folks' experiences and struggles for improved social, political, and material realities.
Gen Ed Attribute: Diversity Requirement, Writing Emphasis.
Typically offered in Fall & Spring.

WRH 305. Images of School in Film. 3 Credits.

This course focuses on schooling as a shared experience and emphasizes how the functions of schools in society are shaped and reflected in films.
Gen Ed Attribute: Writing Emphasis.
Typically offered in Fall & Spring.

WRH 310. Written Rhetoric: Power, Politics, and Environmental Writing. 3 Credits.

This course for the English major's writings track applies the program's core themes of the relationships among language, thought, and culture to writing about nature and the environment. This workshop serves the writing track course category called power and politics.

WRH 315. Propaganda, Power, and Politics. 3 Credits.

This course examines the rhetorical, cultural, and Political dimensions of propagandistic texts.

WRH 320. Writing for the Web. 3 Credits.

This course will help students gain experience with digital composition and understand the rhetorical and cultural factors shaping online writing.
Gen Ed Attribute: Writing Emphasis.
Typically offered in Fall & Spring.

WRH 325. Technology and the English Classroom. 3 Credits.

This course provides hands-on technology instruction, including film production, interactive white boards, and Podcasting, of use to future teachers in English or anyone interested in using technology in an educational setting.

WRH 330. Autobiographical Acts. 3 Credits.

Students will research and write autobiography to question its forms and theory.
Pre / Co requisites: WRH 330 requires a prerequisite of WRT 200 or WRT 204 or WRT 205 or WRT 206 or WRT 208 or WRT 220.

WRH 333. African American Autobiography. 3 Credits.

This course is an introduction to textual analysis through the study of African American autobiography, from slave narratives such as Frederick Douglass's 1845 Narrative, to late twentieth century memoirs such as Audre Lorde's Zami and Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father. Students will investigate "African American" as a category for literary criticism and engage how the genre has both contested racist oppression from slavery to the present day and responded to the pressures of representing race. Students will further examine the styles and structures of self-expression within black-authored memoirs and what effect such texts have on understandings of race in historical and literary contexts. Students are urged to develop critical, academic language that both speaks and acts to address racism. This course will also support students' development of skills as literary scholars to embolden them to read actively, write probingly, and act courageously.
Gen Ed Attribute: Diversity Requirement, Writing Emphasis.
Typically offered in Fall & Spring.

WRH 335. Activism and Advocacy Writing. 3 Credits.

Students investigate, theorize, and produce a variety of documents representing the genres activists and advocates used in a variety of campaigns.

WRH 340. Introduction to Visual Rhetoric. 3 Credits.

This course provides an introduction to some of the major questions motivating the field of visual rhetoric, with the goal of helping students understand the powerful and political rhetorical potential that images possess.
Typically offered in Fall.

WRH 341. Visual Cultures. 3 Credits.

This course considers how visuals are employed and deployed in response to particular rhetorical situations and the cultural, social, historical, and economic factors that create these situations.
Typically offered in Spring.

WRH 342. Document Design. 3 Credits.

This course provides an introduction to document design, a key characteristic of rhetorically effective documents. We may not always notice when a document is designed well, but we certainly notice when a design is ineffective. In this course, we'll explore how visual and verbal elements combine to create meaning and practice basic design principles as we create projects for the class and for clients.
Typically offered in Spring.

WRH 343. Visual Rhetoric in Comics and Graphic Novels. 3 Credits.

This course will closely examine how comics and graphic novels draw on language and images to create visual narratives. Students will learn a basic vocabulary for talking about visual narrative from theorists like Scott McCloud, Will Eisner, and Molly Bang, and then they'll turn their discussion to a series of graphic novels. How do the images in the novels construct a narrative? What happens in the gutter? How do comics and graphic novels use language and images to do real cultural work?.
Gen Ed Attribute: Humanities Distributive Requirement.
Typically offered in Fall & Spring.

WRH 345. Professional and Technical Editing. 3 Credits.

In this course, students will learn the rhetorical principles and practices of technical and scientific editing today. They will approach technical and scientific editing as encompassing the production, management, and revision of documents and artifacts that function well for their intended users.
Pre / Co requisites: WRH 345 requires prerequisites of WRT 120; and WRT 200 or WRT 204 or WRT 205 or WRT 206 or WRT 208 or WRT 220.
Typically offered in Spring.

WRH 350. Grant and Proposal Writing. 3 Credits.

This course explores proposals and grant proposals--a genre written by academics as well as nonprofit and for-profit organizations--as a complex rhetorical endeavor. Students will examine how grant proposals can support organizational and individual goals of community and civic engagement and trace the functions of grant proposals within organizations, analyzing how these documents fit within the larger scope of professional and academic writing.
Pre / Co requisites: WRH 350 requires completion of general education English Composition requirements.
Gen Ed Attribute: Writing Emphasis.
Typically offered in Fall, Spring & Summer.

WRH 360. Social Media Writing. 3 Credits.

This course introduces students to the theory and practice of professional writing for social media. Although students likely have prior experience with social media platforms as an individual, writing with the voice of a business, nonprofit, or even student organization on social media is an entirely different and sometimes difficult matter. This course will instruct students in drafting and updating social media strategies and internal social media policies. The course will also offer practical experience in running organizational social media accounts. In addition to formal writing assignments, students will also have informal writing opportunities to help develop their understanding of how people write professionally about and with social media.
Gen Ed Attribute: Writing Emphasis.
Typically offered in Fall & Spring.

WRH 365. Writing for the Health Professions. 3 Credits.

Practice and training in writing for the health professions (e.g., medicine, nursing, dentistry, public health, healthcare advocacy). Students complete assignments that offer practice in writing, revising, and critiquing common genres in the healthcare professions, including graduate school application materials, literature reviews, and public health campaigns.
Gen Ed Attribute: Writing Emphasis.
Typically offered in Spring.

WRH 370. Science Writing. 3 Credits.

In this course, students will investigate the principles and practices of effective science writing for a diverse public. Specifically, students will learn about science writing genres, theories of scientific rhetoric, and the role new media technologies play in making science accessible to an audience of non-experts. Course texts, online discussions, and in-class activities will help students understand how rhetoric not only helps to communicate scientific findings but also shapes its production, distribution, and circulation across public and professional contexts. Students will put this knowledge into practice through hands-on projects that ask them to produce a range of science writing genres.
Pre / Co requisites: WRH 370 requires prerequisites of WRT 120; and WRT 200 or WRT 204 or WRT 205 or WRT 206 or WRT 208 or WRT 220.
Gen Ed Attribute: Writing Emphasis.
Typically offered in Fall.

WRH 405. Topics in Professional and Technical Writing. 3-6 Credits.

A topic of current interest in professional and technical writing. The topic will be announced before registration.
Pre / Co requisites: WRH 405 requires a prerequisite of WRT 200 or WRT 204 or WRT 205 or WRT 206 or WRT 208 or WRT 220.
Typically offered in Spring.
Repeatable for Credit.