Spring 2024 WRT courses

Linked course titles have extended descriptions. Syllabi provided where available.

Course	Title	Day	Time	Instructor	Room	Syllabus	Description
WRT 114	Writing Culture	Various	Various	Various			Nonacademic writing; creative nonfiction, memoir, the essay. Students write texts experimenting with style, genre, and subject; read contemporary nonfiction texts by varied authors; attend lectures/readings of visiting writers.
WRT 117	Writing, Rhetoric, and Satire	TTh	2:00 - 3:20	Gina Stinnett			Students analyze satire (essays from McSweeney's and The Onion, television like The Colbert Report and The Chappelle Show, movies like Borat and Get Out) in order to understand its diverse purposes, effects on audiences, and the role it plays in various contexts. As students become aware of the social and political power that satire can yield, they will practice writing their own satirical works in various media and modes. They will also reflect on the “real world” work that their writing does or tries to do.
WRT 118	Writing for a Better You	TTh	12:30 - 1:50	Allie Hoback			Rhetorical study and practice of expressive writing as a personally beneficial activity, considering issues and applications in mental, physical, spiritual, and social health. Emphasizes writing processes with attention to genre, writing space, writing practices.
WRT 240	Interventionist Efforts	MW	12:45 - 2:05	Alicia Hatcher			How can we use writing to intervene in on-going conversations about health/wellness/illness? How might we respond to topics such as representations of health and illness in online spaces and health activism and advocacy in ways that can further our own understanding? Students will contemplate these questions as they explore media and analyze the rhetorical and stylistic conventions of related discourse communities. They’ll use these standards to communicate their own ideas as they become familiar with various ways health and medical writing shape and are shaped by real-world situations. (G&P)
WRT 255	Advanced Writing Studio: Advanced Argumentative Writing	TTh	9:30 - 10:50	Tony Scott			Intensive practice in the analysis and writing of advanced arguments for a variety of settings: public writing, professional writing, and organizational writing. (Core Requirement for Majors & Minors.)
WRT 302	Advanced Writing Studio: Digital Writing	MW	12:45 - 2:05	Kevin Adonis Browne			Practice in writing in digital environments. May include document and web design, multimedia, digital video, weblogs. Introduction to a range of issues, theories, and software applications relevant to such writing. (Core Requirement for Majors.)
WRT 307	Advanced Studio: Professional Writing	Various	Various	Multiple Instructors			Professional communication through the study of audience, purpose, and ethics. Rhetorical problem-solving principles applied to diverse professional writing tasks and situations. (Core Req for Majors.)
WRT 308	Advanced Writing Studio: Style	Winterlude (async)	12/20/2023 - 01/12/2024	Collin Gifford Brooke			Don't let them tell you that style is just on the surface, something you polish before you hit send. Style runs deep, lurking at the heart of everything we speak or write. Style can dazzle, enchant, seduce, repulse, or bewilder. It can stop you in your tracks and rewire your brain. In this course, we will experiment voraciously with language, shape and reshape our writing, build our stylistic repertoires, and hone our sensibilities. The course will focus primarily on short writing exercises and individual feedback, meeting online (asynchronously). (G&P)
WRT 331	Peer Writing Tutor Practicum	MW	2:15 - 3:35	Rae Ann Meriwether			If you enjoy writing and providing feedback on writing for your friends and peers, and if you thrive learning in an exciting, hands-on environment, this class is for you. In this course, students will learn effective practices for writing consulting, practice writing consultation sessions with each other, and ultimately serve as tutors to their Syracuse University peers. Students will also improve their own writing and communication skills. This class is an excellent resume-builder, since employers want graduates with experience in collaboration and problem-solving who have excellent communication skills. (G&P)
WRT 340	Advanced Editing Studio (Intertext)	F	9:30 - 12:15	Patrick W. Berry			What does it take to produce a publication from start to finish? In this course, we will explore publication processes: reviewing past issues of Intertext, analyzing audience, reading and selecting submissions, editing copy, finding and creating visual content, designing layouts, and developing supplemental editorial content. We will also explore production and manufacturing costs as well as issues pertaining to marketing, social media, promotion, and advertising. The ultimate goal is to create the 2024 issue of Intertext along with a supplemental Web-based component. (G&P)
WRT 413	Rhetoric and Ethics	TTh	11:00 - 12:20	Eileen Schell			Introduces historical conversations concerning rhetoric’s ethical responsibilities and explores complications that emerge as assumed historic connections between language and truth, justice, community, and personal character are deployed in various social, political, cultural, national, and transnational contexts. (Core req. for majors)
WRT 422	Creative Nonfiction	TTh	12:30 - 1:50	Molly McConnell			In this class, we will be reading the stories of others’ lives through memoir and personal essay, and we will be writing our own life stories. These stories can encompass entire years of our lives, or only moments. In doing so, we will focus on how stories are told and how to tell stories contextually, as they happened or exist within real world situations, including the dimensions, systems, and limitations of race, class, gender, geography, and more. We will connect our stories to ones larger than ourselves to push ourselves into a deeper understanding of our own situations and the situations of others. (G&P)
WRT 424	Reading and Writing War	TTh	2:00 - 3:20	Eileen Schell			WRT 424 will address contemporary writing on U.S. foreign wars from the perspectives of military personnel and veterans, their families remaining at home, the refugees and civilians surviving war, and those who protest and contest warfare. The key questions we will address are: How do veterans, survivors, and activists represent the chaos, confusion, and trauma of warfare? What are their rhetorical and narrative strategies for representing war to those who may be far removed from it? In what ways are we, as citizens, called to be public witnesses to war? Guest speakers from the community will be part of the course. (H&T)
WRT 440	Writing with Precarity	TTh	3:30 - 4:50	Tony Scott			In the past, “precarious” has usually described problems or crises with a limited scope. In recent times though, precarity has become a means of describing a more permanent state of being brought on by the effects of climate change, food and housing insecurity, forced migration, militarized borders, and political and economic instability. In response, a language of precarity has emerged in a range of texts: e.g., journalism, public essays, political documents and speeches, and fiction. This course will explore critical, hopeful ways of living with precarity through reading and writing in varied modalities and genres. (H&T)
WRT 447	Professional & Technical Writing in Global Context	TTh	9:30 - 10:50	Cynthia Pope			Complexities arising in writing technical documents for a wide range of audiences, including other cultures and workplaces both domestically and internationally. Addresses ways that systems of knowledge, interfaces, design processes, and instructional mechanisms affect users. (H&T)
WRT 496	Senior Research Seminar II	F	11:40 AM - 12:35 PM	Patrick W. Berry