Paideia

	Rhetoric(s) of Access
	ENGL 488 Professional Writing Internship
	Advanced Professional Writing: Usability
	ENGL 306: Introduction to Professional Writing
	ENGL 505M: Professional Writing Practicum
	English 203: Introduction to Research in Professional Writing
	English 396D: Digital Rhetorics and Writing

Rhetoric(s) of Access
Professor: Michael

Rhetorics of Access looks at contested sites where groups have demanded access to resources, institutions and fair and equal treatment under the law. Disability, gender, race, class and other identifying characteristics often mark citizens, creating opportunities for both identity formation (coalition) and displacement (discrimination). This class studies various discourses of inclusion and difference, and attempting to bridge such cultural différends. Students are expected to articulate cultural sites of inquiry in which they have an interest, identifying and completing readings that reflect these interests in addition to assigned class readings. Students complete a book or resource review as well as a longer seminar paper suitable for submission to appropriate journals.

ENGL 488 Professional Writing Internship
Professor: Michael

This course provides continuous experience as a writer in a professional setting, while participating in a weekly seminar in applied rhetoric. The seminar is designed to contribute to your professional development by preparing you for future workplace responsibilities and by giving you regular opportunities to discuss observations, problems, and accomplishments that arise on the job.

Advanced Professional Writing: Usability
Professor: Michael

In English 515, Advanced Professional Writing, students study sites of professional writing, develop research and observation methods appropriate for writing professionals, and produce professional documents. The class will study and perform usability tests, and create usability testing materials. Students will conduct usability tests in order to both learn about usability as a professional writing concern and to study usability as a site of authority and identity for professional writers. Finally, students will study sites of engagement and intervention through writing in order to explore what it means, first, to be a writer and, second, what it means to be a professional in the post-industrial workplace.

ENGL 306: Introduction to Professional Writing
Professor: Michael

One fundamental question addressed in this class is: What do professional writers do? Through the course, students will read definitions of professional & technical writing from academic and professional perspectives. Students research and report on the variety of experts who call themselves professional writers. And students create a variety of documents in genres common in professional and technical writing as they develop an awareness of what genre might be. Reading and writing assignments have been designed to help students gain greater insight into the issues and challenges of professional writing in a variety of workplace contexts. The major project, the interview, is designed to prepare students to do the kind of primary research with subject matter experts that will be a regular part of their professional lives.

ENGL 505M: Professional Writing Practicum
Professor: Michael

As you begin teaching Professional Writing, we will consider distinctions between teaching and researching composition, or academic writing, with professional, or non-academic writing. While this is too simple a dichotomy, it provides a common place where we can begin exploring the unique features of professional writing. One goal is to build a broader understanding of rhetoric in a variety of pedagogical and institutional contexts. Another is to build resources for program use. Whether your primary interest is professional writing or another field, this class provides a theoretical and pedagogical basis for effectively teaching professional writing. Students will interact both with students in the service courses, 420 and 421, as well as in the professional writing major, particularly students in 306. Over the course of the semester, students will participate in online discussion, write short documents relating to the teaching of professional writing, propose a final pedagogical project, and complete the longer project designed to prepare instructors to be independent and effective professional writing teachers.

English 203: Introduction to Research in Professional Writing
Professor: Jenny

English 203 serves as an introduction to research approaches and methods useful for professional writers. The course will focus on developing ideas to guide research; collecting print and online information; interviewing, surveying, and conducting observations; and evaluating, summarizing, analyzing, and reporting research. Perhaps most important, the course will focus on developing your writing skills so that you might not only engage in professional research but also produce quality professional research.

English 396D: Digital Rhetorics and Writing
Professor: Jenny

What does it mean to write, read, and think in online, interactive spaces? This course will explore the theories, practices, and rhetorics of digital writing. The term "writing" no longer only refers to words on paper. Rather, writing has come to encompass all kinds of ways that we make meaning in the world, including texts that are published on the web and that move beyond mere words on a screen. We'll look closely at some of these new ways of writing, including weblogging, podcasting, tagging, aggregating, and file sharing, along with other forms of new media such as digital video, image production, and hypertext. We'll also study the major rhetorical theories informing digital writing, as well as some of the issues that emerge from these new digital rhetorics, such as intellectual property, network theory, access, information architecture, web design, and socio-cultural issues. Students will be asked to apply the theories and ideas they learn to a variety of digital and web-based projects.