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Overview of what you’ll learn in WRTC 103 courses:

We’re writing more than we ever have before, and in ways that were unthinkable only a decade ago. In any one day, you may take notes on paper, draft an assignment on your computer, answer emails, text with friends, and post status updates on Facebook. You’ll probably move fluidly between many writing spaces such as your phone, laptop, notepad, or tablet. These technologies offer you opportunities to express yourself in many ways beyond the written word.

In this course, you’ll be paying close attention to where and how writers compose every day. You will think broadly about literacy skills, exploring how digital forms of expression augment and expand the writing skills you developed in high school. You will learn to think critically and creatively about writing by closely reading texts in a variety of styles, genres, and media. By figuring out how these texts work, you will develop writing strategies that enable you to confidently craft the right message at the right time, no matter what situation you may find yourself in. To achieve these goals, this course will emphasize the following:

Rhetoric and Argument:

At its foundation, this course begins with rhetoric, the art of persuasion. Close reading and focused writing assignments will provide you with the tools to confidently understand the role of the writer, the purpose of documents, and the contexts and audience expectations within which documents are produced. You will learn how to employ persuasive appeals (such as ethos, logos, pathos, and kairos) and to use the kinds of arguments that matter most in your scholarly work and future career.

Writing and Research as Process:

You will develop a repertoire of writing strategies based on what our discipline knows about the best practices of successful writers. From invention and effective research to evaluation and revision of a draft, you will have opportunities to learn how to find valued research and evidence that will help you to rethink ideas and learn from the research you gather and then to draw on that research when expressing your own ideas. You will carefully consider how a document’s structure and arrangement help you to persuade your intended audience. You will have opportunities to learn strategies for revising your work in substantive ways, and for offering feedback on others’ works-in-progress.

Collaboration:

Writers need to be able to work with other writers—whether responding to authors with insightful tips that help them to refine their arguments, or composing collaborative projects with others. For this reason, you will be encouraged in this course to comment on others’ assignments and work in teams on one or more writing projects.

Twenty-First Century Literacies:

Technology can never be separated from the writing process. Today’s “app” driven world is providing so many new ways to write and connect with audiences that it’s impossible to keep up. Although this course will give you skills and experience with specific technologies, it will help you to “think with” emerging technologies so that you will have the confidence to embrace any writing challenge. To accomplish this aim, we encourage you to experiment with and use a variety of digital technologies to develop real-world writing projects for audiences both on campus and beyond.

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