Fall UW Course Descriptions

Registration Transaction Forms (RTFs)

Please note that all Fall and Spring UW1020 sections are capped at 17 students and that this cap cannot be exceeded for any reason. UW instructors cannot sign RTF forms to add students to a section. The only way to add a section of UW1020 is through the GWeb system. If a section is full, you should either check GWeb frequently for open seats, select a different section, or plan to take UW the following semester.

Fall 2026

UW 1020 Courses:

Art, Andrew - Writing Through the Self

When is it okay to use “I” in an essay? You’ve no doubt been instructed at some point to avoid using personal pronouns in your academic writing, but what is the source of this prohibition? In this course, we will examine and unpack the assumptions surrounding “personal writing” in a range of rhetorical situations. Through readings in both creative and scholarly genres, we will begin the course by considering the rhetorical implications of writing from a first-person perspective. We will also examine the history of the “essay,” a genre marked by its embrace of the singular first-person, and explore its significance to inquiry and discourse. 

The writing exercises and projects of this course will ask you to engage with the “self” from a variety of angles: your lived experiences, memories, ways of seeing, and ways of knowing. This will require a significant amount of self-reflection and critical analysis. While we will often be in the realm of the subjective or personal, this does not mean that we will abandon objectivity. The major research project of this course, an autoethnographic essay, will ask you to investigate aspects of your own personal experiences in order to arrive at new cultural knowledge. As the co-editors of the Journal of Autoethnography put it, “Your mind, body, instincts and intuitions, interests, emotions, experiences, perspectives, values and beliefs, and everything else makes you a one-of-a-kind research instrument.” Writing through the self means you are both the researcher and the subject of your research, and you will be writing to “know thyself” as well as others.

Barlow, Jameta Nicole - TBA

TBA

Bieda, Casey - Of Margins and Monsters: Writing, Perspective, and Advocacy

Writing always has a job to do.

Historically, science fiction and speculative fiction writing, for example, ask us to contemplate what problems we are facing in our current culture. Many of these stories underscore important “real world” conversations about environmentalism, equity and equality, power, social justice, and technological development. Speculative fiction and research-based writing share the common goal of highlighting the current conflicts in our culture, and facilitating actionable solutions to our most immediate societal issues. This genre of writing highlights what is wrong to us in the hope that we will examine what we believe is right. It is a genre of advocacy, action, and change. 

Therefore, this writing course examines, through the lens of science fiction and speculative fiction, the craft of writing as a form of community participation. In this course students will use research to engage with a social or cultural problem of their choosing, and over the course of the semester create both a research paper as well as a multimodal adaptation of their work. Students will learn not only sustainable rhetorical practices for composition, but also learn how to engage with the perspectives of others, how to critically assess the presentation of information, and how we can create the future we want by considering the future we don’t want. 

Carter, Katharine - "I Did my Own Research: Writing Solutions to Systemic Inequity"

From federal and state laws to school rules and codes of conduct, systems have historically placed barriers to people’s freedoms and access to opportunities. 

These institutionalized drivers of inequity are often embedded in social interaction, where they are far more subtle but equally as unjust.

Scholars have used theories, including critical theory, to explain these occurrences and write solutions to these inequities.

In this course students will be introduced to research by examining topics within society that are rooted in inequality and maintained through social systems. 

Students will develop research questions to explore a chosen topic, and review existing research on the topic they’ve chosen to address. Research sources will include a combination of scholarly and non-scholarly sources, such as journal articles, social media posts, case studies, narratives, and government agency reports. 

Students will then be prepared to use their analysis to create solutions to the inequities related to their research topics, social justice. Students will write topic summaries,  research papers, and research proposals for a hypothetical research study. Students will also create posters to display their research.  

Counts, Benjamin - Conflict and Information Literacy

This course covers a wide range of current topics and events—with an emphasis on current. Our initial focus will be on the idea of political conflict as performance art, followed by branching out to cover other forms of conflict, several different styles of writing and public speaking, the dos and don’ts of academic integrity, a dozen or so different databases, and at least three analytical frameworks that will help prepare you for the world beyond the classroom. Through it all, we are going to see how conflicts operate at three levels: What is shown, what is hidden, and what goes unseen.

Major assignments will include two research papers, a policy proposal, a narrative essay, and a portfolio. Minor assignments will include accessing and making use of multiple databases, as well as learning and using structured analytical frameworks. While the course will revolve around comparing and understanding numerous conflicts, students will select their own research topics and materials from outside the assigned readings. Students will be required to take part in interdisciplinary conversation and engage in critical thinking.

Daqqa, Hanan - TBA

TBA

Donovan, Julie - TBA

TBA

Erfani, Kylie - TBA

TBA

Fletcher, Wade - TBA

TBA

Francois, Emma - Fashioning Thought

“Fashion has to do with ideas,” Coco Chanel said, “the way we live, what is happening.” This course explores the fundamentals of writing by considering fashion. What can the principles of design teach us about our own writing and the writing we love? How can we fashion our writerly identities to produce meaningful texts engaging the world we live, dress, and write in? 

We’ll start the semester exploring fashion writing across genres by translating a scholarly essay into an article for a popular media platform. As we write, we’ll experiment with skills from the designer’s toolkit (like social brainstorming, vision boards, and sketches) to disrupt and examine our own writing processes. Other major assignments include a “collage annotated bibliography” and a class field trip to the GW Textile Museum to explore how writing, in conjunction with other mediums, exists beyond the page. Drawing on this experience and research conducted throughout the semester, we’ll write a 8-10 page object essay to discern—and communicate—how one sartorial text can change and reflect the world.

Friedman, Sandie - TBA

TBA

Gamber, Cayo - TBA

TBA

Gretes, Andrew - Absurdity, Anxiety and Authenticity (oh my!): Exploring Writing Through Philosophy

In this class, we’ll use philosophy to approach critical thinking and composition. More specifically, we’ll dive into one particularly moody (“emo”?) movement in philosophy called existentialism. After sampling a variety of dramatic and angsty concepts—absurdity, freedom, “hell is other people,” mass-man (aka, “sheeple”), and authenticity—we’ll use our newfound philosophical understanding to think through some issues and dilemmas in our own culture. Boldly put, one of the goals of this class is to shift your relationship to writing. Writing is a visual-form of thinking. Writing is not just a dictation-device; it’s also a discovery-device. To remix an old philosophical truism: I write, therefore I think. Throughout the semester, we’ll interact with a variety of genres: e.g., biographies, plays, self-help books, manifestos, YouTube videos (existential influencers, anyone?), and aphorisms. Students will engage in a variety of writing projects, including a research-based essay that will take a specific concept from existentialism and use this concept as a tool to explore and re-think an issue in our own culture.

Hayes, Carol -  TBA

TBA

Hijazi, Nabila - Contested Bodies: Beyond a Standard Refugee Narrative 

Note: This is a service learning course. Learn more about service learning courses.

This course examines the complex and often dangerous realities that refugees face on their journeys, including human trafficking, smuggling, sexual exploitation, imprisonment, and other inhumane practices, as well as the social, political, and economic factors that compel people to flee. Rather than reinforcing the dominant narrative of refugees as victims or objects of rescue, the course emphasizes their lived experiences, agency, and strategies for survival, mobility, and advocacy. Through academic texts, personal narratives, TED Talks, and documentaries, students will learn how refugees exercise agency not only to survive but also to advocate, thrive, and achieve economic mobility. Students will practice summarizing, analyzing, researching, arguing, and remediating--key rhetorical skills necessary for ethical public engagement, rigorous academic scholarship, and exemplary professional practice.

As a community-engaged course, this class moves beyond theoretical inquiry, providing students with the opportunity to collaborate with nonprofit organizations working directly with refugee communities. These partnerships offer hands-on experience in public scholarship, advocacy, and ethical engagement. By integrating classroom learning with direct community involvement, this course challenges students to question assumptions, engage deeply with the complexities of migration, and recognize writing as a powerful tool for social change.

Hijazi, Nabila -  Feeding Hope: Writing, Food, and Refugee Agency in the DC Community

Note: This is a service learning course. Learn more about service learning courses.

Aligned with the policy, innovation, and humanity pillars of the Global Food Institute (GFI), this course encourages students to consider the broader social, political, and humanitarian implications of food systems in a globalized world. This course examines the intersections of food, culture, and refugee empowerment, focusing on refugees resettled in the Washington DC region. Students will participate in hands-on culinary activities, including a cooking demonstration, to explore how food preserves cultural identity, fosters resilience, and supports economic sustainability amid displacement. Students will develop critical thinking and research skills by analyzing food literacy’s role in storytelling, adaptation, and empowerment. Writing assignments will emphasize summarizing, analyzing, researching, and constructing well-supported arguments--key skills for ethical public engagement, academic scholarship, and professional practice. 

Experiential learning is central to this course, with community-based projects involving local organizations that support refugee communities. Students will conduct ethnographic research, participate in cultural events, and engage directly with refugees to understand how food shapes identity and community. Through inquiry, reflection, and hands-on engagement, students will gain a deeper understanding of food’s transformative role in fostering sustainable and inclusive communities. 

Hijazi, Nabila - Writing with Threads: Textiles, Embroidery, and the Narratives of Refugees

This course explores the art of writing through the rich cultural lens of textiles and the lived experiences of refugee women. Students will participate in hands-on sessions with refugee women seamstresses to collaboratively create a class quilt, engaging directly with the techniques, stories, and traditions embedded in textile work. The course also includes field trips to the Cotsen Textile Traces Study Center. Students will analyze literary and visual texts that highlight how refugees use fabric and other textile traditions as forms of storytelling, resistance, and cultural preservation. By examining these material artifacts alongside refugee narratives, students will develop critical writing skills in analysis and argumentation. The course examines intersections of gender, migration, and tradition, showing how refugee women preserve and transmit their stories through quilting, embroidery, and other needlework traditions. Through research, academic writing, reflective essays, and hands-on quilting, students will explore how textiles serve as both metaphor and method for expressing identity, displacement, and resilience. By the end of the course, students will sharpen their writing abilities and gain a deeper appreciation for how material culture informs and shapes refugee experiences.

Janzen, Kristi - “Beyond the Numbers: Economics, Business, Money & Markets”

This course aims to deepen students’ understanding of economics and business, while introducing them to university-level research and scholarly/academic writing. By examining writings on economics, business and finance (e.g., inflation, the cost of higher education, corporate earnings, interest rates, mortgages, antitrust laws, wages, taxes, economic growth), students will both broaden their practical understanding of these topics and hone their ability to write about them. Students will read about the discipline of writing and examine different styles and genres. We will discuss research techniques, context, information sources, and methods of evaluation, while analyzing why and how particular choices are made about what data or information to include or exclude. The class includes numerous smaller writing assignments, an OpEd, and a scholarly article following the format of a typical economics journal article. The students’ scholarly articles must incorporate peer-reviewed journal articles and other appropriate scholarly sources and data. Students will choose article subjects within the realm of business, finance or economics. Over the course of the semester, students will share and discuss their writing in class, not only to improve their writing, but also to enrich everyone’s understanding of the topics. They will also edit their peers’ work. 

Mantler, Gordon - From Abolition to Home Rule: Writing D.C. Movement Histories

What do historical social justice movements in Washington, D.C., tell us about not just the nation’s capital but the nation itself? Whether it was the movement to abolish slavery, activism to establish women’s right to vote, or the District’s own struggle for home rule, social movements have a storied history in Washington, D.C., despite – or perhaps because – the capital has never enjoyed full-fledged democratic rights in its nearly 250-year existence. In this class, you will begin to think like historians by analyzing the activism that shaped the city and region you live in today. In the process, you will visit parts of the city with which you may be unfamiliar, including communities and archives not in Foggy Bottom. And you will begin to – or continue to – develop university-level research and writing skills, including understanding disciplinary differences in writing genres, audiences, and conventions, exploring GW’s vast library resources, recognizing the clear limitations of generative artificial intelligence, and seeing writing as inherently a social act.

Mullen, Mark - TBA

TBA

Myers, Danika - TBA

TBA

Pollack, Rachel - TBA

TBA

Presser, Pamela - Writing Lives: Composing Consciousness and Community Engagement 

This is a service learning course. Learn more about service learning courses.

Note: This course will be taught via remote instruction.

Feminist scholar Carolyn Heilbrun wrote “Out of old tales we must make new lives.”

Can we repurpose the texts which surround us, and utilize writing to create a more just, more inclusive world? Could reading Mary Shelley’s 19th century novel Frankenstein help us understand 21st century climate change? Does an evaluation system which requires grading need an overhaul? How can we responsibly interact with our communities?

In this class, we will ponder these questions, drawing on theorists such as Inoue, Freud and Marx. Students will be expected to complete several short assignments each week. Major assignments will include developing an annotated critical bibliography and an accompanying research paper, and students will also engage in an intensive peer review process.

The class includes a community engagement component which will require students to work with a local non-profit organization. 

Quave, Kylie - Dining on the Past: Writing about archaeology and food

How did the ingredients in your meal get to your plate? How do meals connect you to a culture or distinguish you from others? At what cost do we achieve abundance and who pays the price in scarce times? What we eat says much about us in the present and in the past. This course focuses on archaeology, a humanistic science, to reconstruct the past as relevant to the present. Researching and writing about the archaeology of foodways offers opportunities to reflect on how food production and consumption relates to urgent issues today: 1) “exotic” ingredients are marketed in ways that paint some peoples’ foods as primitive, 2) influencers misinform followers about past hunter-gatherer lifeways to persuade people to spend lavishly on purportedly “primal” and “healthier” yet dangerous supplements, 3) people are shamed for their cuisines that were born out of past resistance to colonization and domination, and 4) sustainable food production and collection can be achieved by looking at the long-term archaeological record of human ingenuity amid scarcity.

In this course you will develop research skills to analyze what is currently known about food and foodways and why the past matters to humans now. By assessing how social values and norms shape how we know what we “know” about the past, you can find transferable lessons about claims and evidence: how are misunderstandings, essentializations, and falsehoods perpetuated, due to biases or otherwise? By engaging with examples of slow science, in which archaeologists may eschew feigned certainty to allow for ambiguity and vagueness, you will see the worthiness of scholarly humility and its impact on society. Using the archaeology of food as an example, you will critically examine claims and evidence, use sources responsibly, and convey lessons from complex scientific research to diverse audiences as civic engagement. Major assignments include a paper reviewing how archaeology informs social wellbeing in the present and various genres of multimodal writing for nonexpert publics. 

Richter, Jacob - Writing in Responsive Workplaces

Both academic writing and workplace writing evolve, innovate, mutate, and respond over time to changing conditions within a changing world. Social media, social justice, and generative AI: as the world changes, the writing that both college students and workplace professionals need to be experts in changes, too. The genres that professionals write in within their workplaces are never static, but rather respond to dynamic social, technological, and cultural changes. This course considers how students and professionals alike write in responsive ways to three evolutions in workplaces that have developed over the past decade or so: the ubiquity of social media, the necessity of pursuing social justice, and the rise of generative AI. The responsive workplace acknowledges that writing itself is different than it was in previous media environments, as it now is distinctly multimodal, video-laden, image-oriented, sonic, hyperlinked, and networked in ways that alter how professionals operate. The responsive workplace knows the exigencies of today— like Black Lives Matter protests, TikToks about the Russia-Ukraine War, and a rapidly worsening climate crisis— demand responses from public commentators that feature writing but aren’t limited to it or by it. 

In this course, we’ll consider academic writing’s connection to workplace writing genres informed by social media, social justice, and generative AI. We’ll engage these connections by writing in varied genres that could include a Research Roundup project, an argumentative Public Recommendation Report project, and a Workplace Genre Rhetorical Analysis. As future (and oftentimes current) professionals, students in this course will consider pressing topics like social media, social justice, and generative AI, responding critically and creatively with literacy actions that merge critical thinking and creative expression into innovative written documents. The workplace writers of tomorrow, which includes each student enrolled in this course, will all play a role in inventing the truly responsive workplace that the world relies upon.

Russ, Ebony - Anti-Racist STEM Writing in the 21st  Century

Understanding the importance of amplifying the voices of underrepresented groups in academia, publications, private industry, media, and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is key to advancing anti-racist STEM writing. Our writing skills and style are informed by the subject matter we engage with. Intentional approaches to anti-racist STEM writing can be pivotal to your success as a well-informed scholar. Exercising inclusivity can be superficial and deceptive if one does not possess the foundational knowledge of the interplay of race, racism, and scholarship in academia. Anti-racist STEM writing is a function of scholar activism, which is a component of social justice, that can contribute to overall equality. 

In this course, we will examine components of anti-racist STEM writing in the 21st century while comparing similarities and differences in social justice across past centuries. Our examination of anti-racism will be guided by scholarly writings on race and racism. This will involve critically reading and writing about scholarly and popular texts authored by African American authors as well as many other Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC). Assignments include identifying scientific evidence, original research writing, responses to readings and peer writing, collaborative and independent revision, and graphical display of information (tables, charts, and infographics), and critiquing Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI).  Students will rhetorically evaluate scientific arguments and respond to them in socially relevant ways for both expert and broader public audiences. 

Ryder, Phyllis - Writing for Social Change

This is a service learning course. Learn more about service learning courses.

In “Writing for Social Change,” you will get to know the city of DC beyond the National Mall and Capitol Hill. You’ll explore DC neighborhoods and history. You’ll also explore your own “big questions” about how to create social change in this city at this time. 

This is a “community-enaged” writing class, which means you will work with local DC nonprofits to study writing in concrete and urgent contexts.  How do community leaders convince everyday people that we can make a difference? How do they guide us to join them in a spirit of reciprocity?  By combining your experience with DC nonprofits with a careful analysis of related academic theories, you will shape thoughtful answers to questions that matter to you.

Over the semester, you will build on the writing strategies you learned in high school to become stronger, more deliberate writers. I will challenge you to reflect on your own values and identity, so that you can connect with your readers. I will push you to think more fully about the sources you draw on and the tools you use, so that your essays are complex and compelling.The assignments are divided into manageable pieces and you will receive a lot of feedback along the way. I have high expectations, and you will have a great deal of support. 

Sauer, Beverly - Risk Communication

The Shuttle Challenger and Columbia disasters, the submersible Titan, the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the Maui fire, Boeing accidents, continuing wild fires over much of the Western US demonstrate that communication plays an important role in risk management. Since the beginning of 2020, we ourselves have struggled to make sense of risk information about COVID as we consider whether to travel, see our families, party with friends, or mask (or not) in public spaces.

Risk demands action. But facts alone may not persuade stakeholders to act. What kinds of evidence can we draw upon to persuade people to act in what we perceive to be their best interests? Who can we trust? What does science tell us—or fail to tell us—about how to act in the face of uncertain and contradictory data? Can effective communication make a difference?

Writing assignments in this class are designed to help you construct persuasive fact-based ethical and logical risk communication messages for particular audiences. Although the disasters presented in the class are interesting from a technical point of view, you will focus on communication strategies (visual, verbal, graphical, and written) that influence the outcomes of the disaster. 

In this class, you will summarize and critique previous communication failures; construct a research-based assessment of a risk of your own choice; learn to construct a ‘mental model’ of what audiences know or believe (audience analysis) about a particular risk; explore the challenges of cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary risk communication; and produce a short research paper in which you apply the skills you have learned to persuade specific audiences to act to reduce risk. 

Schell, Heather - Data Driven

We inhabit a data-driven world. While people may disagree on what constitutes data—or even if data is plural or singular—"showing someone the numbers" is now our most valued method of proving something is true. It's "hard evidence," which could explain why it “crunches” when we "crunch the numbers." Personal experience—our most direct source of knowledge about our world—is sometimes rejected as "anecdata." In this class, we'll learn to be more critical data consumers and resist the common assumption that numbers speak for themselves.  Are data-driven arguments the best approach to every question?  Can data even exist without humans?  What does it mean for each of us to have so much data about our “private” lives—our educational record, our health, our politics, our phone calls, our driving record, even our food preferences—so easily accessible for data brokers and AI tools?   

We’ll explore these topics through three main projects: an analysis of polling data, a critical bibliography of data-based research on a social problem; and a research paper that asks you to collect new data.  This class will help you write about data ethically and effectively, while leaving you in the driver’s seat.  

Smith, Caroline - TBA

TBA

Tomlinson, Niles - Fake News and Ironic Views: Satire as Social Critique

While satire has a long history of exposing social/political excess and human folly, never has it been so prevalent as in our current cultural moment. From The Daily Show and Last Week Tonight to the Netflix series Bojack Horseman to the mockumentaries of Sasha Baron Cohen to the films Don’t Look Up and They Cloned Tyrone, satire is a potent and sometimes dangerous rhetorical tool for illuminating the absurdities of extremist views and partisan propaganda. This course starts with the question of why satire has become such a pervasive phenomenon and then moves towards an exploration of the value of, and potential problems with, satire as a lens for social criticism. 

This course will include assignments like a self-written and performed satire that critiques a relevant current issue, a rhetorical analysis of a scholarly article on satire, a critical reading of a satirical film or novel, and a capstone research project which will give students a chance to explore in depth a particular example of satire in contemporary culture. In all, this course will make the larger points that the language of satire and irony is our language, and that laughter and seriousness are not mutually exclusive.

Troutman, Phillip - TBA

TBA

Wolfe, Zachary - Law as a force for social change

This course uses the theme of law and its role in progressive social movements to introduce students to university-level research and writing. Understanding that law is an important means by which we structure social relations consistent with shared values, this course will examine historical and contemporary social movements that have used the language of rights and turned to legal systems for solutions. We will explore how advocates for social change — in the streets, in courtrooms, and in academic journals — have challenged and redefined foundational concepts, invoking history and law in order to challenge the status quo. Throughout all of this, we consider how to evaluate arguments, what makes for effective advocacy, and the ways in which thoughtful analysis contributes to our understanding of contentious social issues.

Each student’s own research and reflection will form a major part of this course, particularly in the final weeks. This course culminates in a research paper on a subject for which advocates today employ law to advance their cause. Within those general parameters, the specific topic is selected by each student, so this course will reflect intense research on a variety of subjects. While finalizing the research paper, each student will contribute to the others’ understanding of their respective topics through participation in an in-class conference.

Zink, Christine - TBA

TBA

Upper-Level UW Courses:

Wolfe, Zachary - UW2031 Equity & the Law: Introduction to legal research and writing

This course offers an introduction to how lawyers and legal scholars research and write about specific disputes that arise in the context of complex social issues. It is one of the required courses for the minor in law and society and satisfies a WID requirement.

Legal writing, like all forms of scholarly writing, is best understood in context and in practice. In this course, we have the opportunity to explore an ongoing challenge to our society in general and the legal system in particular: the promise of equality, and how government relates to it. We do so by examining judicial decisions, statutes, regulations, and law review articles concerning matters related to race, sexual orientation and gender, disability, and others issues that continue to advance major challenges to the system’s ability to realize legal and civil equality. That examination requires an understanding of legal audience expectations as well as the ability to use specialized research techniques and craft written analysis in particular forms, so students will learn about the nuances of argument in the interdisciplinary field of law and the unique requirements of legal research and writing.