Spring 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.

Spring 2025

UW 1020 Courses:

Abbas, Nasreen - The Othering of Muslims: Contemporary Diasporic Literature

Can a person be Middle Eastern or is Middle Eastern purely a geographic entity? The texts we will explore together will allow us to investigate these questions and understand the perspectives from this diverse region. You might think that the authors of our assigned texts are "Middle Eastern" because they are (a) Muslim and (b) have their roots in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. Is that a fact or just an assumption? Using Edward Said's definition of Orientalism, we will learn that the term "Middle East" is just a catch-all phrase to talk about geographical areas or people that some living in the West are unfamiliar with. Through our texts we will explore burning topics such as “what is a migrant?” Is a migrant and an immigrant the same? Is there a difference between a migrant and a refugee? What kind of crises lead to people becoming migrants or refugees? You will also discover the intersectionality between this course and what you learn in your other courses, such as international affairs, comparative politics, psychology, history, economics and more.

Art, Andrew - Writing Through the Self

When is it okay to use “I” in an essay? You’ve no doubt been told to avoid using personal pronouns in your academic writing to remain objective, but in this course, we will examine and unpack the assumptions behind those conventions. Through readings in both creative and scholarly genres, we will begin the course by thinking about the rhetorical implications of “personal writing.” We will also consider the essay as a form and practice, examining its history and significance in inquiry and discourse.

The writing exercises and projects of this course will ask you to explore dimensions of your lived experiences and cultural identities; this will require a significant amount of self-reflection, analysis, and critical thinking. While we will often be in the realm of the “subjective,” this does not mean that we will abandon objectivity. The major research project of this course, an autoethnographic essay, will ask you to investigate, critically reflect on, and research aspects of your own personal experiences in order to arrive at new cultural knowledge and contribute to existing conversations with other scholars, artists, activists, and writers.

My aim in teaching university-level writing through these means is to encourage you to notice and integrate subjectivity and objectivity—the creative and the critical, the literary and the scholarly—within your writing, helping you identify and articulate the influences on your point of view. What might you discover when you are both the writer and the subject of your writing? 

Carter, Katharine - Critical Responses: Writing the Implications about Racism and 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 on the basis of race.

Additionally, these institutionalized drivers of inequity are often embedded into society’s culture, where they are far more subtle but equally as unjust.

Scholars have used writing as a tool to identify and respond to these occurrences.

In this course students will learn the tenets of critical race theory, highlight examples of institutionalized racism in a wide variety of readings, and demonstrate applications of systemic inequity to historic and current events.

Students will be tasked with reading a variety of sources, including legislative proposals, existing laws, opinion pieces, social media posts, historical texts, and media coverage of current events. Through each assigned reading, students will explore the various ways that inequity is related to its messaging.

Students will use critical analysis to provide written responses to the readings that will communicate how the content of readings can have impact marginalized groups. The responses will examine the broader issues of systemic oppression and implicit bias beyond the primary message of the reading.

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 - “Not Another Home Movie”: How Do You Research When the Subject is Yourself?

Be prepared to change what you know about writing, and maybe even what you know about yourself. This course will give you the opportunity to make an impact powerfully and artfully through the telling of that family story, hidden in the attic. Give it the attention it needs, so it can connect you to yourself. As we connect, we gain control.

Telling your story, you will be wearing three hats: the journalist, the researcher, and the filmmaker.

As a journalist, you will learn how to take risks and dig deeper into yourself in order to tell a captivating and impactful story, and you will conduct an important interview.

As a researcher, you will learn how to formulate your own research question and how to let your question drive the journey. Your question focus will be on how to tell your story on film.

Finally, as a filmmaker, you will learn how to use framing, camera movements and sound to tell a story. Your film will be screened during the last week of class. A keepsake for generations to come. 

Fletcher, Wade - An Empirical Approach: Writing in the Social Sciences

Media portrayals of social science research, such as a Time Magazine report on “how laughter can boost one’s attractiveness,” often result in sensational claims made in limited contexts, which some scholars say devalues the important work being done in fields such as sociology, psychology, and education. How is social science research relevant to our daily lives? What ethical implications accompany such research? How do disciplinary conventions function in social science disciplines, and how do these differ from those with which we are more accustomed?

In this course, we will seek to better understand how knowledge is constructed in the social sciences, explore how this knowledge is communicated rhetorically, and consider how tenets of social science research and writing can inform our own work in other areas and disciplines. Assignments will include three papers—an article critique, an Op-Ed, and an argumentative research paper on a current issue in a social science discipline—as well as short projects, an annotated bibliography, and contributions to an online class discussion forum.

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 a museum in D.C. 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 an 8-10 page object essay to discern—and communicate—how one sartorial text can change and reflect the world.

Friedman, Sandie - The New Vanguard: Women Writing Radical Fiction

A girl tosses her friend’s beloved doll through a grate and into a cellar, where it can’t be retrieved. A wife’s head rolls off her body when her husband unties the ribbon around her neck. A young artist rides her motorcycle at record-breaking speeds—until she crashes.

With these snippets of plot, we glimpse fictional worlds created by 21st century women. Critic Parul Sehgal observed that: “The books steering literature in new directions — to new forms, new concerns — almost invariably have a woman at the helm, an Elena Ferrante, a Rachel Cusk, a Zadie Smith.” How can fiction, in Sehgal’s words, “suggest and embody unexplored possibilities in form, feeling and knowledge”? How do women “invent a language for their lives” in the 21st century (Sehgal)? In this class, we take as our starting point “The New Vanguard,” a collection of 15 works of fiction, assembled by three New York Times literary critics. The list ranges from Alison Bechdel’s The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For to Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Our project in this class is to develop our own writing skills by studying the work of radical fiction writers. Using a feminist lens, we consider how these groundbreaking books represent the diverse experiences of women in the US and abroad. As the medium for developing our ideas, we will study and practice writing essays—a genre that blends personal experience, literary analysis, and research. For the final project, I invite you to propose a new member of the New Vanguard in a podcast, movie, or visual essay. Or you may choose to write yourself a place in the New Vanguard canon by creating your own innovative work of short fiction.

Gamber, Cayo - Legacies of the Shoah

Every UW 1020 course requires ‘finished’ writing, developed in a rigorous composition process often consisting of pre-draft preparation, drafts, and revisions based on instructor’s advice and classmates’ comments. In this course, the series of tasks you will perform — including writing a research paper that integrates both primary and secondary sources — are designed both to help you become familiar with an array of research efforts as well as familiar with writing an authoritative study of your chosen topic. In this course, we analyze primary documents from the Shoah — photographs and oral histories, in particular. I ask that we engage with these materials because such research encourages us to value the research findings of others; to acquire research skills; to recognize the ways in which primary materials are central to both the research process and the conclusions one draws; and, perhaps most importantly, to realize our analysis allows us to make meaningful additions to the academic conversation about a given topic. The range of research topics is wide, from the role art played in the Holocaust to the workings of a particular concentration camp; or from the role liberators played (or failed to play) to what is known about the "bearers of secrets," the Sonderkommando, who were eyewitnesses to the Final Solution. While we may not be able to make amends for the Holocaust, I believe that through the careful study of the lives of those who perished and the words of those who survived, we become witnesses for the eyewitnesses, witnesses who are willing to be bearers of the stories and history of the Shoah.

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 - "I'm a Bad Writer" and Other Myths about Writing

To write is to convey your thoughts on paper in a traceable form that others can then respond to. Writing is thus both a challenge (are you able to put what you mean into words on the screen or page?) and an act of vulnerability (you are opening yourself to response from your readers, whatever those responses might be). Very, very few people find writing “easy” (I am not among them). Your past experiences with writing and language, whether good or bad, will have shaped your emotions, your writing process, and your view of your own writing identity.

This UW class is designed to give you a space to explore your experiences and challenges with writing, with the goal of increasing your writing knowledge in ways that will support your transitions to writing in other contexts, such as other GW courses, internships, and beyond. You will use social science methodologies—interviews and surveys—to research the writing experiences of college-age peers who may share the challenges you have faced. Drawing upon writing studies research (yes, scholars research writing!) and research in educational psychology, you’ll use that research to help you analyze your own and your peers’ writing experiences. 

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

Mainstream migration and refugee discourses often portray refugees as living in limbo, with women depicted within narratives of fragility. Departing from these prevailing understandings of refugees as victims, objects of rescue, and problems, this course reconsiders refugees as fluid subjects and historical actors, inquiring into their social and cultural positioning. With refugee women as our primary case study, this course asks students to engage with the lived experience of refugee women, subjects that have been perceived as passive, vulnerable, or even violent in the Western context; and to evaluate their construction of agency. Engaging in various texts – including academic arguments, personal narratives, TED Talks, lectures by guest speakers, and documentaries, we will explore how refugee women are complex individuals experiencing immense challenges but also exerting great resilience. Instead of confirming the standard narrative that presents refugees as victims, we will examine how they are agents in finding ways not only to survive but also to thrive and gain economic mobility. This semester, you will learn to summarize, analyze, research, inquire, reflect, argue and remediate—rhetorical skills necessary for ethical public engagement, rigorous academic scholarship, and exemplary professional practice.

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

In partnership with the Cotsen Textile Traces Study Center at the George Washington University Museum and the UNHCR MADE51 project, a craft-based platform designed to create economic opportunities for refugees, this course explores the art of writing through the rich cultural and historical lens of textiles and the lived experiences of refugee women. The course incorporates hands-on exploration at the Cotsen Textile Traces Study Center and examines real-world applications through the MADE51 project. Students will engage with various literary and visual texts that highlight how Syrian refugee women use fabric and other textile traditions as forms of storytelling, resistance, and cultural preservation. By analyzing these material artifacts, alongside refugee narratives, students will develop their writing skills in critical analysis and argumentation. Students will explore the intersections of gender, migration, and tradition, examining how refugee women preserve and transmit their stories through needle and thread. Through a blend of research, academic writing, and reflective essays, the course will emphasize how textiles serve as both metaphor and method for expressing identity, displacement, and resilience. It will culminate in a micro-exhibition showcasing these expressive textiles. By the end of the course, students will not only sharpen their writing abilities but also gain a deeper appreciation for the ways in which 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. 

Kristensen, Randi - Africa and the African Diaspora

Black Panther. Black Panthers. Black Lives Matter. Slavery. Colonialism. Modernity. Afro-futurism. Critical Race Theory. These and other signifiers of Black life in the 21st century circulate widely. What do they mean? Why do they matter? Why is their teaching being outlawed in some places in the United States? In this course, we will bring our critical reading, thinking, and writing skills to bear on these and other questions. We will also strive to discern the many and complicated versions of Blackness that co-exist, sometimes uneasily, in the US and worldwide. We will also question the implications of doing research within and across cultures; for example, what is the significance of our research and writing for those about whom we research and write? What are the effects of our choices of language and form?

As readers, writers and thinkers, we will develop our skills in recognizing and articulating these complexities, and will produce original and effective writing that reflects our close attention to the research questions that engage us, and sources that inform us. Major assignments include an autoethnography, and a carefully researched, documented, and argued research paper on a writer-selected topic that increases our understanding of contemporary Black life. In addition, we will develop a public-facing version of our research for each other and the wider community.

Malone-France, Derek - Peace and Conflict in Colombia

Colombia has endured the longest ongoing civil armed conflict in modern world history. From the country’s original post-colonial founding, as one half of New Granada, through to the present day, stark economic and social divides and inequalities have played a fundamental role in shaping both political and conflict dynamics there. In addition, the emergence of multiple national and regional organized armed groups and militias, as well as the development of a massive shadow-economy associated with extreme criminal violence in the form of narcotrafficking in the 20th century, have created a highly complex and deeply tragic situation confronting those who wish to see lasting peace and prosperity for Colombians. We will research, analyze, and write about this complex reality.

Marcus, Robin - “With Words and With Pretty - Joy and Resistence in Expressive African American Traditions

This course title argues that Black American Artistic expression can also be understood in contexts of resilience, exuberance and joyful determination. We will examine Afro-centric often camouflaged or submerged in plain sight, traditions that sprouted when the first Africans to survive their harrowing Trans-Atlantic journey set foot on American soil. We'll trace the artistic path their transplanted traditions forged. Finally, we will also look for primary source material that reveals intention, find cross genre conversations and connections, and learn how these traditions have endured while shape-shifting into new, contemporary art forms. The traditions studied in this survey course may include, but will not be limited to dance, visual art, photography, fiction and song produced by both known and obscure artists. Guest speakers who have expertise in related genres may compliment our classroom instruction. Students will write short essays throughout the semester, will present original work produced by the A.A.S.P. and a final multi-media research paper that demonstrates an evolving understanding of how such expressions can be "read" within contemporary spaces.

McCaughey, Jessica - “I Tried to Live, but I got Distracted”: How to Think, Act, and Write in a World that Wants to Sidetrack You

Johann Hari, the author of Stolen Focus, suggests a motto for our era: “I tried to live, but I got distracted.” Deep work and focus are arguably more challenging right now than they’ve ever been. In this class, we’ll try to understand what this means for us as writers. We’ll interrogate factors ranging from stress and our environment to productivity culture and technology in an effort to make sense of why focus and complex intellectual engagement are so challenging. In doing so, we will interrogate our own experiences and consider, yes, issues of willpower and individual tactics to regain and harness our attention—but more so, we will deliberate how we operate in larger systems that are designed to distract. We’ll also try to determine whether or not, at this moment, it’s actually possible to be in control of our own attention and reach our goals without getting sidetracked.

Over the course of the semester, we’ll pay particular attention to the ways in which our distracted world makes an already extremely challenging process of development—becoming an adept researcher and writer at the college level—much, much harder. We’ll develop our academic writing and research skills through a series of increasingly complex assignments, each one scaffolded with the support of substantial feedback from peers and your professor. As we do so, we’ll consider catalysts and implications of “stolen focus” across disciplines, from environmental studies and national security to medicine and marketing, while working to develop the analytical skills necessary to consider, research, and express nuanced intellectual arguments clearly and effectively across a variety of forms of writing. We’ll also inevitably address what it means to be competing for the attention of others with our own writing, whether in college, the workplace, or publicly. Ultimately, it’s my hope that we’ll find lasting ways to engage and function in a world that seemingly wants to keep us operating only at the surface level—rather than engaging in the deep, focused thinking that complex writing requires.

Michiels, Paul - Writing and Learning

The theme of this writing course is learning. You will learn about writing as you learn what the fields of neuroscience, educational and cognitive psychology, and education have to tell us about how students learn. The theme of learning will anchor your research practices and help us select articles that we will read as a class to help inform your different writing activities. You will also use the theme as a springboard to develop your own individual lines of inquiry that you will follow and investigate throughout the semester, beginning with an assignment that asks you to investigate an issue/problem related to the theme of “learning,” then moving to a longer researched piece that more deeply explores one aspect of learning. We will conclude with an adaptation of your researched paper for a different audience and in a new form.

This class will focus on writing as a form of reasoning and knowledge production used in the university, at work, and in daily life, and it will explore how different writing situations and different audiences influence how we question, analyze, make claims, and present information and ideas. The course will explore critical writing skills which involve pre-writing, paraphrasing, summarizing, synthesizing, drafting, and revising. Particular (though not exclusive) emphasis will be placed on source-based writing as a means of acquiring, communicating, and transforming knowledge. Finally, special emphasis will be placed on peer review, in other words, on providing peers with useful, usable, and theoretically-informed feedback on writing (an essential skill with applications in academic, professional, and personal life).

Mullen, Mark - Paying (for) Attention

You’ve probably never heard of the Intention Economy. That is because it doesn’t exist. At least not yet. What you may have heard about–and have definitely experienced– is the Attention Economy, the array of applications and processes that tech companies use to make money by keeping us watching/listening/reading/clicking for as long as possible.

In those moments when you are honest with yourself–when you’ve reemerged from a two-hour TikTok or YouTube rabbit hole and can’t recall a single thing you viewed–you have probably felt that your technology usage is out of your control.   You are right. It is largely out of your control. And it was designed to be that way. Thanks to an increasing number of whistleblower accounts from inside the tech sector—Anna Wiener’s Uncanny Valley, Christopher Wylie’s Mindf*ck, and Mike Monteiro’s Ruined by Design, to name just a few—we now know that tech companies are actively leveraging the latest psychological research in order to patiently and deliberately design applications to get us hooked, and keep us hooked. Yet, like any addict deep into their denial, we rationalize and defend to the death our lack of control over our own lives. Technology isn’t good or bad, we say. It is how you use it, we say.

We don’t have to live like this. But what alternatives are there? As we investigate modes of communicating and viewing the world that try to balance technology and lived experience, we will be actively exploring the ways in which different styles and genres of writing can open up new ways of looking at the world. In addition to a research topic of your choosing about some facet of the attention economy, we will also be looking at styles of writing that require us to pay close attention to the people and environments around us. This will be a challenging course. If you aren’t prepared to confront some uncomfortable truths about your own technology usage (and who is controlling that) then this may not be the course for you. If you don’t think you could last a day without your cellphone or earbuds, this is definitely not the course for you! But if you are open to a new way of thinking about the world, and are curious about what forces are shaping the technologies we are already taking for granted, then maybe as a group we can bring into being something that does not yet exist; the Intention Economy.

Myers, Danika - Poetry + Research

“There is no telling this story; it must be told” – NourbeSe Philip, Zong!
“When I write comma I come closer to people I want to know comma to the language I want to speak” - Layli Long Soldier, Whereas

Are poetry and research opposing forms? Is poetry always subjective, while research is strictly objective? How does poetry seek truth? How can poetry become the medium for research and exploration? In this class, we will analyze books of poetry obsessed with communicating truth and documenting evidence.

NourbeSe Philip’s Zong! dwells on the events of a 1781 massacre, when 132 of the 470 enslaved Africans held captive on the British ship Zong were thrown overboard. By drawing legal language into fractured poetics Philip subverts it to convey horror and grief. Layli Long Soldier’s book Whereas is a response to the 2009 Congressional resolution of apology to Native Americans that draws on historical documents to critique the contemporary legacies of settler-colonialism. C.D. Wright's One With Others is a poetry collection that uses interview and historical research to revisit the role of her mentor, V, in the March Against Fear in Arkansas in 1969. By combining poetic forms with meticulous research and reliance on sources, works like these challenge dominant narratives and offer new ways of understanding history and identity.

This section of UW1020 invites you to use texts that combine research + poetry as a starting point to explore research, writing, documentation, and the production of knowledge. It seeks to support you in developing a sophisticated understanding of the infinite ways sources can be engaged or critiqued, subverted or celebrated, and see how it feels to adopt such techniques in your own writing. We will also consider what these texts reveal about how other, more familiar, forms of research-based and academic writing operate. How might traditional academic research –supposedly an objective form– silence particular voices or perpetuate systems of power? How can poetry transform our understanding of research and what research values? Assignments will include a documentary poem, a group presentation, and a research-based poetry sequence. Homework will frequently require you to attempt archaic or byzantine poetic forms or ask you to render the conventions of academic genres in verse.

Pollack, Rachel - The Greek Ideal in Art

This course examines the greatest surviving masterpieces of Greco-Roman sculpture and explores their enduring significance in western art from antiquity to the present day. From this essential canon of ancient sculpture, which includes the Doryphoros (Spear Bearer), the Laocoon, the Aphrodite of Knidos, the Spinario, and the Weary Hercules, we will analyze why these works have both inspired artists and stirred scholarly debate amongst ancient writers, art historians, archaeologists, Renaissance humanists, and Enlightenment philosophers. 

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. 

Richter, Jacob - Writing for Social Media

When you scroll social media, you are inundated with writing, rhetoric, images, sounds, GIFs, hashtags, and other forms of communication. Platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Twitter/X, and even TikTok are full of writing that shapes our world in increasingly vital but often poorly understood forms. Writing is a technology that enables us to share ideas, express ourselves, connect with others, and build momentum for the causes that we care about, but it also is rapidly evolving in a digital age in ways that are not always positive. In this endeavor, writing’s capacity to generate consequences in the world is helped along by seemingly free digital platforms, by algorithms that reward emotion and sensationalism, and by a digital ecosystem that is geared toward profit far more than it is toward transparency, the emotional health of its users, or even democracy.

In this course, we’ll approach both academic writing and writing on social media as an opportunity for intervention in a contemporary world where writing and communication online saturate our lives more than they ever have before. In individual class sessions, we’ll discuss academic writing, but will also discuss how writing and rhetoric on social media impact varied topics like democratic elections, corporate responsibility, the emotional health of teenagers, and even the types of writing and communication that emerging professionals (and thus college students) benefit from expertise in. We’ll learn together through in-class activities that involve creating pretend Starbucks and Dunkin Instagram posts to enact visual rhetoric, will write pretend Kickstarter pages to practice tailoring a message for an audience in a particular rhetorical situation, and will remix major research projects into a social media campaign using tools like Zeoob and Hootsuite. We’ll also conduct extensive academic research to probe important questions about topics like ubiquitous data collection online, social media’s impact on the mental health of teens, how political campaigns are leveraging social media influencers to win elections, and how platforms are increasingly enabling misinformation, science denial, authoritarianism, social movements, and both political polarization and revolution. The extensive research students will conduct in this course will culminate in two projects, the “Content Analysis Annotated Bibliography” and the “Civic Action Recommendation Report” projects, that generate original knowledge about social media’s role in our contemporary information ecosystem and offer recommendations for future action society should take to address these opportunities. 

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

Understanding the importance of amplifying the voices of underrepresented groups in academia, publications, and media is key to contributing to anti-racist writing. Our writing skills and style are informed by the subject matter of which we partake. Approaching anti-racist writing with intent 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 writing is a function of scholar activism which is a component of social justice which can contribute to overall equality and societal transformation.

In this course, we will examine tenets of anti-racist writing in the 21st century while comparing the similarities and differences in social justice work from past centuries. Our examination of anti-racism will be guided by exploring race and racism in scholarly writings. This will involve critically reading and writing about scholarly and popular text 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). 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.

Learning to “write well” means learning to wrestle with power. “Writing for Social Change” is a space where we will work with local DC nonprofits to confront social inequities, study how to use writing to build community, and convince people that a more just world is possible. We also will wrestle with the power of “writing well” at a more meta level: the rules for “good writing” are themselves tools that can include and exclude people from power. By the end of the semester, you will have your own toolbox for developing complex, meaningful writing projects and a philosophy of writing that reflects your personal values and engages diverse audiences.

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, so that your essays are complex and compelling. I have high expectations, but you will have a great deal of support. The assignments are divided into manageable pieces and you will receive a lot of feedback along the way. If you do all the work, you will get a good grade.

Sauer, Beverly - Risk Communication

The Shuttle Challenger and Columbia disasters, the submersible Titan, the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the Maui fire, Boeing accidents, and heat domes over much of the 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 you 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.

Ultimately, you will develop critical thinking skills that enable you to identify and mitigate communication failures before, during, and after a crisis. No technical experience is required.

Schell, Heather - TBD

TBD

Silver, Samantha - Writing Gender and Sexuality in Popular Culture

Popular culture both reflects and shapes who we are as citizens. This course asks how an arena often dismissed as “mere entertainment” shapes popular notions of gender and sexuality. How have feminist and queer politics shaped popular culture? How has popular culture shaped norms of masculinity and femininity? How have scholars taken account of the pleasures of viewing and the role of fandom in popular culture?

Students will read critical scholarly texts in feminist media studies, film studies, and cultural studies and develop their own analyses of contemporary film and media texts. This course takes seriously the feminist politics of film and media, asking, can popular culture be a force for social change?

Introducing first-year students to scholarly writing on film and media and feminist theory, this course will include short writing assignments and a final research paper on a topic of their choosing. Students will learn to think critically and sharpen their analyses of gender and sexuality in popular culture.

Smith, Caroline -  The (Identity) Politics of the Kitchen

In the summer of 2009, the movie Julie and Julia, which intertwines the tales of chef, cookbook author, and television personality Julia Child and food blogger Julie Powell, opened to complimentary reviews and positive public reception, grossing $20.1 million at the box office on opening weekend. The film, which is based on two memoirs (Child’s My Life in France and Powell’s The Julie/Julia Project) reveals the public’s fascination with the food we eat, the way we prepare it, and the stories of people like Julia and Julie who find pleasure and fulfillment in both.

In this course, we will study the genre of food writing – from food histories to local eating manifestos. More specifically, we will focus our discussions and writing on the topic of identity and food. What might a selection from Gordon Ramsay’s Playing with Fire reveal about masculinity? In The Sexual Politics of Meat, what does scholar Carol J. Adams uncover about the connections between the treatment of women and animals? What does the cookbook For the Culture: Phenomenal Black Women and Femmes in Food teach us about intersectionality in the kitchen? How, in writing about the tangible act of preparing food, do these writers encourage readers to reflect upon the intangible identity politics of the kitchen? Throughout the semester, we will also produce our own food writing from a variety of disciplinary angles. For the capstone project of the course, you will complete an independent research project – reading, researching, and writing about the food and identity topic of your choice. The skills that you will develop in this introductory course will prepare you well for other academic challenges throughout the remainder of your college career.

Svoboda, Michael - The Political Brain

We like to believe we can be perfectly rational. Consequently, when others disagree with us when we think we are being rational, we also like to believe our opponents are being completely irrational. Sadly, both beliefs are almost certainly false, especially when it comes to politics. Our political convictions have psychological underpinnings. But, we must hasten to add, our psychological analyses of politics can also be prompted by political motivations.

In “The Political Brain,” we will examine models of cognitive psychology, media biases and effects, moral psychology, neuro-politics, and popular culture to see what they can tell us about contemporary American politics.

In this section of UW 1020, you can join the ever-increasing number of media analysts, political scientists, psychologists, sociologists, and, yes, voters, who are trying to understand the dysfunctional state of American politics. Through a carefully selected set of readings, you will participate in a broad interdisciplinary conversation. And through the critical thinking, creative research, and reflective writing you will practice in the assignments for this course, you will be able to make an original contribution to this ongoing discussion.

Tomlinson, Niles B. - 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.

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.

Upper-Level UW Courses:

Zink, Christy - UW 2111W Preparation for Peer Tutors in Writing / UW 2112 Pedagogy and Praxis for Writing Consultants

Enrollment in UW 2111W and UW 2112 is by permission, after application and selection in the preceding fall. UW211W meets a WID requirement.

Writing invokes both science and art, and the study of writing, in turn, calls on all the disciplines in between. This course invites you to engage with interdisciplinary knowledge, with multiple genres of writing, and with questions of audience, purpose, and possibility to unlock deeper, more varied understandings of “good writing.”  What happens when we disturb insistence on a single, stable notion of English, as linguists and cultural studies scholars do, to revel in the reality of multiple Englishes? Playing with rich meanings and matterings of language, as do anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists, among others, reveals what new expressions of individual identity, community, and communication? These questions are foundational to Writing Studies and are typical of the ones we’ll explore in this course.

UW2111W (three credits) and 2112 (one credit) are taken together, meeting pedagogy--how and why we teach—with praxis--the active application of the tools and techniques of peer writing consulting. Course readings and projects purposefully engage with research methodologies rooted in Writing Studies alongside models in parallel academic fields, providing a grounding in disciplinary writing that consultants encounter every day in a university’s writing center. The practicum sets that new expertise into motion as you observe and practice consulting in GW’s Writing Center, gaining interpersonal skills essential to teaching writing -- connecting, listening, and staying attentive to the full, complex humanity of writers (including yourselves).

UW2111W meets a WID requirement. Together, the courses are prerequisites for students applying to work as consultants in the GW Writing Center.