This course discussed various theories of writing, including complex issues and research into the state and status of writing and writers. We discussed the origins of writing and how it has developed. There are many different tools, styles, and practices that have allowed me to improve my own writing. During this course, I wrote blog posts, journal entries, creative nonfiction, and even an audio cast. These different assignments enabled me to apply theories to current issues about writing, both scholarly and popular. This course taught me different writing techniques that I applied to my own projects.

In this course, I learned how my personal interests influenced how I read and write. Writing is able to show how peoples’ individual perspectives impact how they read, write, and process the world around us. Introduction to Creative Writing allowed me to step out of my comfort zone and explore ways of writing that I have never attempted. This course focused on workshop pieces, journal entries, in-class writing, and collaborative writing. The three workshop pieces were meant to give the writers the freedom to write about anything they wanted in any style. These assignments showed me that I enjoy writing memoirs and narrative pieces. I am most comfortable and strong when I write from experience. This course gave me techniques for developing voice and tone, trying new genres, and a space for sharing your writing in workshops.

In this course, I explored green rhetoric in American nature writing, including the creation, idealization, evocation, degradation, and conservation of the American wilderness. This course explored non-fiction, including memoirs, historical, and government documents that demonstrated the different rhetoric used when discussing the environment. This course focused on writing a nature memoir, op-ed, infographic, and social media posts that were compiled into one portfolio. In addition, I researched and presented a case study on the environmental movement, Extinction Rebellion. Overall this course allowed me to utilize rhetorical strategies, compose in multiple green rhetoric genres, and write for public, non-expert audiences.   

This course examines the relationship between rhetoric and ethics in writing. Persuasive writing is used in many different mediums from Facebook to Sophist of ancient Athens. It is a type of writing I did realize was so prominent in many fields like education, law, journalism, and politics. This course helped me develop skills to analyze and criticize text for rhetoric. I wrote reading responses, a professional persuasion profile, and a rhetorical field analysis during my time in this class. This course overall allowed me to identify unethical persuasive strategies, develop a personal philosophy of ethics and persuasion, and explain philosophies of argument.

This course examined different cultural narratives through ethnographic observation, gathering folklore, archaeological interpretation, and comic books. It also observed issues of tradition, religion, and identity. In Cultural Narratives, we read plays, poetry, short stories, and even watched documentaries. The assignments in this course consisted of workshop expansions of the readings and a final research project. The research project allowed me to build on a narrative on my choice. I chose to compile a cookbook based on recipes that had family memories attached to them. To do this project, I learned valuable interview, ethnographic, and research skills.

This course uses various landmark theories and perspectives to analyze popular culture and the importance of communication in the production and consumption of culture. We examined various artifacts of popular culture including music, movies, texts, advertisements, clothing, and other relevant pieces of popular culture. Throughout the course, we completed a reading extension, annotated bibliography, peer review, a class project presentation, and a critical media analysis. You can find my Critical Media Analysis under the Writing Minor tab. The overall goal of this course was to combine relevant scholarly theories with our own personal observations and interests in order to develop a careful, critical, and constructive analysis of popular culture.