Reminder: Spring 2025 Course Registration Will Take Place in Workday, Not WIN!
Please Speak with Your Primary Advisor BEFORE Your Registration Appointment Time to Get the Hold Released on Your Account. Information and Trainings on Student Registration in Workday Are Found Here: https://wakeday.wfu.edu/workday-student-support-for-students/.
Read through our current course offerings for Spring 2025 below.
Please note that the course information below is subject to change. For the most up-to-date information, please reference WRI course sections in Workday. Course sections for Spring 2025 will be published in Workday on Friday, October 18, 2024.
WRI 109, WRI 110, and WRI 111
WRI 109 A: Writing Seminar, Part 1: In Your Own Words
Prof. Erin Branch
WRI 109-A: MW 10:00-10:50am
In his book Rewriting: How to Do Things with Texts, compositionist Joseph Harris claims that in order to make any meaning of your own, you must “take the ideas and phrasings of [the original] author and turn them into your own.” If you have ever paraphrased or summarized a source for an essay you are writing, you are probably familiar with this move. While such writing can feel like simply an exercise in plagiarism avoidance, we can also view it as but one manifestation of our cultural tendency to remake, rework, repurpose, and remix material. How many contemporary songs sample clips from older ones? How many movie remakes or retellings of old stories have you seen? Graphic novel adaptations of traditional books? In every case, the new version doesn’t simply repeat the original; something new happens. The creators are putting that material in their own words.
In this class, we will practice telling our stories “in our own words,” but also in terms others will understand. We will develop strategies for listening in on the conversations–in popular and academic/professional culture–that interest us so that we can feel confident joining those conversations ourselves. After all, learning to represent the ideas of others fairly, ethically, and yet with an eye toward YOUR argument, is crucial not only for your academic and professional success but also for our common life together in civil society. Readings may include popular and academic essays; writings may include personal narratives, annotations, and remix projects.
WRI 110 A/B: Writing Seminar, Part 2: Decoding College: School Cultures/Home Cultures
Prof. Eric Ekstrand
WRI 110-A: MW 9:00-9:50am
WRI 110-B: MW 10:00-10:50am
You made it! You got into college, and goodness was that hard. Now, what is this place all about? As you begin your college coursework, maybe you will sense that there are unstated, new assumptions being made about your learning and writing that are different from those made in your schooling up to this point (and likely very different from those made outside of school—in your home and among your friends). You know the game has changed, but maybe you don’t know what the new rules are. In this class, through regular writing, reading, and discussion, we will try to make plain the various community values inherent in the literacy practices of students’ home and school lives, including college lives, and ways those practices are often in tension with one another. Ultimately, by doing this, we might be better equipped to both appropriate and challenge those values as we join new communities at college, both in and out of the classroom.
We will tense when Cedric Jennings, a first-year Black student at the overwhelmingly White and elite Brown University, threatens his straight White hallmates because they were ironically, playfully, acting “gay”—something no straight guy would ever do where Cedric grew up. We will root for Stephon Marbury and his friends from Coney Island as they navigate the economically and racially fraught world of college basketball recruitment. We will hear Mike Rose exclaim, tongue-in-cheek, “I just wanna be average!” We will see how differences in class and racialization can affect the interpretation of texts. We will ask, “Are there disadvantages to an “elite” education?”
Early in the semester, you will collect a week’s worth of all the writing you do (and I do mean all—text messages, notes (including marginal notes), social media posts, lab reports, emails, etc.) and choose three examples from your corpus on which you will write brief rhetorical genre analyses. Towards the middle of the semester, you will write an intertextual reflective essay about what college is really like based on your experience so far. At the end of the course, you will collect all of the writing you did for WRI 109 and 110 in a final portfolio where you will reflect on your writing and learning across the two classes. You will be asked to tell your own stories and stake your own claims by way of trying to answer these essential questions about education: For what? For whom? What counts, and why?
WRI 110 C: Writing Seminar, Part 2: Rhetoric of Remembering: Intersections of Personal and Public Memory
Prof. Cindy McPeters
WRI 110-C: TR 11:00-11:50am
How do words and other symbols impact how we recall people and events from the past? How do rhetorical choices influence our perceptions of history? By sharing our own stories and analyzing the stories of others, we will investigate the link between rhetoric and public memory. Guided by an examination of this relationship, we will concentrate on writing as a process and will practice skills applicable to many writing contexts.
WRI 110 D: Writing Seminar, Part 2: Writing for Inquiry
Prof. Jennifer Conlon
WRI 110-D: WF 11:00-11:50am
Do you have a curiosity or passion about something? Have you ever wanted to become an expert on a topic? In this choose-your-own-adventure style writing experience, you will begin the semester by selecting a topic of interest and will end as an expert in that topic. When we make inquiry, we move from curiosity into action: questioning, gathering information, and examining the facts. Your adventure will feature guided research and argumentation, and your questions will lay the path for exploring your topic. Once you choose your path, you will write a narrative examining your beliefs and experiences, conduct research, closely analyze sources, report your findings, and slay your topic by writing the ultimate argumentative essay.
WRI 110 E: Writing Seminar, Part 2: On Friendship
Prof. Marianne Erhardt
WRI 110-E: WF 1:00-1:50pm
This course offers students a space to write their way through an inquiry of friendship by engaging with a variety of friendship ideas and ideals — from the personal to the political, the mythological to the philosophical — as a means for developing and practicing rhetorical awareness, respectful critical engagement, and creative, meaningful collaboration. In short, we’re here to befriend writing.
A recent study out of Harvard found that 61% of young people ages 18-25 reported “serious loneliness. . . frequently or all of the time.” That’s nine students out of every 16-person WRI111 classroom. At the same time, our social media landscapes boast a plethora of friends and offer seemingly constant companionship, even in times of physical isolation (hello, pandemic!).
So what is real friendship and why does it matter? What makes a “good friend” and who determines what counts as “good”? What systems, standards, and experiences do we bring to the friendship table? What happens when we articulate, interrogate, develop, and revise these frameworks, while exploring other perspectives? Can we improve our friendships — with one another and with the communities, institutions, and planet we inhabit? What would it take, and how might “good writing” (which demands the same articulation, interrogation, development, exploration, and revision noted above) help us get better at friendship?
WRI 110 F: Writing Seminar, Part 2: Archival Rhetorics
Prof. Franziska Tsufim
WRI 110-F: TR 10:00-10:50am
In 1908, Wake Forest formally enshrined the university’s mission of being a force of good in the world in its motto pro humanitate. But a look into our institutional history shows that the motto’s ideal has often existed in tension with practices of exclusion. Did you know, for instance, that, only in 1942, women became eligible to enroll in the college, and that black students were barred from attendance until the university desegregated in 1962? Were you aware that, to this day, socioeconomic diversity on our campus remains aspirational?
In this writing seminar, we will visit the university’s Special Collections and Archives and explore how archival documents—produced at various critical moments in our institution’s history—encapsulate those stories of both idealism and exclusion. We will learn how to read archival documents not only for what they say explicitly but “against the grain” for the narratives of those who have historically been marginalized in the rhetorically constructed process of memory making. Most importantly, we will consider how we can communicate our findings with the wider campus community across varying rhetorical contexts and mediums that will include a class blog and a podcast project.
WRI 111 A/B/C: Writing Seminar: Everyday Rhetoric and Writing in Popular Culture
Prof. Kendra Andrews
WRI 111 A: TR 2:00-3:15pm
WRI 111 B: TR 3:30-4:45pm
WRI 111 C: TR 5:00-6:15pm
When we hear the term “rhetoric,” we typically think about the lectures of ancient philosophers or the speeches of tricky politicians; however, rhetoric is deeply ingrained in everyday aspects of our modern life. Rhetoric is a part of everything that surrounds us from the way that we dress to the things that we buy to the way that we communicate – any time that a message is communicated with an audience or purpose in mind, an argument is made and rhetoric is enacted. The influx of rhetorical messaging in everyday “texts” becomes even more striking as we spend more time online or on digital devices. While we are all subjected to thousands of rhetorical messages on a daily basis, we are often unaware of their power of persuasion.
In this class, we will look directly at the rhetorical messaging in our popular culture and ask questions such as: how does advertising shape the way we see the world? Can social media posts change the state of a nation? What could music videos or sitcoms tell us about academic genres? What are the ethical obligations of a celebrity or influencer? How does what we read online affect what we write and who we are as a culture? By asking these types of questions, we can break the cycle as mass consumers of popular culture and media and we will learn how to thoughtfully digest information and critically engage with the rhetorical world around us.
During this class, we will expand our understanding of rhetoric by locating examples of rhetorical texts in our everyday lives. Through the critical reading and analysis of popular media such as music videos, commercials, viral videos, and social media posts, we will begin to unpack the underlying power that these rhetorical messages have in our everyday lives. Throughout our rhetorical inquiry, we will read scholarly texts such as academic articles and conference presentations as well as non-scholarly texts such as song lyrics and a scene from popular television shows. We will not only have a wide range of readings, but we will also compose in multimodal ways. During this class, we will develop student-driven writing projects including argumentative rhetorical analysis, genre remix, individual blogging, and inquiry-based research. As part of our work in the class, we will also develop a writer’s website that demonstrates their engagement as critical consumers and producers of modern rhetorical texts.
WRI 111 D: Writing Seminar: Your Brain on Writing
Prof. Erin Branch
WRI 111-D: MWF 11:00-11:50am
In late 2022, the arrival of ChatGPT struck fear in the hearts of teachers everywhere and prompted journalists and pundits to proclaim the death of the essay. While the full impact of this new tool (and others like it) remains to be seen, what is known is that thinkers have debated for centuries how and why we write–and what writing is good for. In fact, Socrates himself thought writing was nothing more than a useful reminder.
But his view runs directly counter to what many writing scholars know today, which is that writing is one way to figure out what we think. Writing is not, despite romantic ideals to the contrary, the simple transcription of clear and distinct ideas from brain to page (or screen).
Ideas and arguments develop through the process of writing itself, messy as that might be. As Anne Carson writes, writing is about “the struggle to drag a thought over from the mush of the unconscious into some kind of grammar, syntax, human sense; every attempt means starting over with language, starting over with accuracy.”
This course will investigate ideas about what exactly IS happening in our brains when we write, and how modern technology intersects with those processes. We’ll study arguments about invention and the writing process from various fields as we develop our own protocols for capturing, articulating, and analyzing writing processes. Readings may include philosophical arguments, academic research articles, contemporary journalism, and personal essays; the course culminates in the publication of a digital magazine of students writing.
WRI 111 E/F: Writing Seminar: What’s (Y)our Story?
Prof. Keri Epps
WRI 111-E: TR 9:30-10:45am
WRI 111-F: TR 12:30-1:45pm
Stories help us understand ourselves and others. Stories serve as the foundation for human connection and communication. We use our own and others’ stories to direct our responses in nearly every communicative act.
In this class, we will compose, analyze, and collect stories, or narratives, in a range of genres and media to explore the role that narrative plays in argumentation and persuasion in and outside of academic settings. We will consider the following questions: What is my story? What are others’ stories that challenge my own? What roles do stories play in research? What are the stories existing around me at Wake Forest or in the Winston-Salem community?
To begin answering such questions, we will engage with readings on narrative from composition studies and from viral storytelling campaigns like Brandon Stanton’s “Humans of New York.” We will use the readings and our writing assignments to consider the many roles of narrative: as a therapeutic tool, as a way of knowing, a means of translating our lived experience, a rhetorical device, among others (Countryman, 1995; Kurtyka, 2017).
By the end of the semester, to reach the course goals, you will have engaged in a writing process—including rounds of drafting, feedback, and revision—to complete three major writing assignments and a final portfolio. The sequence of major assignments ranges from composing personal stories, identifying and responding to stories that challenge our own, and finding disciplinary or professional genres where narrative is used as evidence, to collecting and compiling community stories in both print and digital spaces.
WRI 111 G/H: Writing Seminar: On Play and Games
Prof. Marianne Erhardt
WRI 111-G: MWF 10:00-10:50am
WRI 111-H: MWF 11:00-11:50am
In this class, we will write our way through an inquiry of games and play. What is play and why do we do it? What is the value of play and who determines that value? How does play function for children? For adults? What is play’s relationship to privilege? Who gets to play? What makes a game work? What makes it fair? How do our ways of playing and pretending reflect and shape culture?
We’ll treat writing itself as a form of play. Writers use tools. We make, follow and break rules. We write to explore, to attempt, to persuade, to win, to question, and to make sense of. Writing is an act of play that has the potential to engage countless readers, playmates, competitors, and referees. Our topics may include gender and children’s toys; the games of dating, politics, and school; play and technology; music, entertainment, and sports and sports fandom.
This time in our world brings a new chapter for play. Quarantine and social distancing have fostered and disrupted many kinds of play, and have forced us to confront our personal relationships with play’s neighbors: creativity, boredom, fear, risk, inspiration, improvisation, and connection. We’ll explore all of these, as we write in a variety of genres, using peer workshops to develop our writing skills and our class community.
WRI 111 I/J: Writing Seminar: Rewriting
Prof. Danielle Koupf
WRI 111-I: TR 2:00-3:15pm
WRI 111-J: TR 3:30-4:45pm
“No text is sacred. The best writers know this. Fiction or nonfiction, poetry or reportage, it can all be endlessly tinkered with, buffed, polished, reshaped, rearranged.” –Jennifer B. McDonald, The New York Times
Many writers have claimed that all writing is rewriting. In this class, we will explore this sentiment by engaging in three dominant forms of rewriting. First, we will regularly tinker in class—that is, creatively rewrite the texts we are reading (both published texts and student texts) to gain greater insight into them and to practice new writing techniques. Through tinkering, we will modify, improve, and in fact, sabotage others’ texts. Second, we will learn to position our ideas among others by carefully reading texts and (re)writing their ideas into our essays, whether by summarizing, forwarding, countering, critiquing, or imitating them. Finally, we will embrace McDonald’s notion, above, that “No text is sacred” and pursue substantial revision of our own texts by reimagining significant parts of them, such as the focus, argument, evidence, or organization.
We will read and respond to essays on a variety of topics by authors such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walker Percy, Alan Lightman, Teju Cole, Eula Biss, and Emily Raboteau, while also examining different takes on revision as presented by writers such as Joseph Harris and Nancy Sommers. This class challenges you to approach writing as a recursive process, to mess with writing that might already feel complete, and to take seriously the ideas of others and respond to them thoughtfully and patiently. You will leave this class with new stylistic, grammatical, and rhetorical techniques for writing; skills in integrating quotations and writing the voices of others into your writing; experience with substantial revision; and a portfolio of essays that have been carefully shaped, reshaped, and shaped again.
WRI 111 K/L: Writing Seminar: Argumentation and Civil Discourse
Prof. Zak Lancaster
WRI 111-K: WF 11:00-12:15pm
WRI 111-L: WF 2:00-3:15pm
Many people think of argumentation in terms of armed combat: two sides pitched against each other, staking claims, launching attacks and counter-attacks, and defending and strengthening their positions. Such combative language pervades our ordinary conceptions of argumentation, and it shapes how we make arguments (even in academia). Seemingly neutral descriptors like “defending your position,” “finding common ground,” and even “making concessions” are fundamentally based in conflict. But how do we advance dialogue if our aim is to overcome opponents? Research in the social sciences suggests we do not: When we try to persuade others through argumentation, even through gentle presentation of facts, people often resist and dig in, rejecting evidence that conflicts with their beliefs. In this course, we will embrace these challenges as we practice argumentation from a range of perspectives. We will explore views on argumentation from cognitive psychologists and linguists to literature and rhetoric scholars to popular writers. You will practice using a variety of argument strategies on topics of interest to you, and you will learn how arguments work across fields and disciplines. You will learn how to motivate your argument, identify stakes, engage fairly and generously with others’ perspectives, position your evidence, embrace evidence that does not support your views, and express both open-mindedness and authority as you write.
WRI 111 M: Writing Seminar: Writing as Public Action
Prof. Alisa Russell
WRI 111-M: WF 12:30-1:45pm
No matter your major or career goals, writing will be part of your regular routine because it is how we record, communicate, argue, inform, understand, and share ideas across time and space. In the first half of the course, we will focus on learning the language of GENRE — the way various elements of writing (e.g., author/audience, main claims/stakes, evidence/appeals, organization/formatting, tone/style) come together in patterned ways to achieve particular actions in the world. You will gain the analytical language and tools (including ChatGPT) to figure out any new genre you may encounter in the future. Even more, we will keep a critical eye on these genres (e.g., who gets included and excluded? what values do they emphasize?), and we will even play with the boundaries of genre to investigate their flexibility.
In the second half of the course, we will use our new knowledge of genre to write about the public issues we care about most. You will choose which genres would best fulfill your chosen purpose and reach your chosen audiences in order to accomplish the public actions that will bring about positive change in your communities. We will compose genres across modes and mediums, and we will practice shifting rhetorical strategies from genre to genre to build our flexibility. We will especially consider how composing is rather messy: We’ll explore a number of writing processes and strategies — including how to use ChatGPT as a tool for invention and revision — and you can experiment with which ones work for you. We’ll also find that writing is an inherently social activity; you will use your peers (and me) as resources for feedback and growth in your writing skills as part of your process.
WRI 111 N/O: Writing Seminar: Rhetorics of Music
Prof. (Richard) Carter Smith
WRI 111-N: MW 2:00-3:15pm
WRI 111-O: MW 5:00-6:15pm
Have you debated with a friend the merits of a particular song? Have you sought out an interview with one of your favorite artists or followed a music blog? This seminar considers the ways in which arguments about music—the intentions of music makers, the methods used to realize them, and the way that listeners register their effects—are integral to the meanings that we find in it. Reading a variety of literary and musicological texts, we will consider what we “get” from music and also how we get it, as its audience and as consumers. Our readings and conversations on these matters will allow us to analyze the situatedness of musical texts, and texts about those texts, with the goal of entering into the conversation with our own effective writing.
WRI 111 P/Q: Writing Seminar: Eco-Mindfulness
Prof. Elisabeth Whitehead
WRI 111-P: MWF 11:00-11:50am
WRI 111-Q: MWF 12:00-12:50pm
The environmental painter Morris Graves defined contemplation as “stilling the surfaces of the mind and letting the inner surfaces bloom.” In this course we will practice stilling the mind’s surface through exercises of concentration, meditation, listening, and reflection, and from this place of contemplative inquiry we will investigate issues related to our environment and the natural world. By practicing mindfulness, awareness, and attention (awareness of ourselves, each other, our writing, and our interconnectedness to the natural world) we will begin to cultivate the space we need as writers, as well as the qualities of listening, observation, and empathy necessary to foster ethical communication and environmental advocacy. We will begin by grounding ourselves in personal observation and our experience of our natural environments. Through close reading, discussion, and writing we will also develop a greater understanding of rhetorical knowledge and advocacy, exploring various issues related to environmental justice and sustainability. Readings may include the work of Joy Harjo, Barbara Kingsolver, Bill McKibben, Jon Krakauer, N. Scott Momaday, Terry Tempest Williams, and Wendell Berry.
WRI 111 R/S: Writing Seminar: Wander, Gather, Write
Prof. Guy Witzel
WRI 111-R: MWF 8:00-8:50am
WRI 111-S: MWF 9:00-9:50am
How often do you let your mind wander? How often do you allow your thoughts to drift without purpose? And what about your feet? Is there time in your schedule to step away from your work, step out into the world, and let happenstance and a good pair of shoes surprise you? Do you know the joys of strolling through the park, hitting the streets, hiking the trail, or otherwise getting your steps in? Such meandering journeys, whether in the land of daydreams or on dirt paths, can freshen your perspective and focus your attention in startling ways.
In this course we view wandering, be it out in the world or within the boundlessness of our very skulls, as vital to the practice of good writing. This may seem strange when we describe, for instance, the strong academic essay as focused, well-organized, and logical. And yet, without time to experiment, think on the page, stumble upon the unexpected, and gather new insights and experiences, strong writing rarely manifests.
Writing and wandering have long been fellow travelers. Our earliest written stories are rich with journeys, flights, migrations, and adventures-on-foot. This course invites students to embrace this tradition—symbolically, yes, through writing activities designed to let your mind roam free while improving your skills as a writer. But this course also asks students to venture forth literally. Assignments and class sessions will take students out of the classroom and onto the paths that wind through and just beyond campus, all in an effort to find and refine one’s voice, style, and place as a writer. Consequently, students will leave this course better equipped to gather and assess evidence, map critical conversations, challenge common sense, and invent meaning through writing.
WRI 111 T: Writing Seminar: Weird Nature
Prof. Guy Witzel
WRI 111-T: MWF 11:00-11:50am
How should we describe our relationship with nature today? As a subject of anxiety given headlines, scientific reports, and frequent natural disasters? As something more often experienced on screens rather than in everyday life? As a means of temporary escape amidst a global pandemic? Or, despite the challenges of our time, an enduring source of wonder, recreation, and connection with something greater than ourselves? Humanity’s relationship with nature has long animated the written word. This has been the case even and especially when that relationship has become confusing, fraught, and just plain weird. In this course, we will study how writers, researchers, and makers of culture examine our shifting and sometimes strange relationships with the natural world. These works will provide a lens from which to consider and practice various genres, rhetorical strategies, and writing conventions.
We’ll start by studying writers who challenge our ordinary perceptions of nature through estrangement, examining the rhetoric and conventions they use to render the familiar foreign. To practice new critical thinking, reading, and writing skills we will generate a variety of texts that respond to this body of work. From there, we will each work to translate our findings into analyses that put forward our own, divergent ecological visions. For this and other major assignments we will move through drafting and peer-editing phases that will help us become more comfortable with the processes of invention and revision that support strong writing.
We will also consider recent critical and creative works that examine the challenging ecological questions of our time. These works will create opportunities for us to study how major public dialogues unfold as well as the techniques we may use in order to shape these conversations ourselves. By the end of this class, you will be better equipped to make arguments, present evidence, challenge common sense, and invent meaning through writing.
WRI 111 U/V/W: Writing Seminar: Words for Water: Environmental Writing and Civic Action
Prof. Sebastián Terneus
WRI 111-U: TR 8:00-9:15am
WRI 111-V: TR 9:30-10:45am
WRI 111-W: TR 12:30-1:45pm
Who has access to clean water in Winston-Salem, and why? How can rivers prevent microplastics from entering the ocean? What can Hurricane Helene teach us about North Carolina’s future climate? What do pigs have to do with our water quality? Want to help clean up a local waterway on campus?
This semester, we will explore these questions to understand how water issues affect North Carolina. By focusing on local water challenges—such as pollution, climate change, and public policy—you will develop strong skills in persuasive and research-based writing. Our class discussions will help you engage with diverse perspectives on water issues that consider factors such as race, ethnicity, social class, and gender. We will also turn our education into action by cleaning up local waterways to improve the health of Winston-Salem’s environment. At the end of the semester, you will emerge as an empowered writer with a deeper understanding of environmental advocacy and how you can address these pressing concerns.
WRI 111 X/Y/Z: Writing Seminar: Re-Vision: Narratives of Mental Health
Prof. Elena Makarion
WRI 111-X: WF 9:30-10:45am
WRI 111-Y: WF 12:30-1:45pm
WRI 111-Z: WF 2:00-3:15pm
Who wouldn’t want to be healthy? In recent years, conversations about wellness and mental health have exploded. But what exactly is health, who gets to define it, and what is at stake in the shapes it takes across contexts? By drawing from an expansive collection of sources, ranging from 19th century asylum narratives, to evolving medical diagnostic criteria, to poems and novels, we will uncover cultural assumptions and imperatives in popular and medical discourses. Further, we will explore histories of disability, asking how gender, religion, race, and class impacts how someone is diagnosed and treated. For example, we will consider how metaphors (why is depression described as blue and black and not yellow?) or genres (how does a social media quiz like do you have depression? impose on one’s identity) shape our self-understandings and relations with others. By making visible the social constructions of language, we will become aware of our own writing choices and biases and the impact they have on others’ lives. Such questions will enable us to think about our own positionality and to consider where we write from.
Primarily, this course will prepare you to engage in your future academic, personal, and career writing. We will focus on developing your voice and craft, understanding your composing processes through reflective writing, and applying rhetorical and research tools to convincingly present your ideas to an audience. Additionally, we will read writers who have imagined what individual and collective healing might look like, and we’ll speculate alongside these authors what the process of writing can encompass in our personal and public lives today. Together, we will consider what inventive techniques authors used to navigate a vulnerable ethos and how we can borrow from their writing moves. Your assignments will include close readings, essays, creative writing, practice with analysis, peer workshops, keeping a reflective notebook, and seminar style class discussions.
WRI 111 ZA/ZB/ZC: Writing Seminar: School, Competition, Grades, Writing
Prof. Jeremy Levine
WRI 111-ZA: WF 9:30-10:45am
WRI 111-ZB: WF 11:00-12:15pm
WRI 111-ZC: WF 2:00-3:15pm
Wake Forest University is built on our motto, Pro Humanitate. We see our school as a force for good in the world, as graduates use what they learned here for the benefit of local and global communities. Outside of Wake, you’ll hear many teachers and civic leaders describe schooling in general as a public good, the lifeblood of a democracy. And yet, you had to fight your way here. In high school, you had to contend with grading, AP classes, testing, college rankings, and many other measures indicating that schooling is not a universal good, but instead a game to be won. So, which is it? Is school the center of our democratic commons, or is it a game and a prize to be won?
In this class, we will explore how the idea of school-as-competition shapes how we learn and write. We will consider how our stances toward writing, and our writing strategies, are shaped by the school system’s emphasis on grades and rules. We’ll also develop practical strategies for making our own decisions about our writing. To do so, we will have honest and challenging conversations about grading, language, class, race, and power to understand how these structures have seeped into our schooling and writing. We’ll also work on persuasive, reflective, analytic, and research pieces, through which we will find a new path for ourselves and our communities through the game of school.
WRI 111 ZD/ZE: Writing Seminar: Voices from the Forest
Prof. Franziska Tsufim
WRI 111-ZD: TR 12:30-1:45pm
WRI 111-ZE: TR 2:00-3:15pm
In the almost two hundred years since its founding, thousands upon thousands of students have walked the grounds of Wake Forest University. All of them had an abundance of stories to tell. And so do you! This writing seminar invites you to listen for the echoes of past and present voices on our campus. As we visit the press rooms of our campus newspaper, dig through the university archives, and interview community members for a class podcast, we will respond to those echoes, all while witnessing how our own writerly voices shift and change with the genres, modes, and mediums we compose in. The framework of voice will prompt us to critically engage with rhetorical key concepts, and to approach writing as a social activity that allows us to enter into conversation with an audience.
Your first assignment will be an op-ed piece drafted for Wake Forest’s student newspaper, the Old Gold & Black. Your op-ed will respond to current campus events by drawing on the experiences and expertise you personally bring to this university. Next, we will time travel in the university archives to watershed moments in our institutional history. Engaging with current scholarly discourses, you will interrogate both the voices preserved by the archive and its gaping silences in a source-based analysis paper. We will end the semester by literally using our voice: Coalescing into groups, you will research, develop, and record a podcast episode for our class podcast “Voices from the Forest.” Your podcast will present and analyze a pressing dilemma in higher education and put opposing voices from this campus into conversation with one another. Sample topics could include free speech and the university, or AI and academic integrity.
WRI 111 ZF: Writing Seminar: Writing: Linguistics, Language, and Communication
Prof. Gail Clements
WRI 111-ZF: TR 11:00-12:15pm
This course begins with discourse analysis of communicative and argument strategies, uncovering the motivations and underlying meanings behind spoken and written texts through the lens of various social and historical contexts. We will transition to how these motivations and meanings can be useful in our own writing employing various rhetorical modes and moves (along with literary and linguistic strategies) to create pieces that will be socially, culturally, politically, educationally relevant.
WRI 111 ZG/ZH/ZI: Writing Seminar: The Story of the Story
Prof. Adam Fagin
WRI 111-ZG: TR 11:00-12:15pm
WRI 111-ZH: TR 12:30-1:45pm
WRI 111-ZI: TR 3:30-4:45pm
“We think we tell stories,” writes Rebecca Solnit, “but stories often tell us…The task of learning to be free requires learning to hear them, to question them, to pause and hear silence, to name them, and then to become the storyteller.” In this class, we’ll take Solnit’s words to heart, interrogating the modes and methods of storytelling while exploring our own narratives in a variety of writing contexts.
Our work and the works we’ll read will privilege ambiguity and openness while refusing easy resolution, searching for the big questions and ideas that drive us. Along the way, we’ll read texts by Ben Lerner, Maggie Nelson, Jenny Boully, Claudia Rankine, and many others, exploring how stories move and motivate us, how they influence our thinking and shape our worlds as we write at the intersection of personal experience, public history, language, and culture.
In addition, we’ll read and think across genre, considering writing that combines the poetic, essayistic, and graphic, and investigate various media, including podcasts and film. Some of the work we’ll discuss defies formal convention. Some use a traditional approach to explore the meta-narratives threaded through our lives. We’ll see what possibilities await as we merge critical and creative approaches to composition, discovering that writing is a recursive process which relies on invention, experimentation, and revision.
WRI 111 ZJ/ZK: Writing Seminar: Queering the Narrative
Prof. Jennifer Conlon
WRI 111-ZJ: WF 2:00-3:30pm
WRI 111-ZK: WF 3:30-4:45pm
“Queer as not being about who you’re having sex with – that can be a dimension of it – but queer as being about the self that is at odds with everything around it and has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.”
–bell hooks, conversation at Eugene Lang College
From pop culture to academia, queer narratives are often equated with sexuality. As bell hooks states, being a queer person can include sexuality, but there is an important aspect of queerness we will focus on in this class: transformation. Queer folks have had to create and imagine new ways to survive and thrive in the world. So what does this mean for writing and thinking? To queer a narrative or idea means we will read and write and revise with attention to form and context, to challenge systems of power including patriarchy, capitalism, imperialism, whiteness, cisgenderism, and heteronormativity. As writers and thinkers, we will “garner strength from the diversity of people’s stories, the diversity of people’s imagination” (bell hooks).
In this course, we will learn about narrative and the ethics of storytelling by enacting queer reading lenses and interrogating traditional models of writing. We will read the memoirs Pretty by KB Brookins and How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee, among excerpts and essays from James Baldwin, Nishta J. Mehra, Saeed Jones, Maia Kobabe, and more. We will analyze queer narratives through short stories, poetry, and experimental genres by writers including Jada Renée Allen, George Abraham, Chen Chen, torrin a. greathouse, Carmen Maria Machado, and Shirley Jackson. We’ll also examine queerness in pop culture such as television, movies, music, and social media. Students will write and re-imagine various genres and forms including personal narrative, analysis, argument, and creative writing.
As we discuss readings and construct our own writing, we will consider Timothy Oleksiak’s definition of queer rhetorical listening, in which “we catch ourselves in an unending stream of response and transformation…An unending commitment to be transforming.” To this end, we will explore the following questions: How does writing relate to identity formation? What does it mean to queer the writing process? How is queerness constructed under systems of power? How does queer writing and rhetoric affect our individual lives, relationships, and communities? And how can queer lenses help us challenge and explore new meanings? Together, as bell hooks imagined, we will “invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.”
WRI 111 ZL/ZM/ZN: Writing Seminar: Rhetoric and Literacy for Life
Prof. Sara Littlejohn
WRI 111-ZL: TR 2:00-3:15pm
WRI 111-ZM: TR 3:30-4:45pm
WRI 111-ZN: TR 5:00-6:15pm
In a globally connected world, what does it mean to be literate today? We can see that power and knowledge flow through media in digital networks, and in order to gain access to that power, we must understand the history, structure, and language of rhetoric and literacy.
In this course we will take literacy beyond traditional print-based forms to include multiple ways of knowing, such as visual, spatial, aural, gestural, and multimodal forms. As you already know and experience, “texts” are rarely limited to print only; they are more often images, video, sounds, and shapes or some combination of these forms, expressed in digital contexts. This course immerses you in both the theory and practice of multiple literacies and considers how technology and the internet has made (and continues to make) this environment even more complex.
As a framework for writing, we will develop a working knowledge of foundational rhetorical terms and theory while examining the broader concepts of literacy. We will focus on various forms of writing, including the traditional essay as well as other genres. Your assignments will include readings, draft work, peer review, analysis, critical reflection, and revision.
WRI 111 ZO/ZP: Writing Seminar: Rhetoric of Remembering: Intersections of Personal and Public Memory
Prof. Cindy McPeters
WRI 111-ZO: TR 2:00-3:15pm
WRI 111-ZP: TR 3:30-4:45pm
How do personal experiences contribute to larger recollections of past events? How do symbols—linguistic and visual—reflect public memory? What do communities choose to remember and to forget? With particular attention to recognition of people often neglected in public memory, we will scrutinize intersections of rhetoric and history, delving into primary sources and examining secondary sources such as memorial sites and museums, to consider how rhetoric impacts narratives of the past.
Guided by examination of the relationship between rhetoric and public memory—through readings from popular media, literature, and academic sources as well as through examination of monuments to honor people and events—you will flex your rhetorical muscles in varied genres. Through your Writer’s Notebook, you will engage informally with invention, analysis, and critical thinking, while small group activities will provide space to collaborate and practice analytical skills. You will rely on several submitted drafts, instructor feedback, peer reviews, and revision plans to polish major assignments such as Personal Narrative of a Public Memory, Rhetorical Analysis of a Public Memorial, Primary Source Research Project, and a semester-concluding Critical Reflection. Concentrating on writing as a process, writing to learn, and writing to communicate, you will exercise skills applicable to many writing contexts, whether academic, professional, public, or personal.
200- & 300-Level WRI Course Sections
WRI 210 A: Exploring Academic Genres
Prof. Keri Epps
WRI 210-A: TR 3:30-4:45pm
We often approach “academic writing” as if it is constructed from a set of predetermined—and perhaps inexplicable—rules. This course aims to demystify some of these “rules” and ways academic writing comes to be. To do so, we will use rhetorical genre studies as a primary lens and examine sample texts from across genres and disciplines to learn how academic writing represents the needs and values of the discourse communities that use it.
We will consider questions such as the following: what counts as evidence in this disciplinary genre? How do writers position themselves toward their research and toward their readers? What does the writing reveal about how disciplinary writers value knowledge creation and dissemination in their fields? Throughout the semester, you will analyze patterns and conventions of academic writing and practice using some of the rhetorical strategies you discover to develop your own writing for discourse communities that you care about most.
WRI 212 A: Literary Nonfiction: The Art of the Essay
Prof. Elisabeth Whitehead
WRI 212-A: MW 2:00-3:15pm
The word essay (essai) comes to us from Michel de Montaigne, who in the late 1500’s turned to a practice of self-observation in his writing, as a way to better understand and reflect on the human experience. He named the form after a word meaning attempt or trial. Montaigne asks, “What do I know?” highlighting the importance of discovery, exploration, and attempt in the process of writing. In a similar spirit, this course is designed toward your own discovery: of the form itself, as well as a deepening of your own ideas and writing life. During the semester we will read and practice rhetorical and literary analysis, considering a variety of authors, styles, and forms of the literary essay. Your deep engagement with the texts will be the starting point for your own writing. We will also engage in a number of contemplative exercises as a way to slow down, open to a greater capacity for depth, listening, self-reflection, and empathy—all necessary for us as writers. In the end, your success in this course depends on your willingness to take risks, experiment, slow down, and dive deeply with curiosity into what Michael Depp calls “that inconclusive, most outwardly formless of forms.”
WRI 340 A/640 AG: Practice in Rhetoric and Composition: Writing with Images
Prof. Eric Ekstrand
WRI 340-A/640-AG: MW 12:30-1:45pm
*No visual artistic experience or talent required–this course is for everyone!
In this course, we will develop rhetorical awareness of how text and images make meaning together in genres like graphic novels and short stories, rotoscoped film, born digital literature, and slide presentations as well as the visual domain of lettering and type. We will develop this rhetorical awareness through reading and rhetorically analyzing examples of these genres as well as practical-critical texts like Paul Auster, Paul Kresik, and David Mazzucheli’s graphic adaptation of City of Glass; Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics; Anne Carson’s NOX; John Hodgson’s short film “Feeling My Way”; and selections from Ed Tufte, especially Seeing with Fresh Eyes: Meaning Space Data Truth, for instance. We will apply this developing visual-rhetorical knowledge in projects like “remixing” a found text to a graphic medium using scrap paper, found images, text, and expressive drawing; erasures with collage; and a performative text that includes discarded film slides and slide projectors. There will be a significant studio element to the course where we will work on our projects together and consider each other’s work in process. At the end of this course, you should be able to more fruitfully write with images.
WRI 340 counts as an elective in the English major.
WRI 340 B: Practice in Rhetoric and Composition: Flow
Prof. Danielle Koupf
WRI 340-B: TR 12:30-1:45pm
When we writers reflect on a piece of writing, we often remark on its “flow.” It flows well. It doesn’t flow well. What do we mean when we use the word flow in this way? What is “good flow,” and how do we achieve it as writers? How important is “good flow” anyway? In this course, we will investigate these questions through analysis and production of all sorts of texts.
“Flow” seems to describe both a state of mind (when the writing is flowing well) and the state of a text (whether it coheres together). We will consider both aspects of flow with an emphasis on the latter. We will explore terms like structure, organization, meta-discourse, coherence, and cohesion in depth and learn to analyze writing for these properties. We will examine writing from different academic disciplines, as well as the options available in public, professional, digital, and creative writing, with attention to genres such as the five-paragraph essay, the IMRAD research paper, the collage essay, the lyric essay, the hermit crab essay, and digital writing. We will read and create writing that both does and does not “flow” to better discern flow’s role in effective discourse.
You will leave this course with strategies for getting into the flow of your writing and for constructing writing with and without cohesion and coherence, alongside a portfolio of diverse writing that has been drafted, reviewed, and revised.
WRI 340 counts as an elective in the English major.
WRI 341 A/641 AG: Writing Center Pedagogy
Prof. Ryan Shirey
WRI 341-A/641-AG: TR 2:00-3:15pm
Introduction to composition pedagogy and writing center theory and practices, with special emphases on one-to-one and small group peer tutoring techniques. The course includes classroom-based work – reading, writing, responding, discussing, and exploring instruction and consultation processes – and field experiences. Students spend a total of 20 hours observing in writing classrooms, the WFU Writing Center and/or community sites, and tutoring. Students reflect on these experiences to prepare a final researched writing project. Required for those interested in working in the Writing Center as peer tutors.
WRI 341 counts as an elective in the English major.
WRI 350: Writing Minor Capstone
Prof. Alisa Russell
WRI 350-A: WF 9:30-10:45am
All of your interdisciplinary writing minor courses have led you here: Each course in the minor provided the opportunity to engage different topics, concepts, and projects in writing. Now, this capstone course provides the opportunity to reflect on, consolidate, and expand your engagement with writing as both a flexible tool across situations and as the subject of inquiry-based research. First, we will review key concepts in writing (rhetoric, genre, discourse community, transfer, disciplinarity, etc.) by reflecting on, analyzing, and repurposing your own writing from across your undergraduate career. Then, you will have a chance to design and conduct your own research project on a topic of interest to you by selecting appropriate methods in Writing Studies. Finally, you will construct a public website for professional or personal purposes that showcases your writing range, narrativizes your writing development, and demonstrates the relationship between your rhetorical savvy and your interests/goals.
Permission of Department is required – Please submit a Course Section Prerequisite Override in Workday to request permission to take this course.