Spring 2014
Overview
Writing and Rhetoric 420 is a senior seminar that acts as a capstone to your education as a WRRH major or minor. Capstone courses require you to synthesize, theorize, apply, and advance various skills and concepts that you have learned throughout your major or minor coursework. This course will ask you to write extensively, to think critically about your own work and the work of your peers, to synthesize old writing and produce new arguments about it, and to pursue the goal shared by professional writers: publication.
WRRH 420 is structured around two major components that draw on your experiences in the program. The first, a portfolio, is designed to help you synthesize your learning as a Writing and Rhetoric major or minor. This portfolio asks you to provide evidence that you have a strong understanding of the learning practices that undergird all WRRH courses and to articulate the intellectual trajectory of your work as a Writing and Rhetoric major or minor. The second major component of the course is a substantial publishable work, which requires you to learn and follow the publishing process that many professional writers engage in: choose a text you would like to publish, select a venue for the text, analyze the venue, revise (extensively) your text for that venue, and submit the piece for publication. In addition, you will engage in many smaller steps along the way including proposing your ideas, workshopping in writing groups, and presenting your work in a public forum.