Writing Program
Learning Effective Communication
The Writing Program introduces students to a wide array of principles and strategies of effective communication and argumentation.
The Writing Program focuses on writing in particular and communication in general as vehicles for learning through courses based on the Writing Across the Curriculum model, emphasizing written and oral communication throughout the university’s curriculum.
We believe that students are capable, intelligent people who need challenging projects to strengthen the abilities they have already developed and to build new ones. Our communication skills courses enable students to participate in new academic discourse communities and interdisciplinary intellectual situations, and to explore university-level strategies of mind, writing, and speaking in a variety of cross-disciplinary contexts.
Course Offerings
All students are required to take Writing 101 (Communication Skills) which is offered every semester. They are also required to take one 301 or 305 course. Electives do not count toward the required writing credits.
This course provides students with opportunities to practice a range of conventions, standards of proof, and ways of knowing that characterize language in the concentration areas that make up the SUA liberal arts education: the Humanities, Environmental Studies, Social and Behavioral Sciences, International Studies, and Life Sciences. In the process, students develop critical reading and thinking skills as well as competence in written and oral English so as to produce coherent, interesting, thoughtful, and largely error-free papers that are congruent with appropriate standards of academic discourse.
Writing 301 are advanced courses that provide students with opportunities to practice the kind of writing, research, and oral presentation skills that characterize topics and discourses related to particular concentration areas as preparation for graduate and/or professional work. To satisfy the upper-division writing requirement, students may select any WRIT 301 course that corresponds with their area(s) of interest.
- Writing for Environmental Studies
- Writing for Humanities
- Writing for International Studies
- Writing for Social and Behavioral Sciences
Writing 305 are advanced courses that provide students with opportunities to practice the kind of writing, research, and oral presentation skills that characterize topics and discourses related to particular areas as preparation for graduate and/or professional work. To satisfy the upper-division writing requirement, students may select any WRIT 305 course that corresponds with their area(s) of interest.
- The Rhetoric of Performance
- Rhetoric and Representation of 9/11
- Writing about Travel
- Women in Media
- Writing the Body
- Writing Borderlands
- The Politics of Visual Rhetoric
- The Idea of California
- Writing Race
- The Apocalypse
- WRIT 313 Experimental Critical Writing
- WRIT 314 Writing for New Media
- WRIT 315 Intro to Creative Writing
- WRIT 335 Writing about Film
- WRIT 350 Intro to Classical Rhetoric
Faculty Perspective
Kristi Wilson, PhD
Associate Professor of Composition and Rhetoric“Given the rapid pace of change in the world, preparing students for a dynamic future entails bolstering their communication toolkits and nurturing their writerly interests across cultures and academic disciplines. Students come to the classroom with their own perception skills that can engage with, challenge, and expand normative conceptions of knowledge production.”
Our Faculty
Our faculty come from a variety of backgrounds and intellectual traditions, allowing us to work in conjunction with the university’s mission to engage students as global citizens.
