My Writing Minor
I completed my minor in Writing Practices at the University of Denver. Along this road I have partaken in a variety of writing courses. This page is dedicated to providing example coursework, along with the initial purpose for the class. These courses shaped me as a writer and the pieces produced display my writing journey over the past four years.
ComPosing the university
Did School Teach You TOO Much?
ALLan Borst: Winter 2016
Who is the University of Denver addressing when it describes itself as “a great private university dedicated to the public good?” What arguments about higher education are students, faculty, and administrators making on our campus or on other campuses around the country? During this course, I developed skills that help me recognize and better navigate the “rhetorical landscape” of the campus and the university. In addition to sharpening my observational and analytical skills, I also am honing writing strategies and techniques that enable me to better address and engage with rhetorical situations I might encounter on campus and beyond.
Writing and Research
How Does Cultural Appropriation Effect our Social World?
Zoe Tobier: Spring 2016
In this section of WRIT 1133, I studied contemporary beliefs about cultural and individual authenticity alongside cases that challenge these beliefs. The cases I researched and wrote about, drew upon scholarship from the academic fields of gender, media, and cultural studies, cover topics including Andy Warhol, Andy Kaufman, Mardi Gras, JT Leroy, catfishing, vogue balls, pow-wows, and target marketing. I also studied research traditions themselves, to understand how different kinds of research questions take shape. I had opportunities to develop and conduct several independent writing and research projects, resulting in the completion of at least 20 pages of revised and polished writing by the end of the quarter
Introduction
To creative Writing
An Insight Upon The Peaceful Purpose of Gang Life
Natalie Rogers Autumn 2016
In this course, I explored how socially conscious writing addresses racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of oppression through stories. I seeked inspiration from writers who challenge social and literary conventions through fiction and nonfiction. I examined works that employ realist, surrealist, epistolary, and comic devices in order to delve into the relationship between a work’s formal structure and its social critique. In what ways do these narratives challenge social norms, and in what ways do they reinforce them? How can I write about serious contemporary issues in inventive ways? What is the role of joy and play in these narratives? In class, we discussed techniques and generated ideas for our creative work through in-class writing exercises. Each student was responsible for producing two fiction or nonfiction works of 5-8 pages, a final revision of one of these two pieces, a critical presentation, as well as written and oral commentary on other student work.
Literary Inquiry: Mosnters and Monstrosity
Rachel Feder:
Spring 2017
How Racism Leads to Monstrosity in Society
Embodiments of anxiety, transgression, and transformation, monsters lurk at the margins of literary and cultural history. In this course, we will study monster narratives in the context of social, political, literary, and scientific change, and will bring this knowledge to bear on a critical examination of the vampires, zombies, werewolves, and other demons that haunt contemporary culture. From Mary Wollstonecraft’s radical fiction to Dracula, this course analyzed the ways in which eighteenth-and nineteenth-century British literature conceptualizes monstrosity in, as, and through its treatment of human nature and culture. In particular, class discussions interrogated the ways in which authors use monstrosity to respond to shifting understandings of religion, revolution, education, gender, and
sexuality. Turning to contemporary culture, we crafted original, critical responses to the monsters of our own historical moment, and
wrote our own monster narratives in response to current social, political, and environmental phenomena.
Crossing borders in Latin/x literature
The Limitation's and Power's of DACA
Kristy Ulibarri:
Autumn 2017
Kristy Ulibarri:
Autumn 2017
This course introduced me to the field of Latina/o/x literature through the topic of border crossing and im/migration. We primarily approached this body of literature through fiction and poetry that explores transnational identities, border fortification, security theater, and globalization. This body of literature describes narratives written by/about those living in the U.S. who descend from Latin America and share the history of Spanish colonialism in the Americas. We explored how these narratives build and breach borders, both literally and figuratively. We also will discuss the political and social contexts and subtexts of these narratives by looking at the larger discourses that surround immigration and border fortification in the U.S.: illegality, nativism, Juan Crow, the Brown Peril, xenophobia, and calls to build a wall.
Creative Writing: Fiction
Exploring the Rhetoric Behind One's Thoughts
Thirii Myint:
Winter 2018
Virginia Woolf said, “If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.” This course aimed to build a nurturing classroom community where each student can honestly explore his/her/their identity as a writer. Why do you write? What do you have to say? How do you feel you have to say it? Keeping these questions in mind, I created and revised original works of fiction—flash fiction pieces, short stories, novel excerpts, or hybrid/genre-defying works. I also read and discussed novels and short stories, from the 19th century to the present decade, in order to trace how different writers have engaged with voice and human consciousness over time.
Critical Communication
Inquiry
What Does It Mean TO BE a Citizen?
Sara Baugh:
Spring 2018
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This course focused on the process of interpreting, understanding, and evaluating everyday
persuasive acts for the purpose of sharing insights and influencing the community audience. This course
fostered a variety of analytical skills, including how to describe primary rhetorical acts (such as speeches,
films, news coverage, television programs, songs, advertisements, and public commemorative art, among
others) in rich, relevant detail; how to situate or make sense of rhetorical acts within their historical, cultural
moments; and how to use theory to develop a critical perspective that helps to render a judgment about a text
or act. I sharpened my critical instincts by working through the inventional process to produce a piece of
rhetorical or cultural criticism.
Theories of Writing
Rebekah Colby:
Autumn 2018
The Role of Discourse and the Purpose it Serves
In Theories of Writing, you will learn how theories of writing have developed from ancient to contemporary times. We will explore how and why Plato and Socrates distrusted writing because it displaced the present moment and the immediacy of the audience and how that distrust has affected theories of writing historically as well as how the immediacy of online writing complicates this distrust. We will explore how the ancients viewed writing as a process and how and why this view has evolved currently. Furthermore, we will explore how writing works rhetorically and socially to create knowledge by responding to the specific needs and purposes of its audience and how knowledge changes as the needs and purposes of audiences change. We will explore where creativity comes from and how creative writers work. Finally, we will explore how and why the visual and aural nature of online writing is changing how we write.
Writing Circulation and Design
My Very Own Webstie
Richard Colby:
Spring 2019
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This is the capstone class for the Minor in Writing Practices. A capstone class is a culmination of an academic program, and in this case, it is meant to capture the writing experiences and instruction that you have been a part of thus far at the University of Denver. The major project that we will be completing for this class is an ePortfolio, and you will be composing, producing, and designing activities along the way to contribute to that ePortfolio as well as your own learning. As part of the path to creating this portfolio, you will do a substantive revision of a previous writing assignment, learn about curation and circulation of writing, and conduct some analyses of your writing and writing process. The course culminates with a public showcase of your portfolio.