Autumn 2009: Introduction and Course Goals

Course Description

WRD 103 introduces students to the forms, methods, expectations, and conventions of college-level academic writing. We also explore and discuss how writing is a fluid, three-way relationship between writing, reader, and subject, and that this relationship affects the prewriting, drafting, and revising of written work in various ways.

In WRD 103, you will:

  • Gain experience reading and writing in multiple genres
  • Practice a variety of stances appropriate to different rhetorical circumstances,  marshaling sufficient, plausible sup­port for your assertions and become familiar with a variety of structures for pre­sent­ing such evi­dence such as narration, exemplification, de­fin­ition, classifica­tion, comparison, analogy, and cause and effect
  • Develop the ability to shape the language of written and multimodal discourses to your audiences and purposes, fostering clarity and emphasis by providing ex­pli­cit and appropriate cues to the main purpose of your texts
  • Develop the ability to read and evaluate the writing of others and to iden­tify the rhetorical strategies at work in written and in multimodal texts.

You’ll be happy to note, I hope, that we build on your previous knowledge and experiences; that is, we don’t assume that you show up here a blank slate. We assume that you have encountered interesting people, have engaging ideas, and have something to say. A good writing course should prepare you to take those productive ideas into other courses and out into the world, where they belong, and where you can defend them and advocate for them.

Finally, it’s no secret around here that students who take early and regular advantage of DePaul’s Center for Writing-based Learning not only do better in their classes, but also benefit from the interactions with the tutors and staff in the Center.