Writing and Rhetoric Program
Writing Transgresses
Writing draws together different dialects, genres, and languages to create meaning for the reader. In that way, writing necessarily transgresses boundaries designed to separate, draw distinction, and exclude. To write is to imagine an alternative to the present.
Courses
ENWR 1520: Where We Live: Writing about Housing Equity
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Why do we live where we do? How does housing impact our access to education, food, medical care, and other resources? What can the local built environment tell us about access to housing? Why are some people homeless? What is affordable housing and why is there so little of it? By volunteering at The Haven and using different types of writing, including journal entries, forum posts, peer reviews, and formal papers, we will explore topics like homelessness, affordable housing, privilege, food insecurity, the eviction crisis, systems of power, and community engagement.
Instructor: Professor Kate Stephenson
ENWR 1510: Writing about Work
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In this course, we will read and write toward a better understanding of the many dimensions of work in society.
What do people in different lines of work actually do all day? What makes work meaningful—or meaningless? What does it mean to do good work? Why do we value certain lines of work above others? And why is work so important to our understanding of identity: when we meet new people, why is our first question so often, “What do you do?”
In order to answer these questions, you will conduct original interviews with people about their jobs. These interviews will form the basis for your writing, in which you will move between quotation, personal reflection, and analytical writing to create thoughtful and three-dimensional essays. In addition to gathering real-world knowledge relevant to our inquiry, these essays will help you become more confident and clear in your drafting and revision of college-level writing.
Instructor: Piers Gelly
![Piers Henfield portrait[46]_edited.jpg](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/4a3e17_ab105de149a04151957cbe698b12e209~mv2.jpg/v1/crop/x_132,y_0,w_1407,h_1667/fill/w_135,h_160,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,blur_3,enc_auto/Piers%20Henfield%20portrait%5B46%5D_edited.jpg)
ENWR 1520: You are What You Eat…or Are You?: Writing about Food Equity
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This course offers first-year students the chance to fulfill their first-year writing requirement through a community engagement experience. Questions guiding the course include: Why do we eat what we eat? Do poor people eat more fast food than wealthy people? Why do men like to eat steak more than women? Why are Cheetos cheaper than cherries? Do you have to be skinny to be hungry? By volunteering at The Haven, Loaves and Fishes, PB&J Fund or PVCC Community Garden and using different types of writing, including journal entries, forum posts, peer reviews, and formal papers, we will explore topics like hunger stereotypes, privilege, food insecurity, food production, and community engagement.
Instructor: Professor Kate Stephenson
ENWR 2510: Writing Human/Democratic Rights
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Students in this course will explore the role public writing within non-violent campaigns for democratic and human rights. The opening moments of the course will focus on theories of public writing, democracy, and non-violent movements. More than just study such theories, however, this course will actively train students in how to undertake such public work. Students will work through a series of workshops on non-violent organizing strategies created by the Center for Applied Non-violent Actions and Strategies (canvasopedia.) They will then work directly with internationally recognized democratic advocate Myo Yan Naung Thein, as he builds a movement against a military coup that occurred in his home country, Myanmar. As such, this course will provide not only a theoretical historical context for the work of a public writer, it will also provide a platform to begin such work.
NOTE: Students are not expected to have any expertise concerning Myanmar or non-violent campaigns for democratic rights. The only expectation is to find such public work engaging and important.
Instructor: Professor Steve Parks
ENWR 2520: Writing the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers at UVA
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In this writing course we’ll contribute to conversations of race and history at UVA through self-designed writing projects. The first part of the course will be an inquiry into the history of enslaved laborers at UVA and how the writers of the Declaration of Independence framed our country—particularly in terms of equality, individual liberty, and the institution of slavery— (texts: Danielle Allen’s Our Declaration, Sullivan’s Commission on Slavery and the University, excerpts from Nelson and Harold’s Charlottesville 2017, and excerpts from Nelson and McInnis’s Educated in Tyranny). Next, we will look at how writers speak back to silences and suppressed narratives (texts: Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad, Petrosino’s White Blood, and Sharpe’s In the Wake). Throughout the course, we’ll look at current conversations about racial justice at UVA and beyond as well as community responses compiled by the Institute for Engagement and Negotiation[1] (IEN) in designing and executing the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers[2].
Instructor: Kate Kostelnik
ENWR 3620: Writing and Tutoring Across Cultures
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In this course, we’ll look at a variety of texts from academic arguments, narratives, and pedagogies, to consider what it means to write, communicate, and learn across cultures. Topics will include contrastive rhetorics, world Englishes, rhetorical listening, and tutoring multilingual writers. A service-learning component will require students to virtually tutor students in sections of ENWR1506, my first-year writing courses. We will discuss pedagogies and practical, strengths-based strategies in working with multi-lingual learners on their writing; tutor first-years; and create writing projects that convey learning from these experiences. While the course will specifically prepare students to tutor multilingual writers, these skills are adaptable and applicable across disciplines and discourses. Our techniques and pedagogies will also be applicable to native-speakers. Basically, students will learn how to use dialogic engagement to support collaboration and conversation across cultures. Self-designed final writing projects will give students from various majors—education, public policy, commerce, social sciences, and STEM—the opportunity to combine their specific discourse knowledge with our course content. Additionally, students who successfully complete the course are invited to apply to work on the UVa writing center.
Instructor: Professor Kate Kostelnik
ENWR 1510: Rewriting UVA: Histories of Resistance
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This section of ENWR 1510 focuses on the histories of racial, gender, and sexual struggle at UVA, and their implications for us as thinkers, readers, writers, and community members living and working in Charlottesville today.
Why focus on these histories in a composition class? As you will see in this course, struggle against injustice persists in the daily landscape of UVA and Charlottesville. On one hand, it is important for you to understand how the institution you attend has supported and continues to support systems of exploitation. These histories will affect you, people you care about, and people you may never meet. On the other hand, this class is designed to help you situate your many identities—including your identities as thinker, writer, and student—in this University’s long histories of struggle and resistance. You will practice skills that will assist you throughout your intellectual journey, in college and beyond. At the same time, you will have the chance to think critically about the purposes you want your education to serve, and the intervention that you want to make into the history of this institution and the surrounding region
Instructor: Professor John Modica
ENWR 1510 and 29: Rewriting UVA
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In this course, we will read and write toward a better understanding of UVA’s complicated past.
The University of Virginia has a rich and often troubling history. The school was founded by the author of the Declaration of Independence, who famously contended that “all men are created equal” but owned slaves throughout his lifetime. The university itself was constructed in large part by enslaved laborers, and was segregated for much of its existence. Just five years ago, far-right demonstrators marched on UVA’s campus during the Unite the Right rally of August 11 and 12, 2017, an event that was condemned by all sensible onlookers; less discussed, however, was the fact that the rally’s two principle organizers were UVA alumni.
In this class, we will look directly at the history of white supremacy, colonization, and slavery as they directly relate to Thomas Jefferson, the University, and the city of Charlottesville. We will also consider various attempts to grapple with that history, through such efforts as UVA's Memorial to Enslaved Laborers, Charlottesville’s decision to remove (and potentially melt down) its statues of Confederate soldiers, and Virginia’s statewide Enslaved Ancestors College Access Scholarship and Memorial Program.
Taken together, our efforts will help us better understand both the university and ourselves: What does it mean to be a member of the university community? What responsibilities fall on us as inheritors of the school's legacy? How does it change us to look closely at these features of UVA’s past? In our writing this semester, we will explore these questions deeply, using the writing process to become more confident and clear in our drafting and revision of college-level essays.
Instructor: Piers Gelly
ENWR 1510:
Writing Charlottesville
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The course in highest demand for students on the FWR+ track is ENWR 2510, an Advanced Writing Seminar. Like ENWR 1510, ENWR 2510 approaches writing as a way of generating, representing, and reflecting on critical inquiry. Students contribute to an academic conversation about a specific subject of inquiry and learn to position their ideas and research in relation to the ideas and research of others. Instructors place student writing at the center of course, encourage students to think on the page, and prepare them to reflect on contemporary forms of expression. Students read and respond to each other’s writing in class regularly, and they engage in thoughtful reflection on their own rhetorical choices as well as those of peers and published writers. Additionally, the course requires students to give an oral presentation on their research and to assemble a digital portfolio of their writing. While ENWR 2510 and ENWR 1510 share the same goals and practices, ENWR 2510 offers added rigor, often in the form of denser course texts and longer, more self-directed writing assignments.
Instructor: Professor Kevin Smith
ENWR 2520: Democracy, Religion, and Non-Violence: Public Writers in Authoritarian Contexts
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Students in this course will explore the role public writing and religion within non-violent campaigns for democratic and human rights. As might be expected, the initial focus will be on the 1950s and 1960s Civil Rights Movement in the United States. More than just read and respond to past movements, however, this course will enable students to actively take part in creating the Nehemiah Project, an effort to support the work of ministers working to expand democratic rights within the context of authoritarian states in southern Africa. In particular, students will work with Pastor Evan Mawarire, an internationally recognized democracy advocate, who founded the #ThisFlag campaign in Zimbabwe, a mass movement that shut down the nation and that was a driving force in the removal of authoritarian leader Robert Mugabe. As such, this course will provide not only a theoretical historical context for the work of a public writer, it will also provide a platform to begin such work.
NOTE: Students are not expected to have any expertise in the Civil Rights movement, Religious discourse, or Zimbabwe politics. The only expectation is to find such public work engaging and important.
Instructor: Professor Stephen Parks
ENWR 2520: Engaging with UVA’s Indigenous History
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Coming Soon!!
Instructor: Professor Sarah Richardson
ENWR 1510: Walking Charlottesville
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This seminar will explore the connections between walking, writing, social justice, and activism. There is a long history of walking as a means of igniting thought, creativity, and dialogue that dates back to the meanderings of Socrates and Aristotle and continues through the strolls of the Romantic poets, the city wanderings of the fictional J. Alfred Prufrock and Clarissa Dalloway, and the outdoor hikes of Wendell Berry. But walking isn’t just linked to creativity and conversation; it’s also clearly connected to social justice. Walking to freedom, as depicted in myriad slave narratives and immigration stories, as well as walking for freedom in the form of protest marches, both past and present, are important reminders that our footsteps matter. In this class, we will consider how walking can be both a solo activity and a means of creating community. By walking together, we will learn about the places and histories around us. The course will be structured around biweekly walks themed around social justice. All walks and place-based visits will include time for reflective writing.
Instructor: Kate Stephenson
Want to Build?
The Writing and Rhetoric Program provides a range of opportunities for undergraduate students to explore how their writing skills can support local, national, and international efforts for social justice and human rights. Through these opportunities, students can gain direct experience in how academic and professional writing can link to self-defined community goals and aspirations. In the process, students also can gain direct and extensive experience in print/digital publishing, community building strategies, and international human rights work.
If you are interested in joining any of the projects below, please write using the contact form.