WR099 Writing Studio
EN099 is an intensive developmental course designed to prepare students for college level reading, speaking, and writing. Students will practice their rhetorical skills regularly in many different situations, including reading, exhibits, and group work. At the end of the semester all writing is submitted in a portfolio for final evaluation.
EN099 is designed for students whose writing, reading and speaking skills may not yet be adequate for college-level work. In EN099 you will be engaged in a long series of integrated reading, writing and speaking exercises that will help improve your skills in these areas and at the same time further your understanding of the importance of verbal language in your lives and careers. During the semester each of you will be introduced to close and "hands-on" reading skills; to writing across a wide range of impulses, from expressive to transactional; and to public speaking, with equal emphasis on small group interaction and public presentation.
But our ability to use language effectively isn't just a product of our skill with language; this ability is directly related to our common desire to express or communicate ideas or feelings. Of equal importance to the development of skills in EN099 is the development of an understanding of the significance of verbal language in the professional, social and political realms.
Credits: 3.0
Prerequisites: None

WR100 The Word & the World
This course is an introduction to academic writing at the college level. Students will engage in an intensive practice of critical reading, thinking and writing through the examination of a variety of topics and genre in a collaborative atmosphere. In this course, students will use writing as a means by which to improve their ability to read meaningfully and to understand the profound connection between oral and written language and the world in which they live. Four parts of the writing and learning process are stressed: reading, writing, speaking and listening.
Students will read and write about subjects both academic and non-academic, and explore the various ways writers engage their audiences in particular contexts. In doing so, they will learn to see and evaluate their own rhetorical choices in a range of writing situations. Through the course of the semester, students write often and in many forms: in journals, online, formally and informally. Further, they will practice all steps of the writing process, including researching a topic, assessing the context and audience of a particular assignment, and developing early drafts into refined essays.
Speaking and listening are just as fundamental as reading and writing to the student-centered activities that form the core of this course. Students will practice articulating their ideas in class discussion and attending closely to those of their peers, further developing their own perspectives. Through workshops and writing groups, students will analyze one another's writing and practice revision and editing. Students also participate in small group work, collaborative writing, conferences, and research. These activities stress how writing can be practiced in communities as well as on one's own; they will demonstrate that writing, like learning, is both solitary and social, private and public.
Credits: 3.0
Prerequisites: None

WR200 Critical & Creative Forms
WR 200 is an intermediate-level writing course that focuses on writing as a creative and critical form. Students will explore the formal qualities of a variety of “texts,” including visual and online texts, and expand their experience of writing analytically and creatively. It is an intensification of the processes introduced in WR 100 with further emphasis on visual as well as verbal rhetorics and critical thinking. At the end of the semester, writing is submitted in a portfolio for final evaluation.
In WR 200, students will develop their ability to read and assess communication in various forms and genres, to write analytical and critical essays, to perform increasingly sophisticated research, and to experiment with communicative form themselves. WR 200 focuses on the theme of “environments,” examining the idea or condition of “environment” through a variety of possible progressive lenses, including ecological, natural, cultural, sacred or built environments.
WR 200 emphasizes writing-in-process and students are challenged to take progressively more individual responsibility for all phases of the process, from journaling to the composing of final manuscripts. Students will be expected to identify, research and articulate points of view with increasing sophistication and ease in order to engage in critical conversations. Students participate in writing workshops, writing groups, small group discussions and collaborative writing as well as complete individual writing assignments. Throughout, students will be required to demonstrate evolving critical judgment and self-reflection. Self-directed research and working proficiently with primary and secondary sources is also emphasized through assignments highlighting the research process and the creation of an annotated bibliography.
Credits: 3.0
Prerequisites: WR100 & Sophomore standing

WR300 Writing & the Professional Self
In Professional Writing and Research, students explore the process of constructing a professional self through written and verbal communication. They develop their professional communication skills in writing, speaking, and listening. Students identify and practice the forms of writing and research used by professional artists and designers. At the end of the semester all writing is submitted in a portfolio for evaluation.
WR300 is a course in professional writing that stresses several essential and related elements of the professional discourse: writing, reading/researching, speaking and listening. In this course students will use writing as a means of effectively communicating ideas and information between themselves and members of the professional community: art museums, design agencies, granting/funding agencies, gallery directors etc.
Credits: 3.0
Prerequisites: WR200 & Junior standing

WR400 Senior Writing Seminar
WR400 continues the critical examination and application of written form that students have been engaged in throughout MIAD's writing curriculum. The formal focus of each semester may vary, with potential topics including critical writing in art and design, creative non-fiction, and making meaning through narrative. In all cases the capstone paper would be a sustained, substantial, and thoughtful work of narrative, expository, analytical, and /or critical writing.
WR400 is an intensive writing seminar in which students are expected to assume considerable responsibility for course materials and writing processes. Through formal and informal written exercises, students explore the capacity of language to shape and give meaning to life experiences, personal and artistic influences, and cultural contexts. This writing should provide a reflective foundation from which students can look both backwards and forwards, contextualizing the past and facing the future. It will help students to determine and understand larger contexts and meanings for experiences, and cause them to continue developing more sophisticated skills as writers. Through weekly written investigations, students explore and practice the different forms under discussion, and examine possible social, political, and rhetorical purposes for the writing they create. Each student will ultimately compose a final project that responds to the formal center of the course in a substantive, extended work.
The nature and form of writing that students produce in this course will be various: individual writers will complete intensely reflective responses to assigned readings and to one another's writing. Each student's writing and research will be work-shopped and critiqued regularly, and each student will be expected to present his/her work to the seminar on a weekly basis. While the emphasis in WR400 is on writing that is shaped by the individual student, prescribed standards of quality, length and form must be met.
Credits: 3.0
Prerequisites: WR300 & Senior standing or consent of the Writing and Humanities Chair