Fall 2017  |  WRIT 3102W Section 001: Public Writing (34560)

Instructor(s)
Class Component:
Discussion
Credits:
3 Credits
Grading Basis:
A-F only
Instructor Consent:
No Special Consent Required
Instruction Mode:
In Person Term Based
Class Attributes:
UMNTC Liberal Education Requirement
Times and Locations:
Regular Academic Session
 
09/05/2017 - 12/13/2017
Mon, Wed 02:30PM - 03:45PM
UMTC, East Bank
Lind Hall 303
Also Offered:
Course Catalog Description:
Practice and study of public writing beyond the academy or professions. Examine public documents and apply critical/rhetorical analysis regarding audience, purpose, message, power, and context. Students conduct research/ write documents for public audiences on contemporary issues of interest. prereq: Soph or jr or sr
Class Description:
Public Writing is an advanced composition course for upper-division students in any major. This course will have three main units that last about one month each. The first concerns critical reading and interpretation of a variety of short public texts including the Declaration of Independence and the federal regulations for subsidized school lunch. The second unit will be about the Central Corridor Light Rail project that runs through campus to St. Paul. You will read and respond to a range of writings about the project including the Met Council's web site and newspaper stories. Finally, you will pick a "small window on a big issue," a manageably small issue concerning the environment, and you will write a formal report on how that issue is being discussed. The course is also built around the Liberal Education Theme of Civic Life and Ethics: You will read and write about local and global issues that involve interactions between citizens and their government. The topics address complex economic, political, and social values and priorities, and they almost always lead to difficult trade-offs that must be negotiated in order to address private and public concerns. Through critical reading and reflective writing you will recognize that public policies in a democratic society rarely involve simple ethical decisions on binary values (just-unjust, good-bad). Instead the involve variables over ranges -- pollution could be reduced (but not eliminated), civic participation could be enhanced (but cannot ensure that everyone gets his or her way). They also involve trade offs, such as that between environmental protection and economic development, or between social justice that places equal opportunities for individuals in tension with the interests of society
Exam Format:
85% Reports/Papers
10% Reflection Papers
5% Class Participation
Class Format:
70% Discussion
25% Small Group Activities
5% Student Presentations
Workload:
ABOUT 50 Pages Reading Per Week
40 Pages Writing Per Term ABOUT 10 Paper(s)
Textbooks:
https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/34560/1179
Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:
6 April 2015

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