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2018-2019 University Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Courses
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Visual Arts |
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VARTS 464 - Advanced Film, Animation and Video
Prerequisites: VARTS 364
Fulfills a course requirement in the Visual Arts Film, Animation and Video Core Concentration
This advanced studio course allows students to focus on an ambitious film, animation and/or video project. Emphasis is placed on advanced critical dialog, creating a unique voice and the ability to understand and articulate how the created project fits within the recent history and current trends of moving image media.
3 credits
Annually
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VARTS 469 - VARTS COOP
Prerequisites: Junior or Senior standing in VARTS and consent of instructor
This course is designed to prepare students for the transition from academia to working experiences that may form the basis of a career in disciplines in and related to the creative and visual arts. Prior to starting their internship, students are guided through the experience of preparing a resume, conducting a job search and applying for a position. Students may select from a variety of positions at galleries, museums, non-profit organizations or as assistants to photographers and artists. During the semester students perform 135 hours of work, usually without financial remuneration for their services. Students write a paper about their experience and receive feedback from their employers, their RWU Career Services advisor, and their faculty sponsor.
3 credits
Fall, Spring, Summer
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VARTS 471 - Visual Arts Professional Practices
Prerequisites: None
This class serves as a forum to prepare for the challenges of the professional art career. Emphasis is on the professional presentation of the work of an artist through the completion of a portfolio, an artist’s statement, and a resume. The students will be introduced to the workings of gallery representation; location and applying for grants, residencies and internships, and applications to professional graduate degree programs in the arts. Regular visits with local professionals in the arts such as working artists, gallery directors, curators and educators will be an important component of the course.
3 credits
Fall
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VARTS 472 - Visual Arts Thesis
Prerequisites: VARTS 471
In this course, Visual Arts students will produce a written thesis complementary to their artwork produced during their senior year. Investigating the layers of meaning and reflecting upon content within their work through the process of writing is the primary aim of the thesis. Taking the form of an extended artist’s statement, the thesis should illuminate the ideas and motives students bring to their visual work and the worldly and art historical contexts that inform it. The thesis forms conclusions about the work: its intent, sources, influences, implications and suggested content. Statements are to be prepared for submission with accompanying high quality documentation of the visual work and research.
3 credits
Spring
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VARTS 481 - Special Topics in Painting / Drawing / Printmaking
Prerequisites: VARTS 181
Fulfills a course requirement in the Visual Arts: Painting/Drawing/ Printmaking Core Concentration
This course provides an opportunity for students and faculty to examine special issues in Painting/Printmaking/Drawing. The course will vary in emphasis based on a particular faculty member’s expertise.
3 credits
Special Offering
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VARTS 491 - Senior Studio
Prerequisites: Completion of at least one VARTS Foundation course and Junior or Senior Standing
Fulfills a course requirement in the Visual Arts: Film, Animation and Video; Painting, Drawing and Printmaking; Photography and Digital Media; Sculpture and Ceramics Core Concentrations.
n Senior Studio, students develop a personal vision through assignments and individually proposed projects in a range of media of their choice. Each student-artist identifies content that is important to them as they create an original body of artwork. It is expected that students will explore and take risks with any media that suits the demands of their project: from drawing, printmaking and painting, to video, photography, sculpture, ceramics, installation or hybrid methods. Historical and contemporary precedents will be introduced. The course culminates in a portfolio, written statement and exhibition.
3 credits
Spring
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VARTS 492 - Senior Studio II
Prerequisites: VARTS 491
This advanced course requires a student to explore in depth a chosen direction for their artwork, constituting the final stage of the four-year Visual Arts Studies program. Three years of research and experimentation with different media and processes will culminate in a written statement and exhibition of a body of work produced for this class.
5 credits
Spring
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VARTS 530 - Special Topics in Visual Arts
Prerequisites: Prerequisite, Graduate standing, or Senior Standing with permission of the instructor
Variable content course dealing with significant themes, periods and individuals in the Visual Arts. The course is offered in a graduate seminar format, with graduate academic and scholarly expectations as well as support for faculty and student pursuits. The course may be taken more than once depending on topical content.
3 credits
Special Offering
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Writing Studies, Rhetoric, and Composition |
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WTNG 100 - Introduction to Academic Writing
Prerequisites: None
This course does not fulfill University Core Curriculum writing requirements
Focusing on the connection between reading and writing, this first-year course emphasizes the development of academic arguments. In a series of increasingly complex assignments, students cultivate rhetorical and writing process knowledge as well as an understanding of the general expectations of the academic discourse community. Assignments focus on summary and analysis of academically oriented texts. Students must write a series of compositions, submit a satisfactory portfolio, and earn a C- or higher in the course to enroll in WTNG 102 .
3 credits
Fall, Spring
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WTNG 102 - How Writing Works
Prerequisites: Placement in WTNG 102 or successful completion (C- or higher) of WTNG 100
Fulfills one of the two University Core Curriculum requirements in the University Writing Program Fulfills a course requirement in the Professional and Public Writing Core Concentration and Minor.
This first-year course helps students develop a conceptual map of how writing works by building their rhetorical and writing-process knowledge and by fostering genre and discourse community awareness. Students draft a minimum of four revised essays and complete a course portfolio. Students must submit a satisfactory portfolio and earn a C- or higher in the course in order to enroll in a 200- or 300-level WTNG course.
3 credits
Fall, Spring
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WTNG 200 - Critical Writing for the Humanities and the Social Sciences
Prerequisites: Successful completion (C- or higher) of WTNG 102
Fulfills the second of two University Core Curriculum requirements in the University Writing Program Fulfills a course requirement in the Professional and Public Writing Core Concentration and Minor
This theme-based course focuses on the production of such scholarly texts as the annotated bibliography, the literature review, the research proposal, and the extended research essay. Students learn how to develop a research problem, critically investigate that problem, and advance a well-defined argument to address the problem.
3 credits
Fall, Spring
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WTNG 210 - Critical Writing for the Sciences
Prerequisites: Successful completion (C- or higher) of WTNG 102 .
Fulfills the second of two University Core Curriculum requirements in the University Writing Program
A research-based course, Critical Writing for the Sciences focuses on the production of reports expected of science professionals, namely, a research (lab) report in the IMRD format, a review of literature paper based upon a current argument, and an article for a popular journal. Students learn how to assess an experiment, negotiate professional sources, defend an argument, create an annotated bibliography and an oral presentation, and write for various audiences.
3 credits
Fall, Spring
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WTNG 220 - Critical Writing for the Professions
Prerequisites: Successful completion (C- or higher) of WTNG 102
Fulfills the second of two University Core Curriculum requirements in the University Writing Program Fulfills a course requirement in the Professional and Public Writing Core Concentration and Minor
A research-based course, Critical Writing for the Professions focuses on the guidelines for persuasive writing commonly used in business and industry: how to write for specific audiences, choose the appropriate style, design effective document formats, and use visuals to help achieve a documents purpose. The course emphasizes the composition of such professional documents as letters, proposals, and analytical reports.
3 credits
Fall, Spring
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WTNG 230 - Rhetoric of Film: Writing about Film
Prerequisites: Successful completion (C- or higher) of WTNG 102
Fulfills the second of two University Core Curriculum requirements in the University Writing Program Fulfills a course requirement in the Professional and Public Writing Core Concentration and Minor
This theme-based course focuses on critical analyses of films that explore issues of social justice and ethics. Students will be introduced to contemporary rhetorical problems filmic text pose, such as identification, signification and representation, and will write essays centered on these problems to gain further knowledge about persuasion and greater experience with the conventions of scholarly communication.
3 credits
Fall
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WTNG 250 - Advanced Composition
Prerequisites: Successful completion (C- or higher) of WTNG 102
Fulfills the second of two University Core Curriculum requirements in the University Writing Program Fulfills a course requirement in the Professional and Public Writing Core Concentration and Minor
This course provides writers with advanced practice in drafting, revising, and editing non-fiction prose, with particular emphasis placed on questions of voice and style. Students will experiment with invention strategies and editing techniques as they plan, draft, and revise essays for a variety of purposes and audiences. In addition, they will read and respond to their own and their classmates’ writing in order to propose ideas for revision and editing.
3 credits
Spring
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WTNG 270 - Travel Writing
Prerequisites: Successful completion (C- or higher) of WTNG 102
Fulfills the second of two University Core Curriculum requirements in the University Writing Program Fulfills a course requirement in the Professional and Public Writing Core Concentration and Minor
This course familiarizes students with some of the typical genres that make up the field of travel writing. Students will gain experience adapting to various professional and public writing situations as they focus on the rhetorical distinctions between these genres and on the challenges of writing about a place responsibly. The course emphasizes the ways in which effective travel writing depends on the study of rhetoric. Students will learn how to assess the rhetorical situation and to make genre decisions based on issues of exigence, purpose, audience, and kairos. Bristol, RI will serve as the site of exploration and inspiration for travel pieces that inform, persuade, and reflect. Students will become fluent in genre analysis and writing with clarity for different purposes to different audiences.
3 credits
Special Offering
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WTNG 299 - Special Topics in Writing
Prerequisites: Successful completion (C- or higher) of WTNG 102
Fulfills the second of two University Core Curriculum requirements in the University Writing Program Fulfills a course requirement in the Professional and Public Writing Core Concentration and Minor
Special topics are initiated by student demand, interest of the instructor, or timeliness of offering. Readings and written assignments are appropriate to the Special Topic designation. This course may be repeated for credit, but students may study a single topic only once.
3 credits
Special Offering
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WTNG 300 - Rhetoric in a Global Context
Prerequisites: Successful completion (C- or higher) of WTNG 102
Fulfills the second of two University Core Curriculum requirements in the University Writing Program Fulfills a course requirement in the Professional and Public Writing Core Concentration and Minor
At the heart of this course is the problem of rhetoric: the famous rhetoric and philosophy split whereby the nature of representation is called into question. The history and theory of travel writing provides the means by which students investigate the implications of the split for communicators in the global era. Studying the rhetorical evolution of travel writing, students consider the relationships among situation, audience, purpose and text across time and place. The course emphasizes the interaction between close reading and critical writing.
3 credits
Fall
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WTNG 301 - The Rhetoric of Narrative
Prerequisites: Successful completion (C- or higher) of WTNG 102
Fulfills the second of two University Core Curriculum requirements in the University Writing Program Fulfills a course requirement in the Professional and Public Writing Core Concentration and Minor
This course explores storytelling as a rhetorical act that functions to persuade others, build knowledge, fashion identities, and create audiences. Students learn to use rhetorical concepts like ethos and identification to interpret a variety of narratives - such as fables, fairy tales, and parables; white papers, constitutions, and other claims to political autonomy; testimony taken from war crimes trials, tribunals, and truth commissions; literacy narratives; and their own family stories. Throughout this course of study, students have opportunities to critically reflect upon and write about narratives that have shaped their own identities and/or moved them to action.
3 credits
Alternate Spring
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WTNG 302 - Art of Writing: Forms of the Essay
Prerequisites: Successful completion (C- or higher) of WTNG 102
Fulfills the second of two University Core Curriculum requirements in the University Writing Program Fulfills a course requirement in the Professional and Public Writing Core Concentration.
Fulfills a course requirement in the Professional and Public Writing Core Concentration.
This course broadens students’ understanding of the essay as a genre, with emphasis on analyzing and writing the personal essay. Through a socio-cultural perspective, students investigate why the personal essay is persuasive discourse that parallels pathos in argument. Readings proceed from the historical to the contemporary in the arts and sciences.
3 credits
Fall
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WTNG 303 - Environmental Rhetoric
Prerequisites: Successful completion (C- or higher) of WTNG 102 and at least sophomore standing or consent of instructor
Fulfills the second of two University Core Curriculum requirements in the University Writing Program Fulfills a course requirement in the Professional and Public Writing Core Concentration and Minor
This course will examine important writers and thinkers from Henry David Thoreau to William McKibben for ways in which arguments about human/nature relationships have evolved. The tensions in these relationships, this course argues, have forged environmentalism into a counter-hegemonic discourse that challenges fundamental assumptions about the centrality of man, the role and value of “progress,” and the utility of nature.
3 credits
Fall Alternate Years
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WTNG 305 - Writing the City
Prerequisites: Successful completion (C- or higher) of WTNG 102 and at least sophomore standing or consent of instructor
Fulfills the second of two University Core Curriculum requirements in the University Writing Program Fulfills a course requirement in the Professional and Public Writing Core Concentration and Minor
In this course, students analyze and write about the city - a complex, multilayered environment that includes densely textured landscapes, platforms for creativity and innovation, sites of systemic injustice and political struggle, as well as homes, haunts, houses of worship, etc. Built upon the metaphor of the city-as-text, the course prompts students to explore - physically, emotionally, intellectually, socially, and rhetorically - the discourse communities of the city; the situatedness of knowledge; concepts such as nostalgia and homesickness; the relationships between design, identity, and power; questions of displacement/dislocation, representation (e.g., map-making), tourism, and globalization; and the creation of publics and counter publics. Readings include sections such as Paula Mathieu’s Tactics of Hope, Virginia Woolf’s “Street Haunting,” and Michel de Certeau’s The Practice of Everyday Life; and students write reflective essays, local histories/ethnographies, and walking tours.
3 credits
Fall Alternate Years
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WTNG 310 - Advanced Writing (Sciences)
Prerequisites: Successful completion (C- or higher) of WTNG 102
Fulfills the second of two University Core Curriculum requirements in the University Writing Program Fulfills a course requirement in the Professional and Public Writing Core Concentration
This course moves beyond the introduction to scholarly communications offered in Critical Writing for the Sciences (WTNG 210 ). In the course, students analyze and produce professional communications in the sciences. Students are expected to initiate new research projects for this course and practice careful revision and editing of their work. Students condense substantial research for a grant proposal, configure texts, present work orally in a public venue, and compile a professional portfolio.
3 credits
Alternate Years
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WTNG 311 - Technical Writing
Prerequisites: Successful completion (C- or higher) of WTNG 102
Fulfills the second of two University Core Curriculum requirements in the University Writing Program Fulfills a course requirement in the minor in Professional and Public Writing
Students will learn how to apply fundamental concepts of effective technical writing that will prepare them for writing in industry, government and other professional contexts. Technical documents help move industry, government and the professions. The technical writer must make judgments about his or her audience, subject, and purposes that go far beyond transferring information. Students will study key principles of rhetorical theory, the idea of genre and its purposes, and the concept of professional audience. Technical documents may include feasibility studies, proposals, and policy statements.
3 credits
Spring Alternate Years
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WTNG 320 - Writing for Business Organizations
Prerequisites: Successful completion (C- or higher) of WTNG 102
Fulfills the second of two University Core Curriculum requirements in the University Writing Program Fulfills a course requirement in the Professional and Public Writing Core Concentration and Minor
This course explores the causes of the success or failure of business communications. The course takes a case-based approach. Students will study the theory and practice of business communications as a pragmatic enterprise to accomplish actual change in the world. The course includes the study of the nature of domestic and global business communication, the causes and effects of communication failures, the social, legal, and ethical nature of professional communication, and the problems in determining the professional interests of readers.
3 credits
Spring Alternate Years
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WTNG 321 - Multimodal Writing in Public Spheres
Prerequisites: Successful completion (C- or higher) of WTNG 102 and at least sophomore standing or consent of instructor
Fulfills the second of two University Core Curriculum requirements in the University Writing Program Fulfills a course requirement in the Professional and Public Writing Core Concentration and Minor
This course explores the theory and practice of writing that serves public interests. As writing in public spheres is produced across a variety of media - from blogs to tweets to visual images to print-based texts - students will produce and analyze multimodal compositions meant to accomplish a specific outcome for a particular audience. Students will explore the theoretical, rhetorical, and ethical considerations of writing in public spheres, and produce a variety of multimodal genres. Note: previous experience with digital or multimodal composing not required.
3 credits
Fall Alternate Years
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WTNG 322 - Advancing Public Argument
Prerequisites: Successful completion (C- or higher) of WTNG 102 Fulfills the second of two University Core Curriculum requirements in the University Writing Program
Fulfills a course requirement in the Professional and Public Writing Minor and Core Concentration
Equality. Knowledge. Happiness. Freedom. The public sphere is where the meaning and implications of these words are constantly defined, contested and renegotiated. Beginning with readings that offer definitions of rhetoric role in the public sphere itself, students read a wide range of historical and contemporary public discourses that have sought to advance persuasive arguments to the American citizenry. By analyzing a variety of public genres (letters, photographs, speeches, film, statistics, art installations) with attention to the ways authors deploy the rhetorical appeals of ethos, logos, and pathos, students gain fluency as critically engaged citizens, able to participate in the reading, writing, and resisting of on-going public arguments. Writing projects privilege student interest but emphasize the development of visual, cultural, and quantitative rhetoric’s.
3 credits
Alternate Spring
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WTNG 400 - Writing for Social Change
Prerequisites: Successful completion of a 200 or 300 Level WTNG course (C- or higher) and at least Junior Standing
Fulfills a course requirement in the Professional and Public Writing Core Concentration and Minor
After forming a partnership with a local, non-profit social service agency, participants in this course will determine which of the agency’s goals can be met by collaborating on research and writing projects. The writing projects will vary, depending on the objectives of the agency and the needs of the people it serves. The purpose of the texts produced will range from raising public awareness of agency-specific problems and issues to securing resources for the organization. On-going reading and class discussions will center on the potency of texts, the role of the writer in bringing about social change, and the value of civic engagement.
3 credits
Spring Alternate Years
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WTNG 410 - Writing Independent Study
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WTNG 430 - Special Topics
Prerequisites: Successful completion of a 200 or 300 Level WTNG course (C- or higher) and at least Junior Standing
Fulfills a course requirement in the Professional and Public Writing Core Concentration and Minor
This course offers an in-depth study of an aspect of writing theory or practice. The specific focus varies from semester to semester and may include such topics as composition pedagogy; advanced argument; rhetorical analysis of modern culture; civil discourse; community-based writing; and argument in advanced writing for the sciences or for the professions. As topics vary, the course may be repeated for credit.
3 credits
Fall, Spring
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WTNG 439 - Rhetorical Theory
Prerequisites: Successful completion of a 200 or 300 Level WTNG course (C- or higher) and at least Junior Standing
Fulfills a course requirement in the Professional and Public Writing Core Concentration
This course traces the rhetorical tradition from the pre-modern period to the present, surveying representational, epistemic, performative, and constitutive theories of language while highlighting ways that verbal rhetorical theory may be used to interpret and craft rhetorical performances. Students explore a variety of theoretical concepts-such as the five canons of rhetoric, the stases, copia, kairos, sprezzatura, deduction and induction, dissociation, the Burkian pentad, ideographs, and interpellation-and learn to employ these concepts as tools for understanding how texts function persuasively and for composing persuasive texts of their own. Course readings are organized around a common theme, and, at the end of the semester, students work collaboratively to develop a colloquium on the course theme.
3 credits
Alternate Fall
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WTNG 450 - Composition Theory
Prerequisites: Successful completion of a 200 or 300 Level WTNG course (C- or higher) and at least Junior Standing
Fulfills a course requirement in the Professional and Public Writing Core Concentration
This course familiarizes writing students with the history of Composition as an academic discipline, conveys the major theoretical approaches that have helped to shape the field, and examines connections between composition theory and practice. Likely topics include criticisms of current-traditionalist approached, tensions between expressivist and social constructionist theories, and the emergence of critical pedagogies influenced by postmodernists, cultural studies, and feminist theorists.
3 credits
Spring Alternate Years
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WTNG 460 - Writing Studies Internship
Prerequisites: Successful completion of a 200 or 300 Level WTNG course (C- or higher) and at least Junior Standing
Fulfills a course requirement in the Professional and Public Writing Core Concentration
This internship will grant academic credit to students who work on a part-time basis with the Writing Studies Department on specially prepared projects. Projects may include professional, disciplinary, or technical writing situations; advanced or capstone projects, courses, or work experiences; or a deeper understanding of college-level composition and the research required for the field. Students must have completed at least 3 of the 5 writing courses required for a Writing Studies Core Concentration and have maintained a 3.0 GPA in those courses.
3 credits
Fall, Spring
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WTNG 470 - The Writing Thesis/Portfolio
Prerequisites: Successful completion of two Writing courses at the 300-level or above. Successful completion (C- or higher) of WTNG 102 . At least junior standing or consent of instructor
Fulfills a course requirement in the Professional and Public Writing Core Concentration and Minor
This course offers students the opportunity to concentrate on one of two genres - the thesis or the portfolio. If students choose the thesis option, they will select a topic of inquiry related to theory, history, pedagogy, or practice of rhetoric and/or composition. The portfolio option entails assembling, analyzing, and evaluating a body of original work that demonstrates the students’ ability to apply their knowledge of writing to a variety of professional, academic, and public contexts.
3 credits
Special Offering
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