UCOR Section Descriptions

Course Description

Effective academic writing helps us understand and propose new ways of seeing ourselves and our world. In this writing intensive course, we'll learn to use rhetorical arguments and the revision process to explore how identity is made and sustained in art and in society. Writing about art can revise, expand on, and answer what identity can be. Together, we are going to explore, through readings and museum field trips and critical essays, how people talk about art and personal identity. We will uncover some of the important ways that artists, museums, schools, and, even, politicians use art to unmask, create, and interrogate identity.

Course Description

In this course you will develop academic writing skills by practicing a variety of rhetorical situations that engage the complex relationships between the Islamic and Western Worlds. Through assigned readings and class discussions, we will explore the representations of Islam in the news media and popular culture, and discover ways in which we can contribute our own voices and actions to the many issues facing the peoples of the Middle East.

Course Description

Effective academic writing helps us understand and propose new ways of seeing ourselves and our world. In this writing intensive course, we'll learn to use rhetorical arguments and the revision process to explore how identity is made and sustained in art and in society. Writing about art can revise, expand on, and answer what identity can be. Together, we are going to explore, through readings and museum field trips and critical essays, how people talk about art and personal identity. We will uncover some of the important ways that artists, museums, schools, and, even, politicians use art to unmask, create, and interrogate identity.

Course Description

This course has two primary and equally important goals: to hone your skills in rhetorical and analytical awareness and to cultivate understanding in writing and research. We will engage in inquiry, analysis, synthesis, and meaning-making through argument—all writing habits emphasized by our course outcomes (or goals), which appear on this syllabus and which we will discuss throughout the quarter. This particular section will use the concept of "spatial justice" to help us think critically about how (or to what extent) twentieth century representations of urban space in the United States engage rhetorics of justice, equity, accessibility and more.

Course Description

In this course you will develop academic writing skills by practicing a variety of rhetorical situations that engage the complex relationships between the Islamic and Western Worlds. Through assigned readings and class discussions, we will explore the representations of Islam in the news media and popular culture, and discover ways in which we can contribute our own voices and actions to the many issues facing the peoples of the Middle East.

Course Description

In this course you will develop academic writing skills by practicing a variety of rhetorical situations that engage the complex relationships between the Islamic and Western Worlds. Through assigned readings and class discussions, we will explore the representations of Islam in the news media and popular culture, and discover ways in which we can contribute our own voices and actions to the many issues facing the peoples of the Middle East.

Course Description

How does television shape our perceptions of everyday life? How does it encourage us to take on a passive role as consumers of culture? And what do popular shows--like Modern Family and The Walking Dead--tell us about the cultural zeitgeist and our contemporary moment? Rather than demonize or simply praise television as basic entertainment, this course draws on reflective, analytical, and exploratory writing to address these questions and our cultural obsession with television.

Course Description

Why are we so fascinated by dystopias? Is utopia a pipe dream? Dangerous? Necessary? Something else entirely? From Thomas More to the Seattle World's Fair, from universal design to Black Mirror and beyond, we will use the frame of topias to explore the rhetorical landscape of the past and future. Students will read, write, and conduct research related to their own -topian interests throughout the course.

Course Description

How does television shape our perceptions of everyday life? How does it encourage us to take on a passive role as consumers of culture? And what do popular shows--like Modern Family and The Walking Dead--tell us about the cultural zeitgeist and our contemporary moment? Rather than demonize or simply praise television as basic entertainment, this course draws on reflective, analytical, and exploratory writing to address these questions and our cultural obsession with television.

Course Description

In our writing class, we’ll turn a critical eye toward what’s passed down to us—language, food, music, race, culture—and the role each plays in who we are. What does what we eat, how we speak, and where we grew up say about us? We'll read published writing and then write essays of our own to better understand how what we've been given affects the ways we perceive ourselves, how we relate to others, and what our futures might hold.