News from DePaul University's Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Discourse
Assistant Professor Erin Workman is our newest tenure-line faculty member in the WRD department. She joined our faculty in the autumn quarter, teaching both WRD 103 Composition and Rhetoric I and WRD 104: Composition and Rhetoric II. This quarter, Workman is teaching a graduate course, WRD 540: Teaching Writing, and the undergraduate course, WRD 209: Genre and Discourse.
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The Writing Rhetoric and Discourse Department welcomes Tracy Ann Morse. As part of our ongoing speaker series, Writing and Rhetoric Across Borders, the WRD department will be welcoming visiting speaker Tracy Ann Morse, Director of Writing Foundations and associate professor of rhetoric and composition in the Department of English at East Carolina University. Her talk will cover a historical overview of how religious rhetoric empowered deaf Americans to protect and preserve their sign language culture against the dominant hearing community.
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Here’s an update on what some of our MA in NMS and MA in WRD students, graduates, and faculty members have been up to in the last six months! MA in NMS Students and Alumni Caroline Bank (2012) works in digital marketing and recently began to manage Halo Top Creamery’s digital marketing program in-house. She is focused on international expansion after Halo Top became the best-selling ice cream in America over the summer. Kristi Bruno (2016) received a Forty Under 40 Award from Award Association Forum and USAE. Kristi was recognized for her professional accomplishments, commitment to the industry, leadership skills,
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Erin MacKenna Sandhir, a faculty member in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Discourse, was inspired to develop WRD 265: Social Movement, Social Media, and American Identities after the success of a similar course at the graduate level last fall. This online course introduces students to social movements like civil rights and women’s liberation from a rhetorical perspective and explores ways that social media has reoriented American political participation.
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As part of the Writing and Rhetoric Across Borders speaker series, the WRD Department hosted Dr. Candice Rai on Friday, October 27. Rai is an associate professor and the director of the Expository Writing Program at the University of Washington. As well as the author of the book Democracy’s Lot: Rhetoric, Publics, and the Places of Invention. Rai’s talk, titled “On Hope, Invention, and Politics in the Ruins of Democracy,” drew on the research she did for Democracy’s Lot—an ethnographic study exploring the complex negotiations of everyday democracies here in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood.
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Writing, Rhetoric, & Discourse recently received a Department Initiative Grant from DePaul University to enhance the teaching of WRD 202: Professional Writing for Business. WRD 202 is unique given that its student population is unlike most WRD courses; it is taught by WRD faculty but taken by students in DePaul’s Driehaus College for Business. As part of the Driehaus Business Core, WRD 202 teaches students the conventions of writing in business contexts. Additionally, the percentage of multilingual students who take courses in the Driehaus Business Core is substantial. As a result, a primary goal of the grant is to create
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DePaul’s Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Discourse hosted a talk on Thursday, May 11th featuring content strategy consultant and coauthor of the book Design for Real Life, Sara Wachter-Boettcher. In her talk, she recounted the many ways our designs can be offputting to users, and how designs can leave some users feeling left out. She also delivered solutions on what we can do to mend and prevent setbacks like this. Many users believe that the term “algorithm” evokes a sort of frigid and unbiased truth that only computers could posses. An algorithm is thought to be born with no natural flaws, unlike
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On Friday April 21, Dr. Kristin L. Arola from Washington State University visited DePaul to present a talk titled “Slow Composition: American Indian Rhetorics and Mindful Making Practices.” This talk was part of the WRD Department’s Writing and Rhetoric Across Borders Speaker Series. Arola’s described the implementation of a composition theory based on story, what she referred to as “story as methodology.” By using an American Indian lens, Arola discussed our current conceptions of the composing process and opened up new critiques on how to improve. Pointing out the current fast-paced nature of rhetoric in our society, Arola advocated for
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On Friday, April 21 from 1 to 2:30pm in the Lincoln Park Campus in McGowan 104, Dr. Kristin L. Arola from Washington State University will be visiting DePaul and taking part in the Writing and Rhetoric Across Borders Speaker Series. Arola will be delivering a talk entitled, “Slow Composition: American Indian Rhetorics and Mindful Making Practices.” Abstract: This presentation explores what writing studies can learn from American Indian epistemologies. By bringing together stories of the crafting and gathering practices of the Anishinaabe peoples of the Upper Great Lakes and the concept of composing as culturing, Arola offers a framework for
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In a talk sponsored by DePaul’s Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Discourse, on Friday, February 10, Professor Victoria Gallagher of North Carolina State University described a rhetorical digital humanities project that she leads, which focuses on a speech given by the great American orator, Martin Luther King, Jr. This project is framed by an important question: What does it take to transform peoples’ hearts and minds about race? About The Virtual MLK Project Professor Gallagher described the Virtual MLK Project as situated at the intersection of rhetoric, Black history, and digital humanities. It is a project that has drawn faculty
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