What To Expect From WRD 500: Proseminar
Every Autumn Quarter, the WRD Department offers WRD 500 Proseminar, the only required course that every MAWRD student must take. The course is designed to introduce students to the theories, concepts, and writing of graduate-level work in writing studies.
This year, Dr. Monica Reyes will lead Proseminar on Mondays from 6:00 to 9:15 pm. We checked in with Dr. Reyes in order to help new WRD students understand what to expect from WRD 500.
The Value of a Required Course
Because all MAWRD students take Proseminar within the first half of their program, the course unites graduate students with a shared body of theoretical and practical knowledge.
Dr. Reyes shared, “This course is incredibly important because it offers students who are new to the program a chance to get to know one another, engage with critical questions in our field, and articulate their interests in our disciplines. Some students who are new to graduate work find this class an excellent peek at some of the subdisciplines. Students also get to meet WRD faculty through guest talks, and they even begin an ongoing dialogue with their WRD advisor through one of the assignments.”
The class also serves to unite students at the beginning of their time in the program so students can meet the peers they will likely share many classes with over the next few years. For many students, the course offers an important opportunity to join the WRD community.
Dr. Reyes says one key aspect of this community building and departmental introduction in Proseminar is that the class will “introduce students to the WRD Blog, social media, and university resources. Our graduate students benefit when they can keep up with their scholarly peers and mentors. I also spend time pointing out research opportunities and funding that students may be able to pursue. My hope is that students will use all this information to make their graduate experience their own because no two WRD students are alike; everyone has their own unique pathways, course loads, curiosities and goals.”
“My hope is that students will use all this information to make their graduate experience their own because no two WRD students are alike; everyone has their own unique pathways, course loads, curiosities and goals.”
Dr. Reyes
WRD 500 Readings & Projects
As an introduction to writing studies, rhetorical theory, and discourse, WRD 500 revolves around critically important readings and writing tasks that engage students with contemporary issues within the field of writing studies. In addition to a final exploratory paper on a topic of each student’s choosing, students also complete a goals statement for their time in the program, a 45-minute class facilitation, and weekly discussion posts.
I asked Dr. Reyes what the final exploratory paper provides to students. She responded, “Each student is an emerging scholar who is finding their research stance and beginning to articulate the kinds of work they want to do in the near future. So, the final Exploratory Paper asks students to explore a question that fits with what is studied in the discipline(s), broadly conceived. This should be a real question—something that bugs them—and for which there is no easy answer. The project is grounded in bibliographic research that may include but also must go beyond our course readings.”
Dr. Reyes continued, responding to how she assigns various readings to form a coherent whole. She shared:
“I rely on a couple of foundational texts, such as English Studies: An Introduction to the Discipline(s) by Bruce McComiskey, and I separate the quarter by units: for example, we will begin the quarter by understanding what is a discipline, and gradually make our way through the subdisciplines of our broader field, such as rhetoric, discourse, and writing & literacy.
The readings help students observe how scholars in the discipline(s) explore questions related to writing, rhetoric, and discourse. So, students will read articles written by rhetoric scholars, cultural rhetoricians, linguists, compositionists, and feminists. For example, some of the questions students explored from scholars during the last section of this course were:
- How can rhetoricians “bridge the university and community through activism” (Cushman, p. 7)?
- How can “writing studies researchers and teachers [better] acknowledge the fluidity of language and . . . recognize the ideological and material impact that linguistically and ethnically diverse communities experience in standardized English-dominant systems” (Turner & Gonzales, n.p.)?
- How can scholars better “recontextualize rhetorics in their temporal, historical, and lived fluxes” (Edbauer, p. 9)?
- How can writing teachers create opportunities to exercise “racial dignity, ethics, and empathy” in the classroom (Young, n.p.)?
For Autumn Quarter 2024, I will survey the registered students beforehand to ask about their interests and assign scholarship about research in those subdisciplines as inspiration and education about how students’ interests can be studied with theories from our field. It should be very interesting!”
A Continuum of Learning
Previous instructor of the course and current WRD Chair Dr. Julie Bokser put Proseminar in the context of its past and how it shapes the MAWRD program as a whole. She said, “As a unit, all of the faculty who teach Proseminar have been teaching it in a fairly consistent manner for a number of years now, adapting our individual course but using the same core approach and readings. I think this is a good approach because it provides a consistent introduction to the field. In general, the readings offer exposure to ‘seminal’ works in the field, while also introducing important recent trends or rethinkings of classic constructs.”
A Strong Foundation
Most importantly, WRD 500 creates a solid foundation on which students can build and shape their time in the MAWRD program. Whether students intend to follow one of the program’s concentrations or broadly explore their interests, WRD 500 can help spark curiosity in some of the central concerns of writing studies today.
Sharing her final thoughts on Proseminar, Dr. Reyes said, “This course is an excellent space for students to ask those questions they may have but are hesitant to articulate. For example, some students may still struggle with defining rhetoric in a meaningful way, or they want more information about their process through the program, or perhaps they want to hear more from a certain faculty member about their research. This course makes room for those small and large questions that new WRD students probably have, and the goal is that students will use the time to foster those connections and knowledge throughout their time in the program.”