Beyond the First Year Writing sequence of English 101 and 201, students can participate in advanced courses in writing studies. With theoretical and practical application, students will improve all areas of writing needed for professional and personal advocacy purposes.
ENG 235: Writing for Management, Business, and Public Administration
Pre-requisite: ENG 201
Development of the writing skills required for careers in law, business, civil service, or public administration. Extensive practice in the various forms of correspondence, inter-office memos, informal reports, minutes of meetings, summaries, briefings and presentations. Preparation of job application letters and resumes. Practice in proofreading, revising, editing. Development of reading comprehension through close study of business-related writings.
ENG 245: Creative Nonfiction
Pre-requisite: ENG 201
In this course, students will experiment with writing creative nonfiction. The class will produce a magazine from start to finish, including writing the articles and editing them for publication. Students will compose, revise and edit several pieces of nonfiction prose, both long and short, on topics of their choice. These may include observations of life in the city, an autobiographical sketch, or an interview/profile. Students will work on developing an authorial voice and on making their writing lively and concise.
ENG 250: Writing for Legal Studies
Pre-requisite: ENG 201
This course is an in-depth introduction to the craft of legal writing. Skills to be acquired range from writing legal memoranda, briefs and pleadings, to negotiating and drafting contracts. Students will gain experience in reading and interpreting judicial opinions, as well as applying legal rules to factual scenarios. Deductive reasoning, forensic rhetoric and English grammar will receive substantial attention.
ENG 255: Argument Writing
Pre-requisite: Grade of B+ or higher in both ENG 101 and ENG 201, and permission of the instructor
The course entails intensive study of and practice in writing in a variety of argument templates, using the principal rhetorical forms, with an eye toward developing effective techniques of proofreading and editing. Intensive grammar and style instruction enable students to offer global and sentence-level responses to the writing of peers. One hour weekly practicum required.
ENG 260: Grammar, Syntax, and Style: Writing for All Disciplines
Pre-requisite: ENG 201
In this how-to, practical course, students will work on grammar, syntax, and style, analyzing lots of writing – the students’ own as well as professionals’ – to figure out how writers shape language to make it convey clear messages to readers. Students will look at style because it is style rather than content that often directs and organizes meaning. By crafting good sentences – using transitions and subordination, among other things – students will be able to fashion correct, and readable prose, no matter what content they propose to convey. The more time they spend on fine-tuning their sentences, the better sense they gain of how to make language work for them. And as another benefit, they will write with more confidence and clarity, qualities needed for success in their careers.
ENG 316: Advanced Argument Writing and Response: Theory and Practice
Pre-requisite: ENG 255
Advanced Argument Writing and Response: Theory and Practice takes the work begun in Argument Writing to a higher level. This writing-intensive course combines the composition practice with exposure to theories and paradigms of responses to writing. Assignments include advanced argument papers and analytical critiques of writing specific to the discipline. Students hone their critical skills and become expert judges of the composition process, their own writing, and of writing across the curriculum through reading and discussion of theoretical texts that reflect a variety of methodologies. A practicum is required.
ENG 350: Advanced Legal Writing: Advocacy and Oral Argument
Prerequiste: Grade of B+ or higher in ENG 250 or permission of the instructor
This advanced legal writing course builds on the analytical and rhetorical skills learned in ENG 250: Writing for Legal Studies and focuses on the forms of persuasive argument. Students will apply the rule-, analogy-, and policy-based legal reasoning skills acquired in ENG 250 to analyze, critique and argue within and against the inherent moral and conceptual contradictions in the law. Students will learn and practice the organizational skills, analytical methods, rhetorical conventions, and persuasive strategies that determine effective advocacy
