WRD 250 Writing with the Community

Writing in the Community may take many forms. Specific topics will vary. Students may repeat once for credit if taken as different topics. Current topics listed below:

Writing and the Los Angeles Experience

A combination writing workshop and community-based learning course, Writing and the Los Angeles Experience examines how Los Angeles shapes and is shaped by those who write about the city. Readings, class discussions, and writing assignments will engage the work of local writers whose work revolves around the city—such as Paul Beatty, Francesca Lia Block, Luis Rodriguez, and Brando Skyhorse—and the parts of Los Angeles that are central to their experience. Guest speakers and field trips to visit different areas of the city and attend live events will help us explore the way the city influences those who write about it, and the cultural, social, and political forces that make it tick. The work of this course is both critical and creative: students will write about our readings using conventional tools of academic writing and rhetoric, and respond to their own experiences of the city in reflections, stories, or other creative projects. Core Requirement Met: US Diversity and Fine Arts.

Professional Writing on Social Issues

This course encourages an engaged and dynamic approach to writing studies as it places writing in real-world contexts by partnering Oxy students with nonprofit community organizations in greater Los Angeles. Through these partnerships, students will identify local cultural and social concerns on topics such as homelessness/housing insecurity, poverty, immigration, education, and social activism, which represent the interests of our particular community groups. In this class we will explore a wide range of research and writing strategies common to both academic environments and the professional situations of our community partners, including primary or field research and both individual and collaborative writing projects in professional genres. This course will allow students to see community nonprofit organizations -- plus the cultural social and political issues and rhetoric surrounding them -- from the inside out. The work of this class is thus both scholarly and practical, motivating student learning by enlivening and enriching students' approaches to writing studies. Core Requirement Met: Global Connections.