WRI 101 - Course list for Writing in the Liberal Arts

Fall 2026 Sections

WRI 101 [A]: According to Science
MW 8:05 - 9:20
Rosemond

WRI 101 [B]: Abolitionist Futures
MW 8:05 - 9:20
Wooten
 

WRI 101 [C]: Politics of Love
TR 8:15 - 9:30
Gasparowicz
Artists, thinkers, writers, prophets, and theologians have long asked the simple yet deeply profound question: What is love? Is it marriage? Pleasure? Romance?  Community? The idea of ‘romantic love’ and- its central place in marriage- is a surprisingly recent invention. In this course, we will explore how people in the 20th and 21st centuries have imagined, debated, and lived love in all its iterations. Course content will emphasize interdisciplinary thinking, ranging from philosophies about love (written by thinkers such as bell hooks and Catholic theologians), to fictional and lived accounts of love affairs (such as Frida Kahlo’s), to expressions in visual culture. We will complete three major writing assignments over the course of the semester. Along the way, we will emphasize close reading of primary sources, building and anticipating arguments, and developing research and critical digital literacy skills. We will also workshop our writing, practicing how to give and receive constructive feedback.

WRI 101 [D]: Justice and Piety
MWF 8:30- 9:20
Shaw
The course offers students a chance to investigate a venerable question of political life: What is the relationship between political justice and religious faith? While most of us in twenty-first century liberal democracies assume that politics and religion have nothing in common-and that they should have nothing in common-political philosophers have long acknowledged their intimate and mutually implicative relationship.

We’ll explore this relationship by reading and discussing writings that span several genres (philosophy, epic poetry, historical narrative, rhetoric, and dramatic dialogue) by four ancient Greek authors: Homer, Thucydides, Sophocles, and Plato. We’ll attempt this task as well by writing often and in a variety of formats. In all assignments students will be encouraged to articulate and defend their own interpretations and points of view. 

WRI 101 [E]: Critical Reading and Critical Writing
MWF 8:30 - 9:20
Gay
During this semester, students and the course instructor will work as a team to answer one complex question: What is critical thinking? In this quest, we will read a series of non-fiction texts intended to develop critical reading skills and write three major writing projects, each with drafting, critique, and revision, intended to develop critical writing skills.

Spring 2027 Sections

WRI 101 [A]: Sports Betting and Society
MW 8:05 - 9:20
McElrath
Why have states legalized sports betting in recent years? What role does sports betting play within broader social and economic systems? How can we better understand the culture of sports betting using the sociological imagination?

In this writing seminar, we will explore the recent wave of legalized sports betting in the United States through sociological, political, economic and philosophical lenses. We will examine the history of gambling across societies, engage with contemporary social science research that examines the economic and social consequences (both positive and negative) of legalized sports betting, and interrogate political discourse on the topic. This course will focus actively on students’ writing and digesting academic sources. There will be three writing projects in the course, each of which will involve drafting, peer review, and revisions. We will also have smaller writing projects throughout the semester. 

WRI 101 [B]: Writing About Literature
TR 8:15 - 9:30 p.m.
Flanagan
 

WRI 101 [C]: Religion in the Public Square
MWF 9:30 - 10:20
Blum
The ideal of democracy is a society in which well-informed citizens who disagree with each other engage in free and reasoned debate, guided by the shared aim of cultivating a flourishing society. The role of religion in this ideal has always been a contentious topic, and in recent years it has reemerged as a matter of dispute. This class poses the question: what role should religion play in public discourse? The class will draw on a variety of perspectives that speak to fundamental questions about the rights, freedoms, and responsibilities that citizens have, and the role that religion plays in those challenging questions. Students will write three major papers, in addition to a number of smaller, lower-stakes writing assignments.  

WRI 101 [D]: Are Prisons Obsolete?
TR 9:40 - 10:55
Vincent
With 1.8 million Americans currently behind bars, the United States imprisons its citizens at one of the highest rates in the world. But social movements and policymakers are now posing urgent questions about our country’s carceral system: why are Black Americans imprisoned at five times the rate of white Americans? Should there be for-profit prisons? What crimes merit confinement? What is the purpose of prisons? And do we even need them? We will grapple with these questions by reading first-hand accounts of prisons and examining a variety of scholarly perspectives on the United States prison system. Over the course of the semester, we will draft, workshop, and revise three major writing projects, including a comparative essay, a research essay, and a community-based capstone project.

WRI 101 [F]: Religion in the Public Square
MWF 10:30 - 11:20
Blum
The role of religion in American society has always been contentious, and in recent years it has reemerged as a matter of dispute. This class poses the question: what role should religion play in American public life? The class will draw on contrasting  perspectives that speak to fundamental questions about the rights, freedoms, and responsibilities that citizens have, and the role that religion plays in those challenging questions. Students will write three major papers, each accompanied by a process of reading, drafting, and revising.  

WRI 101 [G]: TBD
MWF 10:30 - 11:20
Staff
 

WRI 101 [H]: Bad Art
MWF 11:30 - 12:20
Rippeon
This writing course examines “bad art”: cultural productions that raise questions about censorship and freedom of expression, the ethics of representation, kitsch and camp, and good art made by bad people.  We will consider a variety of cultural forms, including literary texts (poems, fiction); music, television and film; and the visual arts.  We will work to develop criteria for engaging with these forms; to develop these criteria, we will read critical theory, popular journalism, and literary and art criticism.  We will also occasionally make use of the College’s art collection, and our own practices of cultural consumption.  Student writing will include shorter, low-stakes assignments, informal presentations, and a series of essays (four) executed through a sequence of individual and group-oriented activities (e.g. conferences, peer-review, drafting and revision). 

WRI 101 [I]: Violence and Abrahamic Religions
MWF 11:30 - 12:20
Swenson-Lengyel
This class will explore ethical, theological, and historical/sociological questions regarding violence and peace in Abrahamic religious traditions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). Over the course of the semester, we will read writings by theologians, ethicists, poets and novelists, historians, and sociologists of religion. The class will be organized into three main sections, aligned with these three approaches to the questions of peace and violence in religions. In the first section, we will ask: is violence ever justified ethically? Here we will examine religious ethical debates around pacifism and just war. In the second section, we will ask the theological question: how are we to understand the goodness of God in the face of worldly violence? In this section, we will engage post-holocaust theology, along with other work on evil, both literary and theological. And in the final section, we will ask: how should we understand the historical and contemporary phenomenon of ‘religious violence’? Here, we will examine case studies such as the rise of American Christian nationalism and the phenomenon of Islamic extra- and intra-state political violence to consider the historical and sociological linkages between religious commitments and violent political action. The three sections will each be accompanied by a writing project, all three of which will proceed through lower-stakes, scaffolded writing assignments, as well as peer discussion and revision. By the end of the course, you will have developed your skills as a careful reader, as an analyzer of diverse kinds of scholarship, and as an academic writer and communicator.

WRI 101 [J]: Climate Comm: Just Hot Air?
TR 12:15 - 1:30
Chapman
In this class, we will use climate change as a theme to learn college writing. Climate change is often referred to as the biggest science communication failure of all time. We will explore why, how, and lessons learned. We will investigate climate change through the discussion of scientific articles, news articles, messaging for the public, case studies, and videos. Students will learn to write concisely and how to distinguish scientific facts from opinions. The class will build skills in concise scientific writing, critical analysis of texts and other communication methods, distinguishing fact from opinion, and locating and citing relevant sources depending on the demands of an assignment. Through regular drafting, peer critique and revision, students will grow as writers at the college level. There are three major writing projects: 1) analysis of climate messaging, 2) scientific literature review on a climate topic of your choice, and 3) collaborative project to communicate climate science effectively.

WRI 101 [K]: Thinking Boys, Thinking Girls
MWF 12:30 - 1:20
Fackler
What is girlhood, and what is boyhood? How are they different from one another? Likewise, how are girlhood and boyhood different from adulthood? And how do the relationships and differences among girlhood and boyhood, and adulthood change from one time, one place, or one philosophy to another? As we continue to trouble binary distinctions of gender, how do categories of boyhood and girlhood obtain in our twenty-first century context? This course emphasizes such questions as we examine the histories, representations, and theorizations of childhood and adolescence in a variety of global contexts. We trace ideas and figures of girlhood and boyhood across sites including novels, poems, films, performances, scientific case studies, and material objects. We also consider the ways in which “thinking girls” and “thinking boys” have a stake in such categories of experience as class, gender, race, and sexuality, and how “thinking girls” and “thinking boys” may have a crucial impact on social justice and political change. As the title of the course suggests, we will create a context both for thinking upon girlhood and boyhood for pushing the thinking of young men and women. Think you know what it means to think as a girl or boy, or to think about a girl of a boy? Think again. 
   

WRI 101 [L]: Bathing Culture
MWF 1:30 - 2:20
Allison Smith
Nearly 2,000 years ago, a person in the Roman colony of Timgad (Algeria) felt it important to compose a graffito that expressed, “to bathe…is to live.” While regular bathing is important hygienically, in American society, it is a private act, done behind closed doors.  However, in antiquity and in modern societies around the world, bathing is a public and communal affair. Enjoyment is had, connections are made, and relaxation is vital - for those visiting the baths, of course. For those working in the baths, a different centrality of the bathing habit emerges. This course examines ancient bathing in Greek and Roman societies, using translations of ancient texts (primarily Vitruvius and Martial) and modern scholarship (Yegül, Fagan, and Trümper among others) to inform our understanding of this fundamental custom. Who were the people who patronized these establishments in antiquity and what elements of bathing characterized these ancient traditions? How were these baths built and by whom were they managed and maintained? How can modern customs of public bathing better inform us about the experiences of ancient people whose voices are virtually all but lost to us?

These primary questions will be explored in this writing course in the form of three major projects, with regular peer critique, drafting, and revision. These major projects will ask students to engage with the ancient evidence for bathing in Greek and Roman cultures, critically examine the ways in which archaeological evidence can and cannot be used to substantiate ancient literary sources, and compare their own personal experiences and modern bathing habits from global cultures to antiquity.  By the end of this course, students will have a better understanding of this essential custom of the ancient Mediterranean world and build the tools with which cross-cultural, temporal, and geographical analyses are made.

WRI 101 [M]: Mindfulness, Yoga and Qi
TR 1:40 - 2:55
Pang
Mindfulness, yoga, and qi practices have become a ubiquitous part of wellness culture in a globalized world. Mindfulness is practiced in elementary schools, corporate settings, and hospitals. Yoga studios and yoga attire have become seamlessly intertwined with capitalism. Qi practices are integrated into a variety of alternative healthcare options. And yet, each of these traditions have ancient roots in the religious cultures of India and China. To what extent are these modern usages of mindfulness, yoga, and qi practices an adaptation of these ancient Indian and Chinese religious practices? At what point do iterations of mindfulness, yoga, and qi practices constitute cultural appropriation? In this course we will attempt to answer this main question through deliberations on a variety of primary and secondary sources, including classic Hindu, Buddhist, and Daoist texts; secondary scholarship on the topic; articles written in popular magazines and websites; and contemporary advertising. Writers will have the chance to hone their argumentative writing skills in three writing projects. 

WRI 101 [N]: According to Science
MW 2:30 - 3:45
Rosemond

WRI 101 [O]: TBD
MW  2:30 - 3:45
Thompson
 

WRI 101 [P]: A Bite of Chinese Politics 
TR 3:05 - 4:20
Zhu
 

WRI 101 [Q]: Here and There: Writing Place
MWF 3:30 - 4:20
Norris
In this course, we will be focusing on place-based writing as we explore rhetoric and practice primary and secondary research. We’ll foreground drafting, revision, and peer critique for our own writing and explore readings that move from memoir to nature writing to investigative journalism by writers such as Danielle Geller, Randall Kenan, and Stephanie Elizondo Griest. We will have the opportunity to deepen our understanding of local heritage, cultures, landscapes, opportunities, and experiences, using these as a foundation for the study of language. Of place-based education, Laurie Lane-Zucker of the Orion Society writes:

“Place-based education might be characterized as the pedagogy of community, the reintegration of the individual into her homeground and the restoration of the essential links between a person and her place. Place-based education challenges the meaning of education by asking seemingly simple questions: Where am I? What is the nature of this place? What sustains this community? It often employs a process of re-storying, whereby students are asked to respond creatively to stories of their homeground so that, in time, they are able to position themselves, imaginatively and actually, within the continuum of nature and culture in that place. They become a part of the community, rather than a passive observer of it.”

Together, then, we will explore the many ways in which writing allows us to engage with place, writing personal narrative, completing external research, and combining the two into a final piece. We will write to promote community, to explore issues we care about, to clarify our own identities as writers, and to communicate across academic, cultural, environmental, and social perspectives.