UCOR Section Descriptions

Course Description

Effective academic writing helps us understand and propose new ways of seeing ourselves and our world. In this writing intensive course, we'll learn to use rhetorical arguments and the revision process to explore how identity is made and sustained in art and in society. Writing about art can revise, expand on, and answer what identity can be. Together, we are going to explore, through readings and museum field trips and critical essays, how people talk about art and personal identity. We will uncover some of the important ways that artists, museums, schools, and, even, politicians use art to unmask, create, and interrogate identity.

Course Description

Our topic is work, with reflection, analysis and research on these questions: What meanings do we attach to different kinds of work? How does work affect identity? How does work shape the worker and the larger society? What is the context of the minimum-wage debate in Seattle? What are the conditions of work where the things we "consume" are made, and how do those conditions affect us as consumers?

Course Description

Through academic and civic writing, this course explores the theme of water citizenship—what we as citizens know about where our tap water comes from, where our flushes send it, how much it costs to manage it, who owns it, and how humans threaten its supply and safety. Our “knowledge” is often shaped by pop culture and media, which serve us a mixture of fact and fear about water. Think of news coverage of recent floods, droughts, and contamination; of TV series such as Mighty Rivers and Blue Planet; of films such as Quantum of Solace, Rango, and Dark Waters; and of thriller novels such as The Water Knife. Think also of the rhetorical impact of the phrases “water wars” and “toilet to tap.” Clearly, to be educated, responsible water citizens we need to understand the power of language and image and have the rhetorical knowledge and writing skills to write our way into these civic conversations. This course, through analyzing pop culture artifacts, reading civic and researched arguments, and creating writing and visual projects that ask you to be proactive water citizens, will prepare you for academic writing, with its emphasis on analysis, research, and argument.

Course Description

Effective academic writing helps us understand and propose new ways of seeing ourselves and our world. In this writing intensive course, we'll learn to use rhetorical arguments and the revision process to explore how identity is made and sustained in art and in society. Writing about art can revise, expand on, and answer what identity can be. Together, we are going to explore, through readings and museum field trips and critical essays, how people talk about art and personal identity. We will uncover some of the important ways that artists, museums, schools, and, even, politicians use art to unmask, create, and interrogate identity.

Course Description

How does television shape our perceptions of everyday life? How does it encourage us to take on a passive role as consumers of culture? And what do popular shows--like Modern Family and The Walking Dead--tell us about the cultural zeitgeist and our contemporary moment? Rather than demonize or simply praise television as basic entertainment, this course draws on reflective, analytical, and exploratory writing to address these questions and our cultural obsession with television.

Course Description

Effective academic writing helps us understand and propose new ways of seeing ourselves and our world. In this writing intensive course, we'll learn to use rhetorical arguments and the revision process to explore how identity is made and sustained in art and in society. Writing about art can revise, expand on, and answer what identity can be. Together, we are going to explore, through readings and museum field trips and critical essays, how people talk about art and personal identity. We will uncover some of the important ways that artists, museums, schools, and, even, politicians use art to unmask, create, and interrogate identity.

Course Description

How does television shape our perceptions of everyday life? How does it encourage us to take on a passive role as consumers of culture? And what do popular shows--like Modern Family and The Walking Dead--tell us about the cultural zeitgeist and our contemporary moment? Rather than demonize or simply praise television as basic entertainment, this course draws on reflective, analytical, and exploratory writing to address these questions and our cultural obsession with television.

Course Description

This writing seminar invites us to consider not only the sources of our food, but the environmental, social, and ethical impact of our choices. How are we connected (or not) to the sources of our food? How are social justice and sustainability linked? Students will engage these questions through readings, writing projects, service learning, field trips, and films, developing the ability to present arguments in clear, academic prose, employ writing as a critical thinking tool, and participate in civic discourse.

Course Description

How does television shape our perceptions of everyday life? How does it encourage us to take on a passive role as consumers of culture? And what do popular shows--like Modern Family and The Walking Dead--tell us about the cultural zeitgeist and our contemporary moment? Rather than demonize or simply praise television as basic entertainment, this course draws on reflective, analytical, and exploratory writing to address these questions and our cultural obsession with television.

Course Description

Our topic is work, with reflection, analysis and research on these questions: What meanings do we attach to different kinds of work? How does work affect identity? How does work shape the worker and the larger society? What is the context of the minimum-wage debate in Seattle? What are the conditions of work where the things we "consume" are made, and how do those conditions affect us as consumers?