WRT
105
Instructor:
Rachel Burgess
Student: Renee Gross
Title of Piece: Smoke Clouds of Societal Clashing
Teacher’s Commentary: The Social Uses of Photography assignment
asked students to critically analyze two photographs, opposite in nature,
by placing them in a historical, social, or political context that would
then be the fodder for students' analysis and rhetorical comment. Renee
Gross' "Smoke Clouds of Societal Clashing" does an excellent
job of creating genuine dialogue between an affluent upper class character
and an extremely lower class, almost classless, one. The homeless character
challenges the Red Lady to question her position in society. Though
in no way does he assuage her desire and her right to perpetuate the
stark disparity between the "haves and the have nots," Gross'
text illustrates that the Red Lady is left feeling defeated by someone
for whom she had no respect.
Themes: symbolism, narrative, culture, clashing ideologies, class,
morality
Instructor:
Paul Butler
Student: Meghan Stevenson
Title of Piece: My Own Prison: Lawrinson Hall
Teacher’s Commentary: In
this Writing 109 studio assignment on urban space, I asked students
to analyze a building on campus or in the community using some of our
course readings that looked at cities as complex systems and emergent
environments. In her essay, “My Own Prison: Lawrinson Hall,”
Megan Stevenson works with some of the structural binaries identified
by nineteenth-century architect Le Corbusier—for example, the
tensions between curve and straight line, paralysis and circulation,
feeling and reason—to analyze her campus dormitory, Lawrinson
Hall. She identifies an important dichotomy between the restrictive,
isolating construction of Lawrinson, which she says is reminiscent of
a penal institution, and the many ways in which she and other residents
subvert and reappropriate the dorm’s disciplinary power structure
in order to create small communities of interaction.
Themes: Syracuse University housing, humor, structuralism, symbolism,
architecture, analogy
Instructor:
Vivian Rice
Student: Caitlin Fischer
Title of Piece: A Journey of Faith: The Evolution of Religious
Belief in the Music of U2
Teacher’s Commentary: This
assignment required the students to consider the power of language:
how it positions us, how it defines us, and how it limits us. They were
to write a researched essay, using a perspective that would take up
their subject from a "new" direction. Caitlin chose to write
about the band U2, describing, through the lens of two theorists, how
changes in the lyrics reveal changes in Bono's faith, his growth, his
struggles, and the ways he identifies himself with respect to his faith.
Themes: music, evolution, analysis, faith, symbolism, U2, religion,
lyrics
Instructor:
Jeff Simmons
Student: Mlungisi C. Mabele
Title of Piece: Linguistic Identity
Teacher’s Commentary: My WRT 105 class was assigned a research-based
argument essay related to language. MC’s essay was certainly well
researched, but also integrated his personal experience into the dialogue
in a very powerful way. I think student writers tend to avoid conflicted
emotions, especially in argument essays; MC mines these ambiguities
deeply and honestly.
Themes: culture, language barriers, history of Africa, ethnic
conflict, self-reflection, cultural conformity, diversity
Instructor: Jeff Simmons
Student: Hui Lee
Title of Piece: A Picture that Foretells the Future
Teacher’s Commentary: I asked my students to analyze a
family photograph, locating it in a broader historical or political
context. I was deeply moved by Hui’s description of her father’s
journey between two cultures. “Uncompromising” is something
of a cliché when speaking of writers, but it is the word that
comes to my mind when I think of Hui. She always has a clear vision
of what she wants to say or do in a piece of writing, and she refuses
to compromise that vision just because she is writing in English. She
has a great mind and a great heart.
Themes: ESL writing, cultural ideologies, social reflection,
self reflection, gender issues, communication, cultural conformity,
diversity
WRT 205
Instructor: Amy Robillard
Student: Kevin Cato
Title of Piece: "Nigger": Language, History, and Modern
Day Discourse
Teacher’s Commentary: In
my Spring 2002 WRT 205 course, which I titled “Connecting the
Public and the Private: Research as Critical Inquiry,” I asked
students to study a controversial disciplinary issue in their fields
of study and to present that controversy to an audience of their peers:
students in the class, many of whom did not share the same disciplinary
background. Kevin Cato chose to study the arguments surrounding the
use and so-called reclaiming of the word nigger in some African-American
communities. Using Randall Kennedy’s book Nigger: The Strange
Career of a Troublesome Word as his jumping-off point, Cato presents
the controversy passionately and authoritatively, inserting himself
into the conversation as a successful researcher and simultaneously
keeping the lines of inquiry open.
Themes: controversy, race, analysis, interpretation, society, pop culture,
diversity, slang, terminology, ethnic slurs
Instructor: Janna Viles
Student: Megan Guidone
Title of Piece: The Research Process: Sentiments of the Vietnam
War
Themes: research, outline, drafting process, literary and film
sources for information on Vietnam, research reflection, Vietnam veterans
WRT 209
Instructor:
Henry Jankiewicz
Student: April Putney
Title of Piece: Humanitarian Intervention: A Community, Its Debate,
and My Critique
Teacher’s Commentary: My section of Studio 2 Honors was
designed as an extended exercise for writers to use rhetorical analysis,
argument, and critical research to study and assess a controversy of
their choosing and work out positions of their own. April chose the
problem of humanitarian intervention, a point of debate in international
relations, and worked out a wonderfully nuanced analysis of the views
of each philosophical camp toward the claims and values of the others.
Little could she have known, a year later, as the U.S. flouts international
law to intervene in Iraq, our country as a whole would be taking up
the issue, but not in as studied a manner as this.
Themes: History, genocide, research, debate, international law,
freedom, morality, humanitarian intervention, legalist, moralist, realist,
United Nations, states’ rights, individual rights, compare/contrast
Instructor: Henry Jankiewicz
Student: Sarah Young
Title of Piece: The Debate Over Public and Private Service
Teacher’s Commentary: In
Studio 2 Honors, we used principles of rhetoric and argumentation to
examine controversies in three academic communities, then students selected
a controversy to research and write about during the rest of the semester.
Sarah decided, in an almost reflective research piece, to weigh the
pros and cons of two modalities for the delivery of social services.
She speaks authoritatively of her field and models the process of using
fair and balanced deliberation to arrive at an informed preference.
Themes: analysis, compare/contrast, social issues, research,
debate, law, morality, public service, private service
