Writing and Power Power: who has it, who doesn’t, and what does it have to do with your writing? This course both instructs students in how to access power in academic contexts and to critique power structures. We’ll learn how power connects to literacy, and how it's shaped through rhetorical contexts. Students will explore their own power as writers and thinkers while engaging in meaningful personal, reflective and argumentative writing. The professor will work with each student extensively on their writing process and development, and we'll create a writing community. This course bears elective credit but does not fulfill the college writing requirement.

English Language in Global Context In this course we will discuss and write about the dominance of English in the global landscape. Course readings and films offer an interdisciplinary approach to the topic. We will begin the course with a geographic and historical overview of World Englishes and then will examine the impact of English language dominance on individuals and societies, emphasizing themes such as migration, globalization, education, and identity. Throughout the course, we will explore the relevance of these issues to educators, linguists, and policy-makers around the world.

English Grammar: Concepts and Controversies In this course we will study the structure of the English language, learning key terms and strategies for analyzing English syntax.  We will explore English grammar from both prescriptive and descriptive perspectives and examine its relevance to language policy, linguistic prejudice, and English education.  Readings will be drawn from a variety of texts, including Rhetorical Grammar (2009), Eats, Shoots & Leaves (2006), Language Myths (1999), and Origins of the Specious (2010). This course is relevant to students wanting to increase their own knowledge of the English language, as well as to those seeking tools for English teaching and/or research.

Writing Gender and Sexuality In this course we will read, discuss, and write creative works that explore issues of gender and sexuality. Readings will include stories, poems, and essays by James Baldwin, Ana Castillo, Peggy Munson, Eli Claire, Alice Walker, Michelle Tea, Alison Bechdel, and others. The course will include writing workshops with peers and individual meetings with the instructor. Every student will revise a range of pieces across genres and produce a final portfolio. We will do some contemplative work and will engage with choreographer to explore movement in conversation with writing, gender, and sex.

Writing to Heal This writing-intensive course examines writing as a catalyst for healing after loss or grief. In a workshop focused on student writing, we will analyze fiction, drama, poetry, and creative nonfiction as a basis for discussions.  To this end, we will read creative non-fiction, memoir, and novels.  Assignments for this course will include formal analytical essays, creative work (published online), and oral presentations.

The Rhetorics of Sports       In this course we will examine the relationship between media, sports, and the formulation of one’s identity. We will examine issues pertaining to gender identification, violence, and hero worship. Reading critical essays on the subject, studying media coverage of sporting events, and writing short analytical essays will enable us to determine key elements concerning how sports are contextualized in American culture. Student essays will form the basis of a more in-depth inquiry that each student will then present, using media, at the end of the course.

Race, Rhetoric, and Protest In this course we will study the theoretical and rhetorical underpinnings of racial protest in America. We will begin by studying movements from the 1950s and 1960s, moving from bus boycotts to Black Power protests, and will build to analyzing recent protests in Ferguson, Dallas, and New York. Readings will include texts from Charles E. Morris III, Aja Martinez, Shon Meckfessel, Gwendolyn Pough, and various articles and op-eds. Students will write analyses of historical and contemporary protest, op-eds about the local culture, and syntheses on the course readings. 3 hrs. Lect

Narratives in News Media In this course we will consider questions such as: What linguistic strategies do the news media use to craft compelling stories?  What are the dominant narratives at play about national and global social issues, and how are some journalists working to counter those narratives?  We will employ Critical Discourse Analysis as a central framework, reading theoretical and empirical work by linguists such as Teun van Dijk, as well as from sociologists and political scientists. We will engage with “On the Media” and other podcasts, TED talks, documentaries such as Outfoxed (2004), and online magazines.  Students will write for a variety of audiences.

Social Class and the Environment In this course we will explore the consequence of growth, technological development, and the evolution of ecological sacrifice zones.  Texts will serve as the theoretical framework for in-the-field investigations, classroom work, and real-world experience. The Struggle for Environmental Justice outlines resistance models; Shadow Cities provides lessons from the squatters movement;  Ben Hewitt's The Town that Food Saved describes economy of scale solutions, and David Owen's The Conundrum challenges environmentalism.  Texts will guide discussions, serve as lenses for in-the-field investigations, and the basis for writing. We will also travel to Hardwick and Putney, Vermont, to explore new economic-environmental models.

Trickery, Bodies, and Resistance: The Tradition(s) of Rhetoric How do female identifying subjects position themselves (and their bodies) rhetorically in a male-dominated society? How do Black and Latinx rhetorical traditions of call-and-response and code-switching connect with and resist classical traditions of oration and stylistics? In this course we will study the tradition(s) of rhetoric by moving from the trickery of sophists to budding works in feminist rhetorics and cultural rhetorics. Students in this class will learn to synthesize the various traditions of rhetoric in historical and contemporary terms and to critically understand cultural customs that exist outside the white, heteronormative Greco-Roman tradition.

Critical Issues and Methods in Teaching Writing: Process Pedagogy to Multiliteracies In this course students will learn to work with writers from diverse backgrounds and disciplines while developing their own writing practices and habits. We will learn about writing pedagogy, tutoring strategies, and current topics in writing studies such as process pedagogy, technology and literacy, and multiliteracies. Students will explore multiple writing modalities while developing innovative teaching practices. Upon successful completion of the course, interested students will be invited to work as peer writing tutors in the Writing Center.

Feminist Blogging Blogging is a genre that lends itself to both feminist theory and practice because it involves writing from a particular place and a particular embodiment, about how power operates in our social worlds. Feminist theory demands intersectionality: an ability to weave race, class, gender, sexuality and other forms of power into a single theoretical approach. Feminist blogging transforms intersectionality into a single narrative arc.  In this course we will think about blogging as a genre and how feminist theory can infuse that genre into a more vibrant, complex, and even transformative site. Throughout the course we will read feminist theory, analyze feminist blogs, and produce our own feminist blogs.

Writing Race and Class In this course we will take a literary and intersectional approach to topics of race and class. Readings include stories, essays, poems and videos by writers such as James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Gloria Anzaldúa and Kelly Tsai. Students will respond to critical and creative writing prompts, conduct fieldwork, and design two writing projects of their own. The class format will include conversations with guest writers, writing workshops, contemplative activities, and individual conferences with the instructor. Students will preferably have prior experience in discussing issues of race and class, although introductory theories will be made available to provide frameworks for discussion.

AI, Writing, and Creativity: The imagination in the Digital Age In this course we will explore how AI systems—large language models—are transforming creative expression. Through collaborative inquiry, students will examine fundamental questions about imagination, authorship, and human creativity while developing rhetorical awareness. This course will ask students to understand AI not as a culturally neutral technology but as one shaped by — and reshaping — American institutions, values, and inequalities. We'll investigate AI as a socially relevant contemporary issue, considering questions of equity, agency, and community in digital writing spaces. Students will write for diverse audiences, engage with interdisciplinary perspectives on technology and creativity, and view their own linguistic and creative differences as assets. Ultimately, we'll use writing to deepen our thinking about what it means to create in an AI-influenced world.

Documentary Rhetorics In this course students will explore the rhetorical performances of documentary film—in terms of production, ethics, and editing—and how documentaries are used for different means: investigation, activism, and even propaganda. After watching contemporary documentaries and reading reviews, interviews, analyses, and theories of filmmaking, students will analyze specific films (with cultural rhetorics and social consciousness lenses), conduct and transcribe interviews, and write a code of ethics for documentary filmmakers. The final project has students either produce or storyboard their own short documentaries.

Investigative Storytelling In this course students will learn skills for analysis and creation of investigative storytelling, using a project-based curriculum for students. Students will analyze and explore investigations in popular mediums—such as the podcast Serial by Sarah Koenig and Julie Snyder, the book Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow, the documentary series OJ: Made in America by Ezra Edelman, and investigations that stem from The Boston Globe Spotlight team. They will also work on their own investigative storytelling projects. Through their discussions and research, students will better understand how investigative storytelling texts function rhetorically to hold truth to power and can—and sometimes cannot—create individual, collective, and institutional change.

The Rhetorics of Death In this course we will examine a number of issues that arise once we begin to reflect on our mortality. Are we, in some sense, immortal? Would immortality be desirable? How should the knowledge that I am going to die affect the way I live my life? What is the place of grief? The goal of this course is to examine creative approaches to these questions in Literature and Philosophy. The purpose of this examination is to enable deep reflections on a meaningful life when understanding that there is an end to it. We will engage in discussions and share our writing as a means of understanding “the good life.” Student writing will emerge from discussions of course texts.

Writing On Contemporary Issues: Writing, Editing, and Publishing Online This course is an introduction to writing prose for a public audience.  Students will create both critical and personal essays that feature strong ideas and perspectives. The readings and writing will focus on American popular culture, broadly defined. Essays will critically engage elements of contemporary American popular culture via a vivid personal voice and presence. Readings will address current issues in popular culture – Gladwell, “Brain Candy,” Klosterman, “Campus Confidential,” for instance. ReMix: Reading in Contemporary Culture is the central text. The end result will be a new online magazine of writings on American popular culture

Writing and Experience: Exploring Self in Society The reading and online writing for this course will focus on what it means to construct a sense of self in relation to the larger social world of family and friends, education, media, work, and community. Readings will include nonfiction and fiction works by authors such as Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Andre Dubus, Tim O'Brien, Flannery O'Connor, Amy Tan, Tobias Wolff, and Alice Walker. Students will explore the craft of storytelling and the multiple ways in which one can employ the tools of fiction in crafting creative nonfiction and fiction narratives for a new online magazine on American popular culture.  This magazine will have been created by students in Writing on Contemporary Issues.  Narratives about self and society will therefore lean towards aspects of American popular culture. 3 hrs sem.

Labor Rhetorics: Work in the U.S. Imaginary Recently, labor and work are everywhere in U.S. media and culture. From news articles and social media posts about “the great resignation” to anxieties about worker demands. In this course, we will use rhetorical analysis as both theory and research methodology to examine labor and work. Using a variety of cultural and public texts like non-fiction, literature, newspapers, television, and labor research, students will learn rhetorical concepts, interpret, and critically analyze the diverse messages about labor that surround us, and build skill in using written and oral communication to develop their own labor rhetorics and advocate for local workplace change.

The Rhetoric of Public Memory This course focuses on public memory and the various statues, memorials, sites, and spaces that construct public memory in contemporary U.S. society. In this course, we will study local Middlebury and Vermont public memories, Civil War and Confederate memories, and spaces of contention and controversy, while visiting nearby memorials and museums. Students in this class will compose analyses on these public memories and create arguments on the viability of memories in different shapes and forms. Overall, students will leave this class with a stronger understanding of not only public memory rhetoric but the various components that keep these memories alive.

Introduction to Sports Writing This course will examine sports journalism-the nuts and bolts-as well as the genre’s history and its future. Students will study the various styles of sports writing, from long-form storytelling (in articles, documentaries, and docuseries) to play-by-play coverage, breaking news, and investigative journalism. We will also examine writer bias, sports in society, and look at the role of social media in sports—how it is used by athletes, teams, agents, and reporters. Assignments will include a survey of recent sports stories, critical analysis of these articles, event coverage on deadline, and a long-form project (athlete profile or larger theme). We will also tour Olympic venues and meet with local organizers.

Research/Service Grant Writing This course teaches grant writing, a technical skill that can advance careers in academia, research, government, nonprofits/NGOs, and activism. Student will gain practical, hands-on-experience with technical writing by first workshopping a personal essay for graduate school fellowship, or job applications. Then, students will write and revise a grant proposal for an organization, with the option of collaborating with a local nonprofit. The course also covers topics like nonprofit fundraising, program evaluation, nonprofit management, equity in grant-making, AI’s role in grant writing, and job seeking in the nonprofit sector. Students will leave with two applied writing samples for their own opportunities after graduation.  After considerable trial and error, Nicole Conti (HARC ’09, first-generation college student) has transformed her liberal arts education into a successful career as a grants and evaluation professional in the robust philanthropic environment in Minnesota. Her goal with this course is to provide current students with the practical and technical skills that she wishes she had upon graduating.

The Art and Science of the Interview Interviews are everywhere, from celebrity “freak-outs” to NPR’s StoryCorps to applying to your first job. We will use rhetorical and generic approaches to better understand the purpose and structure of the interview as it arises in different public and professional contexts. We will learn how to become better and more ethical interviewers, and we will conduct interviews on subjects that interest us. Along the way, we will write and reflect on the ethics, purposes, techniques, and psychosocial effects of interviewing. This course prepares students for the social-cultural and contextual nuances of conducting academic, activist, and personal interviews. This course is part of the Public Humanities Labs Initiative administered by the Axinn Center for the Humanities.*

Contemplative Writing, Contemplative Practice Slowing down and staying centered at Middlebury (and in life) can be challenging. In this course, we will engage in different forms of contemplative practice, such as movement, meditation, breathwork, and contemplative writing. We will read about the history and philosophies of these practices and engage with them. We will also look at how space and place affect these practices by visiting different contemplative spaces and reflecting on their construction and effects on our practice. These reflections will be used to create a final autoethnographic project to synthesize the practical, intellectual, and emotional components of the course.

Acting Your Age: Meanings of Adulthood In this course we will take up the question of “what is adulting”? Is it something one becomes or is? Or something one does? Why is it part of a global conversation about changing economic and social conditions? And how does that impact you? To explore these questions, we will read articles by social scientists and discuss essays and poems by writers such as Audre Lorde, Tina Fey, Sandra Cisneros and Warsan Shire. We will visit archives to look for traces of adulting in former Middlebury students and engage in storytelling with children and elders at community sites. The course will culminate in a student-led, public facing creative installation on adulting.

Telling Science Stories: Science Communication for the Public  In this course we will engage with theories and practices for communicating science to public audiences. Through learning about audience, visual design, and storytelling, we will improve our ability to communicate science to non-specialists. Museum studies will be used as the focal paradigm for communicating STEM themes. Drawing on examples from Radio Lab and popular science writers, we will create a final project modeled after the “Flame Challenge”—an international competition in which scientists make their work accessible to non-specialists. Students will work in teams to create a multimodal story about scientific discoveries.

Data Science Across Disciplines In this course, we will gain exposure to the entire data science pipeline—obtaining and cleaning large and messy data sets, exploring these data and creating engaging visualizations, and communicating insights from the data in a meaningful manner. During morning sessions, we will learn the tools and techniques required to explore new and exciting data sets. During afternoon sessions, students will work in small groups with one of several faculty members on domain-specific research projects in Geography, Linguistics, Political Science, or Writing & Rhetoric. This course will use the R programming language. No prior experience with R is necessary.   GEOG: Students will apply data science tools to explore the geography human-environment relationships around protected areas. We will use household survey and land cover data from locations across the humid tropics where the Wildlife Conservation Society has been tracking human wellbeing and forest resource use in high-priority conservation landscapes. Projects and visualizations will be presented back to WCS to inform their ongoing monitoring and management in these sites.   LNGT: In this section, we will learn how to collect and analyze Twitter data in R. We will focus on social metrics and geographical locations to examine language variation in online communities across the United States. While the emphasis will be placed on linguistics, the statistical and analytical tools will help you work with other types of Twitter corpora in the future.   PSCI: Students will use cross-national data to explore relationships between conflict events and political, social, and economic factors in each nation. What factors contribute to conflict and violence? Our focus will be to find patterns in the data using the tools in R and discuss what those patterns suggest for addressing rising conflict and resolving ones that have already experienced violence.   WRPR: Students will learn to conduct writing studies research through working with "big data” from a multiyear survey of first-year college students about their academic confidences, attitudes, and perceptions. We will explore how educational access, identity, and language background impacts survey responses. Using statistical analysis and data visualizations, as well as writing, we will report our findings.

Catharine Wright

David Allen

Genie Giaimo

Hector Vila

James Sanchez

Katherine O'Brien

Laurie Essig

Melissa Hammerle

Nicole Conti

Peggy Shinn

Shawna Shapiro

Treasure Brooks

Read 95 reviews for Writing and Rhetoric Program courses at Middlebury College. Find the best Writing and Rhetoric Program professors and courses.  Discover your new major today!

Professor Vila is one of the smartest professors at Middlebury. This class is incredibly informative on current events, and Vila has some very interesting and nuanced takes on AI, and I honestly think it is an important class. You only have about 3 essays in the entire class, which make up most of your grade, but he is a chill grader and provides lots of help. The reading can be long but you can pace yourself. 

Overall, it was a very easy class with a low workload. There was the occasional paper or response, but they were pretty easy. Vila is a great professor who loves to work with students and is very accommodating to people who ask.

Vila was a great professor and had a lot of passion for the material. We went through a lot of books, but it is not a big deal if you don't read every day. The essays were extremely interesting, and Vila is a tough grader at first. He has a ton of critiques, but I definitely became a better writer by the end of the course. Also he allows for extensions and will give tips before the submission date of your paper.