Persuasion: Writing Across Disciplines

1 Credit Hour

This course is preparation for, among other things, writing an effective statement of facts and learning to be sensitive and critically intelligent about nuances of language and diction, and presentations and representations of fact by others. Persuasion is an art, not a science, and writers adopt widely different strategies in order to accomplish their goals. The course is built around a close examination of the narrative nonfiction strategies, the art and techniques of one book: Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns. All students in the class are required to read the entire book before the first class in January. The book is long and tells a complex story with great concentration and attention. A writer must always be asking, who is the audience for this piece of writing? How does the tone of a particular piece of writing influence the reader and how the ‘factual’ material is received? How does the writer establish authority? A writer’s first audience is always one’s self: Is what you are writing interesting to you? To others? To whom? What is the object here -- to educate, to inform, to do intellectual work for others? Who are the others? Critical aspects of writing are the key to communication, including, voice, diction, mode of address, and acknowledged and unspoken assumptions about the education and level of understanding of the audience. As a class, we will analyze the structure and other aspects of narrative of the Wilkerson book. Some of this work will be group projects; other assignments will be individual. Some writing assignments will be individual assignments, and there will be individual and group class presentations. During the course there will be several cross disciplinary panels which will address how written work is professionally published and evaluated in their discipline, and how the skills of persuasion are critical to accomplishing goals such as obtaining foundation grants, persuading members of Congress or other policy makers to support your project, or simply to enlist the support of others. All class assignments will be due the Monday after the last class session. All other written work will also be due at that time.