Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Students write approximately 2,000 words of revised, final draft copy, including at least 1,000 words of essay work that explore writing craft or theory. Students meet with the instructor for two out-of-class conferences.

1. Read a wide range of writers, visual artists, and graphic designers to understand and apply the techniques demonstrated in their work.

2. Write and design original work that effectively employs principles of writing craft and visual design to engage diverse audiences.

3. Use critical thinking skills and discipline-specific language to analyze and critique others’ work.

4. Employ rigorous self-assessment and imaginative effort when revising work critiqued by peers.

This course should include some lecture, but will consist mostly of round-table workshops in which student work will be evaluated by peers and the instructor. Students will come prepared to critique the work and respond to it during this discussion, and will submit written responses as well. Students will read a variety of published word & image pieces. Students may be asked to complete word & image assignments using essay, fiction, non-fiction, and/or poetry forms. Though elements of comics and graphic novels may be read and discussed, this is not a focus of the course. Not every final piece needs to contain an image; a piece of writing might change, via revision, such that it no longer requires the image. The instructor should spend approximately an hour of conference with each student outside of class.

Assessment may include informal responses to class readings and peer work; evaluation of small- and full-group discussion; in-class and out-of-class writing; word & image pieces as well as other types of more informal writing; presentations by individuals and groups; short and long quizzes; close reading exercises using support/evidence; writing exercises which include evaluation of various interpretations of a text and their relative validity. Both instructor and peer evaluation will be incorporated in the assessment process. 

Outcome Assessment Strategies may include student critiques of student work, in-class and out-of-class writing, close reading exercises, and instructor conferences. Students missing a week's worth of class may not expect an A; those missing two week's worth may not pass the course.

·         Illustration vs. Interdependence

·         Ekphrasis

·         Scale and Hierarchy

·         Experimentation

·         Revision

·         Prosody

·         Voice

·         Tone

·         Character

·         Figurative Language

·         Scene

·         Point of view

·         Dialogue

·         Conflict

·         Connotation

·         Concision

·         Allusion

·         Symbol

·         Imagery

·         Audience

·         Theme

·         Irony

·         Parody

·         Analysis

·         Writing as a process

·         Close reading

·         Contextualization

·         Recontextualization