The Professional Writing & Rhetoric Concentration in the Department of English is pleased to offer two online courses, this summer:
Around the World in 22 Days (ENG 270 OL)
Dr. Jessie Kapper
In this virtual world tour, we’ll visit language teaching classes around the globe to examine how policies, cultural influences, and language variations affect how language and communication are taught. You say toilet, I say water closet… Which do we teach? I like British English, you prefer American English… Which choice is best for students learning English as an additional language? Participants will develop final projects based on their own research questions about teaching English in global contexts. Plan to work or teach abroad? To teach in U.S. schools? This course is for you!
Mediastorm: Rhetoric in Information Age (ENG 371 OL)
Prof. Michael Strickland
This is a course on media literacy and information age survival skills. Beginning with the advent of cable TV in the 1970s, to satellite TV in the 1980s, and the World Wide Web in the 1990s, we are living in what media critic Todd Gitlin calls a “torrent of images and sounds” which overwhelms our lives. From the “Sopranos” and “Sex in the City” to “Survivor” and C-SPAN and ESPN, we are awash in media 24/7. There can be little denial that even now, arguably still in the dawning period of the information age, in order to prevent citizens from being blown away by the data storm of information technologies (and the Internet is only the most recent and explosive of these), that education must provide not only exposure to new media tools but also some principles of critical analysis about information technology and the rapidly changing paradigms of literacy in an information society.
For more information on either course, contact the appropriate instructor or visit the Web site listed below.