Course Descriptions for Spring 2025 Offerings

WR200: Intro to Creative Nonfiction

Counts as a Peace and Justice Minor Studies elective.

Instructor:  Prof. Jane Satterfield 
.01 TTH 12:15-1:30PM
.02 TTH 4:30-5:45PM

Creative nonfiction is true stories artfully told. Nonfiction writers hail from all disciplines and walks of life; they top bestseller charts with styles that range from the traditional to the experimental. They pay witness to and advocate for the common good. In Introduction to Creative Nonfiction, you’ll learn strategies successful writers use to protest, persuade, and entertain while drawing on the dynamic energy of great fiction.  
 
We’ll read personal essays and profiles with a special focus on today’s cutting-edge flash nonfiction to help you explore outlets for your publishing future. Our class will offer a supportive atmosphere where you can receive feedback and cultivate creativity. By semester’s end, you’ll have a portfolio of work that showcases your unique take on stories that matter most to you. 
 
Whether you want to preserve the people and places and things you love, share your discoveries with the world, or speak out for social justice, our class will help you harness the power of real-life stories to reach a wider audience in the classroom, in the workplace, and beyond. All majors and levels of experience welcome! 

WR230: Introduction to Poetry and Fiction

Instructor: Prof. Karen Fish
TT 10:50-12:05pm

This is a foundational course for those with little or no experience with fiction and/or poetry. You might simply want to “try it out.” I find it impossible to teach writing without teaching close reading. This semester you will read like a writer and gradually learn how to notice the many technical choices that authors make. Reading closely can give us ideas and provide context. I am interested in inspiring you and fostering an atmosphere where it is enjoyable to experiment and practice, rewrite and revise. Writing is finally about studying good writing and finding things worth writing about.

WR301: Writing about Science

Instructor: Dr. Terre Ryan
MWF 1:00-1:50pm

Students in WR 301 practice techniques of writing nonfiction for popular magazines and engage in rhetorical analysis of representations of science in the media. Students read contemporary popular nonfiction that draws on science and learn how writers use the art of prose to contribute to scientific literacy. This course is ideal for those who want a career in writing or for students who simply want to improve their skills. A background in science is not required, but the course counts toward the Forensic Studies minor and the Environmental Studies minor. 

WR320: Argumentation

Instructor: Dr. Martin Camper
TTH 10:50-12:05

Argumentation describes the reasoning process we use in deliberation, discernment, and decision-making. In this course, we’ll explore the building blocks of argument in various settings, from cultural debates to social media controversies to everyday disputes. You’ll learn how to diagram and evaluate different types of arguments, identify fallacies, and adapt your own arguments for different audiences. If you’re considering a career in law, policy, political science, or business, or if you simply want to hone your debate skills, this course will teach you how to reason rigorously and test claims critically, hallmarks of effective public and intellectual leadership and service.

WR324: Speech Writing and Delivery

Instructor: Dr. Martin Camper
T 3:05-5:30PM

Whether in your academic, professional, civic, or personal life, you’ll encounter many situations that require you to speak in front of an audience. To help you excel in these moments, this course explores the rhetorical art of crafting and delivering effective speeches, from ceremonial occasions to public campaigns. Through close rhetorical analysis of exemplary speeches and frequent practice, you’ll develop techniques in structure, narrative, audience appeals, timing, voice control, and body language. We’ll also examine the ways modern technology has impacted speech composition and presentation. This course is perfect for aspiring leaders, advocates, negotiators, and other public communicators.

WR 326: Technical Writing

WR333: Writing Fiction 

Instructor: Dr. Marian Crotty
MW 3:00-4:15pm
  
This course is an introduction to writing short stories. We’ll read a variety of short stories and study how they are put together. You’ll learn to write dialogue, manipulate time and point of view, and experiment with voice and language; and, by the end of the semester, you’ll have revised short stories of your own. This course is designed to foster your creativity and give you the technical skills needed to transform your ideas in the art. Throughout the semester, you’ll also exchange writing with your classmates and encourage each other along the way. 

WR341: Poetic Forms

Instructor:  Prof. Jane Satterfield
T/Th 1:40 – 2:55 PM

Poetry allows us to raise our voices in praise or protest, celebration or sadness, and everything in between. But how do we turn poetry’s rich traditions toward new purposes? In Poetic Forms we’ll look at how poems are formed from the raw materials of words and imagination. We’ll examine rhythm, breath, sound and sense, new and established forms, and much more, writing in a wide range of styles—from free verse to poetry shaped by song, to nature poems that reflect today’s environmental awareness. In ancient forms like spells and rituals we’ll find unexpected ways of adding energy to our own practice. 

Our class will offer lively discussions and supportive workshops. The course is for anyone who wants to deepen their creative process or find new ways to move personal poems to more public appreciation. All majors and levels of experience welcome!

WR353: Contemporary Essay

Instructor: Dr. Lisa Zimmerelli
TTH 9:25-10:40am

This course explores the art and craft of contemporary essay writing, focusing on diverse styles and approaches that define the genre today. Students will engage with a variety of essays from prominent contemporary writers, analyzing themes, structures, and techniques that bring ideas to life on the page. 
Through a combination of readings, writing exercises, and peer critiques, participants will develop their unique voices and enhance their writing skills. Topics covered will include personal narrative, critical analysis, cultural commentary, and experimental forms. The course aims to foster a deeper understanding of the essay as a versatile form of expression, encouraging students to articulate their thoughts and experiences creatively and critically.

By the end of the course, students will have produced a portfolio of original essays, improved their editing and revision skills, and gained confidence in sharing their work in a supportive workshop environment. 

This course is suitable for anyone interested in improving their essay writing skills, whether for personal expression, academic purposes, or professional development.

WR355: Travel Writing

Instructor: Dr. Marian Crotty
Asynchronous Online

In this section of Travel Writing, you will read contemporary travel writing and use these essays as inspiration for your own writing. Throughout the course, you will maintain a travel blog of photographs and writing that documents your experiences studying abroad. You will also connect online with other Loyola students and learn about each other’s locations by reading and responding to each other’s writing. I hope this class will encourage you to more fully immerse yourself in your surroundings by prompting you to explore your location and to reflect upon the challenges and rewards of travel.  

WR385: Spc Top in Creative Writing: Inspiration Across the Genres

Instructor: Prof. Karen Fish
TTH 12:15-1:30pm

There are certain texts that transcend specific genre interest, those essays, stories, novels and poems come to define an era intellectually and imaginatively. In this class we will read across the boundaries of genre and find inspiration and context for the human experience. Students will write reflections, mimics, do short creative exercises and have their own work informed by close reading and class discussions.

Whether a student is primarily interested in poetry, fiction or nonfiction, this class will provide grounding in a larger situational context. Great fiction has incredible poetic moments, great poetry employs narrative threads and fragments, nonfiction relies on anecdotal summary and emblematic descriptive detail. Writers regularly employ a variety of techniques out of other genre’s toolbox and glean ideas and inspiration by reading widely. Let’s expand our breadth and depth. Let’s read widely and study, become familiar with the work of some of the greats!

Authors include: Susan Sontag, Toni Morrison, Joan Didion, Darryl Pinckney, Malcolm Gladwell, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Zadie Smith, Nick Flynn, Marilynne Robinson, Ocean Vuong, Arundhati Roy, Michael Ondaatje, Louise Gluck, Richard Powers and Jamacia Kincaid, William Gass.

WR387: Spc Top in Professional Writing: Writing about Health

Instructor: Professor Peggy O’Neill, PhD
MW 4:30-5:45pm 

Writing about health is everywhere. Articles in newspapers and magazines. Blogs on hospital and medical center websites. Employers’ websites for self-care. Government and non-government agencies posters, print and web resources. Brochures for patients and clients. Social media sites devoted to an illness or health concern. This special topic course is for students interested in the many ways that writing about health circulates in our world.  

The course will be conducted as a writing workshop course that introduces students to the conventions and genres used in writing about health and well-being. Students will read and research health-related topics over the course of the semester. Students will produce a variety of texts in multiple genres that address topics such as equity, access, illness, and wellbeing.  This course satisfies the integrative capstone for the Health and Human Experience minor, but it will be useful for anyone interested in health and well-being and who wants to improve their professional writing competencies. 

Counts for the Health & Human Experience minor integrative experience or elective. For writing majors and minors this fulfills an elective requirement. 

WR400.01:Senior Seminar

Required capstone for Writing majors and minors

Instructor: Dr. Brian Murray
TTH 4:30-5:45pm

This section of Senior Seminar asks students to write mainly informal/personal essays, putting to use the many things they learned as writing majors and minors. As we read and discuss well-written essays past and present, by skilled practitioners on topics of wide interest, we also consider (for example) the effective use of voice and tone; of stylistic sentences; of secondary sources well-chosen and deftly deployed. Students will write a series of critical/analytical responses to the readings and the class discussions, and a longer informal/personal essay tied to at least one of the topics we read about in the class. Topics may include travel, food, media culture, and the existence of ghosts, among other things. 

WR400.02:Senior Seminar

Required capstone for Writing majors and minors

Instructor: Professor Peggy O’Neil, PhD
MW 6-7:15pm

This course is designed as a culminating course for writing majors and minors who are interested in developing their rhetorical knowledge and skill in non-fiction, persuasive texts. We will read primary and secondary sources in rhetorical theory to survey perspectives and debates about persuasion. Most of the rhetorical theory we read, or read about, will be from a diversity of rhetoricians in the Western rhetorical tradition (historical and contemporary), but we will also sample and read about theories from non-Western traditions. In addition to engaging with rhetorical theory through various modes and means, students will develop original projects—involving substantial revision aimed at contributing to a professional portfolio to use for application to work or graduate school or for other professional goals. Students interested in taking this course from a creative writing perspective should consider registering for the other section, WR400.01

WR402.01: Writing Internship 

Restricted to junior and senior writing majors, interdisciplinary writing majors, or writing minors. Written or electronic permission of the internship coordinator or department chair.

Instructor: Dr. Andrea Leary

You have taken the classes, completed the assignments, and polished your writing.  You’ve worked hard in each writing class to hone the skills you need to make your mark in the workplace. Taking the internship class will give you that extra edge. Not only will you gain valuable work experience in this course, you will leave with a professional portfolio, a potential supervisor recommendation, and opportunities for reflection and discernment.
 
WR402, the three-credit internship class, allows you polish your resume, locate a workplace that fits your future goals, and learn in that environment for 120 hours during the semester (essentially 8-10 hours per week). Because this is a class, you will be asked to do some reading and writing on your experiences, but we will not meet in a classroom in order to allow you ample time at your internship. Instead, much of our communication will occur online, as we discuss your goals, challenges, and successes. You will work with The Successful Internship:  Personal, Professional, and Civic Development in Experiential Learning as a text, which will give you advice along with the opportunity to apply that advice to your experiences in your workplace. In addition, you will have the chance to read your classmates’ reflections and offer advice there as well.

Classroom learning builds your foundation. Combine classroom learning with an internship, and you’ll have the experience you need to help you land that first job