WR 121: Written Reasoning as Discovery and Inquiry

WR 121 is a college-level course in written reasoning that presents writing as a means of exploring, developing, confirming, and communicating ideas.  The ideas that students write about develop from their understanding of issues encountered in readings and focused discussions, responding to them in writing to represent them fairly and explore available responses.  Students compose an essay or essays that support and develop a significant, enthymeme-based thesis, and they learn to make structural and rhetorical choices based both on the requirements of that thesis and on their knowledge of the audience.  They are taught to practice open-minded inquiry into ideas so that their writing will be based on honest and defensible reasoning.  They learn how clear and effective communication is a way of showing respect for one’s audience.  They learn the importance of revision in the process of written reasoning, and they learn to become better critical readers of their own and others’ prose. The purpose of this form of argumentation is not to “prove” one’s own ideas or to “win” by defeating an opponent. Rather, it is to discover the best available reasons to support one’s own ideas by examining them in relation to the competing ideas and reasoning of other people. Thus conceived, argumentation is the development and support of one’s ideas in the context of an understanding of and respect for the ideas of others.