Liberal Arts

Writing for the Art/Design Career

Course No. LLC204W.1  Credits: 3
Faculty Joyce Kessler

This course offers students the opportunity to develop strong writing skills for the types of writing involved in art and design careers. The first and biggest part of this course is devoted to these career-related forms and is predicated on an exploration of the relationship between the rhetorical and the design arts. The culminating project for this section of the course, therefore, will be a portfolio containing the final versions of each of the writing assignments, designed to showcase visually the collected written works, and thus also to demonstrate the extent to which the student has pursued the relationship between rhetoric and design. Each studentÕs portfolio will contain the types of career documents relevant to her/his own particular emphases or goals within the art/design fields represented by the particular group of students in the class. A later, smaller part of the course will explore the theories and argument strategies of art critical essays and reviews as models for the studentsÕ own assignments in critical writing. These assignments will include one art or design show review and one critical essay on an art or design subject selected by the student for the relevance of its subject to his/her own studio work. Class work will focus on writing, tutorials, and peer editing/critique, allowing students ample opportunity to become comfortable with, and even accomplished in, the kinds of writing necessary for self-presentation and critical engagement in visual arts careers. Fulfills Humanities/Cultural Studies distribution requirement. Creative Writing Concentration course. 3 credits.