Writing Studies

Writing Studies at UC Merced brings together creative, professional, rhetoric, multi-modal, and academic writing areas in a field of study that examines and applies multiple processes and products of writing. The program integrates academic, creative and professional writing, emphasizing increasing facility in multiple genres and in cross-genre work.

Writing Studies is concerned with the interdisciplinary study of the process and product of writing, including how genres, contexts, and identities inform and are shaped by the technologies, sources, cultures, and other contexts of production. In this mix are theories of language use, linguistic structure, and artistic expression in a degree that is research-based, writing-intensive, and engaged with the study of discursive practices across modes, genres, identities, cultures, rhetorical situations, and disciplines.

Our faculty teach across many sub-disciplines of writing, offering undergraduates a comprehensive examination of writing while offering specialization in academic, creative or professional writing. The curriculum of Writing Studies is designed to engage students to

• identify and analyze social, historical and institutional writing contexts
• critique and produce a variety of genres intentionally and persuasively, which may include to combine, to critique, to transform, to imitate and/or to innovate in and across genres.
• analyze and leverage discourses that circulate through texts, especially within academic, professional and creative communities.
• understand and compose texts effectively in and for multiple forms and platforms, including print, digital, and multimedia.
• demonstrate that writing informs and constructs identities
• identify and apply composition strategies to guide inquiry, access creativity, imaginatively navigate perspectives/contexts, and articulate process to an intended effect.

A Writing Studies Major at UC Merced will prepare students to be flexible as they develop abilities to research, synthesize, and innovate. Emphasizing writing as a process and interdisciplinary inquiry, writing major courses offer challenging curricula in sequences of study in academic, creative and professional writing. The Writing Studies Major offers experience in a strong humanities-based education that is preparation for students considering graduate or professional schools and careers in education, law, public health, social work, creative writing, and journalism.

Programs

• Writing Studies, B.A.  
• Writing Studies Minor  

Writing Studies Program Learning Outcomes

Upon graduation, students majoring in Writing Studies will:

1. Contexts: Identify and analyze social, historical and institutional writing contexts
2. Genres: Critique and produce a variety of genres intentionally and persuasively, which may include to combine, to critique, to transform, to imitate and/or to innovate in and across genres.
3. Discourse Awareness: Analyze and leverage discourses that circulate through texts, especially within academic, creative and professional communities.
4. Design: Understand and compose texts effectively in and for multiple forms and platforms, including print, digital, and multimedia.
5. Performativity: Demonstrate that writing informs and constructs identities.
6. Cognition / Affective Processes: Identify and apply composition strategies to guide inquiry, access creativity, imaginatively navigate perspectives/contexts, and articulate process to an intended effect.