UG Course Descriptions

A study of the style and forms of business and professional writing with emphasis on direct sentence patterns and clear language. (Offered only in the accelerated format.)

Introduction to writing center scholarship, theory, and practice. Students will explore how writers engage with each other and the writing process, and will become familiar with ways of responding to writers in one-to-one contexts. Open to those who already work or wish to work in the Immaculata Writing Center as a Writing Assistant, as well as to students interested in broader issues of writing studies and teaching at the secondary and college levels.

Issues of race, gender, class, and disability and the ways these impact the teaching of writing are introduced. Students learn and contrast disciplinary conventions and features of academic genres to understand how embedded values inform writing style. Through exploring how tutor and writer identities are implicated in the tutorial and examining language from various sociolinguistic, multi-literacy, and translingual perspectives, students learn how to navigate differences to collaborate with writers in meaningful ways.

An introduction to the range of career opportunities and responsibilities within the field of professional writing as learned through article presentations, writing workshops, and discussion/research on current newsworthy issues. This course is geared to English and Communication majors, interested in exploring various types of professional writing as it exists in the current media landscape and is designed to address myriad and varied writing styles, culminating in a revised portfolio of all efforts that the writing students have accomplished.

The course will provide information on basic structure, terminology, and literary history and significance of poetry as an art form as students begin the process of crafting their own poetic works.

Development of communication techniques through speech writing and delivery. This course helps to ease communication apprehension, organize speech material appropriately, and develop verbal and nonverbal techniques for delivery.

This course will address the intersection of print journalism with the digital world and all of its complications and ethical implications contained therein while still assiduously pursuing the story

This independent research enhances academic rigor while applying theories or processes to a specific field in communication studies.

An introduction to the variety of digital publishers covering Philadelphia culture, the characteristics of art and culture reviews and review-essays, researching and meeting the standards for a particular web publication, exploring Philadelphia’s cultural scene independently, and reflecting on the relationship between suburban campuses like Immaculata and the city of Philadelphia. All assignments will contribute to a course website.

An introduction to theories and principles of communication as they apply to various communication environments, such as interpersonal, small group, organizational, and public communication. This course explores the nature of communication theory, how theory is developed, and how it is used. The approach will be both conceptual and applied. Thus, the student will gain proficiency in using theories to describe, explain, understand and practice communication.