Upper Division Writing

The Writing and Rhetoric Program offers upper-level courses on a wide range of topics including:

• Rhetorical Theory, where you'll focus on how communication shapes understanding and influences audiences,
• Professional and Technical Writing, where you’ll learn to write for businesses, digital platforms, and other professional settings,
• Community Writing, where you'll explore strategies for persuasive proposals and writing that supports nonprofits and public initiatives, and
• Digital and Multimodal Composition, where you'll blend writing with visual design and web content creation.

Click on the course names below to learn more.

• ENC 3213: Professional and Technical Writing
  Be ready to communicate in any professional setting. Develop your professional communication skills as we analyze a variety of workplace situations and audiences and produce effective, clear, and concise documents such as emails, memos, proposals, and reports. You will also learn the fundamentals of document design,  graphics use, oral presentations, and collaborative writing while working with your peers.
• ENC 3249: Professional and Technical Writing for Computing
  Prepare to communicate professionally in the field of computer science. You'll gain practice with both written and spoken communication while analyzing the role of technology and media in professional interactions.
  
• ENC 3311: Advanced Writing and Research
  This course serves as a bridge between FIU’s required first-year writing classes (ENC 1101 and 1102) and the upper-division writing and research classes that you’ll take in your major or graduate school. Designed to give you experience with creating and managing a large research project on a topic of your choice, this course will give you opportunities to practice and refine research skills such as locating, evaluating, and synthesizing scholarly sources, conducting primary research such as interviews or surveys, and reflecting on your research process and personal growth as a researcher.
• ENC 3334: Introduction to Writing Studies
  Explore the field of Writing Studies, where you'll learn about writing practices in academic, personal, and professional contexts. This course will challenge you to reflect on how writing intersects with identity, language, and culture while embracing multimodal forms of expression. We’ll investigate the role of writing in creating change and craft a range of projects that contribute to conversations about the role of writing in our world.
• ENC 3354: Writing as a Social Action
  Engage with writing as a tool for social change. In this course, you’ll write for both academic and public audiences while contributing to the projects with real community partners.
• ENC 3363: Writing About the Environment
  Collaborate with classmates to present the latest trends in environmental research. Choose a community engagement activity to participate in and reflect on, such as a beach cleanup, advocacy campaign, or fund-raiser for a non-profit of your choice. Finally, share your ideas about your connection to nature in a creative project.
  
• ENC 3371: Rhetorical Theory and Practice
  This course, and rhetorical theory more broadly, is fundamentally a study of human communication. Throughout the course, you'll strengthen your own persuasive skills by exploring a range of thought and theory about how humans make and interpret meaning across a range of contexts. You'll also create a range of artifacts, such as podcasts, videos, and blogs, to enact and explain these rhetorical theories.
  
• ENC 3378: Writing Across Borders
  In this Global Learning course, we’ll explore key concepts from both Western and non-Western global rhetorical traditions. Through readings, discussions, and hands-on projects, you’ll deepen your understanding of cross-cultural written communication and gain a global perspective on writing and rhetoric. The final project in the course is a Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) project, where you’ll write for diverse audiences and collaborate with students in another country.
• ENC 3386: Rhetorical Grammar
  For many, grammar means rules to divide "good" versus "bad" writing. In this class, we’ll move away from that prescriptive view. Instead, we’ll explore how writers choose between various "correct" ways to convey ideas, using grammar to shape meaning, emphasis, tone, and more. We’ll cover foundational grammatical concepts in both standard and non-standard English grammar and engage with scholarly discussions on rhetorical grammar. By the end of the class, you’ll learn how grammar can act as a dynamic tool for communication and persuasion.
• ENC 3413: Writing for the Web
  Prepare for a career in web writing by mastering digital genres like blogs, social media, and more. You’ll also learn about design and content strategy to create high impact digital, online content.
  
• ENC 3416: Writing and New Media 
  Get hands-on experience with new media formats and learn how to compose content for digital platforms. You’ll focus on computer- and network-based presentations, with an emphasis on publishing for the web.
  
• ENC 3465: Legal Writing
  In this course, you’ll learn essential legal writing skills for law school and legal practice, focusing on clear analysis, synthesis, and ethical considerations. You’ll explore how legal professionals communicate with different audiences and adapt to professional legal discourse, even if you have no prior legal experience.
  
• ENC 3491: The Processes of Writing
  Develop the skills for effective one-on-one writing consultations while improving your own writing and peer review techniques. This course blends theory with practice to help you refine your ability to give and receive feedback. This is tutor training course through the Center for Excellence in Writing that is available by invitation only.
  
• ENC 3492: Interdisciplinary Writing for Writing Fellows
  This course prepares you to to serve as a Peer Writing Fellow and support students in Gordon Rule classes across different disciplines. This is tutor training course through the Center for Excellence in Writing that is available by invitation only.
  
• ENC 3501: Teaching Writing in Secondary Contexts
  Learn best practices for teaching writing in secondary education context. You'll explore strategies for engaging students and developing their writing abilities through meaningful writing experiences. You'll also reflect on your own writing experiences and influences to inform your expectations of your desired classroom success. Then, as part of a peer group, you will design writing activities, including the creation of assignment sequences, rubrics, student conference strategies, feedback models, and assessment of student writing.
• ENC 4212: Professional Editing
  In this course, you will learn and practice core concepts of professional editing management, the interpersonal communication skills effective editors employ with writers throughout the editing process. Topics will include discussions of collegiality, professional expectations in communication, the editorial process, and opportunities and hindrances editors face in this process. You will also review avenues for gainful employment in editing work, including job posting, editing societies, and online support for editors. In practice, you will create editing plans, style sheets, correspondence with clients, and editing for clarity, style, organizational navigation, and grammar/punctuation.
• ENC 4241: Scientific Writing
  Build the skills you need to write effective laboratory reports, scientific proposals, research articles, progress reports, and seminar presentations. You’ll refine your ability to communicate complex scientific ideas clearly and professionally.
• ENC 4260: Topics in Professional Writing
  Develop your skills in professional writing in areas like digital content creation, information design, and technical editing. This course evolves each semester, giving you the chance to explore emerging trends in professional communication and tackle real-world challenges.
• ENC 4331: Writing, Rhetoric, and Community
  Write with community partners to address the challenges and priorities facing South Florida. In this course, you’ll collaborate with a local nonprofit on a semester-long project, working together on text production—from goal setting and brainstorming to crafting, revising, and publicizing. You’ll also apply theoretical concepts in real-world contexts. By combining academic and community engagement, you’ll explore how writing drives change while building skills in co-authoring, audience-centered writing, primary research, and problem-solving.
  
• ENC 4355: Writing about Film
  Learn how to craft critical reviews and analyses of film narratives. You’ll explore key elements of film storytelling while developing the skills to write insightful and engaging critiques.
• ENC 4356: Writing About the Exile Experience
  Enhance your writing and research skills through the study of exile narratives. You’ll engage in close readings, write rhetorically, and complete research projects. This course also encourages you to apply your learning in real-world contexts.
• ENC 4357: How to Go Public
  In this course, we begin with a question often left for the end or omitted altogether: How do community writers find or create spaces where their ideas can reach the public? You’ll explore what defines a public, how ordinary people and advocacy groups access publics, and how they measure the impact—not just the intention—of their writing on social change. We will first examine key public sphere theories and analyze digital and print-based examples of community publishing. Then, you will conclude the semester with a public writing project of your choice.
• ENC 4373: Alternative Writing and Rhetorics
  Explore alternative discourses that challenge traditional academic writing by blending language, form, and meaning in innovative ways. You’ll read various theories and examples of alternative writing and practice employing these strategies in your own work.
• ENC 4375: Rhetoric of Food
  In this course, we will think about the daily ways we encounter food and the rhetorical situations that surround those encounters. By doing this, we’ll become more sensitive not only to what we eat, but how we think about food, and how others are thinking about our food choices before we even make them. We’ll analyze rhetorical contexts such as restaurants and menus, farmworkers' rights, food advertising and packaging, and other contexts of your choice.
• ENC 4380: Feminist Rhetorics
  Explore the works of historical and contemporary feminist rhetors to define, recover, and reclaim feminist rhetorical practices, artifacts, and theories. You’ll engage with both primary and secondary texts, enriching your understanding of feminist rhetoric.
• ENC 4381: Zine Writing
  You will explore the potential for zines as DIY, self-published texts to engage in and facilitate social justice work. Specifically, you will look at the ways in which marginalized people use zines to advocate for equity, build and sustain community, and mobilize activist efforts. You will create a series of zines and engage first-hand with the zine community.
  
  See examples of past students' zines.
• ENC 4385: Material/Cultural Writing and Rhetorics
  Examine the complexities of writing about material culture by exploring interdisciplinary scholarship in writing and rhetoric, literature, and material/cultural studies. You’ll engage critically with various texts to deepen your understanding of how material culture influences writing.
• ENC 4405: Queer Rhetorics
  Explore the intersection of LGBTQ studies, queer theory, and rhetorical studies by learning to write critically about discourses of gender, sex, and sexuality.
• ENC 4437: Visual Rhetoric and Document Design
  Learn how to create persuasive visual documents through hands-on projects. In this course, you'll explore essential document design concepts like proximity, contrast, layout, typography, color, and visual rhetoric while creating a range of visual documents, such as flyers, infographics, and social media graphics. Then, you'll wrap up the semester by working with a local community partner on a real visual design project.
• ENC 4930: Special Topics in Composition
  Explore new and evolving topics in writing and rhetoric studies. This course content changes each semester, giving you the chance to dive into our faculty’s emerging areas of scholarly interest. Recent topics have included: Writing Spaces and Places, and Humor as Resistance.
• ENC 4950: Capstone: Writing and Rhetoric
  This capstone course provides an opportunity for students to synthesize knowledge from previous courses, reflect on career goals, and develop a portfolio of their writing for professional audiences.