About & Resources
A Department of the College of Liberal Arts dedicated to Excellence in Writing.
The Department of Rhetoric & Writing (DRW) emerged out of the Division of Rhetoric & Writing, which was created in 1993 to provide an outstanding undergraduate writing program at the University of Texas at Austin. Our course offerings include RHE 306 Rhetoric and Writing, the required first-year writing course; a range of lower-division writing courses, such as RHE 309S Critical Thinking and Persuasive Writing and RHE 315 Introduction to Visual Rhetoric; and an array of upper-division courses, among them RHE 325M Advanced Expository Writing, RHE 328 Professional and Technical Writing for Liberal Arts Majors, RHE 330C Advanced Studies in Digital Rhetoric, RHE 330D History of Rhetoric, and RHE 330E Rhetorical Theory and Analysis.
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All our courses are designed to help students understand methods of persuasion and argumentation, read critically, and write well. Many also provide unique training opportunities for those who wish to find employment as writers or teachers of writing. RHE 366 Internship in Rhetoric and Writing allows students to exercise their skills as writers and editors in professional settings; RHE 386C Writing Center Internship and RHE 360 Rhetoric and Writing for Teachers of English offer preparation to students who wish to teach writing or work as writing consultants. Additionally, many of our courses, such as RHE379C Proposal Writing and RHE 328 Writing for Nonprofits, include service-learning components that allow students to become familiar with--and gain experience meeting--the writing needs of local businesses and NGOs.
To fulfill our mission, the DRW has assembled a faculty of nationally recognized scholars, theorists, historians, and writers who have won many awards for outstanding teaching and scholarship. Our program has significant strengths in rhetorical theory, composition theory, history of rhetoric, professional writing, argumentation, visual rhetoric, and computers and writing. The DRW is also respected for the quality of its training and support programs for assistant instructors and writing center consultants.
