Year 1

CMN 200

The Craft of Professional Writing

This course introduces students to genres and styles of professional writing across organizations and industries. Considering the planning, process, and production of communication texts in professional and creative settings, topics include the variety of written professional texts, audience analysis, message purpose, selection of medium and channel, the editing/revision process, and collaborative writing. This course gives students creative and conceptual tools to develop theoretical and strategic approaches to professional writing.

CMN 210

Text, Image, and Sound

In contemporary culture, we are surrounded by media and artifacts that attempt to persuade us to buy, believe or behave in certain ways. This course provides students with the analytical tools to understand the ways that text, image and sound work together to create persuasive objects. Using concepts from a wide range of theoretical frameworks related to communication, this course focuses on the design and use of media and messages in contemporary culture and the ways that text, image, and sound interact to create meaningful experiences.

CMN 211

Language and Power

Powerful texts such as influential news stories, government policies and legal decisions help shape our lives. Using concepts from critical discourse analysis, this course introduces students to the basic analytical vocabulary and tools to understand ways that powerful texts work. Students will learn to identify the linguistic techniques that characterize the important documents that affect our social worlds. They will have opportunities to respond to these texts.

CMN 216

Communication Revolutions

Both old and new communication technologies, through “revolutions” or epochs of change, have transformed modern culture. From the origins of language and the invention of communication technologies, such as writing, the printing press and the Internet, this course explores the origins, reception and uses of new forms of communication in their historical contexts with attention to their social, political, cognitive and technological impacts.
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