Table of Contents: 2022

Locating the Conversation

Early in the process, writers engage with other perspectives, “listening to” sources and seeking connections to their own ideas—and thus creating new meaning and knowledge. In this section, writers reveal how they engage in the important work of rhetorical invention by summarizing, synthesizing, and responding to others’ ideas.

Annotated Bibliography: Period Poverty

Katherine Bongiovanni

Annotated Bibliography: Indigenous Food Sovereignty

Lindsey Ricci

Casual Instagram: Proposal & Video Annotated Bibliography

Abby St. Jean

Not-So-Sexy: The Negative Impacts of Sexual Content on Both the Participant and Viewer

Evin St Laurent

Practicing Metacognition

Metacognition – reflection on your own thinking – is essential for any writer. After all, writing and research are about rhetorical choices, and we make the best choices when we are aware of how we think and learn. Whether to look back at what you’ve done and see how to improve, or to look ahead to strategize the best way to approach your work, thinking about writing starts before you begin and ends after you finish any one piece of work. This section shows metacognition in action.

Semester Reflection

Maddie Gerber

Semester Video Reflection

Faith Massey

Seven Somers

Eero Somers

Blending the Personal & Research

Our experiences shape how we react to the world around us. However, academic writers vary in the extent to which they allow the personal to manifest in the written products of their research. That said, bringing the personal to research, if done adeptly, is an effective way of not only making one’s work more convincing, but also boosting one’s own motivation for doing research. These essays move beyond initial, gut-level responses to issues to investigate them in new, meaningful ways

On the Nature of Reality

Kaitlyn Chesleigh

The 2019 Christmas Cookie Contamination

Maddie Collart

The FACES of Hunger: How Weekend Backpack Programs Can Better Support the Children They Serve

Audrey Magill

What’s in a Word: The Disaccord of Dykes

Olivia Mills

Shoes Off, Please

Henry Su

A Letter to My Sister

Sulakshi Ramamoorthi

I Used to Walk on the Sidewalk

Quentin Stalker
Writer as Witness Essay Competition Winner

Writing Culture in Multiple Modes

Writers often find their topics in the world around them, including the popular culture that informs so much of our waking life. In this section, authors raise meaningful questions about popular culture and explore those questions in modes beyond the traditional essay.

Financial Opulence and Moral Bankruptcy: Jho Low and our Obsession with Wealth

Nicholas Chen

Hungry Kids Can’t Learn

Rosalia Dalton

Menstrual Equity in the United States

Julia Landick

Redefining Gossip Culture

Maddie Gerber

TikTokFeminism

Ciel Smith

Critically Analyzing Texts

Perceptive writers question what they encounter, interrogating a work’s meanings, its claims, and the quality of its evidence. A critical analysis may draw on the writer’s personal experiences or knowledge of other works, yet the foundation of the essay is grounded in the text itself. These essays help the reader understand the merits and limits of their examined texts, and also how individual elements contribute to their power and significance.

What’s in a Slogan? An Analysis of AOC’s Met Gala Dress

Wendy Eldred

Folklore: Eco-Folk Protest Music Edition

Zoe Kramer

The Film is the Future Podcast

Kamryn Olds

TikTok Tragedy?

Berkley Pelletier

Investigating the Scholarly Conversation

It may sound challenging to craft original ideas so early in your academic career. Yet in this section, writers demonstrate how to engage scholarly research so thoroughly, they effectively engage the ongoing conversation. In doing so, they are able to generate new ways of thinking about their topics.