The Writing University sponsors First-Year Seminars on a variety of topics within the realm of creative writing. 

Recent Seminars

COMICS AND CLIMATE: RESEARCHING SUSTAINABILITY THROUGH GRAPHIC NOVELS
Climate Change First Year Seminar Initiative
First Year Seminar | Lauren Haldeman

ENGL:1000:0003 FIRST-YEAR SEMINAR 

Description
In this seminar we will approach the growing research around climate change through the medium of comics and graphic novels. We will use our own fieldwork to explore climate questions and then create comics from our findings. Join us for this fun and informative seminar! This course is part of the Climate Change First Year Seminar group, a dynamic and interdisciplinary collaboration effort that introduces first-year students to the interconnectivity of climate change within a range of academic backgrounds. The seminars involved in this project will build on the strengths of University faculty and instructors in five different units: Psychology and Brain Sciences, English, Global Health, Physics and Astronomy, and Journalism and Mass Communication. The first-year seminars being developed by the Climate Change First-Year Seminar effort, and submitted to the University College for first-year seminar funding support, are:

• Comics and Climate, taught by Lauren Haldeman

• Global Health Challenges in a Changing Climate, taught by Blake Rupe

• Sustainability and Social Marketing, taught by Rachel Young

• The Science of Climate Change, taught by Robert Mutel

• How Psychology Can Save the Planet, taught by Shaun Vecera 

WRITING FOR THE WEB
Creative Content from the Active Observer
First-Year Seminar | Lauren Haldeman

Description
This course will examine the importance of quality writing on the web.  The blog is an exceptional way to document your life, catalog your thoughts and advance your writing skills. Whether you are writing about your coursework, your personal philosophy, or creating conversations with other writers, your own personal blogging website is a valuable entryway into the mastery of the written word. Light, serious, funny, insightful -- these small bits of writing can act as journals, social outreach, portfolios and more. In this class, you’ll generate new content about your first year at Iowa, with graded writing assignments and exercises. But more than that, you will build your own personal blogging website from scratch, which will be up and running by the end of the semester.

In Writing for the Web, we will be creating written work as well as experimenting in other forms of “composition.” We will explore the many varied means of communication that the web has to offer (and that we have to offer the web). We will also look at how to express our ideas in a more engaging fashion, achieving certain aesthetic effects, both visually and as a component of a larger idea.

CREATIVE WRITING FOR ONLINE PUBLICATION
Online Content Creation
First-Year Seminar | Lauren Haldeman

Description
The blog is an exceptional way to document your life, catalog your thoughts and advance your writing skills. Light, serious, funny, insightful -- these small bits of writing can act as journals, social outreach, portfolios and more. In this class, you’ll generate new content about your first year at Iowa, with graded writing assignments and exercises. Whether you are writing about your coursework, your personal philosophy, or creating conversations with other writers, your own personal blogging website is a valuable entryway into the mastery of the written word. But more than that, you will build your own personal blogging website from scratch, which will be up and running by the end of the semester. In Creative Writing for Online Publication, we will be creating written work as well as experimenting in other forms of “composition.” We will explore the many varied means of communication that the web has to offer (and that we have to offer the web). We will also look at how to express our ideas in a more engaging fashion, achieving certain aesthetic effects, both visually and as a component of a larger idea.