Skip to main content

WCWP 10B: The Writing Course B


Warren students during class.

WCWP 10B is the second half of the Warren Writing sequence. Structured similarly to WCWP 10A, WCWP 10B builds on the argumentation and source-based critical writing of WCWP 10A, adding new perspectives of social justice and research-driven multimodal communication. Students will learn to analyze the dominant worldviews that shape how we think, communicate, and see the world. By the end of the course, students will learn to communicate more effectively with a variety of audiences, and to think about how they can play a role in solving some of the most challenging inequities in our society.

Every section of WCWP 10B engages with a specific topic, and there are a variety of topics offered throughout the academic year. Each topic has the same goals and objectives, but uses different content to engage with issues of justice and ethics central to creating a better world for everyone.


2024-2025 Course Topics

Climate Justice and Why it Matters

Professor Simrita Dhir

The world’s wealthiest one billion people are responsible for over 50% of the climate pollution, but it will be the bottom three billion, the most politically and economically vulnerable populations of the world, who will suffer the gravest consequences to climate change. Is it fair? In this writing course, students will think critically, read, and write about climate change and its impacts on the most politically and economically vulnerable populations of the world, to present climate hope.

Ways of Seeing

Professor Tricia Ornelas

What informs your ways of seeing? We occupy several visual worlds today and don't often stop to consider the politics that underlie these worlds. In this writing course, you will look deeply at a visual world within your field of study or interest to discover what informs your way of seeing and what ethical issues are at play. Our course content is inspired by visual politics and student interest to celebrate the valuable knowledge and life experience each student already possesses. We will begin by looking at several installations on campus then move to what you pend your time "looking at". This problem-driven original research will offer access to a scholarly conversation you are genuinely interested in joining.

Communicating Climate Justice

Hadley Clark, Sarah Stembridge, Sarah Callahan, Bibi Renssen, Sophia Zummo, Pedro Pimenta

The climate crisis is real, and the impacts of climate disruption are already being felt here in San Diego and across California. However, those impacts are not being distributed equally. Furthermore, according to recent studies, only 43% of Californians talk about the climate crisis with others on a regular basis. In other words, the problem is big. It is real. We need solutions. And we need hope. But we don't know how to talk or write in ways that spur action or inspire hope. So, what should we do?

For students interested in the intersections of environmental science, justice and communication, this 10B is for you. Our course explores these topics and tensions by asking big questions. How will the climate crisis impact people we love and care about in our local communities? What solutions are most needed in our cities and towns? How should we teach about the solutions in our local schools? In our favorite majors and classes? And how can we communicate to inspire action, change, hope in the face of challenge?

Food, Identity, Belonging

Professor Emma Uriarte

The idea “you are what you eat” has been around for centuries, traced back an 1825 book by French author Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin. The idea suggests that food is much more than a biological necessity: it is an essential piece of our identity. Eating, even if done alone, is an inherently social act influenced by family, culture, geography, status, and era. In the modern day, food choices—organic vs. nonorganic, Whole Foods vs. Costco, rye bread or flatbread—have become markers of our identity. These decisions (if we have the agency to make them) can help us build meaning and create belonging, but it can also separate us through social, political, and economic markers.
Our reading, writing, and thinking this quarter will help us examine our relationship to food—what and how we eat, who we eat it with, how we can think more critically about it.

Wealth Inequality, Opportunity, and American Dreams

Professor Walter Merryman

Economists and sociologists have noted a rise in wealth inequality in the United States since 1980. Research ties this inequality to changes in income among different socio-economic groups and to changes in social mobility across generations, a metric often used to capture the “American Dream.” However, wealth inequality is often measured at a very broad scale—nationally, globally, sometimes over decades—and it can be difficult to connect this to everyday life. Students in this class will research different scholarly interpretations of this inequality along with its circumstances, environment, and effects. Writing projects will include a personal narrative that connects personal experience with data and a research project analyzing wealth generation within a significant American industry.

Schedule and Registration

Summer 2025 Class Schedule

Summer Session 1

WCWP 10B Summer Session 1 Schedule

Sect

Day

Time

Room

Instructor

Topic

A00

MW

2:00pm - 4:50pm

WSAC 132

Walter Merryman

Wealth Inequality, Opportunity, and American Dreams

E00

TTh

8:00am - 10:50am

WSAC 132

Jeff Gagnon

TBA

C00

TTh

11:00am - 1:50pm

EBU3B 1124

Jeff Gagnon

TBA

Summer Session 2

WCWP 10B Summer Session 2 Schedule

Sect

Day

Time

Room

Instructor

Topic

A00

MW

2:00pm - 4:50pm

EBU3B 1124

Emma Uriarte

Food, Identity, Belonging

B00

MW

2:00pm - 4:50pm

WSAC 132

Simrita Dhir

TBA

C00

TTh

11:00am - 1:50pm

EBU3B 1124

Tricia Ornelas

Ways of Seeing           

** If viewing on a phone, please turn it horizontal.

Required Textbook

How Scholars Write by Aaron Ritzenberg and Sue Mendelsohn
The above textbook and all other course reading material can be purchased or found on the Canvas learning modules.

Registration Information and Prerequisites

We encourage students to complete 10B by Fall quarter of their second year at UCSD*. 

WCWP 10B is a 4-unit course, and can only be taken for a letter grade. Enrollment in WCWP 10B is open only to Warren College students who have already successfully completed WCWP 10A. As the PHIL/POLY series depends on completion of WCWP 10B, we recommend students complete WCWP 10B in a timely manner.

*If you are taking AWP, this timeline may look different for you. Please consult the Ideal Pathways Toward Fulfilling UC Writing Requirements for AWP students.