During the fall of 2015, I designed and taught an advanced composition course with inspiration from syllabi of Vanessa Kramer Sohan and Malea Powell. Because my dissertation research centers around the text(ile) work of a quilt project—one that advocates awareness of migrant lives lost along the US/Mexico border through quilts—I wanted to create a course that asked students to work through some key questions concerning writing about, engaging with, analyzing, and making material things. With my research interests in mind, I created a course that asked students to “compose” a material object[1] while considering the rhetorical value of material things.…
Author: Sonia Arellano
Sonia Arellano
Sonia C. Arellano is a Ph.D. candidate in Rhetoric, Composition, and the Teaching of English at the University of Arizona. Her dissertation tentatively titled “Quilting the Migrant Trail: Crafted Rhetorical Text(iles) and (Counter) Narratives” explores what lives are deemed grievable through the rhetorical contributions of quilt projects that memorialize migrant lives.