Now in its fifth year, the WRD Spring Gallery is an annual showcase of student writing at the University of Kentucky. This installation features composition projects created in first-year writing courses offered by the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies (WRD) during the past calendar year. These projects include multimedia documentaries, photoessays, podcasts, websites, and other types of writing that students often create in their WRD classes.
By sharing student work in public, we are not simply “showing off” our students (though we like doing that). We’re also fulfilling the University of Kentucky’s mission as a public, land grant institution by showcasing our students' engagment with issues and ideas affecting our lives here in the Commonwealth. We’re confident that WRD students will leave UK with a better set of writing skills that will serve them well throughout their careers. But perhaps more importantly, they will also leave with an understanding that writing is an indespensible tool for exploring the world around us--a world that often only comes into focus through the written word.
MANY WRD STUDENTS CREATE MULTI-MEDIA DOCUMENTARIES AS PART OF THEIR WORK IN WRD CLASSES. THE FOLLOWING IS A SELECTION OF WORK FROM 2016 FIRST-YEAR COURSES.
Rebecca C. Hayes "Benefits of Youth Agricultural Programs"
Sydney Hendrix, Archana Jeeji, Carson Mullins, and Kristen North "Feminist Alliance"
Brennan Poole, Molly Dalton, Christian Carpenter "The Most Disrespected Person at UK"
Emily Burgess, Emma Guckiean, Claudia Kadon, Hannah Phillips, Sydney Sanford, Sarah Sbert "Something to Come Together"
Maria Schmitz “Be the Cure”
Jacob Bruce, Jack Gilbert, TJ Guilbeault, Trevor Kohari, Chace Ritchie “The Bourbon Industry: A Kentucky Heritage”
Gabby Marmolejo "¿Donde Estan los Latinos?"
Alexi McGhan, Kelly Rademacher, Logan Smith, Ben Stewart, Ben Stringer “Healthy Eating at the University of Kentucky”
Trevin Hogue, David Mueller, Gregory Schloemer, Bailey Stanford, Alex Wyllie “What Nasa?”
Liz Driehaus, Michael Harris, Melissa LaClair, Abby Moore, Matt Morse, Sarah Ward “SAFECATS”
Joshua Alenciks, Kaela Kunesh, Johnathan Meier, Maddie Stanback, Alanna Stefanek, Bradley Stephenson “See Green, Not Blue”
Connor Davis, Katie Hamrin, Skylar Mays, Nate Morgan, Michael Morris, Kathryn Schantz “Rope, Not Dope”
Alexander Blose, Grant Brockman, Jonathan Hampton, Noah Jones, Evelyn Lancione “The Essence of the Beautiful”
Jacob Bowen, Claire Crosby, Madison Donoho, Hunter Garrigus, Huston Martin, Kendall Rump “CenterPit: The Hole Story”
Katelyn Elizabeth Creech “The Importance of UK's Art Museum”
Sally Martin, Ivanka Rainer, Cassidy Pressman, Veronica Johnson, Sydney Veith, Morgan Kelly “The Whiteboy Pill”
Margaret Vasquez, Michael Cipriani, Ricardo Franklin, Lauren Martin “Under Pressure”
Noah Arragaw "The Hub PSA"
Maxine White, Sabrina Hardy, Alice Kiser, Sydney Epley "The Change Starts with Us"
Sarah Hanks, Daniel Kennedy, Gerald Bankes, Nate Feldpausch, Lidya Yatin “US Schools: Separate and Unequal”
MANY WRD STUDENTS ALSO CREATE WEBSITES AS PART OF THEIR RESEARCH IN WRD COURSES. THE WEBSITES BELOW ARE A SMALL SAMPLE OF THE MANY COMPELLING SITES STUDENTS CREATED DURING 2016.
Chelina Ortiz Montanez, Eduardo Barcenas, Tayte Patton “Sustainability at the University of Kentucky”
Ashley Brown "Being African American and Pre-med"
Drayden Adkins “The Necessity of Art in Education”
Landon Porter, Allie Hopper, Madison Prieto, Samuel Keys "Colin Kaepernick: A Story Distorted by the Media"
MANY WRD STUDENTS ARE ALSO ENCOURAGED TO DESIGN PODCASTS IN SOME WRD COURSES. THE PROJECTS BELOW REPRESENT MANY OF THE THOUGHTFUL AUDIO PROJECTS CREATED IN WRD CLASSES IN 2016.
Marcus Smith “Exploring the Media Depot”
Melissa Williams "The Culture of the Martin Luther King Center"
Emma Aguayo “The Lack of Women in Engineering”
Nyla Blue “The Spirit of Color”
MANY WRD STUDENTS USE VISUAL AND GRAPHIC DESIGN COMPONENTS IN PROJECTS. BELOW IS A SAMPLE OF SUCH VISUAL RHETORIC COMING OUT OF WRD CLASSES IN 2016.
Brad Ballard, Bryan Mahonski, Madison Mosher, Emily Wilkerson “Caught in a Trap: Human Trafficking”
Adam Blevins and Alivia Houser “Is It Worth It?"
Claire Lawrence “An Education to Educate”
Mecca Gordon “Scene Depiction: Otis A. Singletary Center for the Arts”