WesMaps - Wesleyan University Catalog 2020-2021       Summer Session       Winter Session       Home       Archive       Search
CS92PROD
Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing: Legal Advocacy for Disabled Veterans
CSPL 211
Fall 2020
Section: 01  

The public rarely understands what it takes to fight for one's legal rights or benefits. Good writers can translate those battles in ways that teach, empower, and (re)build community support for struggling individuals. This course is a study in the translation of legal challenges into civic advocacy.

In this course, you will write about real plaintiffs and legal cases for public audiences. As part of your journey, you will delve into the military and medical files of a disabled veteran applying for a discharge upgrade from the military. Most discharge upgrade applicants suffer from addiction and/or mental health issues, the same issues that cut short the veterans' military careers. Using academic legal writing, news sources, and confidential personnel and medical files, you will describe issues facing veterans in general, and our veteran client specifically. You will write for a nonprofit website, a print newspaper, a podcast, the six o'clock news, and a local online news or social media outlet. Your writings will inform the instructor's writing--as the veteran's pro bono legal counsel--of a discharge upgrade brief.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS ALLB
Course Format: Lecture / DiscussionGrading Mode: Student Option
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Requirement for: (CIVI-MN)
Past Enrollment Probability: 75% - 89%

Last Updated on DEC-07-2024
Contact wesmaps@wesleyan.edu to submit comments or suggestions. Please include a url, course title, faculty name or other page reference in your email ? Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459