This course aims to provide a practical introduction to persuasive writing in English across multiple creative and critical genres. Students will reflect on different strategies for rhetoric and composition as well as examine important topics such as the relationship between writer and audience, psychological aspects of persuasion, lexical and syntactical components of persuasion, and the development and organisation of an argument across all stages of the writing process. Relevant examples of persuasive writing from areas such as academia, politics, philosophy, media, law, branding, and image management will be studied, and students will analyse these texts as a means by which to develop their own skills as persuasive communicators. Students will engage with a wide range of readings and cultural forms as well as produce several pieces of persuasive, argumentative, and creative writing.