UWP 011: Popular Science & Technology Writing is a sophomore-level course designed as an introduction to rhetoric of science at UC Davis, a science-focused land-grant university. The course fulfills the general education requirements for written literacy and for topical breadth in arts and humanities. The catalog describes the course as investigating the "positioning of science and technology in society as reflected and constructed in popular texts" (University of California, Davis, "General" 521). A main goal of the course is to foster students' critical scientific literacy and ability to read texts rhetorically. UWP 011 was created in the context of needs that, while especially strong at UC Davis, generalize to writing programs across the country. First, the course is intended to help define the University Writing Program's disciplinary identity, a perennial issue faced by Writing Studies programs of all kinds. Second, the course addresses UC Davis's need for increased scientific literacy (SL) among graduates. Over all, the author thinks that UPW 011 and courses like it are well suited to meet important social and academic needs for critical and rhetorical scientific literacy. Even though students in UWP 011 did not fully grasp a central concept of the course (genre as social action), they did learn to view texts as rhetorical artifacts, and to see science as embedded in and influenced by its sociohistorical context. (Contains 6 notes.)