GSW 1110
Course Description: Welcome everyone to GSW 1110, a course designed to be the foundation of your participation in new academic and civic spheres. The central question of this course is complex: how do you understand yourself as a writer, a member of a larger community of writers? To find our answers, we will examine ourselves and our beliefs via welcoming conversations, engaging readings, and diverse writing assignments. Our texts will range from novels, scholarly articles, newspaper editorials, films, and digital media. Conversations will debate the meaning of writing and how we best interact and aid each other via the written and spoken word. Finally, during the tenure of our class, we will complete four assignments, culminating in a polished e-portfolio of your best work.
Discourse Communities: Utilizing John Swales definitions of discourse communities, students apply his aspects to a community they’re a member of, identifying the major elements required and located within their unique contexts. Students are required to create their own research for this project to demonstrate how the discourse community functions. Popular examples are interviews, polls, or surveys of members. While the course isn’t dedicated to student research (see GSW 1120), research they create allows them additional agency and ownership of their claims, and it challenges them to interact with members or discuss new types of writing (how to compose surveys, for example).
Fictional Discourses Presentation: Discourse communities are a difficult concept to write about. One means of practice I’ve developed for my students in identifying and researching the aspects of discourse communities before the final project is exploring a fictional one from a media property they know and love. This project’s identifying of discourses is low-stakes. I designed it so students can make mistakes and play. The Pecha Kucha, a 20 slide, 20 second each presentation requires them to also learn skills in presenting, time management, and organization. While it is difficult, students have largely responded well to the assignment and noted on evaluations the value in this assignment.
Revision Project: Depending on scheduling and department requirements, I often include a remixing/revision project within my course. Remixing requires students to adapt their formerly textual only project into a multimedia assignment. Not only does the mode change but also the content, reflecting the strengths and challenges of the new writing genre. Examples include traditional essay to recorded photo gallery, poster, video essay, brochures, and others. My assignment sheet and demo days in class try to encompass as many types of free technologies and open-access materials as possible.
Renee Ann Drouin 