Course overview
This is a capstone course for students enrolled in the Minor in Writing and Communication. The course invites students to apply the approaches to writing and communication they have learned in the Minor in an independent and critical way. This course foregrounds critical perspectives that are informed by social justice, decolonial thought, and Indigenous world views. Throughout the course, students engage in critical discussion of key principles, concepts, issues, and questions in the field of writing and communication — especially as they relate to the academic, professional, or public domains in which students plan to participate in their future studies, service, or work.
The course includes a variety of learning activities and assignments that ask students to look back on their growth as writers and communicators during the Minor and look forward to opportunities and challenges that await in the writing and communication practices of their chosen field, vocation, or career. The course revolves around the completion of two major projects: (1) a writing portfolio that reflects on the student’s past work produced in the Minor and (2) a capstone project that centres around designing and producing an original text focused on the student’s future as a writer and communicator: a text that identifies and addresses opportunities and challenges of participating in and positively transforming writing and communication practices in a field relevant to the student’s interests.
By the end of the course, engaged learners will be able to:
- [LO1] Critically interrogate key principles about writing and communication introduced in the Minor (i.e., writing as a social and rhetorical activity; writing as a knowledge- and meaning-making activity; writing as implicated in decolonization, colonization, Indigenization, and reconciliation; writing as enacting identities and ideologies; writing as acting through recognizable forms and multiple modes).
- [LO2] Analyze, evaluate, and reflect on the writing and communication they produced during the Minor;
- Analyze how examples of their work reflect, embody, or address key principles about writing and communication explored in the Minor;
- Evaluate how examples of their work demonstrate proficient application (or interrogation) of these key principles, highlighting both strengths and opportunities for growth as a writer or communicator;
- Reflect on the writing and communication lessons that can be learned from these examples of their work;
- [LO3] Plan and complete a writing/communication capstone project which produces a short, original text (in an appropriate genre of the student’s choice) that imagines possible, future writing and communication practices in a field relevant to their own interests; this project will both
- acknowledge current writing and communication practices in the field, and
- identify opportunities to positively transform current writing and communication practices in the field.