WRDS 200 Writing and Communication Foundations is one of the more popular courses offered by the Writing, Research, and Discourse Studies (WRDS) unit in the School of Journalism, Writing, and Media.
We recently sat down with Profs. Louis Maraj, Laila Ferreira, and Rebecca Carruthers den Hoed from WRDS to learn what makes this course so popular and how students are discovering the power of writing and communication.
Dr. Louis Maraj is teaching WRDS 200 in Winter Term I.
What is WRDS 200 about?
WRDS 200 is about the fundamental ways that writing and communication work in the world: to exchange ideas, to send messages, to help us understand what we know and we do not know. We use writing and communication everyday, but we often overlook or underestimate how much they shape what we know, who we are, and what we do — how we think of ourselves, treat others, and how we act in the world.
“Students open to understanding writing or communication beyond “utility” find this course eye-opening.”
What do students learn in this course?
Students can expect to apply foundational concepts from writing and communication studies to understanding and thinking about all kinds of intellectual and popular texts, from podcasts to policy briefs, from memes to news articles, from Reddit posts to research articles, from Tik Tok videos to testimonials. The goal is to think differently about writing and communication. The course explores how writing is social, how it creates knowledge and knowledge systems, how it relates to colonization and decolonization, how it shapes how we view ourselves in the world, and how it works across different genres and modes.
“The course lays the foundations for the new Minor in Writing and Communication. If you want to get a taste of the Minor — or set yourself up for success in the Minor — take WRDS 200!”
What kinds of connections do this course foster?
There are a lot of misconceptions of what writing and communication studies are and can do for students at UBC. It’s way more useful than “how to write a research paper” and far broader than “how do we say what we already know.” WRDS 200 asks students to think of writing and communication as more than “skills” or “services.” Students often take communication courses in their own program that teach them how to communicate in their own discipline; but WRDS 200 helps them to deepen that understanding as well as engage with students from across different programs to explore how communication works elsewhere!
How does it help students prepare for the future?
In their careers, students will need to reach out to others to build relationships, build shared understanding, and make things happen — WRDS 200 helps them do this successfully. Having the expertise necessary to unpack how and why people, environments, and cultures communicate and for what purposes is invaluable. Students taking the course find being able to communicate across different communities and different situations an asset that sets them up for the future.
“In their careers, students will need to reach out to others to build relationships, build shared understanding, and make things happen — WRDS 200 helps them do this successfully.”
