The Art of Writing

Starting with an introduction to the course's focus on status quo, this unit provides students a foundation for writing and encourages the development of concise, creative, descriptive, and powerful writing which will be a continued emphasis throughout the course. Students will review their knowledge of purpose and audience, punctuation and sentence structure, diction, and poetic/literary devices, all with an aim to develop their own written voice. Personal essays are explored and analysed with students applying the unit's lessons on writing to their own personal essay. The unit culminates with a lesson on delivery and presentation skills, and students then present their personal essay orally in a recorded video presentation.

22 hours

New Media

Continuing to work with the idea of status quo introduced in the first unit, the second unit focuses on new media: mass digital communication that uses computers and the internet to transmit information. The unit explores relevant media concepts connected to social media and culture, including topics of bias, fake news, obsolescence, and opinion. The unit includes a documentary used to explore bias, and throughout the unit students are encouraged to consider the role of new media, its ability to provoke change, and their own opinions on the topics explored in the unit. Unit assignments include a formal reflection on bias, a lateral reading assignment used to verify sources, and an opinion assignment in which students share their opinions in both written and visual formats.

25 hours

Novel Study—Status Quo or No?

This unit offers students a chance to select, read, and analyse a novel. There are four novel options: Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Handmaid's Tale, The Great Gatsby, and Mister Pip. Expanding on the topic of status quo examined so far in the course, students will make use of reading guides offered throughout the unit to consider their chosen novel with specific consideration of perspective and voices. Through a brief introduction to several literary theories, students are encouraged to consider how perspective alters the way a text is read, as well as the consideration of the voices included within the text and those that are excluded. Unit assignments include a comparison-contrast essay and a multi-genre project.

Short Stories and Poetry—Diverse Voices

This unit explores two genres—short story and poetry—with an emphasis on synthesis and the bringing together of a variety of diverse texts to develop a single thesis position in a final literary essay. A course anthology is provided that includes 12 short stories and 12 poems from a wide variety of authors, time periods, cultures, and nationalities. Unit assignments include a text analysis presentation, a formal reader response, and a literary essay.

28 hours

Exam

This is a proctored exam worth 30% of your final grade.