Courses

This workshop course offers students effective techniques for written and oral communication within the fields of business and industry, including key aspects of technical correspondence, report writing, oral communication, and the job-seeking process.

A hands-on seminar that explores the use of text, images, sound, video, data and graphics to tell stories in an engaging way. Students will leverage digital tools, social media platforms, and research to inform, educate or entertain. The course explores historical aspects, storytelling structures, design concepts, ethical issues, writing styles, and the business of media.

A survey of the principles, practices, and ethical considerations of sports journalism with emphasis on newsgathering, storytelling, editing, audience consideration, and Canadian Press Style. Students apply skills in the university sports context to meet real deadlines and gain from peer critique.

This course introduces students to the history, art, and craft of cogent short-form film and television writing. It involves theoretical and applied components. Topics include: concept, conflict, and character development, writing treatments, structure and plot point crafting, genre considerations, theme and character dynamics, mood and stylistic concerns, etc. Selective scripts from the course may be used in advanced production courses.

Playwriting is a workshop course designed for any student interested in developing their storytelling skills by writing for the stage. Students will study major components of playwriting, including dramatic formatting, structure, plot and character development, writing actionable dialogue, analysis, dramaturgy, and more. Students will deepen their understanding of these components and of the creative process through writing exercises, pitching ideas, reading work out loud, and respectfully providing and receiving feedback. By the end of the semester, students will have written one or more plays.

What makes this story so good? Compelling magazine and newspaper writing employs narrative nonfiction's creative tools to bring true stories to life. In this intermediate workshop-style course, students analyze examples of the best published memoir, personal narrative, travel writing, and immersion journalism to interpret the author's craft and formulate aesthetic principles to apply to their own creative work. Students will write several pieces in a variety of non-fiction genres; critique each other's work; revise their own; and perform one piece during the Festival of the Arts, Media + Culture.

This course provides an in-depth look at communication in close relationships. The course begins with models of relational communication and proceeds with self- and other perceptions, verbal and nonverbal strategies and rituals, then the larger processes of communication in developing, sustaining, struggling, and ending relationships. Three featured topics include the role of conflict, verbal abuse, and personal style as factors in close relationships.

This course is about the nature of cross-cultural interaction. Cultural concepts and contexts are explored through taxonomies, theories, and comparative analysis. Through in-class and out-of-class activities, students become self-aware and other-aware. Students also experiment with cultural behaviours and cultural change, aiming to increase both explanatory and predictive cultural knowledge, and enhance behavioural competencies.

The rhetoric of classical Greece and Rome, the medieval era, and modern and postmodern approaches to rhetorical practice are surveyed in relation to political, social, and mass media contexts and practices.