I have been looking forward to meeting all of you and getting this course underway for some time. This class will most certainly have special chemistry since you are a truly diverse and talented new cohort joining the MA in Writing Studies program. ENG 5020 will serve as a foundation as you begin your graduate studies and you embark on your academic journey to your MA degree. During this class, you will learn more about the field of Writing Studies, you will establish an academic foundation for your future coursework, you will consider what it means to be a writer in the 21st century, and you will take an important step in acclimating to the grad school experience.
One factor that often leads to a lack of energy in the traditional classroom is the way that learning might be perceived as a passive activity—a thing that happens to students. What you learn and how you learn it is decided by someone else, without considering what you care about, what you know already, or what you want to learn. Part of the idea of an open class comes from giving you the opportunity to influence the course. As we build a foundation for Writing Theory & Practice and consider what it means to write in a globally interconnected world, I want to place value in the interests and ambitions that each of you brings to this course. What do you want to learn during our time together? What do you want to create during our time together? Please remember to reflect on these key questions throughout our shared time together. There will be flexibility and choices along the way as you determine some of your own learning outcomes for this course.
Through discussion and negotiation, we will identify shared-purpose and a mutually beneficial learning agenda, we will read and write (both individually and collaboratively), and we will embrace peer-to-peer cooperation and learning. Our course will also be an open (online), connected (networked), co-learning (participatory) experience. We will balance our time together – both traditionally with in-person classes on campus, and periodic hybrid/online time together at certain points, in order to support and facilitate that independence most graduate students seek in their advanced degree experience.
In Fall 2024, our ENG 5020 Writing Theory and Practice course will also be participating and collaborating with “Equity Unbound” – a global online network and community (co-founded by Dr. Mia Zamora at Kean University in NJ, USA, Dr. Maha Bali at American University, Cairo in Egypt, and Dr. Catherine Cronin of Galway, Ireland). After six years of open connected learning across literal and figurative boundaries, our continued networked activities and online workshops remain an extended “conversation” – focusing on intercultural learning, digital culture, and social justice. Equity Unbound is an award-winning participatory “collaboratory” for open online transformational learning.
I sincerely look forward to getting to know each of your more. And I know that through our collaboration we will lay foundations of knowledge which will no doubt influence your future practice.
See you soon,
Dr. Mia Zamora
