English Courses Semester 3 2023

Track 1 - Engineering, History,Technology

Phase 1 - History and Technology (D. Paisley)

Objective: To narrate the history of selected technologies paying attention to historical context and with a particular focus on the nature and scope of “risk” associated with technological innovation and development.

This phase involves looking at technological innovation from a historical perspective. With a particular focus on language skills associated with the practice of narration, we will also consider the relationships between history, context, and technology.

Phase 2 - The Value and Values of Being Modern (B.Tabas)

In an age of sustainable development, it may seem that everything modern is part of the problem. That what is modern is not green, natural, or healthy. Modern life must be destroyed, forgotten, or left behind. That deglobalization, low-tech, and local are the future.

Or are they? What was modernity? Are we still modern? What role might modern ideas play in a sustainable future?

This is a student-led class devoted to thinking about the modern. About what makes modernity modern. About the value of being modern—as well as the discomforts associated with being modern. It is a class devoted also to thinking critically about modernity, with a particular focus on criticisms emergent from ecology and sustainable development. It is also a class devoted to thinking about the past as well as the future. Devoted to looking at, on the one hand, the aspects of the modern period that deserve to be retired. Devoted to questioning, on the other, which aspects of the modern project ought to be saved, ought to be imported into the future.

Track 2 - Engineering is Creating Compelling Narratives

Phase 1 - The Art of the Essay (Creative Nonfiction) (N. Fitzgerald)

‘...the essay is not a form, has no form; it is a game that creates its own rules.’ Michael Hamburger

Michel de Montaigne wrote them about cannibals, Bertrand Russell wrote one in praise of idleness, and Virginia Woolf has one about a dying moth. But what exactly is an essay? In this 6-week module, the essays you will examine are not dull academic treatises, but witty, conversational, reflective, and confessional. By exploring this 500-year old genre, you will interrogate a range of essay styles (politics with Orwell, metaphysics with Woolf) in order to have a better understanding of how this form can be a creative laboratory for your own thought experiments.

Phase 2 - Improvising Stories Collectively (J. Toulouse)

As an engineer, you will be expected to tell compelling and convincing stories in a wide range of contexts. This class involves guided improvisation theatre games/activities to explore and develop individual and group creativity.

Exercises focus on how to better listen to one’s partners ; exploring 4 skills of creativity - creating, building, repurposing, combining - through storytelling; using guided improvised storytelling as an effective prewriting activity.

Track 3 - Engineering is convincing

Phase 1 - Debating (J. Toulouse)

Track 4 - Engineering is navigating languages and cultures

Phase 1 - Intercultural Communication (Caroline Dawe-Coz)

Phase 2 - Identities and Cultures in the workplace (Lachell Faure)

TRACK 5: Engineering is engaging imagination & inspiration to become more creative

Phase 1 : Visualisation, imagination & inspiration (R. Delautre/M.Benson)

·       VISUALISATION: Let us use our visual thinking skill to envision new products and to work through spatial issues (how to create 3D shapes given 2D information).

·       IMAGINATION: Let us now use our imaginative skills to form mental images or concepts of what is not present to the senses (oral production: exploring imagination from a past, present and future standpoint).

·       INSPIRATION: Let us finally explore the valuable sources that engineers can get inspiration from, with a specific emphasis on Biom*, to find solutions to specific problems (written production: from function to innovation).

Phase 2 - The Biom* Creative Project (R. Delautre/M.Benson)

·       INSPIRATION applied to CREATIVITY: Phase 2 is primarily focuses on concrete applications of creativity through various exercises. Biom* is the key model applied in each exercise from function, abstraction to application.

·       BIOMIMICRY DESIGN CHALLENGE: By following the six most important steps of the design process to solve a challenge, students will clearly articulate the impact.s they want their design to have in the world.

Evaluations: there are two assessments: a short written production to have students thinking of the link creativity-engineering; an oral presentation of their Biomimicry design challenge (dress rehearsal and showcase presentation).