In ENGL 1102 you will further develop key communication skills that will contribute to success in your academic and professional career. Throughout the course, we will rely on the power of Written, Oral, Visual, Electronic, and Nonverbal (WOVEN) modes of communication. Through WOVEN communication projects (called artifacts in this course) we will critically engage with and research the theme of marginal characters in film and television.

While the lifestyle of the rich and famous is still at the center of the entertainment industry, in recent years, audiences have turned to stories coming from the fringes of society. The success of Downton Abbey, highlighting the drama of the servants of an early-twentieth-century, English country house, or the more recent Squid Game phenomenon show how the mainstream industry as well as critics and scholars are captivated by narratives that give voice to the marginalized. In this course, you will develop WOVEN communication skills in individual and collaborative projects by engaging with films and TV series that amplify these marginal voices. 

In your artifacts for this course, you will analyze and critique the portrayal of social inequality and the interactions between people divided by class in these stories and investigate what we can learn from this analysis about the challenges faced by present-day societies. For Artifact 1, you will prepare a class presentation on a show or film that centers on the experience of those living at the margins of society. Next, for Artifact 2, you will collaborate with other students to do research, write a script, and edit a video essay on one of the international films focusing on precarious domestic workers discussed in class–Roma (Mexico, 2018) or Parasite (South Korea, 2019). Finally, for Artifact 3, you and your team will build a website exploring the world of a class dystopia portrayed in film in Never Let Me Go (2010), or Snowpiercer (2013).