WR 153
As a course that earns a third Hub unit in Creativity/Innovation, beyond Hub units for (1) Writing, Research, & Inquiry and (2) Research & Information Literacy, WR 153 will also give you an opportunity to design, research, and execute a sustained project or series of projects with an emphasis on the stages of design thinking. Through generating ideas, imagining an audience’s needs, developing strategies for implementation, offering feedback to your peers, redesigning in response to feedback and reflection, and risking productive failure, you will develop the skills and persistence to bring your project to fruition. You will also come to understand creativity as a learnable, iterative process that can be applied in any area of study.
Planning a new WR 153 course? Be sure you consult the current syllabus template.
WR 153-Specific Principles
In order to make the most out of WR 153 for you and your classmates, you will do a good deal of reading and writing. You will also g
enerate ideas and create strategies for implementing those ideas, and identify approaches that promote creativity and innovation.
In WR 153, you will learn about and practice design thinking as you undertake a sustained project or series of projects related to our course topic. Design thinking is a non-linear creative process that will help you develop the skills and persistence to bring your project to fruition and can be applied to practical and conceptual problems in other areas of study and life. The process involves the following steps:
- Understand: Students will develop a foundation for their work by exploring issues and approaches relevant to the course topic, as well as previous work in the field.
- Empathize: Students will practice empathy by demonstrating their awareness and understanding of the audience for whom they write or create.
- Define: Based on their observations and insights, students will articulate a problem or question that will motivate their work over the course of the semester.
- Ideate: Students will generate new ideas and possible solutions by challenging assumptions and engaging in a variety of creative activities.
- Prototype: Students will start to create solutions and implement their ideas into written, digital or other forms in order to capture ideas, but also redefine choices.
- Test: Students will share drafts with others in order to gain feedback and insight into improving final versions.
- Assess/Reflect: Students will regularly reflect on and evaluate their peers’ and their own processes and final outcomes.
Reflecting on your approaches to creativity, research, and writing will prepare you to adapt these to future occasions.
WR 153-Specific Resources
All WR 15x resources
