First-Year Writing Seminar (105-8-24)

Topic

Podcasts as Storytelling

Instructors

Megan Elizabeth Geigner
847/491-4969
555 Clark ST, #202

Meeting Info

Fisk Hall 114: Tues, Thurs 9:30AM - 10:50AM

Overview of class

While print novel and magazine readership may be down, podcast listening is hugely popular. Podcasts are now where many people encounter news, pop culture, and stories. Good podcast creators—of both fiction and nonfiction podcasts—engage in the art of storytelling, making carefully crafted plots, characters, settings, and themes. This course will expose students to narrative theory and storytelling tools and then teach them to apply these concepts to podcasts. Just as they do with written texts in other courses, students in this course will learn to consider podcasts using close-"reading" techniques, rhetorical argumentation, and character, plot, and setting analyses. In addition to these more classical academic analyses of podcasts as literature, the course will also ask students to consider the serial and documentary genres. Furthermore, students will consider how technology affects storytelling. In the first half of the course, students will analyze existing podcasts and write academic papers on the podcasts of their choosing. In the second half of the class, students will make 2 podcasts themselves. One of the podcasts will be an original podcast of their choosing. The other podcast will be a class project wherein students make a podcast that gives other students tips and tricks to improve their writing processes.

Class Materials (Required)

All readings will be on Canvas.

Class Attributes

WCAS Writing Seminar