Course Overview

Exploratory Writers on a 5-Minute Stage encourages you to observe social phenomena, discover problems, and seek possible solutions using creativity and critical thinking. This course helps you write interesting, powerful and effective proposals and give successful oral presentations. Most importantly, this course gives you a five-minute stage on which you effectively and efficiently show all the key information on your proposal.

You may have Holmesian deduction, Shakespearian romance, or Picassonian chimera, but you have only five minutes—five minutes where you think out of box, turning a flight of fancy into a quartet of reality.

This course consists of two main elements: proposal writing and oral presentation. In the first half of the course, students are taught how to observe real-life problems, creatively come up with solutions, evaluate solutions in small-scale experiments, and write their proposals accordingly. In the second half, students are trained in visual aid design and oral presentation skills, so that they can collaboratively present their proposals in a simple language under just five minutes.

Course Objectives

Out-of-box thinking has become a predominant mode of thinking in modern society. Members in the academia and industry are expected to solve problems through innovative and ground-breaking ideas. Scientific developments and breakthroughs are based on human needs and science is hence inseparable from humanity. It is this interconnectedness that inspires this course. Exploratory Writers on a 5-Minute Stage aims to encourage students to examine their surroundings from innovative perspectives and scientifically study them by critically exploring and systematically analyzing problems so as to offer solutions.

Exploratory Writers on a 5-Minute Stage aims to encourage students to observe, identify problems, seek possible problem-solving means, evaluate the efficacy of the measures, and present arguments in a scientific manner. To these ends, this course consists of two main elements: writing and oral presentation. In the first part of the course, a rhetorical approach to writing proposals is adopted, focusing on observing real-life problems, seeking/creating optimal solutions for a given audience and context, and conducting mini-experiments in a small scale. In addition to fostering students’ skills in proposal writing by collaboratively responding to a case, the course also provides trainings on oral presentation skills and visual aid design. Each team is required to deliver a 5-minute oral presentation on their mini-project.

Course Requirements

Students who do not show up in the first class are deemed to automatically drop this course.
(1) Students must have a heart that throbs for social phenomena, a soul that embraces participatory inclusiveness, and a spirit that takes off with a flight of fancy.
(2) Students should not miss more than three classes per semester.
(3) During the first week, students will not meet for tutorials, but they should attend the lecture.
(4) Unregistered students who wish to take this course must attend the first class and take draws.

References

Kolin, P. C. (2010). Successful Writing at Work, 9th ed. Boston: Cengage Learning.
Mehlich, S., Smith-Worthington, D., & Che, P-C. (2007). Technical Writing for Success: A School-to-Work Approach. Taipei: Cengage Learning.
Scheraga, Mona. (1999). Practical English Writing Skills: A Handbook with Practice, 2nd ed. Lincolnwood: Contemporary Books.
Sorenson, S. (2010). Webster’s New World Student Writing Handbook, 5 ed. HoBoken: Wiley Publishing.

Evaluation

Schedule