EXP 1001
Introduction to Teaching English to Adult Speakers of Other Languages
(Prerequisite: EN 110 with a grade of B or higher; Recommended: Junior Standing)
Grading: This course will be graded on a PASS/FAIL scale
This course is a practical introduction to teaching English to adult speakers of other languages. It will consider teaching methodology, types of test (entrance tests, diagnostic tests, progress tests, language proficiency tests, and end-of-course tests), lesson planning, teacher/learner dynamics, the teaching of the four language skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking), and the teaching of the three language systems (grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation).
EXP 1002
Introduction to Teaching Italian as a Second Language
(Prerequisite: IT 302 or permission of the instructor)
Grading: This course will be graded on a PASS/FAIL scale
This is an introductory course to teaching Italian as a second language to adult speakers. This is a course which covers theories as well as techniques and practice for the teaching of Italian.
It will consider teaching methodology, lesson planning, learning contexts, the role of the teacher, the teaching of the four language skills, the teaching of the three language systems (grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation), the error analysis and the verification and evaluation.
Students will also be provided with assisted lesson planning, observed teaching practice, and oral and written feedback. Students will be supervised during their training at John Cabot and will have the opportunity to put in practice the theory in real university classes.
EXP 1003
Narratives of Italian Immigration in the United States
Grading: This course will be graded on a PASS/FAIL scale
This course explores the stories and the experiences of Italian American immigrants as they traveled to America and began their new lives. It aims to analyze the various narratives concerning Italian immigration to the United States between the end of the XIX and the beginning of the XX century. We will explore different moments and issues relating to the immigrants’ experiences through short stories and poems, films, documentaries, essays and various original documents.
EXP 1004
Professional Skills for Career Development
Grading: This course will be graded on a PASS/FAIL scale.
The main goal of this course is to prepare students for their career: the course provides students with an understanding of the mechanisms regulating the job market as well as uncertain, competitive and challenging work environments.
The course is also a tool to learn the art of personal branding; students learn how to develop individual soft skills such as leadership style, communication skills, and organization skills.
The course prepares students to successfully enter the job market; participants will learn about the different interviewing techniques and will learn how to apply for a position in an effective manner.
In the end, attention is given to external relationships and professional network: the course explains how to build and maintain professional relationships, and how to handle conflict in the working environment.
EXP 1005
Video Essay Workshop
Grading: This course will be graded on a PASS/FAIL scale
This course aims to introduce students to the various forms and methods associated with the contemporary video essay, and to guide them through the conception and production of their own analytic video essays — a skill which they will be able to transfer to numerous other courses and extracurricular and/or professional contexts. The course will teach students to present and directly elaborate the audio-visual material they engage with (rather than merely writing about it), as well as appreciate and understand the ways in which practical and critical engagement with media can advance active modes of spectatorship and media consumption.
EXP 1006
Travel Photography
(Partially on-site; refer to the complete syllabus for activity fee details)
Grading: This course will be graded on a PASS/FAIL scale
Travel photography is the art of documenting places, people and traditions in a manner that the image itself narrates a feeling of time and place, and a portrayal of the art, and landscapes and societies it engages with. Technically, travel photography also hones skills in dealing with diverse light conditions and settings. A sense of history and observation, and an eye for composition and action are hence integral aspects of this type of photography. The course provides a practical engagement with the challenges of natural light photography, and an analytical appreciation of the language of travel reportage photography.
EXP 1007
Two Worlds: An Introduction to the Translation of Italian into English
(Prerequisite: IT 202 or permission of the Instructor)
Grading: This course will be graded on a PASS/FAIL scale
The course is an introduction to translation from Italian to English. The strategies and considerations involved in the translation of texts are considered, as well as the difficulties encountered. Texts from a variety of genres are examined and translated. Although theoretical issues are considered, the course is essentially practical. The second half of the course involves translation practice, both in groups and individually. Emphasis is placed on examining the differences between Italian and English in terms of lexis and grammar, as well as the cultural and sociolinguistic elements that must be considered in translation.
EXP 1008
The Philosopher in the Garden: Epicureans and Great Gardens in Lazio and Rome
Grading: This course will be graded on a PASS/FAIL scale
This course originates from the contemporary concern for ecological issues and, therefore, addresses how the hand of man has creatively, productively and artistically managed the natural environment under the inspiration of philosophical principles. It will first consider the philosophical ideas of Epicurus (the “philosopher in the garden”) and then how these ideas further inspired the creation of great Renaissance gardens, many of which are in and near Rome. There will be two extended visits to these gardens in Lazio: the Papal gardens in Castel Gondolfo and the Villa d’Este in Tivoli, or the Villa Lante near Viterbo. Garden layout, botany, design and themes will be all examined in the course.
EXP 1009
Tutor Training Workshop for Writers
(Prerequisite: EN 110 with a grade of B+ or above)
Grading: This course will be graded on a PASS/FAIL scale
This course analyzes peer tutoring theories, strategies, and methods. Students will familiarize themselves with current writing process theory, revision strategies for various genres of writing, documentation systems like MLA and APA, and various tutorial methods and techniques. Students will also explore contrastive rhetoric and language interference theories in order to inform their work with language learners. Participants will receive hands-on training as well through observation, analysis, reflection and application of methods in a tutorial setting. Finally, students will enhance their own writing, listening, speaking, assessment, and collaboration skills by conducting tutorials and writing about their experience.
EXP 1010
The Exhibition Review
Grading: This course will be graded on a PASS/FAIL scale
The course is designed to introduce students to exhibition review techniques and to practice them. It consists of visits to current exhibitions in Rome, where students will learn skills for analytical viewing and active engagement with art exhibitions. Exhibitions are increasingly numerous and spectacular features in the art-historical landscape. They give us first-hand contact with a vast array of artworks, and they often introduce us to unfamiliar works. But they are also difficult to negotiate. How do we take in the many, carefully orchestrated stimuli and keep a critical distance? How do we analyze the narrative that is being proposed? How do we focus? Exhibition reviews exist to help viewers with these questions.
EXP 1011
Making Comics as Visual Literacy
Grading: This course will be graded on a PASS/FAIL scale
In this course students will make a mini-comic and in the process develop visual literacy skills. It introduces the basic visual grammar of comics and offers an overview of different visual styles and genres. The core activity of the course involves learning how to go from sketches to final product by developing characters, building a world, constructing panels, sequences, completed stories, and distributing on the Web. Because, comics can visually communicate data and complexity in new and unfamiliar ways, skills developed in this course can be applied to other areas of academic life, such as mathematics, science, information science, literature, history, graphics design, arts, and business education. Learning to make comics will also cultivate entrepreneurial skills, including developing targeted communication, building an audience, developing an identity, and cultivating a public persona.
EXP 1012
Directing the Long Take
(Prerequisite: COM 230)
Grading: This course will be graded on a PASS/FAIL scale
The primary aim of this course is to advance students’ film-making skills through the development and realization of a single, complex exercise. The long take, or “sequence shot” as it is also called, is an uninterrupted take of longer than usual duration: typically, long takes will last a few minutes, but there are many examples that run for much longer than that, and sometimes, as in the case of Sokurov’s Russian Ark, for the length of the entire film. Though some long takes use static cameras, they are more often comprised of many and complex camera movements, lighting changes, focus racks, and carefully choreographed staging (i.e. actors’ positions and movements). For that reason, shooting a successful long take depends on extremely careful planning and preparation, and tests the filmmaker’s ability to control all aspects of mise-en-scene and cinematography at the same time. Learning to manage a long take therefore necessarily leads the filmmaker to a higher level of competence, and prepares her/him for the complexities of planning and shooting an entire film.
In addition, the course serves to hone students’ writing skills — condensing a meaningful narrative into a single take is no easy feat — as well as to advance their understanding of a widespread cinematic form with a long and varied history.
EXP 1013
From Concept to Production: Writing Effective Audio-visual Project Proposals
Grading: This course will be graded on a PASS/FAIL scale
This course offers the students an opportunity to improve their proposal-writing competence, a useful skill which they will be able to transfer to numerous other courses as well as diverse extracurricular and/or professional contexts. Participants will learn how to structure an effective proposal for their own creative projects with a particular focus on audiovisual productions. Students will understand that writing a proposal is not only a means to test or explore an idea prior to committing to the complete project, but also a crucial process aimed at developing and strengthening that very initial concept. By having to articulate not only their topic of choice but also their unique take, students will be encouraged to sharpen their own perspective, and, as a result, accomplish a more coherent and cohesive presentation.
EXP 1014
Memes, Viral Media and Internet Culture
Grading: This course will be graded on a PASS/FAIL scale
The term ‘meme’ applies to a word, phrase or image that spreads throughout a culture and can carry subversive, underground or mainstream meanings. In this course, students will critically engage with the political, ethical and aesthetic considerations of memes which have arisen specifically from internet culture. Students will be encouraged to explore and consider theoretical notions through the production of static or animated memes. Via this practical engagement, using online apps such as giphy and makeameme, students will explore the processes which lead to an image going viral as they to produce and promote their own visual media. Finally, class presentations will enable students to critically assess the internet as a medium via a consideration of the memes produced for the course. Throughout the course, issues around surveillance, information leaks, democracy and freedom of speech will underpin a critically engaged practice of creating viral culture and internet ‘memes’.
EXP 1015
Media Production Workshop
Grading: This course will be graded on a PASS/FAIL scale
This media production workshop is designed to enable students to develop new projects or finish an incomplete project developed during their coursework at JCU. Examples include shooting new scenes for a video; producing a podcast based on a script written in Writing Across the Media; shooting a short video based on a project developed in a creative writing class; working on sound design, color correction or editing for a video; editing images for a photojournalism project; or expanding and updating a video essay. The course is supervised by a faculty with technical expertise to help with production issues (editing, sound, color correction, etc.) and will follow each student’s individualized learning plan.
EXP 1016
A Multimedia Approach to Literature
Grading: This course will be graded on a PASS/FAIL scale
The power of literature has always been its ability to bring meaning to our lives through immersion into the experiences of others. Now, with multimedia and social tools at our fingertips, we can engage with literature, and the universal themes that arise from it, in exciting new ways. This one-credit course will allow students to conceive of and develop a group multimedia project inspired by, and building upon the themes of, a work of literature. Collaboration, central to any production, will extend to working with at least one major organization, perhaps a library or museum, with a community interest in the chosen work.
EXP 1017
Professional Skills for the Italian Job Market
(As the course is taught in Italian, students must have a level of language above IT 300 or permission from the instructor)
Grading: This course will be graded on a PASS/FAIL scale
This course is taught in Italian and is designed for those interested in doing business with or in Italy. It focuses on Italian business language, with the aim of developing students’ written and oral skills while providing them with technical vocabulary and professional expressions that are most often used in business situations. The course prepares students to successfully enter the job market; participants will learn about different interviewing techniques and will learn how to apply for a position in an effective manner.
EXP 1018
Community Inclusion through Art and Movement
Grading: This course will be graded on a PASS/FAIL scale
The course provides students with theoretical and practical knowledge of techniques and methodologies for teaching and learning through non-verbal communication and bodily movement. While such skills are necessary for all human communication, they are particularly important in socio-humanitarian and helping relationships. The course is therefore geared towards students who intend to pursue a career working with facilitating the social inclusion of disadvantaged groups such as migrants, prison inmates and people with various disabilities.
EXP 1019
Do-It-Yourself Book Making: Chapbooks
Grading: This course will be graded on a PASS/FAIL scale
This course is designed to introduce students to Do-it-yourself publishing methods, entailing hands on projects where students use readily available tools to craft books for sharing and distribution. Students are introduced to the study of print culture, through the assemblage of a chapbook - a small thematic collection - of their own poetry or prose. Chapbooks serve as wonderful portfolios of work to apply to graduate school and to attract the attention of agents and publishers. The course consists of theoretical and historical readings on print culture and the history of the book. Students will analyze canonical and contemporary examples of chapbooks and artists’ books, and be introduced to practical editorial, layout and design skills, tools and methods of bookmaking, and basic folding and bookbinding styles as they create their own book.
EXP 1020
Introduction to Text Mining
Grading: This course will be graded on a PASS/FAIL scale
This course introduces students to the basic elements of text mining that is used in various disciplines to do content analysis by exploring and analyzing large amounts of unstructured text and turning it into quantitative indicators and actionable information. The focus will be on basic applications of text mining based on different automated computational tools and statistical techniques that prepare and handle any document to a form in which the text can be mined. Some standard functions of RStudio and Microsoft Excel will be covered.
EXP 1021
Professional Skills for The Creative Industries
Grading: This course will be graded on a PASS/FAIL scale
This interdisciplinary course introduces key skills relevant to careers within the Creative Industries. The course explores the relationship between personal, creative and professional development, and develops a concrete awareness of the ‘creative communication tools’ relevant to the Creative Industries. The course will help prepare students for careers within the rapidly growing sector, by addressing both practical and professional aspects related to the creative fields such as ‘The CV,’ ‘The Statement,’ ‘The Portfolio,’ and ‘The Project Proposal.’
EXP 1022
From Concept to Production: Writing Effective Audio-visual Project Proposals
Grading: This course will be graded on a PASS/FAIL scale
This course offers the students an opportunity to improve their proposal-writing competence, a useful skill which they will be able to transfer to numerous other courses as well as diverse extracurricular and/or professional contexts. Participants will learn how to structure an effective proposal for their own creative projects with a particular focus on audiovisual productions. Students will understand that writing a proposal is not only a means to test or explore an idea prior to committing to the complete project, but also a crucial process aimed at developing and strengthening that very initial concept. By having to articulate not only their topic of choice but also their unique take, students will be encouraged to sharpen their own perspective, and, as a result, accomplish a more coherent and cohesive presentation.
EXP 1023
Understanding and Managing Personal Finance
Grading: This course will be graded on a PASS/FAIL scale
This course approaches the fundaments of personal finance as well as the overall philosophy of building financial wealth. Individuals can make a more educated choice in their investments and make decisions independently of financial services. The course is based on the financial principles that apply to the corporate world that can be extended to individuals. The course will cover the fundamentals of the stock market and traded stocks on a general level. Introduce P/E valuation, time value of money, ethical investments and effective altruism. In addition, the course will give the student a historic overview to understand the financial development of long-term investments in the stock market over decades. At the end of the course, students will be aware of the criteria to build a personal, profitable, and sustainable personal financial wallet.
EXP 1024
Unravelling the Web of Deception - Detecting and Combating Online Disinformation and Misinformation
In this course, students will recognize and debunk false claims and explore forms of disinformation, misinformation, persuasion, coercion, intimidation, and exploitation commonly encountered online. Students will use open-source intelligence tools to verify text, audio, and video content, learn techniques to assess sources and original context, examine current harmful disinformation trends, and study practices designed to mitigate the effects of harmful false narratives. A focus point will examine the fast-evolving role of AI-powered tools and techniques in the social media information ecosystem, and efforts to regulate AI online activity to protect privacy, slow the spread of harmful disinformation and promote creativity, productivity, and fulfilment. Students will track real-time election cycles, climate and health science coverage, hot wars and conflicts, culture wars, and other issues of interest across social media platforms. Research will focus on disinformation trends in fields such as public health and climate, elections and politics, law, technology, and business affairs. Students will be expected to study and present concepts to promote a healthier information ecosystem.
