Allison McKenna
Over The Years

WRIT Minor Courses
Here you can find brief descriptions of each writing course I have taken to fulfill the Writing Practices minor at the University of Denver. Go explore, and I hope you enjoy!
Applied Writing
Course: Topics in Applied Writing
Year: Winter 2019
Professor: Aubrey Schiavone
The course, Topics in Applied Writing, was the first course I took as a Writing Practices Minor. It was designed to look at different kinds of writing incorporated in today's day and age. This specific Topics in Applied writing course was centered around Writing and Digital Media. Through the course curriculum of designing and writing blogs, creating and updating a social media account of my choosing, and a final group project, I was able to gain a better understanding of different, unique, and relevant rhetorical situations that I interact with every day. I also gained valuable skills and experience writing for different media outlets. Here is a sample of a blog post I wrote focusing on various social media pages ~ "The Gurus Of Instagram"
Course: Introduction to Creative Writing
Year: Winter, 2020
Professor: Emily Altman
Intro to Creative Writing, taught by a young professional, was focused heavily on thinking outside the box and letting my creative juices flow. We experimented with many different crafts and forms of language, allowing me to find who I am, who I could be, and who I want to be as a writer. Along with challenging myself during this course, I also challenged my peers during workshops where we shared pieces we had created. Intro to Creative Writing was about taking a risk and being supported by a community of other risk-takers. We reviewed poems, nonfiction, drama, and hybrid works in order to broaden our writing horizons. Take a look at my Intro to Creative Writing Piece(s) ~ "Dear Future Me"
What really is “writing”? How would you define it? Where did it come from and what tools are used in writing? Is there any right way to write? Theories of Writing challenges all those questions and more as we dove deep into the exploration of general theories of writing and even our own theory of what writing means to us. In order to accurately reflect and answer that question, we explored a multitude of different modes of writing. We read, wrote, reflected upon, and discussed the written and oral culture, the relationship between both reader and writer, and the social of writing. As we are in the midst of the 21st century, how do we view writing today compared to what it was many years ago? So, what is my theory of writing? Find out for yourself ~ “My Theory of Writing”
Course: Theories of Writing
Year: Autumn 2020
Professor: Kara Taczak
Theories of Writing
Theory, History, & Research
Course: Artifacts, Text, & Meaning
Year: Winter, 2021
Professor: Bonnie Clark
Anthropology isn’t simply the act of searching for buried ancient artifacts. In fact, most of anthropology is the process of making sense of the artifact that was found. The main questions that drove the class curriculum and discussion was “How is it that anthropologists can look at an object and state with confidence what it once was a part of, how it was used, where it came from, how old it is, and even, perhaps, what it meant to the people who made it?” Artifacts, Text, and Meaning allowed me to expand my writing horizon into a new area of study, one that I never associated with writing beforehand. This class was centered around analyzing artifacts, learning about anthropology, discussing important dates and techniques, and finally curating our own exhibit documenting our own experiences during the pandemic. This was indeed a foreign mode of writing to me, but one that I became quite fond of. Take a look at an object that became a part of my life during the pandemic ~ “Glasses With Blue Light Protection Lenses”
WRIT Capstone
From the very first writing minor class to the final push, the writing capstone class, Writing Design and Circulation, is the perfect way to connect and combine everything I have learned. This class is a place where we get to design an online portfolio of all the work we had previously done within the Writing Minor. And what perfect way to do that than by creating an online portfolio? The portfolio consists of designing our own personal web pages, deciding which past pieces to put on display, and creating one final piece. This final piece is a revision of a piece of my choosing which allows us to show our writing growth over the years. I was able to take an academic essay I had previously written and transform it into a completely new genre of writing.
Through this class, I am able to look back at my college courses, the pieces I created, and understand who I have become as a writer. How I’ve expanded my writing horizons and challenged myself can be seen through the revision of an academic essay ~ “A Location To Relocate As A Young Professional: 5 Reasons Why Sweden May Be The One"