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“I think it’s really cool how the honors program is offering all these very niche interest classes to cater to their students,” said Jonas Dickens, a second-year electrical engineering major. “I feel like we get very caught up in our own courses for our own major … but we have other interests outside of our major as well.”

Dickens is one of seven students in the new honors (Un)Common Writes course, Writing Text and Tunes: An Exploration of Writing and Music. The six new courses, created by the University Writing Program in collaboration with the University of Florida Honors Program, each offer one credit hour and challenge students to think outside of traditional writing styles. Dickens said the course helped bridge his love for music and analytical writing.

“I felt like this class pushed me in a way that I haven’t done before. I thought that was really cool, just having the opportunity to get the pen working with that again,” he said.

Dickens added his favorite assignment in the course thus far was when he wrote an album review.

The course’s instructor, Associate Professor Andréa Caloiaro, said the class is nothing like what he has taught before. This being the first time he is teaching this material, Caloiaro said it’s an experimental learning opportunity for both the students and himself.

According to Alison Reynolds, program director of the University Writing Program, “The (Un)Common Writes curriculum provides Honors students with the opportunity to engage deeply with Writing Program faculty and to write beyond the confines of typical writing courses. Students get to stretch their writing muscles.” Fall 2024 is the first semester that (Un)Common Writing classes have been offered.

“My course gives students a way to approach writing in a different way,” said Jennifer Coenen, Ph.D., who teaches the (Un)Common course, Writing Your Self. She said because the course is not bound by general education standards, it’s a great way for students and faculty to have fun with what is being taught.

There are very few parameters as to what students are told to write or how they do it in this course, she said, it prioritizes creative thinking and creative interpretation. Coenen added she hopes to give students the freedom and agency to say, “I wrote this, this is mine,” and feel pride in the product they produce throughout the semester.

This course combines majors from all walks of life, Coenen said, from hard sciences to social sciences. (Un)Common Writes classes are made for all disciplines.

“Students are in a world constantly where they see themselves as not knowing things; my class prioritizes writing what you know,” she said.

The average (Un)Common Writes course experience doesn’t happen in a lecture hall. Instead, with small class sizes, the courses focus on student collaboration and participation. For the Text and Tunes course, this means an average period consists of a projector playing a loop of songs from indie to psychedelic jazz, with students clustered around a conference table, peer-reviewing each other’s writing.

It’s a lot more of an experience class, said Hannah Wohlever, a second-year psychology major. It feels like the professor is trying to get students to reconsider the field instead of telling them how to think about it, she added.

Wohlever said she had previously taken an (Un)Common Reads course in the Honors Program and was excited about the prospect of taking another (Un)Common course. As a songwriter herself, she said the course has helped her write about art from a more academic point of view.

“These courses let students engage in the writing process outside of normal class expectations and environments, which is such an important opportunity,” said Jessica-Jean Stonecipher, Ph.D., instructor for (Un)Common Writes: Love Letters. “They are free from the conventions of their discipline and the formats they frequently encounter at college. Being able to write freely and for pleasure in an area of interest to you can be a rarity in a traditional college curriculum.”

In this class, students write love letters related to weekly themes and then have monthly workshops to share and revise their writing, she said.

Stonecipher said the three biggest takeaways she hopes students have from her course are “the power that written communication can have to strengthen relationships, the importance of openly and purposefully communicating love and how writing helps us process, think, analyze, and feel.”

Kelsi White, a second-year English major, said the (Un)Common curriculum taught her how to combine artistic topics into analytical writing techniques.

“I was able to actually implement creative writing into talking about something I’m super passionate about,” she said.

White said she would be very interested in taking another University Writing Program course before she graduates and intends on telling her fellow students to do the same.