How to get to Hollywood without leaving home

What happens when you blend a spoonful of popular films, a pinch of argumentation, and a dash of useful vocabulary into an academic writing course—then shake, but don’t stir? You get our brand-new course!

On December 8th, the pilot run of “Academic Writing with a Hollywood Flair,” the Academic Writing Center’s new unconventional program, came to a close. The course was custom-designed for us by Artem Sigaev, a lecturer from ITMO University. Over four weeks, participants analyzed clips from popular movies, examined examples of genres in academic and science communication, and discussed how arguments are built. The course also involved plenty of communication practice in various formats.

From the participants’ feedback, we can see that the experience was not only relevant and useful, but also genuinely engaging:

“Thank you very much for this course! It was a great challenge, worth the effort! I would like to thank Artem for his high performance and interesting course.” 

“All activities were awesome and very well executed by the trainer. In my opinion, three films focus on different situations that let us distinguish between facts and opinions, and how the information can be manipulated, especially the film "Don't look up.” The films helped me understand that persuasion is not only about facts, but also about the way information is presented.”

“I liked the variability of tasks, the amount of practice, in-group discussions, and homework. The trainer is very friendly and the colleagues who participated in the course were motivated to discuss different topics, and therefore it was interesting to talk to them and learn from each other.”

With that, we close the fall semester and open the festive season. We have delivered 6 courses (half of them brand new!), hosted 9 workshops, online and in-person, and welcomed 9 new speakers and trainers to collaborate with us. Now, a well-deserved break awaits—for you and for us. In January, we’ll be coming back with a new program, and we’re confident it won’t disappoint. See you in 2026! 🙂