On Wednesday, Dec. 4, students, professors and friends gathered in the Brink faculty lounge to celebrate the official launch of “brink.,” the latest undergraduate student magazine produced by UI’s English department. The celebration featured pizza, sparkling cider and live readings from student contributors. The magazine is the product of the English 490 capstone course, in which seniors spent the entire semester brainstorming, organizing and producing content together. The result? A colorful, witty and heartfelt magazine demonstrating the skills and experiences these students obtained during their time in the English program. It contains self-reflections, fiction, poetry, photography and much more.
“brink.” is intended to be informative and inspirational. Articles within, such as “Top Ten English Classes at UI” and “What to Tell People When They Passive Aggressively Question Your Major,” are fond reads for those that have undergone the English program. They also contain valuable information for incoming UI students. There are playful mock advertisements for on-campus resources, such as the Writing Center. There are even activities such as a “Major Reads” word search, playlists to listen to as you read each section and writing prompts for fiction, nonfiction and poetry.
Notably, this is the first time the ENGL 490 course has been structured this way. In years past, the ENGL 490 course was a traditional seminar which required students to write a long, analytical essay at the end. This did not quite represent the diverse mediums and modes of writing contained in the English program. If ENGL 490 was meant to be the culmination of all these modes, the course itself needed to be more unique.
In the magazine’s introductory letter, instructor Erin James writes, “The course is much more student-led: the group decides together on how best to showcase the skills they have learned while earning their English degrees, and each student then designs their own unique contribution to that group project.”
The ENGL 490 students had to start from scratch. They did not have any previous classes to model after. Together, they researched existing magazines to discover what worked and what did not. They voted on the aesthetic design, decided how each person would contribute and generated a timeline for everyone to adhere to. In just 16 weeks, the magazine was complete. It was a highly collaborative effort. “brink.” could not have come to be without the hard work, cooperation and passion of the ENGL 490 seniors.
“brink.” magazine is available in two formats. Read the digital, page-flipping version online here. Alternatively, the pdf version is available here.
Megan Kingsley can be reached at [email protected]