Courses

English Composition concentrates on improving students’ confidence and abilities in expressing themselves, and has the particular objective of equipping them to write university assignments. The course also aims to improve students’ reading and analytic skills. Students are divided into three small classes for this course; this allows for a seminar format which permits students to share their own writings and discuss the readings on the course. Students write regular and frequent assignments in this course, and instructors will give them helpful feed-back on the form, style and content of these assignments. Instructors will also provide individual support to students.

This half-course is designed to help students improve their ability to think and reason quantitatively, and to improve their problem-solving skills. The course should also help students to overcome any fears that they may have about learning quantitative information because of previous discouragement that they may have encountered in the acquisition of quantitative skills. The first part of the course is devoted to a consolidation of basic mathematics skills; the second part extends these skills in statistical reasoning about information of the sort frequently encountered in social scientific writing.

This course explores aspects of scientific knowledge that are readily applicable in everyday life and in academic settings. These include: fundamental scientific concepts, the processes of scientific inquiry, the scientific enterprise, and key discoveries in the history of science. A theme that runs throughout the course is science as a way of knowing and not the only way. To facilitate the appreciation of this theme, student presentations, guest lectures, a field trip, and audiovisual presentation of the science topics are incorporated into the course. Course delivery includes lectures, question/answer sessions, discussions, and class activities. Course evaluation consists of attendance, participation, take-home assignments, tests, and optional class presentations.

Rooted in the land on which we live and work (Tkaran:to), this course locates students within the fraught history of Indigenous-Settler encounters on Indigenous homelands situating them as Treaty people (with inherited responsibilities to the lands upon which they live and work and to the original peoples who continue their stewardship of those lands).

Why is the land acknowledgement (whether it is communicated by Indigenous individuals or by many settler-run institutions) so important—here in Tkaran:to and across Turtle Island (North America)? How do the creation stories of the Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, and Wendat peoples inform our understanding of living ethically in the world, of thinking the highest thought, and of successfully pursuing minobimaatisiiwin (the way of good life)?

Resources, course delivery (pedagogy), modes of evaluation, and learning objectives are based in Indigenous systems of thought. Structured upon a land-based pedagogical model, this course provides an experiential introduction to Indigenous thought, cosmology, lifeway, knowledge systems and governance/guardianship systems and provides students with the tools to process this knowledge and to articulate it for themselves and for others. Learners continue their journey through the history of contact, colonization, and finally into an understanding of what it means to be a treaty person living in Canada today.

This course will help students develop and strengthen the academic and life skills required to succeed as university students. It will include presentations on and practice in time management, note taking, study skills, essay writing, and preparation for examinations. In addition, it will deal with important matters of survival for students: financial aid and how to get it, balancing study with family obligations, paid labour and other life contingencies, effective use of major student services, and techniques for dealing with the stresses and complications of academic life. Credit will be awarded for successful completion of the course, but no numerical grade will be assigned.

Every TYP student takes one option course selected from the regular first-year courses offered by the Faculty of Arts and Science. Students are encouraged to select one of three courses which the instructors in the programme consider particularly suitable. These courses have been found to provide an excellent basis for introducing TYP students to academic expectations in the Faculty of Arts and Science and serve well as a way to integrate our students with that Faculty. We have developed effective ways to assist students in these courses.  

INS201Y1: Introduction to Indigenous Studies 

This course is designed to introduce students to the ideas, methods and themes of the discipline of Indigenous Studies. The development of the field of Indigenous Studies in Canada will form an important focus in the first half. The second part of the course will address "history and politics", including an overview of the historical processes of diplomacy, alliances, and treaty-making  

BIO120H1F: Adaptation and Biodiversity  

Principles and concepts of evolution and ecology related to origins of adaptation and biodiversity. Mechanisms and processes driving biological diversification illustrated from various perspectives using empirical and theoretical approaches. Topics include: genetic diversity, natural selection, speciation, physiological, population, and community ecology, maintenance of species diversity, conservation, species extinction, global environmental change, and invasion biology.   

CSE240H1F: Introduction to Critical Studies in Equity and Solidarity 

This course provides an interdisciplinary intersectional interrogation and
examination of systemic inequity and social justice in local and global contexts. It
provides a foundation for the field of critical equity and solidarity studies through a
concentrated focus on theory and practice as it relates to major concepts, historical
perspectives, key debates and radical thought and grassroots community resistance
to inequity and oppression. CSE240 introduces and foregrounds the concept of
critical equity as ‘praxis’, that is to say as both a theoretical framework and as a
lived, embodied, angered and passion-driven anticolonial contestation of [and
resistance to] the structural nature and effects of systemic and institutionalized
inequity and oppression. Crucially, this course will center and assert a radical
understanding of self-defense.

CAR120Y1: Introduction to Caribbean Studies   

Explores the complex and diverse languages, geographies, regional and national histories, cultural practices, intellectual traditions and political and economic landscapes of the Caribbean region, its people and its diasporas.  Students will be introduced to the main questions, themes, and debates in Caribbean Studies.  Lectures and readings develop the skills to take an interdisciplinary approach to Caribbean Studies. 

SOC101H1F: Introduction to Sociology I: Sociological Perspectives 

This course will challenge your views on a wide range of issues that affect us all. It will also excite your interest in a unique sociological way of understanding your world. We will analyze the globalization of culture, emerging patterns of class, race, and gender inequality in Canada and internationally, criminal and deviant behaviour, and so on. You will learn to understand these and other pressing social issues by analyzing the way the social world is organized. These topics are further taken up in the sequel to this course, SOC150: Introduction to Sociology II: Sociological Inquiries.  

This course on essay writing is designed to equip students with the skills required to write on different subjects and in a variety of different genres (including critical analysis and argumentative writing). By unpacking the stages of the writing process, this course helps students develop research, critical reading, planning, organization, writing, editing, and proofreading skills. Learners are encouraged to seek additional writing support from the instructor and from the various supports provided at the Transitional Year Programme Writing & Academic Skills Centre.

• TYP009H1S Literature, Art, and Film

This course will introduce students to the study of literature, art, and film through a variety of texts from a diverse body of storytellers, filmmakers, visual artists, and performers. Our overall aim is to explore how genre, media, medium, movement, sound, and design interact with the telling of stories, reflecting human experience, expanding our capacity for empathy, and informing our view of the world in this cultural moment. We will consider how meaning is generated, particularly in relation to concepts of gender, race, class, and identity—and we will explore artistic representations of how, when matters have been left unresolved in the past, they continue to speak themselves and to disrupt the present in startling and powerful ways

• TYP019H1S - Black Canadian Studies

Black Canadian experiences contribute to understandings of what it means to be Black in the Diaspora. The course introduces students to the field of Black Canadian Studies by critically exploring and analyzing the links and disjunctures in the cultural, political, and intellectual practices and experiences of people of African descent in Canada. This course stems from the following question: How do Black communities in Canada articulate their presence, survive and thrive within an anti-Black racist Canadian society? Beginning with a critical overview of history, theoretical orientations, and interdisciplinary methodology of the discipline, the course is divided into three thematic units that examine intellectuals, politics, and movements; identity construction and formation; and literary and cultural theories and practices while incorporating a variety of cultural texts including film, literature and music that capture the Black Canadian experiences. The course has been created specifically for students who have little or no academic background in the study of Black Canadian Studies.

• TYP020H1S - Plague Literature

Through an examination of plague-literature (written and oral) emerging from various communities throughout history, this course offers a glimpse of the many faces Hydra shows, reflect upon the fears and fantasies she incites within the communities she infects, and Please note: Recording and dissemination of lectures or class discussions is prohibited 2 consider the communal histories she has altered. In turn, students will reflect upon their reception of and reaction to this historical moment in light of the literature they are surveying and contribute to this ‘canon’ of plague-literature by documenting these reflections and creating their own ‘portrait’ of the 21st century Hydra in a variety of media, including written or digital reflections, written essays, graphic essays, and ‘plague journaling.’

• TYP016H1S - Advanced Quantitative Reasoning

This course is a continuation of the Fall Semester Course, Quantitative Reasoning (TYP005H1 F). We would start with modelling ‘word’ problems into equations, usually elementary algebra equations, and relations into functions defined by formulae. We would follow with methods of solving equations and discuss the properties of the functions. Included are some topics in Trigonometry and Statistics. Emphasis is placed on concepts, definitions, theorems, proofs, and problem solving. The main idea behind the methods of solution is the solution of problems by rules of completion and reduction by Mohammed Ben Musa of Khowarezm –(The Algebra of Mohammed Ben Musa, Edited and Translated by Frederic Rosen, printed by J. L. Cox, Great Queen Street, London)

• TYP023H1S - Climate, Technology, Justice

The use of digital technology for the study of literature, history, and culture has proliferated in recent years. This course engages students in an interdisciplinary discovery of the wide field of digital humanities (DH) scholarship and tools through the lens of environmental impacts and climate crisis. Together, we will explore DH techniques, technologies, and theory while also discussing topics such as pollution, environmental racism, and the effects of climate change. We will approach DH theory from a number of angles, including race and Indigenous studies, gender, and de/anti/postcolonialism. We will weigh the pros and cons of technology by exploring what it allows us to do and at what costs. Finally, we will experiment with prominent DH tools (3D printing, Omeka digital archives, ArcGIS StoryMaps) and reflect on our environmental responsibilities as humans and DH scholars

This course will help students develop and strengthen the academic and life skills required to succeed as university students. It will include presentations on and practice in time management, note taking, study skills, essay writing, and preparation for examinations. In addition, it will deal with important matters of survival for students: financial aid and how to get it, balancing study with family obligations, paid labour and other life contingencies, effective use of major student services, and techniques for dealing with the stresses and complications of academic life. Credit will be awarded for successful completion of the course, but no numerical grade will be assigned.

Every TYP student takes one option course selected from the regular first-year courses offered by the Faculty of Arts and Science. Students are encouraged to select one of three courses which the instructors in the programme consider particularly suitable. These courses have been found to provide an excellent basis for introducing TYP students to academic expectations in the Faculty of Arts and Science and serve well as a way to integrate our students with that Faculty. We have developed effective ways to assist students in these courses.  

INS201Y1: Introduction to Indigenous Studies 

This course is designed to introduce students to the ideas, methods and themes of the discipline of Indigenous Studies. The development of the field of Indigenous Studies in Canada will form an important focus in the first half. The second part of the course will address "history and politics", including an overview of the historical processes of diplomacy, alliances, and treaty-making  

BIO130H1S: Molecular and Cell Biology 

BIO130H1 provides a university level introduction to Molecular and Cell Biology. One of the goals of modern biology is to understand how the basic building blocks of life give rise to biological form and function. This course provides students with a common lexicon to understand the key principles and concepts in molecular and cell biology, with a focus on how the building blocks of life lead to functioning cells. 

BIO130H1 is a core course in CSB and EEB undergraduate programs, as well as a requirement in many programs in the basic medical sciences. The laboratories reinforce molecular and cell biological concepts introduced in the lectures. Students will learn current and relevant laboratory techniques used in cell and molecular biology research labs by attending 5 bi-weekly laboratories.  

CSE270H1S: Community (dis)Engagement and Solidarity 

The interdisciplinary program in equity studies allows students to examine various models - historically and culturally specific - for conceptualizing inequities and for bringing about equity. It draws together discourses on equity from the humanities, social sciences and sciences and is designed to encourage students to draw connections between different forms of social inequality which otherwise might be studies in isolation. 

An introduction to issues and questions arising from the field of 'community engagement'. Explores the meaning, practices and implications of/for 'community' and 'community (dis)engagement' from multiple perspectives (e.g. the State and its agencies, institutional power, colonial discourse, communities of embodied difference, etc.) Takes a multi-media and arts-based approach to examining self-care from an anti-colonial perspective of central importance in the practice and pedagogy of critical equity and solidarity in the collective struggle for freedom and transformation.   

CAR120Y1: Introduction to Caribbean Studies   

Explores the complex and diverse languages, geographies, regional and national histories, cultural practices, intellectual traditions and political and economic landscapes of the Caribbean region, its people and its diasporas.  Students will be introduced to the main questions, themes, and debates in Caribbean Studies.  Lectures and readings develop the skills to take an interdisciplinary approach to Caribbean Studies. 

SOC150H1F: Introduction to Sociology II: Sociological Inquiries 

In the sequel to SOC100H1: Introduction to Sociology I: Sociological Perspectives, this course will explore in more depth the topic of social inequality and the contemporary debates that animate sociology. We may like to think of ourselves as perfectly free but powerful social forces open up some opportunities and close off others, constraining our freedom and helping to make us what we are. By examining the operation of these social forces, sociology can help us know ourselves. The course is also about skills-building, skills useful not only for success at U of T, but beyond the walls of the university.