The YIF Critical Writing – Inquiry and Expression component has few visible contextual precedents within the Indian higher education system. Acknowledging the importance of writing as central to processes of knowledge acquisition, production, and consumption, the programme has developed a pedagogy geared towards building critical reading, thinking, writing and expression skills to help Fellows engage with the world of ideas and enable them to develop and express their own ideas in a well-reasoned, lucid, and engaging manner. We do this by helping students innovate with genres of writing and expression across different disciplines to develop a metacognitive awareness regarding their own reading and writing practices. These skills act as building blocks for the multidisciplinary education they receive at Ashoka University and enhance their abilities to navigate academic, professional, and social spheres once they graduate from the Fellowship.
Final Draft: The YIF Writing Journal
The goal of Final Draft, the Annual YIF Journal of Writing, is to showcase both the range—in topic and genre—and strength of writing in a student body that is itself highly diverse in terms of its educational, disciplinary, professional, geographic, linguistic, and socio-economic backgrounds. Through the process of writing multiple drafts, student-authors discover their unique voice and recognise writing as an ongoing, open-ended activity as signalled by the title of the journal itself. As the Fellows learn to bring critical thinking tools to the drawing board, readers of Final Draft can witness a clear attempt by them to negotiate with texts and social phenomena as they make sense of the world around them.
Writing Faculty, Critical Writing Programme, Young India Fellowship
Course: Philosophy, History and Anthropology of the Life Sciences
The curriculum details provided here are subject to change at the Programme’s discretion. Any necessary updates will be communicated to the YIF Class of 2026 after enrolment.
Young India Fellowship
