DWRL Lesson Plans - Major Course Project

Facilitating Multimedia Composition

RMazique — Sat, 05 Apr 2014 06:33:14 +0000

Author:

Image Credit:

Rachel Mazique's "Disability in Pop Culture" Class YouTube Channel

Brief Assignment Overview:

This lesson helped students begin composing their final rhetoric assignment: a Multimedia Argument Project (MAP). I encouraged students to work with each other during the planning process and to collaborate with one another as they developed their digital literacy skills.

Type of Assignment:

In-class Exercise

Homework Assignment

Course Unit

Major Course Project

Assignment Length:

Multiple Class Periods

Course Unit

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

In addition to the goals above, students were to:

-become familiar with the range of digital resources available for multimedia composition projects

-practice composing in multiple modes (visual, aural, alphanumeric)

Media Requirements:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Required Materials:

--Please Note: all of the links below were organized onto appropriately titled pages in a folder titled "Final Project Help" on our class wiki--

1. samples of student-authored multimedia projects:

either from The Journal for Undergraduate Multimedia Projects (TheJUMP) or past student work from my class YouTube channel,

2. KeepVid website (best run on Safari),

3. a Google Doc for class brainstorming on “Beginning the Final Project,” (stored on a class PBworks wiki page)

4. Internet Archives,

5. Creative Commons for songs,

6. Disability song list,

7. Animoto website, instructions for Animoto video production, More Animoto Help,

(beneficial, though not required):

8. Digital Writing and Research Lab (DWRL) rental equipment,

9. our class PBworks wiki Homework page

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Mid-Semester

Late in the Semester

Full Assignment Description:

Adapted from Justin Hodgson’s Multimedia Research-Argument Creation

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Multimodal Argument Project Prompt:

Using your prior knowledge, that of your peers’, and the skills you will gain during this unit, you will create a multimodal researched-based argumentative "document." These multimodal arguments should demonstrate a significant research effort as well as showcase your abilities to write, think, and express yourselves via the integration of multiple media. This research will include the time you spend with “how-to” guides/tutorials with the aim of improving your digital literacy skills. But, unlike the common approach to this type of "writing," where students/researchers write a traditional paper and then try to remediate that into multimedia forms, these projects will be "born digital." Composing digitally requires you to think, draft, design, and revise in multimedia, not engage in a text-to-multimedia practice.

The multimodal project is fairly open, but its breadth is necessary as each project will be different and take a different shape depending on the intent, skills, and risk-taking strategies of each student-author. I am open to your creative input and ideas!

Your controversy or the pop culture source that you’ve analyzed should shape your creations and the varying rhetorical strategies that you employ. For example, if you’ve analyzed a cartoon or comic in Paper 2.1, you may want to create your own. If you analyzed a documentary, consider creating your own documentary. We will more fully discuss the flexibility of this project in-class, both on the day this project is assigned and throughout the unit, to ensure that you have a solid grasp of how to navigate these guidelines.

That said, here are some concrete guidelines.

Minimum Requirements:

Must take a stance with relation to your controversy and attempt to persuade readers/viewers;

Must clearly be framed as an argument of conjecture, definition, ethics, value, or policy

Must engage your analyses of representations in pop culture by either supporting certain representations, subverting stereotypical representations and/or transforming an argument made in pop culture.
Must integrate and/or utilize multiple media (both the visual and alphanumeric modes are required) for rhetorical purpose (audio is encouraged, but optional—depending on your medium);

The video is not the only medium open to you; you can also compose a comic, be creative and innovative with PowerPoint, create a website, a video game, etc.
Feel free to run an original project idea by me for approval.

Must rebut/refute at least one counterargument/position with the presentation or production of counter-images, words, and/or voices.
Must include at least 5 quality sources and "Works Cited" details (in MLA format) within the MAP--not in a separate document:

At least 2 must come from scholarly resources (you should use the research you gathered for your Annotated Bibliography; you may also use the scholarly class readings)
If your project is nearing the maximum length, you may go over the limit (if you need more time/space to add in the Works Cited and make it readable). Note, this exception to the length requirement applies only for the Works Cited. If you want to discuss another exception, please see me. See the length requirement below.

Length requirement:

Create a 2-3 minute video if you’re working alone.

If you’re working with a partner or two, the video's length requirement increases based on the number of people involved: 4-6 minutes, or 6-9 minutes, respectively.
Group size max: 3 people
If you’re not composing a video, the length requirement still applies with relation to an in-class final presentation of your project. So, if you’re using PowerPoint, it should run 2-3 minutes long in a presentation.
If you’re making a comic strip, the strip should be about 2 pages long--or however long you need to make your argument and be able to present it to the class in 2-3 minutes.

Accessibility requirement:

Make your project accessible to a deaf audience (captions/a transcript)

I can work with you on captioning your video in the Open Lab (PAR 102) on Wednesdays from 5pm-8pm.
I can also point you to some guidelines I created and work with you during class.
Fyi: if your submission to TheJUMP is accepted for publication, you will also need to make your project accessible to a blind audience (descriptions of visual features). If you did this work in advance of publication in TheJUMP, I would consider this evidence of going above and beyond in the argumentation/digital literacy course strands.

For a variety of digital resources, see the link below:

Dr. Rodrigue's Digital Writing Resource Page

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

Plan for at least five weeks of in-class time to work on this multimedia argument project. Students need in-class time to familiarize themselves with the various technologies available to them and to learn how to compose in a digital medium besides the alphanumeric programs they are used to composing in (i.e. Microsoft Word).

If feasible within your department, sign up for at least a "plus" account with Animoto. Here in the Digital Writing and Research Lab (DWRL), instructors are fortunate that the lab will renew or subscribe to digital services like Animoto--as long as they serve a pedagogical function. I communicated with the supervisor in the DWRL, who renewed our plus account so students could create a video up to nine minutes long, which was what I required if a group had three students working together.

Below are the major steps I used for this day's lesson plan on "Facilitating Multimedia Composition":

Review vocabulary important to beginning students' composing process: topic, controversy, position and stakeholder. Ask students: what do these terms mean? What is the difference between a topic and a controversy? Explain how students should organize their arguments.
Have students review what their classmates are doing (on a Google Doc students filled in at the start of today's class: “Beginning the Final Project”) and consider who they may want to collaborate with in a co-authorship of this final project.
Introduce students to KeepVid as a way to export videos from YouTube.
Discuss Copyright laws.
Introduce the Internet Archives and Creative Commons.
Point students to “Disability Songs” list.
Have students use the rest of class time to talk over ideas with classmates they want to work with, review samples of student-authored multimedia projects on TheJUMP/previous work from our class YouTube channel, plan their final project with a rough outline, and look for images, videos and/or songs they may want to use.
Remind students to not only look for images, videos and songs that they agree with or those that could support their argument but also images, videos, and/or songs that they disagree with and will refute/rebut in their final project.
Review the definitions of refutations and rebuttals.
Point students to instructions for Animoto (on the wiki) but also mention that I can help students with this program.

Instructions For Students:

As a starting point to today's class, I had students go to the “in-class activities” folder on our class PBworks wiki.

From there, they went to the Google Doc folder and clicked on the “Beginning the Final Project” page.

Here's what they needed to write out as a starting point to the composing process. (The page also functioned as a class resource that would allow students to determine who they might want to co-author a project with.)

Please write:

1. Your topic;

2. Your controversy;

3. The pop culture source you will remediate

4. At least three positions that stakeholders take with regards to your controversy

5. The position that you saw your pop culture source taking

6. The position that you yourself take. (I explained that for this final unit, students were invited to share their viewpoint and to tell us where they stood with regards to their controversy.)

7. Possible multimedia project ideas you are considering (website, comic, documentary, photoessay, stop motion animation, etc).

Evaluation Suggestions:

For information on how I assessed students' final projects, please see my blog post on the topic: "Multimodal Writing: How do we Assess New Media?" at the Digital Writing and Research Lab's Blogging Pedagogy website

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

Students had the choice to author a project alone or to work in groups of two or three. The number of students involved in a project affected the length requirement. Longer projects were expected of group-authored multimedia arguments.

Most students felt that their controversy was unique and would not merge well with fellow classmates' controversies or topics. (These final projects were the result of a semester-long process researching a single controversy). Those who did choose to co-author a project chose to work with only one partner rather than two (for logistical reasons apparently). One group started with three members, but one member eventually decided she wanted to work on her own due to creative differences. She had a specific argument she knew she wanted to pursue.

Students who were interested in co-authoring a project needed extra guidance from me on how to coherently weave together an argument on two distinct controversies. With these students, I encouraged the student groups to start from a broader standpoint--to work from our class topic "Disability in Pop Culture"--and to use research from their specific controversies to determine an argument they wanted to make about their particular topics within our class's "umbrella."

Several students were anxious about multimedia composition.

Several others were excited about this change of pace.

In the end, through in-class guidance and collaboration amongst peers, students who were anxious about composing in iMovie for the first time (for example) were eventually proud of their final product and the new digital literacy skills they gained throughout this composition process. Several students creatively went above and beyond the requirements to create a project they would be glad to publish in a public forum such as our class YouTube channel.

One student even composed an entirely original music video; another student drew and created an original stop-motion animated video; several others drew their own comics (either by hand on paper, or online with digital drawing tools/comic software).

Additional Resources:

Recommendations from Justin Hodgson:

Bump Halbritter's recent book Mics, Cameras, and Symbolic Action: Audio-Visual Rhetoric for Writing Teachers talks about audio and video work,

Sean Morey recently had his textbook The New Media Writer come out with Fountainhead Press,

and Kristin Arola, Jennifer Shepard, and Cheryl Ball recently published their Writer/Designer: A Guide to Making Multimodal Projects.

According to Professor Hodgson, those three texts provide a nice (but not comprehensive) avenue into conversations about multimedia composition and some particular strategies for writing (with) media.

Beyond that, he recommends that instructors peruse the Computers and Composition (and Computers and Composition Online) journals for works that might resonate with your class's particular focus.

And, as always, the Blogging Pedagogy site and TheJUMP are useful resources!

Course Type:

Introductory Writing Course

Course Description:

In this course, students focus on analyzing the relationship between pop culture and rhetoric. Their analyses examine public disagreements about various issues such as: How do popular (mis)representations of "the supercrip" convince us to make political decisions regarding accessibility, advocacy, education, and/or social policy? How can we evaluate arguments that not only depict (dis)abled people as "heroic" but also those that portray the converse: the "grotesque unfortunate" deserving of "pity" and "help"? How do these arguments address questions of basic human rights, needs, drives and "eugenics rhetoric"? Will children (and adults) make political decisions based on recurrent thematic representations of "disability" in pop culture, and, is that a good or bad influence?

Tags:

"Creating" Visual Rhetoric Through Student-Designed Flash Games

lazhu — Sat, 09 Nov 2013 08:07:39 +0000

Author:

Lily Zhu

Image Credit:

Mars Cafe

Brief Assignment Overview:

This assignment gives students a chance to make their own (very elementary) argumentative, flash game. By actively engaging in the process of game design, students will have to think through their intentions and the process of piecing together visual, aural, and verbal rhetoric.

Type of Assignment:

Major Course Project

Semester-long Project

Assignment Length:

Semester-long Project

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Collaboration

Video Games

Visualization

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

This is meant to be a long-term group project (at least a month), ideally assigned as a final media presentation which sums up elements of effective argumentation in an entertaining, yet carefully thought out, fashion. It follows a previous assignment in which students analyze a flash game by PETA for various forms of rhetorical appeals/fallacies (http://lessonplans.dwrl.utexas.edu/content/flash-games-and-visual-rhetoric).

Media Requirements:

Media Console/Projector

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Required Materials:

Projector
Internet
Computer/media console for the instructor
Optional: computer for every student

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Mid-Semester

Late in the Semester

Full Assignment Description:

Though there are many sites of varying difficulties from which instructors can choose, www.sploder.com is both easy and flexible to work with. It’s intended to inspire elementary school students (around the ages of twelve) to become interested in coding and game design; as a result, this lesson plan does not require extensive tutorials or a large amount of in-class time set aside for instructional purposes.

www.Sploder.com allows the user to “design” his/her own game through preset conditions. There are five different game types – among which include “retro arcade” and “classic shooter” – with protagonist options, movements, and attacks already installed. The user, then, is left to “make”: the environment for each level, tools, weapons, text boxes, non-playable characters, bonuses, bosses, and music. For my class, I placed particular emphasis on in-game text/dialogue and atmosphere/visual cohesiveness as ways for the groups to make whatever persuasive points they intended. As an additional hurdle, I required that my students include “switch” events within the game (linked events in which the player cannot progress unless another task is accomplished first. For example, the big boss cannot appear until a specific minion is destroyed or, a “barrier” in the path will not disappear until a token is collected).

Completed games will be played through on the last day of class using a projector and the instructor’s computer.

Below, I’ve posted the prompt I handed out and a general rubric. I also offer my students three comprehensive tutorials for specific game types available to Sploder.

Goals: You and your group will be presenting your own persuasive video game designed on http://www.sploder.com/. In addition, you will turn in a 500-word group essay discussing this project.

The purpose of this assignment is for you to take what you have learned from PETA’s Pokemon Black and Blue (or the McDonald’s one http://www.mcvideogame.com/index-eng.html) and apply it to your own platform game. Questions to think about: what rhetorical strategies does the parody engage with? What visual strategies? How does it convey its message, and how explicit or implicit are its arguments? What are potential weaknesses of this media form that you must avoid in your own creation? What are potential strengths that you should focus on?

How to begin:

1. Make an account on www.sploder.com (one for your group) and let your instructor (me) know what your group account name is.

2. Go through video tutorials (if you google or search on youtube, you will find plenty of fine tutorials. Do not ask your instructor for search help; at this point in the semester, you should be proficient on your own)

3. Experiment with as many components as you can.

To earn a C+

Your game must have:

1. At least 2 complete levels to your game.

2. An observable and understandable message

3. Text (whether that be on signs and/or dialogue boxes)

4. At least 2 Switch events (for example: the player can only deactivate a barrier if (s)he kills a particular monster; or, the boss monster will only spawn if the player presses a particular object)

5. An environment (minor characters, decorations, etc.) which contributes to the persuasive argument and overall atmosphere.

6. At least 60% of the game must involve some type of action (rhetorical, visual, textual, etc.) and not just walking around like a derp.

Your 500-word essay must have:

1. One section discussing the argument your game is meant to present and what the game’s position is.

2. One section discussing the visual and rhetorical strategies your group employed in the game to convey the opinion in #1 to the player. Be detailed as to what various elements are meant to specifically accomplish.

3. One section covering how group work was divided.

4. One optional section discussing how you think this assignment could be improved to teach you more about digital rhetoric, or, alternately, what you thought was the best part of this assignment.

Hints:

1. http://www.sploder.com/games/members/geoff/play/arcade-tutorial-links/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh22sYhJjKk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf72Ybtg7DA

2. “Retro arcade” seems to be the easiest and most popular form. If your group is having difficulties, I suggest starting out with this. Be aware, though, that because this is the one with the most tutorials available, I will expect a more complex game should you choose this style.

Student samples from Fall 2013:

1. Anti-bullying and methods of conflict resolution:
http://www.sploder.com/games/members/tomasdamico/play/final-project-rhe3...

2. Saving the world from pollution:
http://www.sploder.com/games/members/hsieh0422/play/save-the-world/

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

Spend maybe an hour or two on the website just experimenting with the different game types and design options. Students, for the most part, have more technical questions such as “how do I save?”. When students present, you'll be moderating - asking questions about the narrative, devices used, etc. I asked one student from another group to play, and as this student played, the group would explain their intentions and techniques.

Instructions For Students:

That entire prompt posted above.
1. Make the game in groups, fulfilling instructor requirements.
2. Write a 500-word essay detailing intention, process, rhetorical devices, and workload.

Evaluation Suggestions:

Students will play each other’s games. As a student plays through another group's game, that group will be in charge of explaining and presenting on their game at the same time (it's basically an interactive powerpoint presentation). The instructor will grade based on a preset rubric. The general hope is that students will incorporate the rhetorical skills they have developed all semester into the game.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

I tried to put students into groups of 4, with each group containing someone familiar with video games of any sort (the earlier PETA’s Pokemon Black and Blue exercise helped me see who in my class was proficient and who was uncomfortable with this type of media).

To my surprise, I found that the next time we met (after I’d first introduced the project), half of the groups had already started the project without any prompting from me. I’d anticipated having to devote a class or two to work-shopping the groups’ games, but this turned out to be unnecessary as they were all fine and highly motivated on their own. This may have to do with the nature of the 500-word essay (in which students must discuss the division of labor).

Students really will go above and beyond for this project. They'll make complicated and involved projects that will constantly surprise you!.

Course Type:

Introductory Writing Course

Course Description:

Rhetoric 306 is a course designed to introduce students to the fundamentals of research and argumentation. They are asked to research a controversy, summarize and analyze the arguments of the major stakeholders in that controversy, and then develop their own arguments.

Step-by-step Guide to Blogging Close Readings

Anonymous — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 21:34:20 +0000

Author:

Pearl Brilmyer

Image Credit:

"Encadré (Jardim Botânico, Rio de Janeiro)" by Frederic della Faille (via Flickr)

Brief Assignment Overview:

Type of Assignment:

Class Discussion

Major Course Project

Semester-long Project

Assignment Length:

Multiple Class Periods

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

Close reading, presentation,

Media Requirements:

Media Console/Projector

Required Materials:

Wordpess account - with course blog and students as users.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Useful Anytime

Full Assignment Description:

This assignment was designed to get students to practice their close reading skills in a short, condensed format of a blog post. Students sign up to blog for a given class day, chosing a short passage from the assigned reading for that day. They blog 200-300 words before midnight the night before class, using textual support and images to make a claim about the passage they chose. They present this post in class the next day.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

I post the blogging instructions on my website at the beginning of the semester and keep them available for students to consult. There are short instructions containing basic information about the assignment and timeline on the course homepage and then more detailed instructions regarding what the post should entail when students click the link for "Blogging Instructions."

Instructions For Students:

Steps for Completing a Blog Assignment:

1) Blog (200-300 words) by 12:00 noon the day before a presentation. For detailed instructions on what to write see Blogging Instructions.

2) Style your blogpost with appropriate images, formatting and short quotations.

3) Cite the passage you are analyzing (no longer than a short paragraph) at the bottom of your post on a separate line in MLA format. See the OWL at Purdue website to figure out how. Don't forget in-text citations which reference the page number after any quotes!

4) Present in class the day you signed up for (be ready to engage with comments on your post)

Blogging Instructions:

1) Choose a short section from the reading/film.

Choose a section that intrigues you. You may be drawn by the language of the passage, the events chronicled, the emotions that it evokes. You may be confused by its appearance in the text, or its placement. You may not understand it. You may be disgusted by it. Bored by it. Find it humorous. Any reason that you are drawn to a particular moment in a text may offer you access into the text. If you are dealing with a narrative, it could be a moment of high action, or a simple description/depiction of a scene or character. If you are dealing with criticism, it could be a crucial point in the argument or a short example. This passage should be no longer than a short paragraph of text.

2) Temporarily forget why you choose it.

Keep your theories in the back of your mind instead of the front while you go through the next two steps. Allow yourself to notice new, contradictory meanings, and to change your mind. Try to get out of your own way by reading against your biases (just noting what they are can be an excellent start...)

3) Make sure you understand the concrete, obvious action and meaning of the passage.

Always start with what you think is “obvious”! This is where all good readings begin — what is obvious to you is very often controversial to someone else. Look up all the words you don’t know. Unscramble difficult syntax. Decipher metaphors. Try writing a “plain prose translation.” Try writing a second, alternative version. Ask your roommate what s/he thinks. Call someone in the class and ask them the same thing.

4) Annotate your passage (i.e. Write all over it!). Note all strange or striking effects and attempt to trace their sources.

Write directly on the page OR type out the passage and comment on it (using Microsoft Word's comment function might be a good idea). First, just underline words that you notice. Read it several times, taking note of where your interest increases, what pleases, distracts, or bores you. Then try to figure out how the author creates these effects. Pay attention to metaphors, contradictions, strange word choices, particularly long or short sentences, alliteration, modes of address (“Gentleman of the jury!”), shifts in pace or diction, the point of view, punctuation and anything else that you think might help the author persuade you to feel the way you did. Make a long list of all this stuff — the longer the better.

5) Take stock of what you’ve found. (Step back #1)

Take a step back. How has your encounter with the text changed what you originally thought? How might you need to re-shape your thesis? Which discoveries seem particularly important to communicate to your reader? How does it all “add up”?

6) Put what you’ve found back into context. (Step back #2, #3)

Now step back even further. Think about how what you’ve found is connected to the rest of the text. Is it a break in the action? A climax? A resolution? Do the images in the passage illuminate or refer back to something that has happened previously, or foreshadow a later event? How is what you’ve found important to our understanding of the characters? Of the plot? Of the main issues the author raises? Can you think of any other moments in the text like this one? Can you make any comparisons? Is it radically different from the rest of the text? Can you contrast the effects?

7) Finally, write.

Write out a few short paragraphs which point out the 2-3 most exciting things this passage does, organizing them into your separate points. How do a series of words convey a certain meaning or feeling? How does a metaphor encourage the reader to make a comparison and why that comparison? Remember, the post should not only identify figures of speech (like a metaphor), grammatical constructions (like lots of gerunds) or other kinds of word choice, but point out a connection between the author's particular choice of words and the rest of the text--what does this passage accomplish that the rest of the text relies on, contradicts, elaborates upon? Remember to quote as you make your claims (those reading probably won't remember this particular passage, so you will have to give them examples of what you're talking about), but do not quote too heavily, as you want to prioritize your interpretation and your words. Quoting the most key words/phrases or maybe a sentence or two should be sufficient.

8) Develop a (new) thesis and write it out in one sentence.

After you have done your reading, recapitulate how what you’ve noticed about language and structure link to the larger themes of the text. This is where your argument should emerge. You want your argument to grow out of what you have noticed in the text rather than noticing in the text only the details that can prove an argument that you would like to make. This is absolutely crucial. If you force a text to fit your preconceived notions you will invariably leave out something crucial that destroys your argument. Even more important, you won’t learn anything new.

9) Re-situate your thesis toward the beginning of your post.

You may not realize what your thesis about a passage is until you finish writing your post, but be sure to re-organize so that your main claim about it appears first, and your detailed analysis follows as evidence of your claim. Your thesis should confidently state what this passage accomplishes and how. Feel free to use 'I' in your blogpost if you like, but remember, as long as you have evidence to back up your argument (quotations and your analysis of them), there is no need to cast your reading as subjective or "just an interpretation." Remember, good readers don't "read between the lines," they read all the lines!

**Assignment adapted from Alyssa Harad's close reading workshop materials. Significant amounts of her language structure have been retained.

Evaluation Suggestions:

I grade the posts with the following template. Students blog twice throughout the semester and the assignment comprises 25% of their final grade.

Blogpost:

Completed by noon /5

Thesis /5

Textual support /5

200-300 words /2

Visual presentation /2

Citation /2

In-Class Presentation

Completed on day scheduled /2

Oral presentation /2

Final Grade /25

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

Students are responding positively to the assignment and the skills it allows them to practice before writing a more formal paper. What I like about it is that it allows students who do not normally speak for extended periods in class to take the floor and have completed the prepwork beforehand.

In class, we pull up the post on the projector in class for their reference and the student takes the class through their post. Sometimes students print out the post for their reference as they present. Overall, students seem to like the opportunity to respond to each other's writing in class and it often launches a discussion about the text.

Course Type:

Literary Studies Course

Course Description:

E314J - Introductory Literary Studies Course - Gay and Lesbian Literature

In this course we will question whether we can indeed ascribe a “unity” to gay and lesbian culture or politics. Attending to a diverse array of moments in gay and lesbian history—moments of anger, sadness, triumph and hope—we will consider the how discourses of sexuality at a given time shape and inform the representation of same-sex desire in literature, film and other new media. The course will prepare students for the English major by familiarizing them with formal, historical, and cultural approaches to literature, as a well as by providing them with a sense of the history of sexuality, romantic love, and identity politics.

Tags:

Podcast/Paper: Having Students Do the Same Assignment in 2 Media

detweiler — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 20:04:27 +0000

Author:

Eric Detweiler

Image Credit:

Compiled from images on Wikimedia Commons

Brief Assignment Overview:

I have my students complete their first major assignment in two forms: (1) An individual 3-page paper and (2) a 5-6 minute group podcast. In both, they describe a text and situate it in historical context.

Type of Assignment:

Major Course Project

Assignment Length:

Course Unit

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

To get students to think about the ways in which presentational form/medium effects their inventional and organizational processes, as well as what counts as rhetorically effective.

Media Requirements:

Adaptable For Use Without Classroom Technology

Media Console/Projector

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Required Materials:

Recording devices. If at least one student in each podcast group has a personal computer with a built-in microphone, that's fine. If that's not the case, or if you want to go hi-fi, USB microphones can step quality up a little bit. Access to some sort of editing software: Apple's GarageBand or Audacity are common options, and the latter can be downloaded for free online.

Audio Hijack Pro is also another useful software if students want to use clips from the text they're discussing in their podcast. The website snipmp3.com can also be used to grab audio from YouTube videos if Audio Hijack Pro isn't affordable/available.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Early in the Semester

Full Assignment Description:

In my RHE 309K course, Rhetoric of Irony, students examine, analyze, and argue about the rhetorical and ethical implications of irony in political and popular discourse. Their first assignment is to choose a historical (before the year 2000) ironic text and describe the text, its context, and its use of irony to their classmates.

My course includes a lot of writing, of course, and I want to get students thinking critically about that writing from the start of the class. In order to do that, I wanted to supplement the paper version of this first assignment with something in another medium and/or mode. Because I have worked with podcasts and audio strikes me as relatively straightforward (in a sense, a podcast can be little more than a recorded speech, writing's other half in the history of rhetoric and rhetoric instruction). The podcast allows students to invent and organize their material in a different way than the paper, and with structured reflective writing and conversation can help them think about the particularities and peculiarities of written and aural/oral discourse. I've found it can open up productive conversations about the difficulties and tropes of academic writing. For instance, students often have an easier time inventing material for the podcast than for the paper (I do require a first draft of the paper that's due one week before the podcast and final paper draft). Even though a 5-6 minute podcast and a 3-page paper can accomodate about the same number of words, students frequently feel like they've have to make copious cuts to fit everything into the podcast and stretching to find enough material for the paper.

In short, this assignment allows students to think about the constraints and affordances of both spoken and written compositions, as well as how they might adapt rhetorically to both forms/media/modes (these aren't synonyms here, of course, but all potential frames for discussing these assignments). It can also be a useful method of invention and helping students think about the patterns and obstacles that crop up in their academic writing processes.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

There are a variety of ways to approach the podcast assignment. I didn't spend much time teaching my students how to actually make podcasts. I basically showed them what GarageBand, Audacity, and Audio Hijack Pro looked like on our classroom computers, showed them how to drag audio files into the first two and how to sync the latter up with other applications. I focused more on showing students how to search Audacity's robust wiki and how to look up GarageBand tutorials on YouTube, etc. Learning to learn these technologies for themselves, in other words, was a big part of the assignment. I also provided them 15-20 minutes of in-class time to work as a group a few times, which gave them a chance to play with the technologies while I was on hand to offer troubleshooting advice and general tips.

As an instructor, you might want to have some knowledge of the technologies, then, though being an amateur along with your students can be a productive learning experience. If you don't have a computer classroom with those programs, I imagine the shorter introduction described above would be best, leaving the onus on students to experiment with them outside of class. If you do, you could certainly conduct a more in-depth, participatory in-class tutorial.

If even having students download Audacity seems too daunting, this assignment could feasibly be completed by having students record a script using Windows' pre-installed and very basic Audio Recorder; all current Apples come equipped with GarageBand.

Instructions For Students:

Since the meta-assignment comprises two parts (the group podcast and the individual paper), both assignment prompts are included below. The podcast comes first.

Unit 1 Podcast

Podcast: An audio program, often brief, that’s similar to a radio show but intended for digital download rather than live play. We have already spent some time addressing the important role situational factors play in creating a kairos for what counts as/is recognized as effective “irony.

We have already spent some time addressing the important role situational factors play in creating a kairos for what counts as/is recognized as effective “irony.” For instance, much of the ironic political critique of 1970s Saturday Night Live skits might seem dull or weird without a deep understanding of how Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan were seen and thought of at the time, as well as what political contexts they were a part of. Without knowledge of Jon Stewart’s role on The Daily Show, the kairos of his Crossfire appearance would be much harder to understand.

General

Your first major assignment, then, is to create a group podcast in which your group situates an ironic text in its original context. Exploring, in other words, the situational variables that made up its kairos. For our purposes, the text must have been originally released before January 1, 2000 (in part because that’s a neat dividing line, in part because—as we’ll see later this semester—9/11 brought about some important shifts in many Americans’ attitudes toward irony). Your podcast should include your text itself, as well as relevant events, people, etc. that had some influence on the contexts out of which the text emerged. For instance, what cultures was the author a part of, and how might they have influenced her or his ironic rhetorical choices? How was the text originally distributed (British newspaper, 1960s Japanese television, FM radio, etc.), and how might the context of that material form shape the text? Who, if relevant, was in political power? Were any military or social conflicts going on in the background? Was your text responding to a specific previous text, or to a general cultural and/or political atmosphere? In short, your podcast should help your audience better understand your text and its kairos. Don’t give context for context’s sake, but bring to your listeners’ minds key contextual details relevant to your text’s rhetorical point(s) and the broader historical situation in which those points were being made in order to foster a better understanding of your text in its context.

You will work in either pairs or trios. All members must agree on the chosen text. That choice is yours, not mine, as is how you divide the workload—as long as you do so in an equitable manner and all group members’ voices appear at least once in the final podcast. Keep in mind this collaborative project’s potential relevance to your individual Learning Record.

Specifics

Your podcast is due on the wiki by the beginning of class Mon., Feb. 18. Upload it as an .mp3, .aac, .or .wav file. Podcasts must be 5-6 minutes long. We will listen to all groups’ podcasts in class that day. The time limit is strict, and you should make use of that time in a rhetorically effective—in a kairotic—manner. In addition to the release of your text itself, your podcast must introduce and set up at least three additional contextual variables: events, people, wars, other texts, private or public squabbles, or responses to your text. You should verbally cite at least two sources in your podcast. Source requirements are covered in more detail in the corresponding paper assignment. Your primary rhetorical goals are to inform and to entertain. Make a podcast that will hold your classmates’ and my attention. My feedback on the timeline will be given in written form, with each group member receiving the same write-up.

Paper 1

General

In addition to the group podcast, you are responsible for writing an individual paper in which you describe the context out of which your text arose, the significance and ironic message of the text itself, and how that specific message responded to/interacted with your text’s kairos. Keep in mind your primary purpose is—as with the podcast—to give your readers a better understanding of your text by situating it, not to offer context for context’s sake. Always make sure you explain the relevance of that context in terms of your text.

You should try to avoid taking a position on whether your text’s message is “good” or “bad.” Try to stick primarily to describing and summarizing text and context rather than evaluating. If your text was rhetorically ineffective or responded poorly to its context, let that point be made via exposition (for instance, that it’s faded into history or has a powerful legacy) rather than direct argument. Let me know if I can clarify here.

Though you can draw on your group’s conversations, brainstorming, etc. in writing your paper, the actual process of writing should be undertaken individually. If you have questions about the boundaries of collaboration and plagiarism, check the course strands or with me. Basically, your paper should have different sentences, paragraphs, and overall arrangement than your other group members’, though the basic content could be largely the same.

Specifics

Your paper must have at least four sources. Two of those sources must be scholarly; two must be broader historical or primary sources. We’ll discuss these distinctions in class on Jan. 30. If you aren’t confident in this area and want to get a head start, however, feel free to talk with me in advance. Easy Writer also has advice here. Your paper may share one scholarly and one historical source with your other group members’ papers. The other scholarly and historical source must be unique to your paper.

Paper 1 should be at least 1000 words including the works-cited page, heading, title, etc. That should make the body of the paper around 3 pages. The paper should be properly formatted according to MLA guidelines, which we’ll discuss as this unit unfolds. A full draft of the paper

(1.1) is due in the corresponding wiki folder on Mon., Feb. 11. Paper 1.1 will be peer reviewed in class on that day. A substantially revised version (1.2) is due in the corresponding wiki folder by the beginning of class on Mon., Feb. 18.

Evaluation Suggestions:

I use The Learning Record to assess my classes, so students get qualitative feedback from me on both the podcast and the paper. I offer marginal comments on the first draft of the paper. In response to my comments and a peer review, students set three revision goals--each including what the goal is, why they've set it as a goal based on peer review/my comments/personal reflection, and how they plan to carry it out--for writing/revising their second draft (the ".2" in the prompt above). I approve those goals in advance of the revisions, then focus my comments on them in assessing the second draft.

My commentary on the podcast, which focuses primarily on invention, organization, and audience awareness, is the same for all members of each group and is about a paragraph in length.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

I wasn't sure how this approach would go over this semester, which was the first time I assigned both podcast and paper. Students seemed enthusiastic about the podcast. In addition to being more "fun" than a traditional paper, it seems the unorthodox and novel nature of podcasts for school purposes led them to feel more freedom in inventing and organizing. They were, in other words, much less prone to podcaster's block than writer's block. I require the paper to be more conventional in terms of college writing for a rhetoric course, but the podcast gave them ample material to conventionalize for the paper.

Additional Resources:

The Scholar Electric on Incorporating Audio Assignments: http://www.ryantrauman.net/scholarelectric/2012/11/13/212/

Audacity's wiki: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Audacity_Wiki_Home_Page

The Learning Record: http://www.learningrecord.org/

Course Type:

Intermediate Writing Course

Course Description:

What is irony? It’s a rhetorical device that has been called “infinite absolute negativity” and “the key to the tightest bonds of friendship.” Jane Austen uses it to poke fun at Victorian social norms, Stephen Colbert to mock American politics, television shows like South Park to critique—well, just about everything. Irony’s complex history is part of the reason its definition is so hard to pin down. Working towards an understanding and definition of the term will thus be one of the aims of this course.

Irony’s presence in individual rhetorical exchanges can be equally hard to identify, however. Consider the times you've been reading something online—say a friend's Facebook status—and found yourself asking, "Can this person possibly be serious?" This course, then, will also examine how irony functions practically in political and popular discourse. The effective use of irony requires both the speaker and listener to share a mutual understanding not only of the position being ironically stated, but the other party’s unstated beliefs and the actual critical message under the surface. Traditional rhetorical variables—speaker, audience, purpose—are all present, but layered in a manner that requires especially acute rhetorical awareness. This course will thus necessitate that students assume and practice a rigorous rhetorical consciousness as they engage with irony as both a concept and a complex rhetorical device, constructing and critiquing ironic arguments as they consider the historical, political, and ethical implications of irony’s deployment from Socrates to Swift to sitcoms.

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End of Term Writing Assignments

Voss — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 21:30:39 +0000

Image Credit:

The New Yorker magazine

Brief Assignment Overview:

We’re coming up on the midway point of this semester, and as we’re all currently planning the weeks ahead after Spring Break, I thought I’d take a moment here and share what I’m currently doing for my course’s final assignment. I’m teaching The Rhetoric of The New Yorker, and my students’ final assignment is to compose a New Yorker-style essay. Of course, with the rare exception whatever they produce is nowhere near New Yorker-quality. Nevertheless, this assignment grew out of two pedagogical realities and subsequently I think it’s entirely valuable. The first reality is that after a few semesters of teaching I realized that my students were rarely submitting end-of-semester work that met my expectations. I don’t admit this as any fault of my own teaching nor mean it as any disrespect towards my exceptional former students. Rather, I try to spend my time reading good writing and my students are journeymen writers – whatever they produce will inevitably fall short of what I like to read. Secondly, my former students have often considered submitted work to be in some way “finished,” and all us instructors know that writing is a process. No matter how much I told them that nothing is ever finished, they just persisted in thinking that A-level work is a finished product. So, as a result of these two imperatives, I thought I’d design an end of semester writing project in which it’s nearly impossible for any of my students to complete the work “perfectly”. The point of this assignment is the process, not the product.

Type of Assignment:

Homework Assignment

Major Course Project

Semester-long Project

Assignment Length:

Course Unit

Semester-long Project

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

The goals of this assignment are for students to assimilate previous research into a coherent argument. More specifically, over the course of this assignment, it is my hope that students will learn how to: synthecize seperate arguments, articulate their uncertainties, learn to restrain themselves from writing about the obvious, and learn that writing is always an ongoing project.

Media Requirements:

No Classroom Technology Required

Required Materials:

This assignment doesn't not include a research component, so it's important that students have already compiled 7 or so relevant sources into an annotated bibliography. (In my course, the annotated bibliography is created in a mid-semester project, so by the end of the semester my students can focus entirely on compiling that research into good writing.) Ideally, they've compiled a variety of sources, such as several opposing arguments, interviews, historical accounts, etc. Other than that, it's important that students bring to this assignment general excitement and genuine intellectual interest in their subject matter -- without such things they'll be bored and their writing will suffer.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Late in the Semester

Full Assignment Description:

In 5-7 pages, students are to assimilate previous research into a New Yorker-style essay. What "New Yorker-style" means is basically an essay that subtly combinds narrative and argument into a well written product intended for educated readers. Students' writing should be free of grammatical error, writen in correct MLA-style (unless Chicago-style is more relevant to their future academic work), and contain correct grammatical usage. Structurally, there is no one set way New Yorker essays are organized, so in this assignment students need to determine what kind of organization is most effective for the argument they are trying to make. Asking students to determine their arguments parameters is often challenging for them, but it's my hope that the hurdle gets them thinking about the writing process in productive ways. (In general, students' papers for this assignment tend to be organized as follows: introduction of topic or individual, argument about said topic or individual, background of said topic or individual, and finally some use of counter argument to confirm their own argument.) I encourage students to think of a New Yorker essay (or two) that they liked over the course of the semester, and to model their argument off of what's done in that essay.

Throughout, students are asked to always keep in mind the ways in which various arguments relate to one another. They shouldn't be thinking of arguments as islands of thought that operate within a void, but rather discrete bits of information that romantically mingle with one another. If students get confused or discouraged, they're encouraged to articulate their uncertanty, which if they learn this skill often puts them ahead of their peers in so far as their ability to write is concerned. Throughout the unit I stress that a solid part of the assignment's assessment is their level of intellectual engagement -- in other words, if they think of this assignment in terms of "what shold I write to get an A," they will probably struggle.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

In general, since I know that my course is leading up to this assignment, I always try to direct my class's discussion of New Yorker articles in the direction of noticing writing mechanics. (Therefore, if this is the type of assignment that you'd perhaps like to encorporate into your own course, be thinking about the ways in which daily class discussion might be relevant to the larger goal.)

More specifically, be prepared for students to have a lot of trouble making subtle arguments (like those found in the New Yorker). They've been told for years that thesis statements are always at the end of the first paragraph of a text, which of course rarely holds true outside stuff written for school. Induldge their attempts and give them the benefit of the doubt as far as effort is concerned. There'll be a range of student achievement, as usual, but with such a difficult assignment I think it's important to keep in mind that students here will learn by doing.

Instructions For Students:

These are the instructions I give my students when presenting this assignment in class (I also include assessment criteria, see below):

"Your mission for Paper 3.1 is to take all of the research that you compiled in your Annotated Bibliography and turn it into a New Yorker-style essay. Your essay should be 5-7 pages in length and be in correct MLA format (doubled-spaced, page numbers, correct MLA citations, proper headings, etc.). Aside from these simple parameters, you’re free to go about this assignment in whichever way you determine to be most rhetorically appropriate given your subject matter. A profile of a popular sports athlete will look much different than a consideration of the social effects of our excessive cell phone use.

You’re encouraged to consider a New Yorker essay that you liked over the course of the semester, and use the structure of that essay as a model for your own writing. If you do this, what’ll probably happen is that you’ll start writing an essay structured similarly to the New Yorker piece, but then you’ll inevitably branch out a bit once your argument comes alive. You will probably even change your introduction to fit your conclusion and your essay will then be devoid of any resemblance to the New Yorker essay. (NOTE: DO NOT structure your essay based upon a New Yorker essay that considers your same topic – this will inevitably lead to a sort of plagiarism.)

Also, think about how often we went off on tangents during class discussion over the course of the semester. If I thought this was harmful to you as a writer, I would have worked to get us back “on topic.” Instead, most good writing often goes off on natural tangents, and these tangents are skillfully used to complete an argument and offer example. So as you think about and eventually write your essay, think freely and expansively about your content, just like we did in class."

Evaluation Suggestions:

I like to assess students on:

their ability to communicate ideas clearly and humanely,
their ability to avoid the boring five-paragraph essay format that they learned in high school,
their ability to master and objectively present the competing interests that circle their topic,
their ability to embed their argument with subtlety and style.

Course Type:

Intermediate Writing Course

Course Description:

The New Yorker is a highbrow magazine that’s been around since the 1920s. Published weekly, the magazine regularly offers various forms of cultural commentary, from fiction submitted by respected authors, to investigative journalism written by first-rate essayists, to cartoons composed with unfailingly witty captions. Each issue contains calendars highlighting upcoming social events across Manhattan. Quite often longer content in the magazine relates to current events outside of New York City, and increasingly outside of the United States. This course will examine all the various rhetorics that surround the magazine. We will consider each week’s cover and the various rhetorical strategies therein at play. We will read several famous articles from the magazine’s past, as well as current articles commenting on the world in which we live. Ultimately, we will consider the various ways that arguments in the magazine are made.

Regular reading of The New Yorker will guide us as we practice research and writing over the course of the semester. Vital to your success will be your ability to “interpret” another’s argument, which basically means coming up with a cogent, interesting account of what an argument means, what it’s trying to do to/for the reader, what technical choices the author’s made in order to try to achieve the effects he wants, and so on. In light of this, you’ll also be asked to compose your own arguments. You will pick a controversy towards the beginning of the semester and, in addition to our reading from the magazine, investigate this particular issue. The goal of this research will be for you to produce a New Yorker-style essay by the end of the semester. This is all designed to enhance your ability to analyze the various positions held in any public debate and to advocate your own position effectively and responsibly.

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Setting Up a Studio Environment for Multimedia Projects

Scott Nelson — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 02:27:16 +0000

Author:

Scott Nelson

Image Credit:

Matt Jones CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Brief Assignment Overview:

Whenever I teach, I always assign some form of multimedia project, and these practices have helped to set up a studio environment where collaborative multimedia projects can thrive. Rather than post an explicit lesson plan to our site, I thought I’d run through a set of practices that have been successful for me over a few courses.

Type of Assignment:

Major Course Project

Semester-long Project

Assignment Length:

Multiple Class Periods

Course Unit

Semester-long Project

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

The pedagogical goals for this assignment are to have students think about what multimedia production skills they already possess and what skills they'd like to develop. Further, these practices foster a collaborative environment where studetns learn to work together toward common goals.

Media Requirements:

No Classroom Technology Required

Adaptable For Use Without Classroom Technology

Required Materials:

Since these are a set of practices rather than a specific use of a technology, what follows can be adapted to any classroom. Because most of the classes I teach are in rooms with computers for the students, I'll assume such a setup. Mainly, the students need some way to communicate with each other outside of class. I use PBWorks wikis for this aim, but a class blog or even email can be used to coordinate student skills.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Mid-Semester

Late in the Semester

Full Assignment Description:

While each course's specific assignment may vary, I've sucessfully implemented these practices in many student projects. These projects have ranged from creating infographics to video games to ebooks. What I hope to achieve from these practices is a form of student autonomy that places responsibility for their work squarely with students.

For this aim, it's important that the assignment's product have some form of value outside of the classroom. Digital media needs a real audience, one beyond just the teacher in a particular course. With this in mind, I require that any multimedia project that students create have some venue in which it is showcased. This can be something as simple as posting it to Facebook, or something more complex such as publishing an ebook in Apple's iBookstore. Hopefully, by having an audience beyond the classroom, students will attribute more value to the rhetorical work they do. These projects aren't just for a grade in a self-contained course, but instead rhetorical practices that work upon the networks they inhabit.

Secondly, I set up a type of Craigslist for student skills. Early in the semester, I have students post a brief biography detailing their current skills in multimedia production and skills they'd like to develop. I normally create a new wiki page for students to populate, but this can be done via a course blog or a mass email. This particular stage in setting up the studio environment requires that students think about their relationships to multimedia and the ways they can create in these modes. Undoubtedly, I have students who begin this stage thinking they have no skills in multimedia whatsoever, but a brief class discussion usually gets students thinking about the digital discourse communities they already belong to. Some may be avid social media prosumers, while others may keep Twitter or Instagram accounts.

A further advantage to these Craiglist-style bios is that students can self-select collaborative groups. If, for example, one student has a great idea for a video game, but no skills with Photoshop, the bios are a first step to making those need-based connections. Plus, because students are shopping for skills among their classmates, they tend to create more organic groups with a common goal. This practice seems to reduce the occurances of group members who refuse to contribute to a project and let others "take up their slack." Common interests drive group formation, so individual students are less likely to be bored with the project.

As a final bonus from this practice, because groups are formed based upon skills, sudents tend to create affinity groups that share knowledge. Students teach each other their skills, and thus all participate in the production of the project. While there is the risk that students will only practice what they are already good at, experience has shown me that this isn't the case. Students are genuinely interested in the common goal they've set, and hence, they all work to create a quality product.

The final practice I do in the classroom is to give students time to play. Multimedia takes some time to create, and scheduling in-class time to experiment is extremely important. Digital technologies ask that we manipulate them, to try out hypotheses regarding their rhetorics and grammars. Groups need time to teach each other skills, and studio work days are important for this task.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

As I've indicated above, this is more a set of classroom principles rather than a specific lesson plan. However, they've worked well for my students, especially when they are working with multimedia. A familiarity with programs like Photoshop, GIMP, Illustrator, Inkscape, inDesign, iMovie, Audacity, or GarageBand can help, but I've found the single most important skill to have is flexibility. No instructor can possibly know all there is to know about these multimedia creation applications, so a willingness to learn from students is paramount.

Instructions For Students:

Since this is a set of practices rather than a specific lesson, there aren't any explicit instructions to students beyond what I've outlined above. However, the following may be helpful when attempting to set up a Craigslist-style skill listing:

In a brief paragraph, outline your interests in the upcoming project, listing any type of multimedia you would be willing to work in or learn. The aim here is not necessarily to give only those programs you're already confident in, but instead your interests in creating multimedia using some applcations.

Evaluation Suggestions:

Because I use the Learning Record Online for all of my courses, the practices outlined above aren't assessed in the traditional sense. I circle the room on studio days, talking with students about what problems they may have run into and to get a general sense of the project's progression. The Learning Record allows for these documented processes to be used as evidence for learning, so the multimedia product is much less important than the processes students go through to create their project.

A successful project is one where students learn new ways of communicating in multimedia, and learn to collaborate with likeminded individuals toward a common goal.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

As I've indicated above, these pracitces have been sucessful in a variety of group projects. I've used this with an infographic assignment, a video game prototype assignment, an actual working video game assignment, an interactive image assignment, and an ebook assignment.

Course Type:

Advanced Writing Course

Intermediate Writing Course

Introductory Writing Course

Literary Studies Course

Course Description:

I have successfully used this studio environment in RHE 306, RHE 309K, RHE 312, and ENGL 314J. I'll give each course description below.

RHE 306:

This course is designed to prepare you for the academic writing you do at the University of Texas and writing you will do in your careers and personal lives beyond UT. It is a course designed to teach you not what to think, but how to think on your own. Ultimately, you should learn to be a better thinker, who is able to think critically about topics, other people, and yourself; a better rhetor, who is able to analyze a specific situation and adjust your writing to fit accordingly; and a better communicator, who is able to express ideas effectively.

It will include three units with each unit culminating in a composition and including writing instruction that supports the drafting of that composition. Composition is a broad term including symbolic efforts in a variety of media (including video, audio, and web-design, to name just a few). Many lower-division RHE courses (such as RHE 315 and 312) encourage or even require composition outside of the traditionally imagined prose essay. Nevertheless, the written component of every lower-division RHE class must meet the writing flag requirements as stipulated by the college. These written assignments may include a variety of genres, including narrative, argument, analysis, or critical reflection. (“Creative” writing assignments—plays, fiction, poetry—are not suitable genres for formal writing assignments.) As required by the college, each major writing assignment includes a peer review process. You will also complete informal writing exercises that prepare you to do the writing necessary in your formal assignments.

RHE 309K: The Rhetoric of Video Games

This course seeks to explore video games as a modern discursive medium. Far from being mere “mindless entertainment,” many video games make explicit or implicit arguments about gender and sexuality, economic systems, corporate practices, geopolitics, and both real and imagined societies. What arguments do these simulations and simulacra mount about how the world is? What arguments do they mount about how the world should be?

Much of the past and current study of digital rhetoric seems to look at the content of computers through applying older means of rhetorical analysis, looking at the text and images contained on computers rather than the processes through which this content is represented. What we seek to explore is a relatively new field—procedural rhetoric—and the ways this new field can inform video game criticism. How do the procedures inherent in video games make arguments about the world?

The course will include three major units with each unit culminating in a composition and including writing instruction that supports the drafting of that composition. Composition is a broad term including symbolic efforts in a variety of media (including video, audio, and web-design, to name just a few). Many lower-division RHE courses encourage or even require composition outside of the traditionally imagined prose essay. Nevertheless, the written component of every lower-division RHE class must meet the writing flag requirements as stipulated by the college. These written assignments may include a variety of genres, including narrative, argument, analysis, or critical reflection. (“Creative” writing assignments—plays, fiction, poetry—are not suitable genres for formal writing assignments.) As required by the college, each major writing assignment includes a peer review process. You will also complete informal writing exercises that prepare you to do the writing necessary in your formal assignments.

RHE 312: Writing in Digital Environments

This course explores rhetoric across a variety of modes: verbal, visual, aural, procedural, haptic, and kinesthetic. “Writing,” in this sense, refers to a variety of inscription technologies. For example, it can be communicating through text on a screen, through the rules of a game, or through the layout and colors in an image. In this course, we will create a variety of digital communications, most with a purpose of persuasion. In doing so, you will learn about digital discourse communities and will eventually present an argument to a chosen digital community.

Each form of media brings with it a set of affordances and constraints. Much of digital media relies upon the logics and metaphors of earlier forms of media, but does present new avenues of distribution and production to a wider range of people. In this course, you will analyze various forms and communities of digital communication and reflect upon these affordances and constraints. Hopefully, you will leave the course with a greater awareness of not only the communicative power of digital media, but also some of the limitations it imposes upon its users and producers.

The course will three major units, with each culminating in digital composition and textual reflection. Throughout the process, you will participate in peer review of your compositions and maintain evidence for use in your Learning Record.

ENGL 314J: Literature & Video Games

In the popular press, literature and video games are frequently positioned as enemies fighting over time. In a recent Slate article, for example, journalist Michael Thompson states that in the time it takes to play one modern video game, “You could read War and Peace, for instance, then follow it up with Thus Spoke Zarathustra and a few starter courses in a new language” (par. 1). Further, the often-cited 2004 National Endowment for the Arts’ Reading at Risk report places video games among other forms of electronic media as “competing” with literature. But both of these sources (and countless others) fail to examine the more complex connections video games have had with literature over the past sixty years. What at first began as a parasitic relationship of video games borrowing, adapting, or extending literary themes, characters, and plots has now become more symbiotic, with both media now remixing each other.

Rather than view video games and print literature as contenders for precious time, this course seeks to explore the ways literature and video games impact one another. That is, this course looks at literature as a practice and not merely a collection of artifacts. Using video games as a frame through which to study literature, we will work our way through a variety of genres, including fables, fantasy, epic poetry, historical fiction, science fiction, mystery, and gothic fiction. This course helps students prepare for upper-division English classes (as well as a wide range of upper-division courses in other UT programs and departments) by focusing on close reading and critical writing, and by introducing formal, historical, and cultural approaches to literary texts. Students will learn how to use the online Oxford English Dictionary as well as other resources essential to literary study.

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Using Storify to Analyze Poetry

Ptacek — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 21:14:34 +0000

Author:

Jake Ptacek

Image Credit:

Screenshot of Storify page by Jake Ptacek

Brief Assignment Overview:

Students often conceptualize poems as monolithic objects from the past. This lesson plan helps encourage them to visualize and conceptualize the content and influence of a poem in different registers.

Type of Assignment:

Major Course Project

Assignment Length:

Course Unit

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Visual Rhetoric

Pedagogical Goals - Literature:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

The goal of this exercise is to encourage students to transform their relationship with the words on the page, to see a poem as a living cultural argument rather than a set-in-stone text. It is also designed to encourage students to think about poetry as different kinds of media.

Media Requirements:

Media Console/Projector

Required Materials:

Students will require access to a computer, whether in class or outside of the classroom.

A computer and projector.

A Storify account.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Early in the Semester

Mid-Semester

Late in the Semester

Full Assignment Description:

Poems are not simply one-time literary events. Instead, they make arguments about the culture a poet lives and practices her art in as well as arguments about the culture within which the reader lives. In this assignment, students will create a multimedia presentation using Storify to help elucidate a poem's meaning, but also to examine how that poem appears in our contemporary media culture. Storify helps them track appearances of the poem as a whole (or of selected lines) in social media.

This helps students see the present-day influence of a text. It also allows them to provide line-by-line annotation and to think about the poem as a visual or audio media event, rather than simply words on a page. Students may also provide interpretaive material: music from the time period, photographs or videos that reference images, characters, or places in the poem.

Storify provides an excellent platform for this analysis because it allows users to search social media like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, as well as more conventional sites like Google and Youtube, for materials related to their project. This allows students to create a visually appealing presentation of the poem to their classmates with relative ease.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

Familiarize yourself with Storify beforehand; be prepared to set aside some class time to create and navigate accounts for your students.

Instructions For Students:

This project will form the basis of your in-class presentation, so please plan ahead accordingly.

In this project, you will create a visual presentation of the poem you have chosen using Storify. You will type out the entire poem. For each line of the poem, you will find at least two images, quotations, websites, videos, or songs that will help us elucidate or make sense of the poem you have chosen. They may comment directly on the line in question, or offer a representation of a figure, place, image, or theme within that line, or they may have a more oblique relationship to the line in question. However, you must be able to demonstrate the relevance of each component to our understanding of the poem itself. However, you are free to--and encouraged to--be creative and exploratory in your creation of a Storify page.

You will present your post to the rest of the class in our penultimate week in a 6-8 minute presentation.

Evaluation Suggestions:

This assignment is still in the experimental phase, so I have not yet evaluated any student posts. It will be part of their presentation grade, which is determined by both content and professionalism of delivery.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

Again, this is still in the experimental phase. Undoubtedly I will need to make the "Student Assignment" directions clearer and more specific.

Additional Resources:

My thanks to Cate Blouke, who first demonstrated the power of Storify to me.

Course Type:

Intermediate Writing Course

Literary Studies Course

Course Description:

I am currently testing this assignment in my E314L: Reading Poetry course.

What’s so special about poetry? What makes it so popular throughout history? Why do figures as different as Percy Bysshe Shelley and Geoffrey Hill, Aristotle and Heidegger, John Stuart Mill and T. S. Eliot—even Bob Dylan and Morrissey—care so much about it? Why has it always been central to the practice of literary criticism? What does it mean to write a poem, to read one, or even, as Mary Poovey suggested, to live inside one? And what is a poem, even? Is it a matter of form, or function, or technique?

In order to begin answering these questions, we will investigate very different lyric poets and poetry—including, for example, Sappho, nursery rhymes, Shakespeare, John Donne, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Christina Rossetti, William Butler Yeats, and the Smiths—with an eye to both the similarities and differences in their poetical practices. Each of these poets returns again and again to the lyric form—to express their fears about war, their anxieties about sex, their relationship to nature and to cities, trying to make sense of the world around them.

No prior knowledge of poetry or critical theory is required. As we progress, we’ll develop as a class a set of critical and formal vocabularies to help us make sense of the poetry. We will focus on developing literary analysis and research skills, and to that end we will read both classic and modern pieces of criticism in order to give us conceptual models for our own academic work. We’ll also work on honing our research and writing skills, and use the Oxford English Dictionary to help us make sense of how historical changes in the English language affect poetry and our understanding of it. These skills will prove useful not only to English majors, but to students of many disciplines

Tags:

Close Reading

Visual Analysis

Multimedia Presentation

Storify

Poetry

Literature

Google Docs - Crowd-Sourcing an Annotated Bibliography

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 14:45:35 +0000

Author:

Eileen McGinnis

Image Credit:

"2 reasons why the term 'crowdsourcing' bugs me" via opensourceway's Flickr

Brief Assignment Overview:

Using GoogleDocs, students create a group bibliography page to practice summarizing and evaluating a source. They then engage in an informal presentation of their source to the class. By addressing their classmates as an audience, students have an extra level of accountability to their peers to find quality sources and to write about them with care.

Type of Assignment:

Homework Assignment

Major Course Project

Assignment Length:

Multiple Class Periods

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Annotated Bibliography

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Collaboration

Open Access Software

Presentations

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

Research, citation, group collaboration, awareness of audience, summary

Media Requirements:

No Classroom Technology Required

Adaptable For Use Without Classroom Technology

Media Console/Projector

Required Materials:

Students will need a Google account in order to access the group document. A media console with projector would be preferable, but strictly-speaking, this lesson does not require classroom technology as students do most of the work from home.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Early in the Semester

Mid-Semester

Full Assignment Description:

Using GoogleDocs, students create a group bibliography page to practice summarizing and evaluating a source. They then engage in an informal presentation of their source to the class. This collaborative exercise goes against the Lone Researcher model, but it is interesting to track how an article that one student finds stimulates another student's thinking in the final paper. There's also an ethos factor here--by addressing their classmates as an audience, students have an extra level of accountability to their peers to find quality sources and to write about them with care.

This assignment took about two weeks (i.e., less than a unit-length) to complete. 2-3 students would present each day, over the course of about 6 class periods.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

After introducing research methods in class, I asked students to find a source related to our texts for the third unit. They signed up for presentation slots available over the course of the next two weeks. On the day of their presentation, their annotated citation was due.

Instructions For Students:

Overview

In 250-400 words, write an annotated citation of a primary or secondary source. Your annotation should include (1) a concise summary and evaluation of the source and (2) an argument about how this source might enhance our reading of Gattaca or Oryx and Crake.

Specifics

This semester, we've examined materials that establish the historical and cultural contexts in which literary texts participate. E.g., we've looked at Lankester's writings on degeneration to understand the bleak evolutionary themes of The Time Machine. We've also consulted visual artifacts, such as late-Victorian cartoons about evolution and representations of genetics on recent magazine covers.

Now it's your turn: find an outside source that illuminates the literary and scientific contexts of Gattaca or Oryx and Crake. A few ideas: an interview with the author/director; an article in Nature or another scientific journal; a scholarly article or book chapter by a literary critic; an advertisement, artwork, film, etc. In class, we will discuss strategies for researching and assessing potential sources.

Regardless of your choice, your annotated citation will have three components: (1) an MLA-style citation, (2) a concise summary of an argument or an evocative description of an artifact, and (3) an argument that connects your source to the film/novel. Although you won't have much space to quote extensively, use specific language and examples to tie your reader closely to the source.

To receive credit for this assignment, you will also informally present your source to the class, summarizing your findings and pointing us to their implications.

Goals

Demonstrate care in selecting a source.
Provide a succinct but thorough summary/description of your source.
Successfully argue for what this source can tell us about the film or novel.
Clearly present your findings to the class.

Formatting

Each assignment should be 250-400 words, single-spaced. Include an MLA-style citation in bold at the top of your entry.
Add your citation to our class's annotated bibliography on GoogleDocs (no hard copy needed).
In-text citations should be formatted according to MLA style: insert page numbers for any quotations in parentheses after the quote (just the page numbers; no pp. or p.)

Evaluation Suggestions:

This short assignment counted for 6 percent of their total grade. However, the presentation component was evaluated on the basis of completion only, as it was not the focus of the assignment. Strong assignments demonstrated care in selecting a source, provided a succinct but thorough summary/description of the source, and successfully argued for what this source can tell us about the film or novel.

Course Type:

Advanced Writing Course

Intermediate Writing Course

Introductory Writing Course

Course Description:

This lesson was used in an introductory literary studies course: E314J - Literature and Biology

What does it mean to be human? Why do we behave the way we do? What’s the difference between life and non-life, organism and machine? Where are we (the human species, the planet Earth) headed next? Acknowledging certain obvious and meaningful differences in methods and outlook, one might nevertheless argue that both writers and biologists travel similar terrain, presenting themselves as (often competing) authorities on the “big questions” about Life. Instead of seeing literature and biology as necessarily antagonistic ways of looking at and understanding the world, we will read literature about science and literary science writing for their complementary insights. What do literature and biology look like at their interface? How do the scientific paradigms of their day influence how writers grapple with questions of human experience, identity, and ethics? In turn, how do literary narratives about evolutionary biology or genetics shape the way we think about these disciplines, the way they’re understood by non-scientists? No expertise in biology or in literary criticism will be presumed. The broad goals of this course will be to introduce science majors to the basic tools of literary analysis as well as to enable non-science majors to be savvier readers of the popular science they encounter. The course’s emphasis on students’ own critical writing will be helpful no matter what your major.

Tags:

Annotated bibliography

Translating an Essay Into an Infographic

Anonymous — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 15:52:55 +0000

Author:

Catherine Coleman

Image Credit:

"Dentro de la cabeza de Bob Dylan" via the Flikr stream of Sergio M. Mahugo

Brief Assignment Overview:

For this assignment students use Photoshop to create a visual depiction or information graphic (infographic) of an essay. This infographic will focus on the interrelation and visual communication of ideas rather than statistics (as in traditional/popular infographics).

Type of Assignment:

Homework Assignment

Major Course Project

Assignment Length:

One-Two Class Periods

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

Research

Invention

Organization/Arrangement

Delivery

Media Requirements:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Required Materials:

Adobe Photoshop or similar image-production/alteration software as well as computers for each student (in order to introduce them to the technology in class).

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Mid-Semester

Late in the Semester

Full Assignment Description:

For this assignment students will use Photoshop to create a visual depiction or information graphic (infographic) of their second essay. This infographic will focus on the interrelation and visual communication of ideas rather than statistics.

The infographic should represent the argument and basic content of the essay, depict visual linkages between different types of ideas: their argument and use of the major approaches covered in E 314L (formal, historical, and cultural), and include at least four related images and an accompanying works cited page in a Word document. The works cited need not be a part of the infographic.

Students will essentially be developing the content for this infographic as they are working on their Essay #2 assignment. More time has been allotted for the production of this essay to allow students to create this accompanying visual representation. Teaching photoshop will take 1-2 class periods and will likely require further assistance in the form of troubleshooting and pointers. Students must also be allotted time to do a peer review, which can be performed online outside of class time.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

When introducing the assignment review the guidelines for infographic creation on Spyre studios website as a class. You might also review some infographics online, but this can be more intimidating to students than the Spyre guide because many of them (a) deal with complex statistics rather than ideas and (b) are professionally produced by Photoshop experts. The Spyre guide is efficient, concise, and clear without being intimidating.

First class period

Discuss the components of an infographic. Spyre Studios breaks down infographics as follows:

Visual:

color coding
graphics
reference icons.

Content:

time frames
statistics
references

Knowledge:

facts (information)
deductions (your argument)

Go over how their infographics will address these three areas. Remind them that their infographic is essentially "1 level deep" in the sense that they don't have to concern themselves with the work of compiling statistics, etc -- just making decisions on how to efficiently present their argument and background knowledge of the text and author visually. I do so in the following way:

Visual: Your infographic should incorporate all of the aspects in the first category. I recommend using no more than 4-5 colors – one for your argument, and one each for the approaches we’ve focused on this semester: formal, cultural and historical.

Content: Your content will be the aspects of your essay content that you wish to include in this visual "summary" of your argument and approach(es) to the text. The most important aspects to focus on representing visually in your infographic will be: the basic elements of your main claim (the work, the author, your argument), your incorporation of the three approaches we’ve focused on this semester: formal, historical and cultural, and your main claims (topic sentences) and conclusion. As far as images go, you can scan in sketches or original artwork, use Creative Commons images or attributed images, use your own photographs, etc.

Knowledge: Your knowledge of the text (informed by formal, historical and cultural approaches) will shape the infographic. You might consider information pertaining to the text itself, the definition of the genre of the text, or a emphasis on key words used by the author that reflect the topic or the tone of the work (with their OED definitions) to be formal. The history of the work itself and the context of its composition, pertinent information about the author’s life, etc would be historical knowledge. Information about its intended audience, the history of its reception or information on its current reception (inclusion in anthologies, etc) is cultural. REMINDER: Be sure to create a works cited page in Word listing all of your sources – it does not have to be a part of your infographic.

Because you will not be presenting complex statistics, your infographic will be what Spyre calls a “One-Level Deep Infographic” or a “simple infographic” that includes these “3 core parts.” You will not be working with multiple visual themes, just one that will be “common throughout the design.” Don’t try to mimic more complex, statistics-based infographics – just focus on communicating your ideas visually in a “very basic” representation

Introduce students to photoshop - focus on how to color and shade backgrounds, how to incorporate images, how to use line/shape tools and to change the color of these connectors. I recommend making several sample images and ideas available online (on a course website, Blackboard, etc) where all students can access them and then practice manipulating them.

Second class period:

Have students brainstorm ideas to represent, create a basic outline or mind-map and then sketch on paper. Remind them that they won’t be able to include all of the ideas they address in their essay and that they should focus on basic concepts of their argument and approach to the text(s) to include. Ask them to consider which background information a viewer would need to know in order to comprehend their argument? How can they express their argument in the most efficient way?

In their sketch, ask them to consider how they will link ideas? How will they orient their infographic? Look at some of the suggestions on the Spyre page – they might do a Mind-Map type orientation that is “concentric” or centered around their argument or they might consider a vertical presentation that reflects the organization of your essay and spreads out explanatory captions and boxes as viewers scroll down the image. They might even do a horizontal, timeline-like orientation that will allow you to focus on the author’s life, the process of textual creation, and the reception of the text over time.

Offer feedback and assistance with this part of the process (and Photoshop). It is better to clear up any confusions early in this process.

Remainder of second class period, homework:

Have students work on creating their infographics. You might consider allotting class time to work on the essay or infographic or recommend that students work in the Open Lab on their own time. When they are working away from computers that have Photoshop, they can continue to revise their presentation through sketches and print-outs, compile images, or reconsider how to more clearly express their ideas in a highly accessible and efficient visual format. Make yourself available for feedback/troubleshooting -- students can email drafts of their infographic at various stages, etc.

Homework, possible in-class work time

Peer Review your infographic - this is not a necessary step, but I think it is an important one. Beyond instructor feedback, students can get great feedback from their peers on whether or not their infographic makes sense. This is useful because it will help them to discern how efficient their infographic is at communicating information to different audiences.This can take place online outside of class.

Present Infographics

Infographics can be posted online in a course blog or message board or students can present infographics in class, depending on available class time.

Then, students can make final changes and submit - if desired, the presentation can be the final submission, or students can have the opportunity to use feedback to further revise their infographic and submit it via email or reposting.

Instructions For Students:

Overview

For this assignment you will use Photoshop to create an infographic of your second essay. This infographic will be different than most of those available online because it is not focused on the interrelation and visual presentation of ideas and not statistics.

A good basic overview of the history and use of information graphics is available on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_graphics

To see examples of some infographics, I recommend the following sites. Keep in mind that the layouts and materials featured here are more complex than yours will be, largely because they are geared towards presenting complex statistics with images as opposed to ideas:

http://www.coolinfographics.com/

http://www.infographicsshowcase.com/

Requirements

Your infographic must:

- Represent the basic content of your essay

- Depict your argument

- Include at least four images

- Reflect visual linkages between different types of ideas – see suggestion below on color coding your argument and your use of the major approaches (formal, historical, cultural)

- Include a works cited page in a Word document – it does not have to be a part of your infographic

Steps

1. Review the guidelines for infographic creation on Spyre studios website: http://spyrestudios.com/the-anatomy-of-an-infographic-5-steps-to-create-...

Spyre Studios breaks down infographics as follows:

Visual:

color coding
graphics
reference icons.

Content:

time frames
statistics
references

Knowledge:

facts (information)
deductions (your argument)

Content: Your content will be your essay content, namely the basic elements of your main claim (the work, the author, your argument), your incorporation of the three approaches we’ve focused on this semester: formal, historical and cultural, and your main claims (topic sentences) and conclusion. As far as images go, you can scan in sketches or original artwork, use Creative Commons images or attributed images, use your own photographs, etc.

Knowledge: Your knowledge of the text (informed by formal, historical and cultural approaches) will shape the infographic. You might put information on the text itself, the definition of the genre of the text, or a emphasis on key words used by the author that reflect the topic or the tone of the work (with their OED definitions) under formal. The history of the work itself and the context of its composition, pertinent information about the author’s life, etc would be historical knowledge. Information about its intended audience, the history of its reception or information on its current reception (inclusion in anthologies, etc) is cultural. Be sure to create a works cited page in Word listing all of your sources – it does not have to be a part of your infographic.

NOTE: Because you will not be presenting complex statistics, your infographic will be what Spyre calls a “One-Level Deep Infographic” or a “simple infographic” that includes these “3 core parts.” You will not be working with multiple visual themes, just one that will be “common throughout the design.” Don’t try to mimic the more complex, statistical infographics featured on the sites above – just focus on communicating your ideas visually in a “very basic” representation.

2. Brainstorm ideas to represent, sketch on paper.

You won’t be able to include all of the ideas you address in your paper, so create an outline of the basic concepts you want to include in your infographic. What background information would a viewer need to know to comprehend your argument? How can you express your argument in the most efficient way?

Once you’ve created an outline, draft a sketch of your infographic. How will you link ideas? Will you draw color-themed lines or use the shape tool? How will you orient your infographic? Look at some of the suggestions on the Spyre page – you might do a Mind-Map type orientation that is “concentric” or centered around your argument. You might do a vertical presentation that reflects the organization of your essay and spreads out explanatory captions and boxes as viewers scroll down the image. You might even do a horizontal, timeline-like orientation that will allow you to focus on the author’s life, the process of textual creation, and the reception of the text over time.

If you’d like feedback at this point, bring in your sketch to office hours or show it to me after class. You can also scan it in and email it to me if you’d like more detailed feedback.

3. Work on creating your infographic

We’ll have some class time you can use to work on your infographic and to get help with Photoshop. You can also work on your infographic using Photoshop on the computers in the Open Lab in Parlin 102. When you’re working away from computers that have Photoshop, you can continue to compile images and reconsider how to better express your ideas in an accessible and efficient visual format. If you’d like feedback at any stage of this process, feel free to send along what you have or to talk with me before or after class or during office hours.

4. Peer Review your infographic

Send your infographic-in-progress to a classmate. Provide feedback on their infographic and get comments back on own. This is useful because it will help you to discern how efficient your infographic is at communicating information to different audiences.

5. Present your Infographic

We will have two course days of presentations where you will show your infographic to other students and discuss the process of creating it as well as your Essay #2 argument and topic.

6. Make final changes and submit

Evaluation Suggestions:

This assignment will receive a percentage/letter grade. Meeting the basic requirements and efficiently communicating information visually are the primary criteria.

Additional Resources:

In the assignment, I recommend that students use an online infographic guide at Spyre Studios -- this is a great introductory guide.

Course Type:

Literary Studies Course

Course Description:

In this course, we will focus on developing close reading skills through the examination of fiction and poetry written predominantly by American women on two levels, personal and social. Personally, what does it mean to be a “woman author” and what were (and are) some of the impetuses that drive women to write? Socially, how have expectations for women shifted over time, and what roles do these expectations play in what women write, especially with regard to genre, and whether or not they write at all? Furthermore, what have issues of authorship and authority entailed for women of various ethnicities and sexual orientations? These are some of the major questions that will guide our analysis.

We will build close reading, critical analysis and writing skills, all of which are vital for the English major. Students will also learn how to use the online Oxford English Dictionary as well as other resources essential to literary study. In addition to reading fiction and poetry, literary criticism and contextual readings will accompany each major text. Students will also initiate class discussion with fifteen-minute presentations on authors and texts. To fulfill the writing flag for this course, students will compose two major essays (5-7 pages) and several shorter (1-2 page) assignments in which they will demonstrate their grasp of close reading and critical analysis. Students will also critique each other’s work during peer reviews and work on developing the essential skill of significant revision.

Tags:

Infographic

Photoshop

Literature

Visual Representation

Google Mapping Travel Narratives: Lolita

Anonymous — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 14:27:55 +0000

Author:

Lauren Nahas

Image Credit:

Screen shot of narrative Google map

Brief Assignment Overview:

This assignment asks students to engage in an uncommon form of literary analysis, where the goal is to determine the significance of location and travel in the novel. The entire class collaborates in creating a Google map of all of the places that Humbert Humbert travels to in Lolita.

Type of Assignment:

Course Unit

Major Course Project

Assignment Length:

Multiple Class Periods

Pedagogical Goals - Literature:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Research

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

The goal is to offer students a new way to consider the process and products of literary analysis. This assignment also encourages students to consider a novel both visually and spatially, and to determine the usefulness of gaining such a perspective on the novel. In addition, it introduces them to a new technology (surprisingly, most are unaware that you can create your own maps using Google). In addition, it’s meant to be a collaborative experience that illustrated the importance of organization, as what can be accomplished by a group.

Media Requirements:

Media Console/Projector

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Required Materials:

A Google account (this allows students to create, edit, and share their own personal maps. Without this account students will not be able to edit the map). A course wiki, or some other online location for organizing who maps which parts of the novel, questions or problems that come up during the mapping process, and so on.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Mid-Semester

Full Assignment Description:

In one sense, I see this assignment as an alternative form of formal analysis. It is basically asking students to take a very close look at the movements and locations of the novel and visually represent them in a map. In this sense, it broadens the concept of literary analysis for students and will give them at least one example of how digital media can be used for literary analysis. They gain technological skills simply through having to use Google Maps, and they gain collaborative skills as we determine as a class how to organize the creation of the map and make decisions about the map’s content.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

Prep: In Google maps, create a map entitled “Nabokov’s Lolita.” Put in place markers and descriptions of the first few places mentioned in the novel to give the students an idea of what the map will look like in the end.

On your course wiki or website, create a table to organize the map. Add columns to the table with the following titles: Place, Page Number, Found by, Added to Map by, Problems. This allows you to keep track to who found what, who added what to the map, and gives the students a place to note any problems that they run into. The students need to be able to edit this table themselves. Here’s a link to the table I created on my course wiki.

In-class: Have the students create Google accounts. Have them send you an email from that account. Using that email, invite them as collaborators to the map.

Explain the basics of mapping a novel (I showed students maps of The Devil’s Highway and Ulysses, and there are many more on the Google Lit Trips website.

Show them the Lolita map that you have created and explain that they will receive and invitation to the map that will allow them to edit it.

Show the students the basics of how to create and edit a map. Have them create a map of their own, add a few places, edit them, etc. You want them to get a feel for the Google maps interface.

Show them the table you’ve created to organize the map creation. Tell them to add locations to the table as they read the novel.

I didn’t have students begin adding locations to the map until we had finished the novel. At that point we had a long list of places. In class we had a discussion of how we wanted to deal with places that didn’t exist, places where the chronology of HH and Lolita’s travels becomes unclear in the novel, etc. We created a key for the map and there were some issues of representation that we decided to deal with after the map had begun to take form. At this point I also reminded them of the “Problems” column in our organizational table on the wiki and that if they ran into any problems with the map, they should note them there.

I visited the map in class every day to encourage them to keep adding and set a soft deadline for adding locations. I also monitored the “Problems” column on the organizational table and dealt with problems in class as they arose. When the map seemed to be completed, I checked through it and brought up any concerns that I had in class.

Once the map has been completed, it deserves a day’s discussion in terms of how it relates to reading the novel. The students will not automatically see the usefulness of the map.

Instructions For Students:

Lolita Mapping Project

In some respects Lolita is a travel novel. Many of the locations mentioned in the novel are real. Because of this, the text lends itself to mapping.

Mapping a piece of Literature is a new method of literary analysis. It has gained popularity with the advent of tools like google maps that allow anyone to create map.

Although not every place mentioned in Lolita is mappable, we will do our best to create what a geographic model of Nabokov's masterpiece. The purpose here is to consider the novel from a completely different perspecive and to see if the map reveals anything of interest to us about the novel. The may also serve as a reading aid or guide to those of you who later choose to write your essay on Lolita.

Map Key

Exists - Icon with Dot
Doesn't Exist - Icon without Dot

With Lolita - Pink Lines & Icons
Without Lolita - Blue Lines & Icons

Content of the placemarkers:

Page number and chapter
Basic description of the significance of the location

Evaluation Suggestions:

I use the learning record, so the map was not graded. They will be graded on what they took from the experience of mapping the novel. That learning could be related to using this mapping tool, collaboration, literary analysis, completing a complex project, and so on. I do not expect all of them to come to significant realizations about the novel from this project.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

I think the students were initially surprisingly enthusiastic about it. I didn’t make this a mandatory assignment, but they created the list of places and the map itself with little encouragement from me. At this point they seem to be a bit confused about the purpose of what they’ve created. I anticipated that reaction, so in the next week we’ll be taking some time in class to look carefully at the map to consider what implications it has for our reading of Lolita.

Additional Resources:

Here is a list of sources that discuss mapping as a literary analysis technique. They helped me to consider what the purpose of such an assignment was and how it related to my larger course objectives.

Gordon, Eric. “MAPPING DIGITAL NETWORKS From cyberspace to Google.” Information, Communication & Society 10.6 (2007): 885-901. Web.

Moretti, Franco. Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for a Literary History. London: Verso, 2005. Print.

Ramsay, Stephen. “Special Section: Reconceiving Text Analysis: Toward an Algorithmic Criticism.” Lit Linguist Computing 18.2 (2003): 167-174. Web.

Samuels, Lisa., and Jerome J. McGann. “Deformance and Interpretation.” New Literary History 30.1 (1999): 25-56. Print.

Tullock, David L. “Many, many maps: Empowerment and online participatory mapping.” First Monday 12.2 (2007): n. pag. Print.

Course Type:

Literary Studies Course

Course Description:

This assignment was used in an introductory literature course, E314K Banned Books

Tags:

Visualization Software