DWRL Lesson Plans - Megan Varelmann Gianfagna

Tracing Memes in Storify

gianfagna — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 19:55:15 +0000

Author:

Image Credit:

Screen shot of Storify home page

Brief Assignment Overview:

In this assignment, students use the free online program Storify to track the life of a meme by combining elements pulled from social and news media sources.

Type of Assignment:

In-class Exercise

Assignment Length:

One-Two Class Periods

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Organization

Summary

Synthesis

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

I've used this assignment in two different ways. The first time I taught the course, I used it as an outlining exercise. The second time I taught the course, I allowed students to use Storify as the platform for the essay itself. The outlining exercise can easily transition into a larger assigment. Originally, this assignment was meant to serve as both an invention and an outlining exercise for students as they prepared to write their first essay, where they map the similarities and differences among three iterations of a meme in terms of media, venue, exigence, purpose, audience, and message. This in-class project as well as the more formal essay are two ways of achieving one of the larger course goals: to have students look beyond individual platforms and investigate—through emerging multimedia composing practices—the broader, interconnected digital media landscape.

Media Requirements:

Adaptable For Use Without Classroom Technology

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Required Materials:

Computer with internet connection

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Useful Anytime

Full Assignment Description:

In the context of my course, Rhetoric of Going Viral, the focus is on tracking a meme across multiple iterations, creating a sort of metacommentary on the way it has changed across media and time. I require that students integrate at least three “primary” texts, or iterations of their meme, as well as at least one contextual source to help the reader understand the meme’s origin, impact, etc.

The Storify interface allows students to search Twitter, YouTube, Google, Facebook, Flickr, the Storify site, and RSS feeds. Then they can drag the texts, images, and videos they find in the research window into their story. They can add commentary and rearrange elements as they go. At the top, they can add a title and a summary of their story. When they’re satisfied with their work, they can publish their story and share the link on a blog or social media platform.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

In the class period before students are scheduled to complete the assignment, I recommend sharing a few Storify pieces and discussing the assignment requirements. For homework, I have students select primary texts and contextual sources, though many do additional research as they are composing. Students will also need to create a Twitter account to log in.

The day of, students might spend the first 10 minutes of class getting signed in and walking through the basic features of the interface. There are also screencasts available on the Storify if you’d like to have students watch a tutorial prior to beginning their projects.

Instructions For Students:

Outline version

In Research Summary 1 and 2, you have practiced locating, summarizing and contextualizing online texts. As you move into Essay 1.1, you will create a multimedia narrative to help generate ideas and guide your writing. Using Storify, you will illustrate the relationships among the three primary texts you plan to use in essay 1.1. Your story should include three “primary” texts, or iterations of the meme, as well as contextual information about its origin, popularity, reactions it has caused, etc. You can organize your narrative chronologically or according to publication venue, message, topoi, or stakeholders. Remember that your primary goal is to give your reader insight into the relationships among these texts, so you will want to organize them in a way that makes those relationships most visible and gives your reader ample opportunity to note important overlaps and differences. Keep in mind that your map needs to include enough information and visual cues that it can be read and understood as a stand-alone narrative (that is, without the aid of additional explanation from you to me or your classmates). When you’re finished, you will publish your piece to your class blog.

Essay version

General

You have two options for the first assignment: a traditional essay of about 3 pages (this option can include embedded images and other multimedia elements or not) OR a Storify piece that fulfills all objectives of the assignment. If you choose the Storify option, you will need to sign up for a free account or sign in with your Twitter or Facebook login. The platform allows you to pull text, images and video from news and social media sites and integrate them into a narrative. You can add commentary and transitions to complete the story of the meme you’re mapping. Here is a demo/tour of the site’s capabilities.

For your first major project, you will trace the life of an event or argument, placing it in a specific socio-historical context and noting how its rhetorical features change and evolve as it moves through multiple media platforms or iterations over time. To do so, find three digital or physical texts (blog posts, videos, news coverage, op-eds, tattoos, T-shirts, posters, etc.) responding to a common exigence and talk in-depth about the sequence in which these texts appeared, the venues in which they are presented, and how the representation of the idea changes according to media and genre. You will be required to include at least 4 sources (3 of which will be the texts themselves and the other of which might be contextual information from a website or article).

Your purpose in this essay/Storify piece is to map out the various texts or versions of a single text you've chosen, clearly describing each one and then highlighting the relationships among them. Do not argue for which of the texts is “best,” but rather articulate as neutrally as possible what each says and what its relationship is to the other texts.

One way to maintain a neutral stance is to give each text equal space and attention in your paper, giving each the opportunity to present its message from its own perspective when possible. Be sure to attribute statements to their original speakers or organizations: phrases such as "According to. . ." and "As stated by. . ." along with verbs that indicate that someone has stated a particular position, such as argues, advocates, asserts and contends will indicate that the argument you are presenting is not necessarily your own.

Your audience for this essay will be concerned and interested but not particularly informed citizens who are looking to you to provide an unbiased lay of the land. With that in mind, you will want to provide enough background information to allow them to follow the conversation but not so much detail that it overwhelms your primary purpose.

Specifics

You'll want to sketch out the basics of what your three texts have in common and provide brief but informative descriptions of their form and content. You can draw heavily on your annotated bibliography for this information. For example, if they are all responding in different ways to a common exigence, you may want to explain what event(s) or cultural moment led to the creation of these texts. For each of the three individual texts, you'll want to tell your audience who created them, where and when they appeared, who they are targeted towards, and what message they send or position they take. Provide a clear timeline and sense of how the three texts relate to each other.
You'll want to compare how the texts have responded similarly or differently to the event or idea that spurred their creation. As you do so, you'll want to indicate who the stakeholders are (as well as what each source's stake is) and points of intersection and diversion among their responses. Your comparison (or perhaps the essay/Storify piece itself) should begin with a polished claim summarizing the main similarities and differences—a thesis. If you're discussing one meme that has appeared in multiple contexts, you'll want to focus on any ways it has changed or how it is being used or regarded differently on each site.
Document your sources according to the MLA or APA documentation guidelines.

Evaluation Suggestions:

I use the Learning Record, so individual assignments do not receive grades. Rather, I comment on the Storify projects and students later draw on those comments when composing midterm and final evaluations of their performance in the class.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

My experience has been that students really love the Storify interface and need very little instruction to create their projects. Many students commented that they felt the texts they were working with were more visible, more immediately available to them as they were writing in Storify than in Word, and so their arguments emerged with less difficulty. As a reader, I found the Storify outlines and essays very engaging.

Course Type:

Introductory Writing Course

Course Description:

RHE 309K - Rhetoric of Going Viral - an intermediate writing course.

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Visual Representation

Visualizing Word Choice with Lexipedia

gianfagna — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:10:08 +0000

Author:

Megan Varelmann Gianfagna

Image Credit:

Screen shot of Lexipedia entry for "choice"

Brief Assignment Overview:

This assignment focuses on using a visual thesaurus to illustrate the nuanced relationships among words that the list form of the traditional thesaurus glosses over. It asks students to use Lexipedia to evaluate the word choices they’ve made in their essays and to revise for more precise rhetorical effect.

Type of Assignment:

Class Discussion

In-class Exercise

Assignment Length:

Partial Class Period

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Style

Topoi

Pedagogical Goals - Literature:

Word Choice

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Visualization

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

The primary goal of the exercise is to help students revise their essays at the word level to more precisely communicate their ideas. It suggests to them that while a thesaurus can help get them thinking, not all words listed as synonyms convey the same meaning. It asks them to think critically about the reference materials they use and about how careless word choice can affect their authorial ethos.

Media Requirements:

Adaptable For Use Without Classroom Technology

Media Console/Projector

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Required Materials:

Internet-connected computers are necessary for students to look up words drawn from their own essays. However, the instructor could select a few examples and present them to students either with one media console or in handout form and ask them to do the revision portion of the exercise outside of class.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Useful Anytime

Full Assignment Description:

This in-class assignment is part of a larger clarifying writing workshop I do with students to help them revise their essays. I have used it with mapping essays, rhetorical analysis essays, and proposal essays but imagine it can be applied to a wide range of assignments. I begin the activity in class with a discussion based on a few examples of “synonyms” from a particular thesaurus entry. I ask students to think about the different connotations each word has and how they might change the meaning of a sentence. Then I ask students to pair up and answer questions about another word and the synonyms the traditional thesaurus offers for it. We discuss how the list form the thesaurus offers implies that synonyms are equivalent in meaning. Then I show them the visual thesaurus Lexipedia, ask them to look up the same word, and have them discuss how the representations of its relationship to the other words in the entry differs from the traditional thesaurus. Finally, I ask them to turn to their essay drafts to identify words that aren’t appropriate and/or that aren’t pulling their rhetorical weight and revise accordingly.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

The Lexipedia site is a simple interface, and students and instructors will likely get comfortable using it in just a few minutes. Prior to class, the instructor might just familiarize him/herself with the color code for parts of speech and word relationships as well as the distinction the site makes between “fuzzynyms” and synonyms. Instructors might identify a few commonly misused words in the students’ drafts and use those examples when demonstrating the difference between the traditional and the visual thesaurus. Also, if the instructor wants students to begin revising in class, s/he will need to arrange for students to bring an electronic or hard copy of their essays.

Instructions For Students:

Step 1

As a class, let’s discuss the following examples of synonyms. Specifically, what do each of these “synonyms” uniquely contribute to the sentence?

Ex. 1: I’m going home. vs. I’m going to the house.  

Ex. 2: He acts cocky. vs. He acts confident.   

What different connotations does each word in these “synonym” sets have?

Ex. 3: Slender/skinny/scrawny

Ex. 4: Careful/stingy/thrifty

Step 2

With a partner, look up one of the following words in the dictionary: friend, snub or suggest. Then choose three synonyms and list the associations you have with each one. How do they compare? What are differences in meaning you can find (even tiny ones)? Write 3 sentences using at least one of the words in each.

Step 3

Now look up the same word in Lexipedia. Based on the entry it provides, what do you make of the relationship among your word and the synonyms you examined in Step 2? Think about the distance shown between words as well as the way they are grouped and the way they are color-coded. Does Lexipedia show words that the traditional thesaurus didn’t? Does it leave out words the traditional thesaurus included?

Step 4

Look at your essay and mark words that you aren’t sure express your ideas as well as they could. What does the word you choose in revision need to express differently? Use the visual thesaurus to see if you can find a more suitable word.

Evaluation Suggestions:

I use the Learning Record, so I provide feedback but not grades on student work. I gauge student success with this activity (and with the larger clarifying writing workshop) by the improvement their subsequent drafts show.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

This activity gets mentioned often both in student Learning Records and in course evaluations as something that was effective in helping them become more aware of their diction. They report that they enjoy discussing their relationship with the thesaurus (most commonly one built on frequent and hurried interactions) and using the visual thesaurus to explore relationships among words.

Course Type:

Intermediate Writing Course

Introductory Writing Course

Course Description:

RHE 309K – Rhetoric of Going Viral examines how events, stories and bits of culture are born, spread and reimagined online. We think and write critically about what makes these visual, verbal, and aural texts popular, what makes them persuasive, and how their purpose and message change as they move across media and venue. As we call into question traditional notions of authorship, audience, and argument through ongoing research of popular and scholarly sources, we examine a range of digital texts—from Facebook posts to blogs, YouTube videos to online news articles. As we examine these digital phenomena, we identify patterns of movement, rhetorical structures and stakeholders that help us better navigate the vast world in which we create and consume digital arguments.

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