- Download Full Syllabus (PDF)
ENG 1131: Writing Through Media
Section 1801: The Learning Screen
Section 1801: The Learning Screen
Fall 2010
MWF Period 5 (11:45am – 12:35 pm)
Screneings: Mon E1-E3 (7:20-10:10pm)
All meetings in CSE E211A
Instructor: Gary Hink, English Dept. T.A.
Office: Turlington 4412 (Period 6 by appointment)
This course proceeds from the fundamental understanding that we are in the midst of an apparatus shift beyond literacy toward an emerging paradigm of “electracy,” as theorized by Gregory L. Ulmer. The effects impact not only communication and identity formation, but academic practices as well; this course directly puts into practice the changes and implications for commensurate methods of learning and composing, guided by Internet Invention. As Ulmer states, “New media networked practices are transitional, hybrid forms and experiments. The part of the apparatus most accessible within the arts and letters disciplines is the practices of imaging. Electracy needs to do for digital imaging what literacy did for the written word.” (Networked 2009)
A second premise is that the “television age” of the prior generation involved audiences‘ passively receiving the narratives, images, and ideology of the dominant culture as “consumers.” In contrast, the “network age” situates us in a participatory role regarding information, communication, and media. Yet as active producers, we are not freely inventive but fundamentally responsible for the discourse and images we create and circulate: thus, ours will be a critical stance toward the paradigm in which we are positioned. This new mode of thought and expression (electracy) requires innovative practices within a scholarly context that are both creative and reflexive; we will test the potential for a new academic writing that cultivates our intuition & responsibility.
Course Objectives
The goal of the course is to reflexively examine and exploit the post-literacy transition already familiar to us in network society and contemporary culture. We will explore the rhetorical implications of this two-decade shift, with students as producers and not just “consumers” of new media effects. Through popular media and new genres, students will study and apply the key modes of organizing information—argument, narrative, and aesthetic figures—in textual, visual, and multimedia forms: films as “cultural interface” of earlier decades; electronic literature as hybrid form and transition; digital media, with blogs as exemplar, assemblage of diverse forms and modes. The key understanding of the transition to the new apparatus or technological paradigm will be achieved by studying and employing the modes of the prevalent discourse emerging today—social networks, short videos, “mash-up” songs, videogames, viral artifacts (“memes”). Working with basic principles of semiotics and poetics facilitates the “operating principle” of our method toward projects: examining the techniques of artistic works as models (“relays”) and emulating their strategies in our innovative expression. While this course draws upon the analytical skills of literacy for writing, it also enhances students‘ abilities using narrative, images, and expressive figures in the mode of aesthetic authoring. Using freely-available software on the Web, we will develop these skills through multimodal design, social media, and “Photoshopping”—prominent practices of the new cultural logic—to discover one‘s personal “style of thought” and create inventive expression, using material from all of our “databases.”
— Please note that while this course is designed for students of all majors and levels, it is not “introductory” in terms of “elementary” or “basic” parameters; as class assessment focuses greatly on practical application efforts (more so than “final product”), creative attempts and participation in all aspects are crucial parts of expectations for students‘ work throughout the term.
Required Reading
- Ulmer, Gregory L. Internet Invention (Longman, 2003)
- Additional required readings hosted online.
- Note: available at Orange & Blue Textbooks (Map)
Assignments and Grade Distribution
- 5 “Exercise” Assignments (500 words, 10 points each) 30%
- Project 1: Family & Career Mapping (1000 words, 25 points) 15%
- Project 2: Entertainment & Community Mash-up (1000 words, 25 points) 15%
- Project 3: Refashioning Culture with Emblem (1500 words, 35 points) 20%
- Attendance and Participation 20%
- — discussion in-class and online, as well as two Group Presentations
— Blog assessment: weekly Entries (10) and “Inventory” (media notes)
