Assignments

* Note: detailed assign­ment descrip­tions will appear online in posts (Exer­cises) and on pages (Assignments).

Exer­cises / Read­ing Responses

(5 total; 10 points each; 500 words + media)

Posted to per­sonal blog, these infor­mal com­po­si­tions illus­trate atten­tive read­ing of assigned texts, progress toward project, and engage­ment with class top­ics rel­a­tive to sched­ule. Credit is assigned for (1) sub­mit­ting on-time; (2) demon­strat­ing atten­tion to class top­ics, con­tent knowl­edge, and crit­i­cal think­ing, par­tic­u­larly by describ­ing insights and con­nec­tions; (3) pro­vid­ing thought­ful and rel­e­vant responses to prompts, through spe­cial­ized dis­course; (4) with spe­cific exam­ples from per­sonal knowl­edge and/or respec­tive read­ings, (5) while extend­ing rhetor­i­cal knowl­edge and mas­tery of writ­ing con­ven­tions, prac­tic­ing effi­cient prose (i.e. min­i­miz­ing /avoiding sum­mary, rep­e­ti­tion, digres­sion, and unnec­es­sary dis­cus­sion). Ten­ta­tive prompts:

• Exer­cise 1 (due 13-Sep): Net­work Rhetoric Analy­sis   — Prompt
• Exer­cise 2 (due 11-Oct): “Expe­ri­enced Image” (appa­ra­tus reflec­tion) — Prompt
• Exer­cise 3 (due 25-Oct): “Meme­sphere Poet­ics” — Prompt
• Exer­cise 4 (due 15-Nov): “Cog­ni­tive Map” (EM p.94) — Prompt
• Optional exer­cise (extra credit) (EM p.143) — Prompt
• Exer­cise 5 (due 22-Nov): “Pop­cy­cle Link­ing” (EM p.183) — Prompt

Project 1: “Ensem­ble Expe­ri­ence”: Net­worked Com­mu­nity (20 points; due 27-Sep)

Assign­ment Instruc­tions Page   |   Com­po­si­tion Guide Page
 

Chal­lenge: How to con­vey the lived dimen­sion of medi­ated com­mu­nity expe­ri­ence, group par­tic­i­pa­tion in social network?

1) Apply­ing rhetor­i­cal knowl­edge from your research, com­pose mul­ti­me­dia expres­sion of net­work identity

• Using con­tem­po­rary cul­tural form as inter­face, design a site (e.g. Word­Press, Wix, Prezi) through mul­ti­ple media and modes
• “The Inter­net as liv­ing monument…delivers or gives the con­sul­ta­tion as a col­lec­tive fig­ure.” (Elec­tronic Mon­u­ments p. 155); “the
  bor­ders of identity—of the group sub­ject (between indi­vid­ual and collective)—become writable.” (xviii)

 

2) “Add to your site the doc­u­men­ta­tion of an exem­plary story from your com­mu­nity, about a per­son or event that your com­mu­nity iden­ti­fies with and tells about itself in its cel­e­bra­tions, fes­ti­vals, nam­ing practices…[and] memorials.”

• “notice how the com­mu­nity […] focal­izes the story”; task: “find the point of view that expresses the val­ues of the com­mu­nity”; “locate the inter­pel­la­tion, what the com­mu­nity thinks for us, and prior to us” (Inter­net Inven­tion p. 191–2)

 
 

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Project 2: Net­work Engage­ment (with col­lab­o­ra­tive work) (30 points; due 01-Nov)

 

Chal­lenge: How to engage the meme­sphere, under­tak­ing respon­si­bil­ity for address­ing a social issue?

Net­work Pres­ence (weeks 3–10): Address topic selected (week 2) as group; Com­mu­nity prob­lem + “Click­tivism” case study

• Each stu­dent: 10 “posts” (min­i­mum) to group’s social net­work account(s): e.g. Face­book page, Word­Press (new), Twit­ter account, Tum­blr, Pin­ter­est, Google+, Insta­gram, Vine (others?)
• Use exemplar(s): e.g. Hel­loCool­World, Florida Research Ensem­ble, Adbusters, Crit­i­cal Art Ensemble
• Pro­duce col­lab­o­ra­tive “Prob­lem Emblem” for social-media account and for net­work cir­cu­la­tion (in/by week 10)
• Use vari­ety of media and mul­ti­ple modes, from both source mate­ri­als and “per­sonal databases”
  • Apply “meme logic” stud­ied (explain in Poet­ics). Cre­ate 1 original/composite image, able to be remixed & circulated.
• Log par­tic­i­pa­tion and “track” effects (e.g. “shares”); ded­i­cated sec­tion of your blog

 

Part II (due S 01-Nov): Dig­i­tal Rhetoric—crit­i­cal prose with advanced con­tent knowl­edge & per­spec­tive (4 sections)

• Group Par­tic­i­pa­tion: links to & anno­ta­tions about “posts” in Part 1 (weeks 3–10)
• Case Study Results (Rhetor­i­cal Analysis)
• Pro­posal (“Poet­ics”): ideas for cre­at­ing MemeMo­r­ial (Project 3)—cultural logic, net­worked, viral poten­tial, etc.
• Reflec­tion: expe­ri­ence, insights, appa­ra­tus the­ory applied

 
 

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Project 3 “MemeMorial”—Assemblage Tes­ti­mony (30 points; due 13-Dec)


Chal­lenge: “The goal of cumu­la­tive MEmo­ri­als is col­lec­tive self-knowledge.” (EM p.140)

Part I “The Medi­ated Wit­ness”: “design an elec­trate commemoration—a Memorial—for a dis­as­ter” (xxxiii)

• “The MEmo­r­ial is a prac­tice devel­oped for a new insti­tu­tion­al­iza­tion of civic life online (begin­ning with the Inter­net as a vir­tual pub­lic sphere).” — “an inter­face by means of which cit­i­zens could con­sult the col­lec­tive wis­dom of Inter­net data­bases.” (xxxiv-v)
• “a prac­tice for con­sul­tants with only medi­ated access to the data of prob­lems. A pre­lim­i­nary ques­tion con­cerns how to adapt the lived, direct expe­ri­ence (as vic­tim, eye­wit­ness, or bystander) of dis­as­ter to a prac­tice treat­ing medi­ated expe­ri­ence.” (xxix)

 

Part II Com­pose an assem­blage—“expe­ri­enced expression”—for medi­ated con­sul­ta­tion & to cir­cu­late within the network.

• “The MEmo­r­ial shows us not our fate, but our sit­u­a­tion. The Inter­net is a liv­ing mon­u­ment.
  The Emer­A­gency offers a prac­tice for a vir­tual civic sphere that does for the imag­i­na­tion what sta­tis­tics does for the intel­lect.” (p.176)
• Goal: “to do for the com­mu­nity as a whole what lit­er­acy did for the indi­vid­u­als within the com­mu­nity. Could a com­mu­nity go to school col­lec­tively? The Inter­net is the place of this scene of instruc­tion, and the Emer­A­gency pro­vides the ped­a­gogy” (xxvi)

 

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Blog Work

10 weekly entries (min­i­mum) for term: 200 words + class­mate com­ment (Credit/no credit assigned)
Plus sec­tions: “Net­work Wit­ness” + “Inven­tory” (Research Journal—updated for each project)

Every stu­dent will cre­ate and main­tain a blog through­out the semes­ter, begin­ning week 2 and due each Wednes­day except when noted (e.g. project weeks). Entries are infor­mal (ungraded); con­sider as “Exper­i­ment Jour­nal,” test­ing ideas relat­ing to text­book & read­ings: e.g. note obser­va­tions, post asso­cia­tive links & media, pose ques­tions, describe insights—particularly con­nec­tions between texts/issues and infor­ma­tion or exam­ples exter­nal to class. Prompts, sug­ges­tions, and fur­ther instruc­tions will appear online through­out the term; stated sim­ply, the main “tem­plate” is com­bin­ing one spe­cific point from class with per­sonal exam­ple. An enjoy­able and pro­duc­tive effort toward our study, this work offers oppor­tu­nity for sev­eral objec­tives: prac­tice engag­ing issues crit­i­cally; artic­u­lat­ing ideas, devel­op­ing schol­arly voice in writ­ing; dis­cussing mate­r­ial with class­mates (through comments/replies) beyond class­room meet­ings. Like­wise, one com­ment to a classmate’s entry is required.

 

»“Net­work Wit­ness“
blog assign­ment ): “Mon­i­tor the daily news until you find a report or story that trou­bles you or stings you in some way. Doc­u­ment the story and do some research on the back­ground of the prob­lem and the pol­icy issues related to it.” (p.65) “Start an archive of pic­tures and text found on the Inter­net that could serve as a vocab­u­lary of stock rep­re­sen­ta­tions of your news event as a scene.” (p.71)
»Blog­ging serves a key func­tion in our learn­ing process, par­tic­u­larly as reflex­ive knowl­edge: com­pil­ing notes on dig­i­tal media “relays” for later appli­ca­tion, rec­og­niz­ing rel­e­vant mod­els from all data­bases, and test­ing new types of writ­ing with media and web design. The “Inven­tory” of notes com­piles “mate­ri­als” and rhetor­i­cal ideas for projects, updated peri­od­i­cally as prepa­ra­tion for stu­dio work­shops led by groups.

 

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Extra Credit Opportunities

1) Com­ment upon or “blog about” a classmate’s Exer­cise (150–200 words; for par­tic­i­pa­tion credit).

* Note: all com­ments must be pro­duc­tive, rel­e­vant, per­cep­tive, and above all respect­ful in order to receive credit.

2) Com­pose an addi­tional blog entry (blog credit), for instance Project self-evaluation and/or reflection

3) For assign­ment credit, com­pose an addi­tional response. (see prompts)