• note: de­tailed in­struc­tions will ap­pear on sep­a­rate pages for Projects and Ex­er­cises

Project 1: Dig­i­tal Nar­ra­tive of Belief—multimodal video 

25 points; due 07-Feb

Ob­jec­tive: Con­vey through cre­ative non­fic­tion nar­ra­tive a be­lief rec­og­nized, in video form on­line for pub­lic au­di­ence.
 

• Con­tent: rather than de­scrip­tion, present a non­fic­tion nar­ra­tive that con­veys be­lief of some­one other than your­self. The story will com­mu­ni­cate this con­tent for pub­lic (non-academic) au­di­ence imag­ined, posted to Web platform(s) for wider view­ing and cir­cu­la­tion.

• For­mat: a mul­ti­modal video, in genre of “dig­i­tal sto­ry­telling,” ap­ply­ing con­ven­tions of nar­ra­tive (stud­ied & dis­cussed).

“Once a story is launched di­rectly into the Web, de­ter­min­ing its be­gin­ning and end is not al­ways an easy mat­ter.” (Alexan­der 42)
 

• Warm-up: Ex­er­cise 1 (due 29-Jan)—identify con­ven­tions of Story & Be­lief ex­am­ined

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Project 2:  An­a­lytic Web­text — In­for­ma­tion & Ar­gu­ment in Dis­ci­pline

30 points to­tal; due 13-Mar

Ob­jec­tive: An­a­lyze and syn­the­size ideas from crit­i­cal ob­ser­va­tions: dis­ci­pli­nary con­ven­tions, of in­for­ma­tion and ar­gu­ment, com­mu­ni­cated to aca­d­e­mic read­ers (imag­ined au­di­ence).

Web­text: (20 points, text + me­dia)

— first cre­ated in­di­vid­u­ally, ex­pand­ing rhetor­i­cal analy­sis;
then com­piled and pub­lished as class col­lec­tion for on­line read­ers.

• Con­tent: Present in­sights in crit­i­cal dis­cus­sion us­ing ana­lytic per­spec­tive & key terms; exam­ples drawn from sources se­lected (famil­iar and re­searched) for anno­tated bib­li­og­ra­phy, rel­e­vant and cur­rent for field con­sid­er­ing aca­d­e­mic read­ers (imag­ined audi­ence).
  Of­fers in­sights about forms of infor­ma­tion and argu­ments in spe­cial­ized dis­course of your field/discipline in “Infor­ma­tion Par­a­digm” —
  Dis­course com­mu­nity, com­mu­ni­ca­tion con­ven­tions (rhetorical/written)
  Infor­ma­tion, Knowl­edge, Exper­tise, Re­search, Argu­ment, Evidence/Proof

• For­mat: For­mal aca­d­e­mic style; present analy­sis effi­ciently and effec­tively con­sid­er­ing audi­ence and pur­pose, sup­port­ing with both spe­cific exam­ples and mul­ti­me­dia (e.g. screen­cap im­ages & screen­cast videos)
   
   
  Web­texts: “screen-based schol­arly ar­ti­cles that use dig­i­tal me­dia to en­act the au­thors’ ar­gu­ment.” (Ball)

Dig­i­tal Rhetoric —crit­i­cal prose with ad­vanced con­tent knowl­edge & per­spec­tive (sep­a­rate com­po­nents from web­text)

• Sum­mary (300−400 words, 5 points): de­scribe your Web­text de­sign and ra­tio­nale con­sid­er­ing au­di­ence, pur­pose, and pub­li­ca­tion
• Re­flec­tion (400−500 words, 5 points): ex­pe­ri­en­tial in­sights from over­all project, about discipline/field and Web writ­ing

Prepara­tory Work:
• An­no­tated Bib­li­og­ra­phy (Ex­er­cise 2)—5 sources, aca­d­e­mic re­search & Web pub­li­ca­tions
• Rhetor­i­cal Analy­sis (Ex­er­cise 3): crit­i­cally read and dis­cuss one se­lected

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Project 3 Screen-Self-Portrait (mul­ti­modal web­pages)   

25 points; due 23-Apr

Ob­jec­tive: Use aes­thetic forms & tech­nol­ogy that me­di­ate ex­pe­ri­ence to ex­press your dig­i­tal iden­tity (per­sonal & pub­lic)

Part I Ex­pres­sive web­pages: ap­ply lessons and in­sights about aes­thetic mode and cul­ture forms. Com­pose mul­ti­me­dia ex­pres­sion (“screen self–

por­trait”) of your ex­pe­ri­enced iden­tity, public/private & quantified/qualitative, strictly for per­sonal re­flec­tion. Omit­ting de­scrip­tion in fa­vor of cre­ative logic, dis­cuss in Po­et­ics the de­sign at­tempts and ra­tio­nale.

• This “self ex­pres­sion” will in­clude el­e­ments in mul­ti­ple modes, be­yond sim­ply il­lus­trat­ing; aes­thetic logic and net­work rhetoric; and ma­te­ri­als from your “per­sonal data­bases”: sto­ries and de­tails from au­to­bi­og­ra­phy, school, com­mu­nity, and en­ter­tain­ment (no research/sources). The mul­ti­me­dia used—audio, video, im­ages of all sorts—will be com­bi­na­tion of found & original/created, dig­i­tally ma­nip­u­lated (sam­ple, remix, mash-up). We will test and prac­tice us­ing var­i­ous soft­ware dur­ing and out­side class; no prior ex­pe­ri­ence with dig­i­tal au­thor­ing is nec­es­sary!
• Warm-up: Ex­er­cise 4 (due 09-Apr): Sen­sory Ex­pe­ri­ence Quan­ti­fied & Un­clas­si­fi­able (10 points)

Part II

• Po­et­ics (300−500 words, 5 points): dis­cuss how ad­dress­ing key aims and us­ing me­dia forms pur­pose­fully (dig­i­tal rhetoric)
• Re­flec­tion (400−500 words, 5 points): in­sights from com­pos­ing, in­clud­ing aes­thetic mode and self-knowledge (most im­por­tant)

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Ex­er­cises (short com­po­si­tions) 

500 words un­less noted

Posted to per­sonal blog (or D2L), these in­for­mal com­po­si­tions il­lus­trate at­ten­tive read­ing of as­signed ma­te­ri­als, 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).

Prompts and ten­ta­tive due dates:

Ex­er­cise 1 (due 29-Jan): Story & Be­lief Con­ven­tions —project 1 warm-up (10 points)

Ex­er­cise 2 (due 19-Feb): An­no­tated Bib­li­og­ra­phy — project 2 warm-up (3 sources, 5 points)

Ex­er­cise 3 (due 27-Feb): Rhetor­i­cal Analy­sis — for web­text project 2 (10 points)

Op­tional Ex­er­cise Trans­for­ma­tion: Belief-Story into Info –or– Info/Argument into Story 

Ex­er­cise 4 (due 09-Apr): Sen­sory Ex­pe­ri­ence Quan­ti­fied & Un­clas­si­fi­able (10 points)

Op­tional Ex­er­cise (bonus points)
Par­a­digm Rhetoric — An­other World­view

Ex­er­cise 5 (due 29-Apr): “World­view Screen” (port­fo­lio + re­flec­tion; 5 points)

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Ex­tra Credit Op­por­tu­ni­ties

1) Dis­cus­sion par­tic­i­pa­tion: post (ad­di­tional) com­ments re­ply to class­mates with mul­ti­me­dia (audio/video)

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

2) Blog credit: com­pose an ad­di­tional en­try; e.g. about readings/culture, or Project self-evaluation & re­flec­tion

3) As­sign­ment credit: com­pose an additional/optional ex­er­cise (see prompts); revise/resubmit Project 1 or Project 2

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Blog Writ­ing   

• 6 in­for­mal en­tries (min­i­mum) through­out term
• 200 words + class­mate com­ment
• Credit/no credit as­signed

Through­out the se­mes­ter, due when spec­i­fied, you will write in­for­mal en­tries to en­gage con­tent, ap­ply con­cepts, and prac­tice ac­quired dis­course (key terms) as progress in units to­ward projects. These en­tries are longer and more thought­ful than “dis­cus­sion com­ments,” but not for­mal aca­d­e­mic es­say style; they are un­graded, re­ceiv­ing full/partial/no credit. Con­sider as low-stakes op­por­tu­nity to dis­cuss and test new ideas re­lat­ing to our read­ings and cul­ture stud­ied: note rel­e­vant ob­ser­va­tions, post as­so­cia­tive links & me­dia, pose ques­tions, de­scribe insights—particularly con­nec­tions be­tween texts/issues and in­for­ma­tion or ex­am­ples ex­ter­nal to class. Oc­ca­sion­ally, spe­cific prompts, sug­ges­tions, or fur­ther in­struc­tions will be pro­vided. The sim­plest ap­proach is com­bin­ing one spe­cific point from class with observed/personal ex­am­ple. An en­joy­able and pro­duc­tive ef­fort to­ward our study, blog­ging of­fers op­por­tu­nity for sev­eral ob­jec­tives: prac­tice en­gag­ing is­sues crit­i­cally; ar­tic­u­lat­ing ideas, de­vel­op­ing schol­arly voice in writ­ing; dis­cussing ma­te­r­ial with class­mates.

* For each as­signed due date, one brief com­ment re­spond­ing to a classmate’s en­try is also re­quired.

• Blog­ging serves a key func­tion in our learn­ing process, par­tic­u­larly for re­flex­ive knowl­edge: gen­er­at­ing & shar­ing notes on as­signed ma­te­ri­als, for later ap­pli­ca­tion; rec­og­niz­ing rel­e­vant content/examples for project; us­ing spe­cial­ized terms, test­ing new types of writ­ing, and us­ing me­dia forms.