Schedule

Note that the schedule for the course is a work in progress (of course!). Some of the things on here– due dates for parts of the research project, the final, many of the readings, the date of various book review presentations, etc.– are relatively fixed. Other things– some specific readings, and even some topics for a given week– are somewhat more flexible. Pay attention to the class web site/blog for ongoing activities, and I will alert everyone via email with major changes to the overall schedule for the class.

Week 1, January 6-8:  Getting Started

Begin by Wednesday and complete by Friday:

• Class begins!  Review syllabus, schedule, getting started discussion.
• Set up a WordPress.com account
• Set up a Facebook account and a Twitter account.
• Read, review, and discuss the research project assignment.
• Read, review, and discuss the book review assignment.
• Discuss the “invent your own writing technology” assignment.
• A brief, selective, and idiosyncratic history of the teaching of writing and composition pedagogy from your instructor.

Week 2, January 11-15: Writing as a Technology

Begin by Monday and complete by Wednesday:

• Read and discuss this selection from Plato’s Phaderus
• Read and discuss Walter Ong’s “Writing is a Technology that Restructures Thought” (eReserves)
• Read and discuss selection from Alexander Reid’s The Two Virtuals:  New Media and Composition (eReserves)

Begin by Wednesday and complete by Friday:

• Invent your own writing technology” assignment is due! Be sure this is posted as a page to your wordpress.com site by the end of the day Wednesday!
• Read and discuss  Dennis Baron’s “From Pencils to Pixels.”
• “Show and tell” of writing technology inventions.
• Krause’s book review example.
• Continued discussion of the course’s major assignments.

Week 3, January 18-22:  The “Why” of New Media/Technology/Computers and Writing Pedagogy

January 18:  Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Beginning Tuesday, January 19, we will start the book review book selection process!

Begin by Tuesday and complete by Wednesday:

• Watch Richard Miller’s 2009 MLA presentation, “This is How We Dream Part 1″ and “Part 2.”
• Read and discuss Kathleen Blake Yancey’s “Made Not Only in Words: Composition in a New Key.”
• Read and discuss introduction, chapter 1 and chapter 2 of Writing New Media.
  • The “Seeing” exercise

Begin by Wednesday and complete by Friday:

• Read and discuss Cheryl E. Ball and James Kalmbach, “On the RAWness of Reading and Writing New Media: Materialities, Histories, and Happenstance” (eReserves)
• Read and discuss Ames Hawkins, “Manifesting New Media Writerly Processes One Really Bad Flash Piece at a Time” from RAW (eReserves)

By Friday, January 22, we will complete the book review book selection process.  Once you have a decided on a book and a date for your presentation, you cannot change your mind!

Week 4, January 25-29:  “‘The Kids Today’”

Begin by Monday and complete by Wednesday:

• Read and discuss Wolak et. al’s “Online ‘Predators’ and Their Victims: Myths, Realities, and Implications for Prevention and Treatment” (eReserves) See also this typical popular press/news article about online predators.
• Read (skim, really) and discuss Lenhardt et al, “Teens and Social Media” (eReserves)  See also this slide show, which updates some of these findings since 2007.
• Amy Goldwasser, “What’s the Matter with Kids Today?” from Salon.com

Begin by Wednesday and complete by Friday:

• Read and discuss Marc Prensky, Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants– A New Way To Look At Ourselves and Our Kids”(PDF) and Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Part II: Do They REALLY Think Differently? (PDF)
• Read and discuss Henry Jenkins, “Reconsidering Digital Immigrants…,” the December 5, 2007 entry on his blog, Confessions of an Aca-Fan.
• Read and discuss Richard Holeton, “How Much is Too Much New Media for the Netgen?” from RAW (eReserves)
• Read and discuss Stacey Pigg, “Teaching New Mediated Student Bodies: Five Applications,” from RAW (eReserves)

Week 5, February 1-5: “Copyright/left, Authorship, and Plagiarism”

Begin by Monday and complete by Wednesday:

• Read and discuss “Tales from the Public Domain,” a comic by Keith Aoki, James Boyle, and Jennifer Jenkins
• Read and discuss “‘Fair Use,’ Copyright Law, and the Composition Teacher,” Martine Courant Rife in Originality, Imitation, and Plagiarism:  Teaching Writing in the Digital Age.
• Read and discuss “Cloud Gate:  Challenging Reproducibility, Jeff Ward in Originality, Imitation, and Plagiarism:  Teaching Writing in the Digital Age.

Begin by Wednesday and complete by Friday:

• Read and discuss “Reviewing the Author-Function in the Age of Wikipedia,” Amit Ray and Erhardt Graeff in Originality, Imitation, and Plagiarism:  Teaching Writing in the Digital Age.
• Read and discuss “Framing Plagiarism,” Linda Adler-Kassner, Chris M. Anson, and Rebecca Moore Howard in Originality, Imitation, and Plagiarism:  Teaching Writing in the Digital Age.
• Read and discuss Danielle DeVoss and Annette C. Rosati, “‘It wasn’t me, was it?’ Plagiarism and the Web.” PDF | Link

Week 6, February 8-12:  “eBooks and Essays and More”

Begin by Monday and complete by Wednesday:

• Read and discuss the executive summary of NEA To Read or Not to Read:  A Question of National Consequence (PDF), November 2007.  See also the press release on the NEA News Room web site.
• Read and discuss Nancy Kaplan’s critique of the NEA study on if:book.
• Read and discuss Denis Pelli and Charles Bigelow “A Writing Revolution” from SEEDMAGAZINE.COM
• Read and discuss Doug Hesse’s “Saving a Place for Essayistic Literacy” (eReserves)
• Read and discuss selection from Steve Johnson’s Everything that is Bad is Good For you (eReserves)

Begin by Wednesday and complete by Friday:

• Read and discuss Myka Vilstimmig, “Petals on a Web, Black Bough:  Texutality, Collaboration, and the New Essay” (eReserves)
• Read and discuss Johndan Johnson-Eilola in Wysocki et al, “The Database and the Essay:  Understanding Composition as Articulation.”
• Read and and discuss Michael J. Salvo’s “Cinders, Ash, and Commitment: Database Pathos in Six (Million) Parts,” in RAW (eReserves)

February 12:  Topic proposal blog entry due! By the end of the day today, you need to have a post on your blog where you explain in 1000 words or so what you plan to do your research about and about your working thesis.

Also on Thursday or Friday this week: TBA, we will have a meeting and tour on Thursday or Friday of EMU’s Halle Library to learn a bit more about research resources available.

Week 7, February 15-19: Wikis

Begin by Monday and complete by Thursday:

• Read and discuss chapter 5 of Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody (eReserves)
• Read and discuss Cummings’ “What Was a Wiki?  and Why Do I Care?  A Short and Usable History of Wikis” from Wiki Writing:  Collaborative Learning in the College Classroom (eReserves)
• Read and discuss Phillipson’s “Wikis in the Classroom:  A Taxonomy” from Wiki Writing:  Collaborative Learning in the College Classroom (eReserves)

Begin by Wednesday and complete by Friday:

• Read and discuss Noam Cohen, “A History Department Bans Citing Wikipedia as a Research Source,” New York Times.
• Read and discuss Cory Doctorow, “Shortcut to Omniscience.”
• Read and discuss James P. Purdy, “When the Tenets of Composition Go Public:  A Study of Writing in Wikipedia.” (eReserves)

Also during this week:  we’ll begin setting up the wiki space we’ll be using for the annotated bibliography entries for your research projects!

Week 8, February 22-26: Multimedia/New Media Texts, part 1

Begin by Monday and complete by Wednesday:

• Read and discuss chapters 3 (Selfe) and 4 (Sirc) of Writing New Media.
• First, read through this summary of “C.R.A.P. design,” and Vitamin’s “How C.R.A.P. is Your Design?” Then, read chapter 5 (Wysocki) of Writing New Media

Begin by Wednesday and complete by Friday:

• Read and discuss Jonathan Alexander, “Media Convergence:  Creating Content, Questioning Relationships.” PDF | Link
• Read and discuss Daniel Anderson, “The Low Bridge to High Benefits:  Entry-Level Multimedia, Literacies, and Movitvation.”  PDF | Link

Also by the end of this week:  Each of you will send me a brief email describing what grade you think you have earned for participation for the first half of the term.

Winter Break:  March 1-7

Week 9, March 8-12:  Multimedia/New Media Texts, part 2

Begin by Monday and complete by Wednesday:

• Review and discuss the annotated bibliography assignment.  Remember:  your first 10 entries need to be posted to the class wiki by Friday of this week!
• Watch and discuss Michael Wesch’s “An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube.” (be aware:  this is about an hour long!)Also, be sure to watch the much shorter (5 minutes or so) “The Machine is Us/ing Us.”
• Read and discuss Alexandra Juhasz, “Why Not (To) Teach On YouTube” (eReserves).  See also Juhasz’s YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/mediapraxisme) and blog (http://aljean.wordpress.com/) See
• Book review videos: By the end of the day Monday, these two book reviews will be posted to the course site:

Cristin B., Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide NYU Press; Revised edition (2008)

Gloria S., David Weinberger, Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder Holt Paperbacks (2008).

Begin by Wednesday and complete by Friday:

• Read and discuss Brian Jackson and Jon Wallin, “Rediscovering the ‘Back-and-Forthness’ of Rhetoric in the Age of YouTube. “(eReserves)
• Maria Lovett, Katherine E. Gossett, Carrie A. Lamanna, and James P. Purdy, “Writing With Video: What Happens When Composition Comes Off the Page?” from RAW (eReserves)
• By Friday, complete discussion of this week’s book reviews.

Friday, March 12:

• Optional but not required face to face gathering at The Corner.  Stay tuned for details about time, but the idea here is this would be an excellent time to meet to talk about the wiki, about the ongoing research project, and anything else that strikes your fancy.
• First 10 entries on your annotated bibliography due! By the end of the day today, you need to have posted your first 1o entries to the class wiki.

Week 10, March 15-19: Gaming and Writing

Begin by Monday and complete by Wednesday:

• Watch and discuss the following:


This comes from The Power of Tangential Learning

• Read and participate in the discussion about the selections from James Paul Gee’s What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, available via eReserves.
• After watching the video and reading Gee:

Play newsgaming.com’s September 12 and Madrid

Assuming you have access, play some other video or computer game– a shooter game, a driving game, a God game, whatever.  Start from the beginning and resist help from the gamer in your life!

• Book review videos: By the end of the day Monday, these two book reviews will be posted to the course site:

Carrie L., Jeffrey Grabill. Writing Community Change: Designing Technologies for Citizen Action. Hampton Press, 2007.

Ashlee W., Lisa Nakamura. Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet Minnesota UP 2007

Judy W., Gwen Solomon and Lynne Schrum, Web 2.0: New Tools, New Schools International Society for Technology in Education (2007)

Begin by Wednesday and complete by Friday:

• Read and discuss Kevin Moberly’s “Composition, Computer Games, and the Absence of Writing.”  PDF | Link
• Read and discuss Alice J. Robison’s “The Design is the Game:  Writing Games, Teaching Writing.” PDF | Link

(Both of these articles come from a special issue of Computers and Composition called “Reading Games:  Composition, Literacy, and Video Gaming.”)

• By Friday, complete discussion on book reviews.

Week 11, March 22-26: Social Media and Writing

Begin by Monday and complete by Wednesday:

• Read and discusss Gina Maranto and Matt Barton’s “Paradox and Promise: MySpace, Facebook, and the Sociopolitics of Social Networking in the Writing Classroom.” PDF | Link
• Read (and listen to) and discuss “Facebook, MySpace Divide Along Social Lines.”
• From flexknowlogy, “Defining Creepy Treehouse.”
• Read and discuss Steven Johnson’s “How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live.”
• Read and discuss “Zen and the Art of Twitter: 4 Tips for Productive Tweeting.”
• Book review videos: By the end of the day Monday, these two book reviews will be posted to the course site:

Dave N., Andrew Keen. The Cult of the Amateur: How blogs, MySpace, YouTube, and the rest of today’s user-generated media are destroying our economy, our culture, and our values Broadway Books; Reprint edition (2008)

Brian R., Barbara Warnick Rhetoric Online: Persuasion and Politics on the World Wide Web Peter Lang 2007.

Cate P., Liz Kolb Toys to Tools: Connecting Student Cell Phones to Education International Society for Technology in Education (2008)

Begin by Wednesday and complete by Friday:

• Read and discuss Josh Pasek, eian more, and Eszter Hargittai, “Facebook and academic performance: Reconciling a media sensation with data.”
• Read and discuss “Thanks for the Add.  Now Help Me With My Homework,” Michael Blanding.  See also Will Richardson’s take on this.
• Read and discuss “3 Ways Educators Are Embracing Social Technology.”
• Watch and discuss “The Twitter Experiment:”
• By Friday, complete the three book reviews for this week.

Week 12, March 29-April 2: Online Teaching and Learning (or, you’re soaking in it!)

Begin by Monday and complete by Wednesday:

• Read and discuss Kevin DePew and Heather Lettner-Rust’s “Mediating Power:  Distance Learning Interfaces, Classroom Epistemology, and the Gaze.” PDF | Link
• Read and discuss Derek Mueller’s “Digital Underlife in the Networked Writing Classroom.” PDF | Link
• Book review videos: By the end of the day Monday, these two book reviews will be posted to the course site:

Angie L., Lindan W. Braun, Teens, Technology, and Literacy; Or, Why Bad Grammar Isn’t Always Bad , Libraries Unlimited, Westport, CT (2007)

Andrea L., Jeff Rice, The Rhetoric of Cool: Composition Studies and New Media , Southern Illinois UP, Carbondale (2007)

Renee L., Lynn Worsham Plugged in: Technology, Rhetoric, and Culture in a Posthuman Age Hampton Press (2008)

Begin by Wednesday and complete by Thursday:

• Read and discuss Lisa M. Lane’s “Insidious Pedagogy:  How Course Management Systems Impact Teaching.”
• Read and discuss Todd Gilman’s “Combating Myths About Distance Education”
• Read and discuss David Glenn’s “Online-Education Study Reaffirms Value of Good Teaching, Experts Say”
• Read and discuss “They Thought Globally, but Now Colleges Push Online Programs Locally”
• By Thursday, complete three book reviews, TBA.

Spring Break: April 2-4

Week 13, April 5-9:  Listening to Writing (and/or once again wondering what all of this is “for”)

Begin by Monday and complete by Wednesday:

• Read and discuss Cheryl Ball and Ryan Moeller, “Converging the ASS[umptions] between U and ME; or How new media can bridge a scholarly/creative split in English studies.” This is from online the online version of the special issue of C&C on “Media Convergence.”
• Read and discuss Michelle Comstock and Mary E. Hocks, “Voice in the Cultural Soundscape: Sonic Literacy in Composition Studies.“

• Begin two or three book reviews, TBA.

Begin by Wednesday and complete by Friday:

• Read and discuss Cynthia Selfe’s “The Movement of Air, the Breath of Meaning:  Aurality and Multimodal Composing” (eReserves).
• Read and discuss Doug Hesse’s “Response to Cynthia L.Selfe’s“The Movement of Air,the Breath of Meaning: Aurality and Multimodal Composing” (eReserves).
• Read and discuss Selfe’s response to Hesse (eReserves).
• By Friday, complete two or three book reviews, TBA.

Week 14, April 12-16: Finishing the Research Project/The Final

Begin by Monday and complete by Wednesday:

• Peer review of final project!  I will assign you to small groups to review drafts of each others’ final projects.
• Be sure to finish peer review by Wednesday of this week so your classmates can make use of your advice!
• Finish second part of self-evaluation for participation in the class.

Friday of this week:

• Final Research Project Due! Be sure to have the final version of your research project posted to your wordpress.com web site by 5 pm Michigan Time on Friday, April 16, 2010
• Final posted. The final, due a week from this Friday, will be posted on April 16

Finals:

The final, revisions, and any other remaining work of the class must be the “end of time” for our course, which will be April 23, 2010 at 5 PM Michigan time.