Syllabus
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ENGL 4832W: Writing for the World Wide Web
Spring 2015, TR 11-12:15
Contact Information:
Dr. Davis 342 Park Hall eadavis@uga.edu Twitter: @drelizabethd Office hours: M 12-2, W 2-3
Dr. Steger 307 Park Hall ssteger@uga.edu Twitter: @sarasteger Office hours: M, W, Th 9-10
Course Description:
“From a humanities perspective, the design of digital objects is a cultural practice like writing a book or making a film.” -- Janet Murray, Inventing the Medium</pre> “I am moving away from asking students to write, toward asking them instead to weave - to build, to fabricate, to design” -- Mark L. Sample, "What’s Wrong with Writing Essays" “Rhetoric, Writing, and Tools: A Tag-Team Rhet/Comp and Digital Humanities Hybrid” In Spring 2015, the English Department will offer two sections of ENGL 4832W: Writing for the World Wide Web. These two courses, which will meet at the same time, will be team-taught by Drs. Elizabeth Davis and Sara Steger, who will bring their specialized knowledge of digital rhetorical theory and digital humanities tools and techniques to both classrooms. Drs. Davis and Steger will alternate teaching in the two sections, and students in the classes will learn not only how to craft effective texts for the web, they will also learn about the latest cutting-edge technologies for textual editing, archiving, data visualization/mapping, remediation, and locative media. These kinds of tools enable us to expand our definition of “writing” in the digital media age and help us create texts that better take advantage of the affordances of digital media for all kinds of rhetorical purposes - storytelling, persuading, informing, and entertaining. The classes will thus focus on both rhetorical and media theory and praxis as we focus on how to redefine what it means to write “for the Web.”
Required Texts and Materials:
- Inventing the Medium (Murray)
- Writer/Designer (Arola, Sheppard, & Ball)
- Reclaim Hosting (student account)
Course Goals and Objectives:
- understand the major issues and theoretical concepts related to writing for digital media
- gain practical experience in writing for digital media through the use of various platforms, applications, and programs
- learn foundational concepts, methods, and tools of digital humanities scholarship
- develop their ability to critically analyze the rhetorical strategies used by authors of digital texts
- learn to devise effective rhetorical strategies for their own texts and develop rhetorical flexibility for dealing with a wide range of writing situations
- understand the major ethical and legal issues that arise in writing for digital media
- develop their ability to craft texts using processes that include discovering ideas and evidence, organizing that material, designing, revising, and editing
- develop their ability to provide constructive, substantive criticism to peers during the development of projects
- reflect on their work in order to critically assess their own development as writers and thinkers
Course Structure and Logistics:
Because this course is being taught by two instructors who will "trade off" teaching and sometimes bring both classes together, students will need to pay close attention to the calendar and announcements on Emma in order to know which classroom to go to and what is on the agenda for each class session. Here is an overview of the Emma site and where you will find and post things: The main course materials can be found in the Resources section on Emma in folders titled Course Basics, Assignments, Discussion Notes, HTML/CSS, Omeka, and Mapping. The Projects section is where you will post your work on the various assignments, labeling your work with the correct project name and stage (e.g., "Rough Draft") so that your peers and instructors can easily find it for review The Forum is the discussion board where you will post your reading responses. The Calendar is where you can find the daily syllabus and you can also see the upcoming events on the course home page. You can see the whole agenda from the first day of class anytime by clicking Calendar > Agenda > All Events. *Please note that the daily schedule may require adjustment as the semester goes on. If we need to make any changes to due dates or assigned reading or activities, the calendar will be revised accordingly and an announcement will be posted to Emma and/or sent via e-mail so that you will be notified of those changes. The Notes tab opens a space where you can keep your own personal notes (this space is available only to you and is not shared with anyone else in the class). You have three ways of posting your work to Emma when you have an assignment. Go to the Projects tab and click the Create button on the left. Then select Document (opens the integrated word processor so that you can start writing directly in Emma), Upload (prompts you to select a file from your own computer and upload it), or Link (opens a dialogue box in which you can directly enter a URL for an external website).
Assignments and Grading:
The assignments and course requirements count as follows: Blog (10%) HTML5/CSS Coding Project (10%) Rhetorical/Affordances Analysis (10%) Mapping Mini-Project (5%) Research Project (10%) Omeka Project (10%) Textual Machines Symposium (5%) Final Curated Portfolio with Reflective Analysis (30%) Reading Responses (5%) Participation (5%)
Details for specific assignments will be found in Resources > Assignments on our Emma class site. Please review those details carefully and ask questions if anything is unclear. Not understanding what is expected is not an excuse! Reading Responses:
We will use the forum on Emma for reading responses. Check the calendar to see when a reading response is due, and see the forum topic for guidelines and prompts. In general, shoot for about 300 words, and work to reflect your thinking about the reading, rather than summary. Grading and Assessment: Values and Expectations
This class is a writing workshop and I consider you all authors who are learning the expectations and conventions of professional writing within an academic environment. Letter and number grades are not really very valuable in terms of learning, but they are required by the academic institution, so we must assign them. Therefore, the evaluation/assessment criteria for assignments will be discussed (and sometimes, probably, debated) before and during the process of working on assignments so that you know what is expected in terms of excellence. Generally speaking, an excellent performance in this course (e.g., an "A") means the following:
- attendance and timeliness (see below for more on attendance policy)
- preparedness at all times (e.g., having assigned work prepared by deadline, being ready to actively discuss and critique reading or drafts, etc.)
- thoughtfulness and engagement in course activities, including active participation and positive contribution to the class as a whole (e.g., through active critical thinking and questioning and assisting the other members of this course :in a way that helps them become stronger writers and thinkers)
- production of high quality work (e.g., work that achieves or surpasses the evaluation criteria for excellence)
If you do not do the above, do not expect your final grade to reflect excellence.
Plus/Minus Grading:
Plus and minus grades are assigned to a student's final average for the course. For the course grade, the grade-point average and the numerical range for each plus/minus grade is as follows:
A 4.0 (92-100)
A- 3.7 (90-91)
B+ 3.3 (88-89)
B 3.0 (82-87)
B- 2.7 (80-81)
C+ 2.3 (78-79)
C 2.0 (70-77)
C- 1.7 (68-69)
D 1.0 (60-67)
F 0.0 (<60)
Attendance and Classroom Policies:
Attendance is mandatory and a professional obligation. If you miss more than four (4) class meetings before the withdrawal deadline, you may be dropped from the course. There is no distinction between "excused" or "unexcused" - an absence is simply an absence.Attendance is factored into the participation portion of your grade since you cannot fully participate in the course if you are not present for class meetings. Students may not make up reading responses or in-class assignments except in extenuating circumstances. For each 24-hour period that an analysis, project, or portfolio is late, I will deduct one letter grade. If a pressing emergency arises, contact me prior to the due date to make arrangements. If you miss a deadline because of a verifiable illness or emergency, you must provide legitimate documentation in order for arrangements to be made to submit work late or make up a major assignment.
With regard to technology and classroom expectations: You may bring your own laptop, tablet, and/or e-reader to use during class. On days when you meet in 149 Park Hall, you will have the computers in that lab to use if you like. While in class, please use your devices ONLY for activities DIRECTLY related to what we are doing in class. Please do not use them for personal activities or for anything that might cause a distraction to others while class is in session. Also, please mute the ringers/alarms on your devices before class begins. This course relies heavily on access to computers, specific software, and the Internet. At some point during the semester you might have a problem with technology: your laptop will crash, a file will become corrupted, a server will go down, or something else will occur. Sadly, technological excuses (“my router died,” etc.) cannot be accepted in lieu of actual work. Always make back-ups for your work, plan ahead, and have a plan B in case of technology problems. Please have a set of earphones with you at each class session, as you may need to listen to audio for some of our activities and peer reviews. Please do not eat while class is in session. Do not bring food or drinks into 149 Park Hall. Please arrive on time and be fully prepared to start class at 11:00 am. If you are coming from a class that is a considerable distance away, please let me know at the beginning of the semester. It is disruptive to enter class late and, if you show a consistent pattern of lateness, it will affect your participation grade. Please do not leave the classroom once class begins unless you have an emergency. Please treat each other with respect in this classroom and do not say or write anything that would cause another person to feel disparaged or slighted. This class is a writing workshop course, so we will necessarily be critiquing each others' work, but I expect such critique to be done in a way that is constructive, considerate, and fair. Because we are studying writing for digital media, we may come across and discuss things online that may contain strong language or ideas and rhetoric that might be offensive to some people. That is a fact of life on the World Wide Web. However, there are certain subjects and digital artifacts (e.g., pornography, hate group sites/blogs, depictions of extreme violence) that may cause other people in the course to feel threatened or intimidated and that is damaging to the classroom dynamic and environment. So please be very mindful of what you bring to the table during class discussion and in your projects and consider how others might respond.
Access Policy:
Students with special needs are invited and encouraged to discuss them with the instructor.
Academic Honesty:
As a University of Georgia student, you have agreed to abide by the University's academic honesty policy, "A Culture of Honesty," and the Student Honor Code. All academic work must meet the standards described in "A Culture of Honesty." Lack of knowledge of the academic honesty policy is not a reasonable explanation for a violation. Questions related to course assignments and the academic honesty policy should be directed to the instructor.
NOTE: Students will collaborate in a writing workshop setting, engage with each others' work in peer review, and produce some work collaboratively. In all such collaborations, including peer review, I expect students to be ethical in their representation of their own and others' individual contributions. Also, writing for digital media presents some complex issues with regard to copyright, intellectual property, attribution, and plagiarism. I expect everyone to become familiar with those issues and understand what you can legally and ethically do as composers for digital media in terms of using material created by others. We will be discussing these issues in depth over the course of the semester, but if you are ever in doubt about how to use digital material/media appropriately, please check with me before going further!