See here for the syllabus, rest of documents on CourseWeb.
Check this out for some digital writing resources.
Schedule
Each date shows the course reading due that day, the writing due that day, and the theme of that day. Click on the date to see a more detailed lesson plan. If the date is not hyperlinked, then the lesson plan has yet to be added. BB = reading accessible on Blackboard; readings available on the web will have their titles hyperlinked.
Reading Due: None
Writing Due: None
Theme: What’s public? How do you want to be part of that?
Reading Due: Booth (1963), “The Rhetorical Stance” (BB)
Writing Due:
Public Interest Narrative, 500-750 words (Due W, September 6 by 4pm).
Theme: Ideology; examples of white papers.
Reading Due: Bowdon and Scott (2003), “A Rhetorical Toolbox for Technical and Professional Communication” (BB)
Writing Due:
Collaborative Proposal, 300-500 words (Due W, September 13 by 4pm).
Blog Post, 500-750 words (Due M, September 11 by 10am). What makes professional writing different from other kinds of writing? In what ways does the study of rhetoric help you think about this question? Discuss several (at least two) of the concepts that Bowdon and Scott (2003) use to work through these questions (NOTE: I am counting logos/pathos/ethos as one under the overarching “rhetorical triangle” of appeals). Finally, attempt to bring together professional writing, rhetoric, and the sorts of ideas you wrestled with in your public interest narrative from last week. For example, how can you produce “professional writing” surrounding an issue that you wrote about in your public interest narrative? How does thinking about “rhetoric” assist in such work (or not)?
Comment on a Blog Post, at least 200 words (Due W, September 13 by 4pm). Engage with one of the blog posts that was written for Monday. You should use the writer’s own words to extend their thinking further. You might agree or disagree with the writer, but you must use sound reasoning from the reading to either extend or refute something at play in the writer’s post. In both blog posts and comments, these are spaces to try things out, and worry less about having The Right Answer.
Theme: Rhetoric and Professional Writing; interview plan
Reading Due: Miller (1984), “Genre as Social Action” (BB)
Writing Due:
Blog Post, 500-750 words (Due by M, September 18 by 10am). In this lesson’s reading, Carolyn Miller, from the dual perspectives of rhetorical criticism (i.e., analyzing individual instances of rhetoric and methods of doing that work) and rhetorical theory (i.e., deductively working out concepts of rhetoric), attempts to back up and try to figure out just what a genre is. This is a very dense reading, but I want you to take notes as you go and try to get a handle on why she finds it so important to see genre as based in social action rather than firmly grounded in formal qualities like length, layout, organization of features of a text (e.g., intro, methods, results, discussion), or substance (e.g., supernatural elements in a horror movie). What does she mean when she says this? Can this help us think about how we write publicly? Definitely include quotes and passages and try to unpack what it might be saying, think with it. Do not feel the need to “get it right,” but to work with and against the text, roll up your sleeves, and try to make it useful for your ongoing understanding of what it means to use a genre in a given situation or encounter it as a reader.
Comment on a Blog Post, at least 200 words (Due W, September 20 by 4pm). Engage with one of the blog posts that was written for Monday. You should use the writer’s own words to extend their thinking further. You might agree or disagree with the writer, but you must use sound reasoning from the reading to either extend or refute something at play in the writer’s post. In both blog posts and comments, these are spaces to try things out, and worry less about having The Right Answer.
Theme: Genre; white paper preparation
Reading Due: None
Writing Due:
White Paper, 1000-1250 words (Due W, September 27 by 4pm).
Theme: Visual rhetoric and modes
Reading Due: Park (2006), “Redesign” (BB); NCDAE (2007), “Principles of Accessible Design”; and Color Matters, “Basic Color Theory.” Click on article titles for latter two.
Writing Due:
First Draft of Collaborative Campaign Plan (500-750 words (Due W, October 4 by end of class).
Blog Post, 500-750 words (Due M, October 2 by 10am). Park (2006) is writing with print texts rather than digital texts, while the accessibility factsheet is mostly focused on digital texts. So, I am asking you to do three things in this blog post: 1) What commonalities are there between print and digital texts when it comes to “good” design principles? 2) What commonalities are there between accessible texts and “good” design, no matter if the medium is print or digital? 3) What about color? How might good use of color coordinate well with accessible design, or, conversely, clash with it? When done thinking through these three questions, try (your best!) to tie these thoughts together: how does one balance being accessible and incorporating good design? Or, does such a question overstate how much accessibility and “good” design might clash?
Comment on a Blog Post, at least 200 words (Due W, October 4 by 4pm). Engage with one of the blog posts that was written for Monday. You should use the writer’s own words to extend their thinking further. You might agree or disagree with the writer, but you must use sound reasoning from the reading to either extend or refute something at play in the writer’s post. In both blog posts and comments, these are spaces to try things out, and worry less about having The Right Answer.
Theme: Design and Accessibility
Reading Due: None
Writing Due: None
Theme: Quantitative rhetoric
Week 8: W, October 18
(No class this week; instead you will be scheduled to meet with me for a 10-15 min conference on Oct 18, Oct 19, and Oct 20)
Reading Due: None
Writing Due:
Campaign Piece One, about 1000 words of “work” (i.e., some of you may be using images, web design, sound, and moving through modes that require few or no printed words). (Due Tuesday, October 17 by 4pm…so I can read them in time for our conference meeting)
Reflection on Campaign Piece One, 300-500 words (Due Tuesday, October 17 by 4pm…so I can read them in time for our conference meeting)
Theme: Taking stock of where you are
Reading Due: None
Writing Due: None
Theme: Working with sound
Reading Due: Ridolfo and DeVoss (2009), “Composing for Recomposition: Rhetorical Velocity and Delivery”
Writing Due:
Blog Post, 500-750 words (Due M, October 30 by 10am). Writing for a public often means that you want your worldview and argument to circulate very widely; thus, rhetorical velocity can become an important concept to keep in mind when writing and revising. How can you “compose for strategic recomposition”? How can you compose your documents in such a way that readers can use them to make something else? What rhetorical choices can you make to encourage others to use your documents in such a way that it will contribute positively to the goals of your campaign? As Ridolfo and DeVoss ask, “what does it mean to compose with recomposition in mind?” In this blog post, use a passage from Ridolfo and DeVoss (2009) that most closely aligns with the sort of problem your own campaign might encounter when it comes to delivery. How might rhetorical velocity, as a concept, help you plan delivery for your campaign documents? What about this passage helps you to think through this question?
Comment on a Blog Post, at least 200 words (Due W, November 1 by 4pm). Engage with one of the blog posts that was written for Monday. You should use the writer’s own words to extend their thinking further. You might agree or disagree with the writer, but you must use sound reasoning from the reading to either extend or refute something at play in the writer’s post. In both blog posts and comments, these are spaces to try things out, and worry less about having The Right Answer.
Theme: Delivery and circulation
**WE ARE MEETING IN CL 435 (COMPUTER LAB). BRING HEADPHONES.**
Reading Due: None
Writing Due:
Campaign Piece Two, about 1000 words of “work” (i.e., some of you may be using images, web design, sound, and moving through modes that require few or no printed words). (Due W, November 8 by 4pm)
Reflection on Campaign Piece Two, 300-500 words (Due W, November 8 by 4pm)
Theme: Working with video
Reading Due: Tufekci (2015), “Algorithmic Harms Beyond Facebook and Google: Emergent Challenges of Computational Agency”
Writing Due:
Blog Post, 500-750 words (Due M, November 13 by 10am). What do you think Tufekci means by “algorithmic gatekeeping”? Or, for that matter, the word “agency” in the context of this article? As public writers, what is valuable about thinking of algorithms in such a way? Use passages from Tufekci’s article to help support your points. Finally, see if you can use one or more of Tufekci’s examples or anecdotes as a way to think about how one of your campaign pieces might be aided or restricted by “algorithmic gatekeeping.”
Comment on a Blog Post, at least 200 words (Due W, November 15 by 4pm). Engage with one of the blog posts that was written for Monday. You should use the writer’s own words to extend their thinking further. You might agree or disagree with the writer, but you must use sound reasoning from the reading to either extend or refute something at play in the writer’s post. In both blog posts and comments, these are spaces to try things out, and worry less about having The Right Answer.
Theme: Agency and technology
Week 13: W, November 22 (NO CLASS, Thanksgiving Break)
Reading Due: None
Writing Due: None
Theme: Maternity pants and big meals–great combination or greatest combination?
Reading Due: None
Writing Due:
Collaborative Campaign Plan Presentation (about 5-10 minutes) (Due at the time of presentation during class). See syllabus for prompt.
Pedagogical Object Proposal (collaborative), 250 words, (Due W, November 29, end of class). See syllabus for prompt.
Theme: Reflecting, revising, teaching
Reading Due: None
Writing Due:
1. Unit 3 reflection pasted to Google Doc of unit reflections (paste under “Unit 3” header); see 11/29 lesson plan for more information.
2. Work on revisions, have one revision-in-progress ready for a peer to read for in-class peer response; see 11/29 lesson plan for more information.
Theme: Reflecting, revising, teaching
Week 16: W, December 13
Reading Due: None
Writing Due:
Group presentation on pedagogical object (5-7 minutes). See syllabus for prompt.
Theme: What do you think? What comes next? How do you keep this going?
Sa, December 16
Turn in final projects by 4pm to BB (see syllabus for prompts):
- Collaboratively written final campaign plan (1250-1500 words)
- Revision of White Paper (about 1250 words)
- Revision of Campaign Piece One or Campaign Piece Two
- Self-Assessment on Collaborative work (about 250 words)
- Pedagogical Object
