Digital Writing, Rhetoric & Discourse

So that we can attend to some of the intellectual contexts for our work with students and with technology, the D-WRD Working Group is gathering summer readings to share in preparation for our meetings and workshops next year.

For starters, this summer, these two work well as a pair:

• “A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures.”
  Harvard Educational Review, New London Group, 1996.
• “Live and Learn: Why We Have College.”
  Louis Menand, The New Yorker, June 6, 2011.

Then, in the fall:

• “Designs for Social Futures.”
  Ch. 10 in Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures, 2000.
• “Writing Program Administration and Instructional Computing.”
  Ken McAllister and Cynthia Selfe. The Writing Program Administrator’s Resource. Lawrence Erlbaum, 2002.
• “Writing, Technology and Teens.”
  Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2008.
• Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, Arum and Roksa, University of Chicago Press, 2010. Excerpts on writing and critical thinking.
• “Digital Diploma Mills: The Automation of Higher Education.” David Noble. First Monday, 1998.

Some of the questions that we can pursue together:

• What do we know about writing? How do we know it? How should we teach it?
• What theory of language or discourse informs your classroom practice?
• How are changes in higher education and the shifting purposes for attending college affecting our understanding of media, technology, literacy, and learning?
• What is the relationship between Vincentian social values and teaching with technology?
• “What are the instructional goals of the writing program? How can these goals be made to drive a computer-based program/course/activity/facility/decisions?” and “Who is being served by these goals and the computer-based instruction that is derived from them? Who is not?” (McAllister & Selfe 345)

D-WRD Friday workshops in 2011-12 will focus on pairing a reading in teaching with technology — scholarship, criticism, or a case study — with hands-on software practice.

For example, we might read Cynthia Selfe’s “The Movement of Air, the Breath of Meaning: Aurality and Multimodal Composing” paired with a workshop on Audacity, a free, cross-platform sound editor.

We can read excerpts from Lessig’s Remix and Ridolfo and DeVoss — “Composing for Recomposition” — followed by introductory tutorials in iMovie and Windows Movie Maker.

We can read Gunther Kress’s “Reading Images: Multimodality, Representation and New Media,” followed by our own explorations and practice with Photoshop.

Have other ideas or requests?
E-mail Michael.

Christine Tulley
Kristine Blair
“Remediating the Book Review: Toward Collaboration and Multimodality across the English Curriculum.” Pedagogy, 2009.

Abstract

In this essay, Tulley and Blair combine instructional and editorial perspectives to analyze how the process of digital composing reshapes often entrenched notions of authorship and composing practice within the English major by having students re-envision a traditional print genre, the book review, in digital space.

This article and others like it are available via DePaul’s full-text journal databases.

To all WRD faculty teaching FYW courses next year (2011-2012)

The WRD Department has received a generous grant from Academic Affairs to sponsor a First-Year Writing Digication Workshop on Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2011, from 9:30-4:00 in McGaw 143.  The workshop will be run by Michael Moore with support from a FITS staff member, Emily Stone, and will help prepare faculty to use Digication for students’ digital portfolios beginning in Autumn Quarter.

Faculty participating in the day-long workshop will receive a $150 stipend plus lunch and refreshments.  Priority will be given to faculty who have not already undergone Digication training or who feel they need more preparation to use it effectively in their courses.  Workshop is limited to 20 participants.

If you are interested and able to participate, please contact me.

Note that any advance preparation that you can manage this quarter (e.g., meeting with Michael or attending one of his Digication mini-workshops) is a plus.  We realize that this is a major programmatic shift and want to provide all the support we can.

Thanks,
Darsie Bowden
Professor – Writing, Rhetoric & Discourse

Total DePaul Digication Users

– Active Digication courses that have at least one assignment: 112
– Students who have participated in Digication courses: 1764
– Faculty who have used Digication: 138

# of WRD courses that have used Digication: 99
# of WRD students who have used Digication: 1491
# of WRD faculty who have used Digication: 46

# of non-WRD DePaul courses that have used Digication: 13
# of non-WRD DePaul students who have used Digication: 273
# of non-WRD DePaul faculty who have used Digication: 92

The Teaching Commons is offering a follow-up session to the workshop “Academic Integrity in the Digital Age,” titled “Teaching in a Multimodal Era.” Presenters Calley O’Neil (SOE), Emily Stone (FITS), and Sarah Brown (SOE) will share how-to’s of using Creative Commons, Flickr and Digication in the classroom. The hands-on workshop will take place on Tuesday April 12 from 10:00-11:30 AM in SAC 232 (LPC). Please RSVP to LaVern Thomas (lthoma16@depaul.edu or 2-7587) so we can make sure that we will have a seat/computer for everyone.

Also, please help us spread the word to any of your colleagues who might be interested in attending. All are welcome!

Rana T. Husseini, Ph.D.
Office for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment

Friday, April 1: noon-1:00 lunch & discussion:

• Review WQ Pilot and surveys: 188 from students, 5 from instructors
• Review submission process and final-exam meeting times
• “How do I …?” FAQ
• Plan SQ meeting agendas and workshops

Friday, April 15th: 10:00 a.m.-11:00: Typography Workshop typography workshop postponed to a future SQ meeting. See 4/15 meeting notes here.

• Background reading: Web Style Guide (Yale UP) chapter 8 on typography



• Background reading: St. Martin’s Handbook, chapters 23 (document design) and 24 (online texts)
• Duncan, Michael. “Whatever Became of the Paragraph?” College English 69.5 (2007): 470- 495.

I find discussing paragraphs with my students extraordinarily difficult; I am never sure if I am being too prescriptive or too open-ended when I make my tentative suggestions on their writing. The immense complexities of paragraphs’ structures—how they duel with their neighbors, with the whole essay, with ambiguous sections and divisions, and of course with their nebulous, rebellious contents known as sentences—it all feels impossible to explain sometimes. Seeking assistance, I naturally started a hunt for theory concerning the paragraph, and I found a long, unresolved debate about how paragraphs should be taught, as well as about their intrinsic nature.

But there was something odd about the scholarship. In the last fifteen or so years, there has not been any major work on paragraph theory in composition. The last theoretical discussion of the subject in journals appears to be Rick Eden and Ruth Mitchell’s largely unanswered “Paragraphing for the Reader” in 1986 and Frank D’Angelo’s splendid literature review of the topic sentence from the same CCC issue. Save for some scattered empirical work, such as Randall Popken’s four studies of topic sentence genres from 1987 to 1991, paragraph theory has all but disappeared from composition research. (Duncan 470)

Friday April 29th10:00 a.m.-noon:

• Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing (PDF)
• Digication & digital portfolio discussions

Friday, May 20th: 10:00 a.m.-noon:

• Using LMS features in Digication (Johnson, Friddle, and Staley)
• FYW digital portfolio guides for students and faculty, 2011-12

Friday, June 3rd: 10:00 a.m.-noon — for our final D-WRD meeting this academic year,

• Scott Johnson will review his Digication course site for us, showing how he uses the Assignment feature
• I’d like to cast the net one more time for feedback, questions, and concerns regarding digital portfolios in general, and Digication in particular — both for solving any problems right now, this term, and looking ahead to 2011-12. Since digital portfolios will be required in every FYW section next year, this seems an opportune time to anticipate problems and opportunities
• When we began D-WRD as a support group for our DOTS cohort, we started by reading a book together — Scott Warnock’s Teaching Writing Online: How and Why. I propose that we begin the AQ with another shared reading. Some possibilities:
  • Denis Baron — A Better Pencil: Readers, Writers, and the Digital Revolution.
  • Cynthia Selfe, ed. — Multimodal Composition: Resources for Teachers.
  • Wysocki, et al. — Writing New Media: Theory and Applications for Expanding the Teaching of Composition.

Other possibilities?

Spring Workshops:

• Friday 3/18 — 10:00 a.m.-noon 143 McGaw
• Friday 3/18 — 2:00-4:00 p.m. 143 McGaw
• Friday 4/1 — 10:00 a.m.-noon 143 McGaw
• Friday 4/1 — 2:00-4:00 p.m. 143 McGaw
• Friday 5/13 — Introduction to Digication — 2:00-4:00 p.m. 143 McGaw
• Friday 5/27 — Introduction to Digication — 10:00 a.m.-noon 143 McGaw

Get access to Digication ahead of time, via your Campus Connect credentials, with this IS form.

Background:

Beginning with the Autumn 2011 term, all sections of FYW will require students to compose digital portfolios with Digication, DePaul’s digital portfolio platform. While there is nothing new about portfolios in writing programs — they have been standard practice for about 30 years — and while there is nothing new about digital portfolios in writing programs, the practice and the technology might be new to many of us here at DePaul. Our workshops then, combine pedagogical contexts with practical, hands-on activities.

How we’ll use our workshop time:

• 45 minutes: context and overview of the program
• 45 minutes: creating your Teaching Portfolio in Digication, which will prepare you to anticipate students’ questions, as the process is the same — and you get a teaching portfolio out of it!
• 30 minutes: open lab and problem-solving

How to Prepare:

• Visit Digication — see how students and faculty in a range of disciplines use Digication in programs around the country
• Visit DePaul’s Digication public directory to see how DePaul students and faculty have already been using the platform
• Visit the First Year Writing Program’s Digication site — student and faculty resources
• Collect materials that you can use to compose your own Teaching Portfolio during our workshop.

Resources:

• Why digital portfolios? (D-WRD)
• “Principles and Practices in Electronic Portfolios” (NCTE)
• Miller, Ross and Wende Morgaine. “The Benefits of E-portfolios for Students and Faculty in Their Own Words” (Peer Review, Winter 2009)
• Yancey, Kathleen. “Electronic Portfolios a Decade into the Twenty-first Century: What We Know, What We Need to Know” (Peer Review, Winter 2009)
• Yancey, Kathleen. “Postmodernism, Palimpsest, and Portfolios: Theoretical Issues in the Representation of Student Work” (CCC 55:4 / June 2004)
• The best resource we have, however, is each other, and the department’s D-WRD Working Group is an active example of collective expertise. We meet twice a month to share assignments, teaching tips, technology problems, and to talk about pedagogy.

Digication Documentation

• Quickstart [PDF] 2 pp.
• Portfolios [PDF] 37 pp.

Calley O’Neil (School of Education) and Michael Moore (D-WRD) will be a part of the Teaching Commons Discussion and Workshop Series: Academic Integrity in the Digital Age on Friday, February 25th, 2011. 12:00PM-2:00PM. LPC, Richardson Library 300 (Rosati Room)  If you are interested in attending, please RSVP to LaVern Thomas at TLA@depaul.edu or x2-7587.

Academic integrity is a core value that all DePaul faculty members share, yet it is one that presents a unique set of challenges as the context for student learning continues to change. With the introduction of new teaching technology in the classroom and the increase in digital resources available to students, there is more uncertainty about what constitutes academic dishonesty and how faculty members should best respond in their classes. This workshop is designed to raise awareness about relevant issues and to provide a forum for discussion about best practices for faculty from across the university. All are encouraged to attend. Lunch will be served.

Please RSVP to LaVern Thomas at TLA@depaul.edu or x2-7587 with your name, department, and any dietary restrictions. For more information, contact Rana Husseini, Assistant Director for Teaching Support in the Office for Teaching, Learning and Assessment, at rhussein@depaul.edu or x2-6712.

6 pm, James Elkins (School of the Art Institute) revisits his observations on how we see things with a particular look at art.

Elkins can be helpful as we navigate possibilities in multimodal composing:

“Outside of painting, sculpture, and architecture, and outside of television, advertising, film, and other mass media, what kinds of images do people care about? It turns out that images are being made and discussed in dozens of fields, throughout the university and well beyond the humanities. Some fields, such as biochemistry and astronomy, are image-obsessed; others think and work through images.”

“So far visual studies has mainly taken an interest in fine art and mass media, leaving these other images — which are really the vast majority of all images produced in universities — relatively unstudied. Outside the university, scientific images crop up in magazines, on the internet, in popular-science books.”

More “Seeing Things” at the Art Institute: September 2010–June 2011

Two interesting readings for your “free time”:

Dancing with the Stars
by Lewis H. Lapham

“As the habits of mind beholden to the rule of images come to replace the structures of thought derived from the meaning of words, the constant viewer eliminates the association of cause with effect, learns that nothing necessarily follows from anything else.”

And:

“Perceptions of the world furnished by the camera substitute montage for narrative, reprogram the dimensions of space and time, restore a primitive belief in magic, employ a vocabulary better suited to a highway billboard or the telling of a fairy tale than to the languages of history and literature. The camera sees but doesn’t think.”

The Computer Made Me Do It
NYT Sunday Book Review

“Humanity is migrating to cyberspace. In the past five years, Americans have doubled the hours they spend online, exceeding their television time and more than tripling the time they spend reading newspapers or magazines. Most now play computer or video games regularly, about 13 hours a week on average. By age 21, the average young American has spent at least three times as many hours playing virtual games as reading. It took humankind eight years to spend 100 million hours building Wikipedia. We now spend at least 200 million hours a week playing World of Warcraft.”

Information Services staff members tested Digication in IS-supported labs this week, using  Firefox and Internet Explorer, and created test portfolios.

If you ever have trouble in one of the computer labs or classrooms, contact the Technology Support Center (TSC) at x2-8765 if it is not a classroom emergency, or x2-5900 if it is a classroom emergency. The TSC will need to know the location (campus, building, room), the computer number, what steps happened prior to the issue and the error received — a screenshot is helpful.

Students:

• Log in to Digication
• Select drop-down menu, “Portfolio Tools”
• Select “Submit”
• Select COMPOSITION & RHETORIC
• > “Next Step”



• Select WRD Portfolio
• > “Next Step”
• Select Mid-Term or Final Portfolio Submission
• Select — check box — for your portfolio (All Pages)
• Select “Save and Submit”

Faculty:

• Log in to Digication
• Select Course
• Select Assignments
• WRD Digital Portfolio
• Select appropriate (Mid-term or Final) portfolio by student

Forwarded from Pete V.:

This year’s  CCCC Annual Convention in Atlanta, GA features a number of timely sessions on online writing and learning, using technology, social networking, and more.   Sample sessions include:

• Understanding State-of-the-Art Online Writing Instruction: Results from the CCCC Committee’s National Survey on Best Practices
• Reconfiguring Student Experiences in Online Writing Classes
• The Untamed Virtual World: Making Interesting Mistakes in Online Teaching Spaces
• ePortfolio 2.0: Revising and Expanding the Role of Electronic Portfolios in a Developmental Writing Curriculum
• Social Networks, Classroom Communities: Using Social Media to Foster Active Learning Communities
• “We Don’t Do That Here”: Pushing the (Digital) Boundaries of What We “Do” in Writing Center Spaces
• Accessing Agency:  Traversing the Spaces Between Classroom Composition and Digital Writing

Browse the  Searchable Program  <http://lists.ncte.org/t/2651948/684224/10404/0/>  for more highlights from CCCC.

In a print portfolio, remediated on a book, the arrangement is singular. In a digital portfolio, remediated on a gallery, the arrangements are plural. And the students invented in each are quite different.

In a print portfolio, the tendency is to tell a single story, one with a single claim and an accumulating body of evidence. In arrangement, a digital portfolio — again, by contrast — is multiple, is defined by links. Because you can link externally as well as internally and because those links are material, you have more contexts you can link to, more strata you can layer, more “you” to invent, more invention to represent. In sum, the potential of arrangement is a function of delivery, and what and how you arrange — which becomes a function of the medium you choose — is who you invent. Moreover, I suspect that as multiple means of delivery become more routinized, we will understand each of the canons differently, and we will understand and be able to map their interrelationships.

– Kathleen Yancey: “Postmodernism, Palimpsest, and Portfolios: Theoretical Issues in the Representation of. Student Work”

depaul.digication.com

Digication overview:

• Why digital portfolios?
• Why Digication?

Digication FYW pilot report:

• Student feedback [199]
• Faculty feedback [5]
• Delivered to FYW Assessment Committee [48]

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Please note that we have 143 McGaw scheduled from 10:00 a.m.-noon on our meeting days, but usually finish our meetings by 11:00 or 11:15 a.m.. This allows some extra time for hands-on consulting and collaborating on programs that you want to learn more about and to get some practice — for example, Digication, Photoshop, iMovie, and other programs that support technology-mediated pedagogies.

In the WQ, we’ll combine the two working groups that already had substantial overlap: the Digication digital portfolio working group and the D-WRD working group. If you’d like to add agenda items for upcoming meetings, send them to Michael:

Friday, January 7th: Digication workshop

• Background: AQ Preliminary Report; discussion led by Scott Johnson
• What is reflection?

Friday, January 21st: Digication Workshop

• Background: Cambridge on “Composing the Ethics of Authenticity”

Friday, February 4th: Multimodal Composing

• Background: “Thinking About Multimodality”; discussion led by Tricia Hermes

Friday, February 18th: Reading, Responding to, and Grading Digital Portfolios

• Background: Pilot Group Assignment & Scoring Guide; discussion led by Darsie Bowden

Friday, March 4th: Student Digication Roundtable — come hear about their experiences!

Friday, March 11th: Debrief and plan agendas for next quarter? 9:00 a.m. before the department meeting?

Friday, March 18th: Digication Workshop

Agenda: Post- Kathleen Yancey Talk Reflections & Future Plans

Using key terms as a digital-portfolio organizing principle in Digication?
Providing models of reflection for students and for colleagues?
Does Digication support our collective purposes for reflection?
What multimodal reflective practices can enact our theories of reflection?
Privacy issues (settings PDF)
Student survey
Create faculty survey? What would you like included on it?
Finals Week: collecting “Downloaded” versions of digital portfolios

New Literacy Narratives:  Stories about Reading and Writing in a Digital Age

Call for Papers: Special Issue of Computers and Composition
Guest editors:  Sally Chandler and John Scenters-Zapico

From their inception, literacy narratives have provided powerful means for documenting the complex, social and material interactions that orchestrate both who we are as writers and the world where we write.  Literacy narratives created through interviews have supported landmark studies of reading and writing in the culture at large, within particular identity groups, and in association with changing technologies (Brandt, 2001, 2009; Selfe & Hawisher, 2004; Sohn, 2006; Young, 2004 ); reflective, analytic narratives composed in the classroom have played an important role in helping students become better writers and in training future teachers (Corkery, 2005; McVee, 2004; Rabin, 2008). It is no surprise that digital technologies are changing not only the content of subjects’ stories about reading and writing, but also the forms these stories can take.

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