Course Calendar

Please note that this workshop calendar is designed to be flexible: we may make changes along the way, depending on your interests and the needs of the class. Should you miss a class, you are responsible for learning about what you missed from a colleagues — and adjusting for any changes. Professional protocols and collegiality call for you to alert us if you’ll be missing on a day when we’re having a workshop or when you are scheduled to present materials.

Week 1
Introduction, Course Goals, Key Terms
Wed.
9/8		 In class: Introductions, key terms, course goals

Week 2
The Social Environment of Contemporary Communication
Wed.
9/15		 Reading: Kress, Multimodality: 1-102
In-class discussion: Kress in academic and professional contexts
Workshop: Typography
Due:  Reading response: 500 words
Chicago is a typography town …
Chicago is a new-media town …
Chicago is a multimodal town …

Week 3
Meaning as Resource
Wed.
9/22		 Reading: Kress, Multimodality: 103-197
In-class discussion: Processes and effects
Workshop: Typography, Part II
Due: 3-4 images for our McCloud categorizations

“Each of the modes has its own peculiar logic. It also has its own organizational patterns and, to some extent, its own stylistic characteristics.” — James Kinneavy

Week 4
“If writing is but a copy of spoken language, typography is a mode of representation even farther removed …”
Wed.
9/29		 Reading: Lauer, “Contending with Terms: ‘Multimodal‘ and ‘Multimedia’ in the Academic and Public Spheres” (PDF)

Background:

Due: Three examples of multimodal projects based on, or building from, Lauer’s definitions. Embed or attach your examples in your WordPress site, with a 250-word annotation for each one. In your annotations, you may, depending on your interests,

  • Provide examples that support Lauer’s definitions and key terms
  • Provide examples that complicate her definitions and key terms
  • Focus on the concept of audience — and the composer’s relationship with the audience — as a lens to consider both Lauer and your examples
  • Use this opportunity to stake out a position in the multimodal landscape, putting Kress and Lauer into context as a way of exploring your own multimodal aspirations
  • You may range widely in your choice of examples: the visual arts, say, or social media; professional/corporate work, or progressive, social-justice projects
  • Test Lauer’s premises and argument in light of our working, collective definition of multimodal

Week 5
Discipline-Specific and Professional Research
Wed.
10/6		 Reading: Wysocki, “Impossibly Distinct: On Form/Content and Word/Image in Two Pieces of Computer-Based Interactive Multimedia.” (PDF)
Due: Project Proposal

Background: Phenomenology

Week 6
Project Prototype

Wed.
10/13		 Reading: Elkins, TOC
 Due: Project Protoype

Week 7
Project iteration #1
Wed.
10/20		 Due: Project iteration #1

Week 8
Workshop and Project iteration #2
Wed.
10/27		 Due: Project iteration #2
In class: project progress reports and critique session —

[1] what did you accomplish last week?
[2] what are your goals for next week?
[3] what’s going well?
[4] what’s not going well?
[5] what help do you need from classmates and the instructor?

Week 9
Project Presentations & Project iteration #3
Wed.
11/3		 Due: Project iteration #3
In class: project progress reports and critique session

[1] what did you accomplish last week?
[2] what are your goals for next week?
[3] what’s going well?
[4] what’s not going well?
[5] what help do you need from classmates and the instructor?

Week 10
Final project and course portfolio
Wed.
11/10		 Due: Final project & course portfolio

Alternately, as we discussed in class, if you would like to take an extra week for either your project or your portfolio — or both — I am happy to arrange to meet with you on Wednesday, 11/17, and you can submit your materials then.

In class: project presentations, continued; portfolio workshop

Any platform that results in local files will be acceptable.

In your course portfolio’s reflective essay, you can prioritize the new media studies angle and context that you find most compelling. But as a minimum threshold, everyone will include:

  • A reflection on your relationship with your readers (think about, integrate, and quote Wysocki)
  • A reflection on the differences between text & image / text + image: where does your project fall?
  • A reflection on where your work fits in Kress’s context of meaning making (integrate and quote)
  • A visually rich description of your process, from brainstorming, to prototype, to iterations, to your final product