Spring Quarter, 2010

Course Calendar

Please note that this 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 finding out what you missed from a classmate and for knowing about—and adjusting for—any calendar changes. Professional protocols and collegiality ask 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

Thursday 4/1 In class: Introductions, key terms, course goals

  • Text & Image or Text + Image?
  • What is the role of the reader in new-media compositions?
  • Techne and technology

Week 2
The Social Environment of Contemporary Communication

Thursday 4/8 Reading: Kress, Multimodality: 1-102
In-class discussion: sixty-second pitches
Workshop
: Typography
Due
:  Reading response: 500 words

Background:

  • New Media and Project Management (PDF)
  • Needs Assessment: a systematic exploration designed to identify the gaps between “what is” and “what ought to be.” It is the tool of choice of consultants because it provides a means of discovering what clients, consumers, and customers perceive as their needs.
  • Documenting the project?
  • 143 McGaw as a studio space?
  • DePaul Loop Resources?

Week 3
Meaning as Resource

Thursday 4/15 Reading: Kress, Multimodality: 103-197
In-class discussion: Processes and effects
Workshop: Typography, Part II
Due: Typographic response

“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 …”

Thursday 4/22 Due: Project work & updates:

  • City Farm
  • St. Joseph’s

Background: Lupton and Miller, Design, Writing, Research 3-70

Week 5
Discipline-Specific and Professional Research

Thursday 4/29 Reading: TBA
Due: Project Timelines:

  • City Farm
  • St. Joseph’s (field trip to site)

Week 6
Design, Writing, Research
and Project Prototype

Thursday 5/6 Reading: Lupton, Design, Writing, Research 73-120
Due:  Project Prototype

  • City Farm
  • St. Joseph’s

Week 7
Design, Writing, Research and Project iteration #1

Thursday 5/13 Reading: Lupton, Design, Writing, Research 121-202 and Ligon’s Annotations
Due:  Project iteration #1

  • City Farm
  • St. Joseph’s

THE NEEDS ASSESSMENT is a method for helping businesses and organizations determine what they need to do to improve their operations, services, and products. A needs assessment is a systematic exploration designed to identify the gaps between “what is” and “what ought to be.” It is the tool of choice of consultants because it provides a means of discovering what clients, consumers, and customers perceive as their needs.

Week 8
Workshop and Project iteration #2

Thursday 5/20 Reading:  Manovich, “Database as a Genre of New Media
Due: Project iteration #2

  • City Farm
  • St. Joseph’s

Week 9
Project Presentations & Project iteration #3

Thursday 5/27 In class: Project Presentations
Due:  Project iteration #3

  • City Farm
  • St. Joseph’s

Week 10
6/3
TBA

Monday
6/7
Due: Final Report

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