[…] despite these impediments, we found that students actively make use of the prior knowledge and practice they do have, and in three ways: […] 3. by creating new knowledge and practices for themselves when they encounter what we call a setback or critical incident, which is a failed effort to address a new task that prompts… Continue reading WAC and TFT: A Critical Incident
Blog
Digital Reading and Lanham’s Looking
In my digital rhetoric course this morning I asked students to build on our ongoing conversations about genre and the rhetorical situation, writing and technology by looking at Anne Wysocki’s “The Multiple Media of Texts.” Although this piece is a little too oriented to analysis (instead of composing), I like this piece. I’ve been assigning… Continue reading Digital Reading and Lanham’s Looking
Writing without deadlines
One of the positives of my grad school experience was that I always had (almost too much) advice on the pitfalls ahead and strategies for coming out nearly-unscathed. I had lots of advice about the job market. Lots of advice about the dissertation. Lots of advice about prelims, about coursework. The same has held true… Continue reading Writing without deadlines
WAC and TFT
I started teaching a FYW course at CofC keyed to WAC today; the course is called Interdisciplinary Composition. In the course, students examine how disciplines across the curriculum write to make and share knowledge. The TFT curriculum seemed like a natural way of meeting the outcome of the course by helping students become familiar with vital writing concepts… Continue reading WAC and TFT
On 3D Printing
The past ten years have been about discovering new ways to create, invent, and work together on the Web. The next ten years will be about applying those lessons to the real world. — Chris Anderson, Makers: The New Industrial Revolution, p. 17 3D printers, a piece of hardware used primarily to create prototypes of objects,… Continue reading On 3D Printing
the role of computational literacy in computers and writing
Sample and Vee note the ways that code has made its way into our research and our classrooms, that programming has long looked like writing, and that in the culture, there are popular initiatives for people to learn code – initiative that carry much of the same impetus as the inclusion of digital technologies in… Continue reading the role of computational literacy in computers and writing
“interface as exordium”
Carnegie argues that the interface is “a rhetorical means for ensuring that the audience becomes and remains susceptible to persuasion” In other words, the interface of a new media text functions as an introduction in a print text. Shares a definition of the interface with Wysocki and Jasken: “the interface is a place of interaction… Continue reading “interface as exordium”
“rhetoric’s mechanics: retooling the equipment of writing production”
Rice traces to functions of *mechanical* in rhet/comp – the historical concept of techne as one and the association of mechanics with grammar. She adds that in a course/program/context where digital composing is commonplace, producing texts requires technical, mechanical knowledge of technology. She asks: Where exactly does the constructive rhetorical work of production begin or… Continue reading “rhetoric’s mechanics: retooling the equipment of writing production”
“what counts as writing”
Noting that we frequently ask students to composing in web 2.0 platforms and applications, we lack an understanding of what counts as writing in a web 2.0 environment: “How do the vocabularies, functionalities, and organizing structures of Web 2.0 environments impact our understanding of what writing is in these spaces and how that writing is… Continue reading “what counts as writing”
“the design of web 2.0: the rise of the template, the fall of design”
Arola notes an implication of web 2.0 – the tendency to render form “standardized and invisible” – essentially rendering composing practices like web standards and the hardcoded divide between form/content moot points She argues that althouth web authoring is different in web 2.0, the same kinds of considerations part of web 1.0 is important: the… Continue reading “the design of web 2.0: the rise of the template, the fall of design”