COURSE SYLLABUS
DW 459: Digital Writing
Instructor: Dr. Santosh Khadka
Classroom location: ED 2117 (College of Education)
Email: santosh.khadka@csun.edu
Course Description
This course engages the expanded notion of writing, and focuses specifically on the composing practices with multisemiotic resources, such as sound, video, images, web, graphics, and animation, in the digital world. It also deals with social media, digital identity, and ethical issues surrounding the digital production of texts.
Course Outcomes
Students will:
- Gain experience with a variety of digital writing tools and platforms.
- Explore the rhetorical effects of different media.
- Build upon their current levels of experience and expertise with digital writing.
- Read a series of texts that explore practical and philosophical issues related to digital writing.
Required Texts (List Subject to Change)
Anderson, Paul V. Technical Communication: A Reader-Centered Approach (Selection—PDF in Moodle)
August, John. “The Challenge of Writing in a Digital Age.” http://johnaugust.com/2007/writing-digital-age (Online)
Ball, Cheryl, and Byron Hawk. “Special Issue: Sound in/as Compositional Space: A Next Step
in Multiliteracies.” (PDF in Moodle)
Beach, Richard, Chris M. Anson, Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch, Thomas Reynolds. Understanding
and Creating Digital Texts: An Activity-Based Approach (Buy at Matador Bookstore).
Everything is a Remix Video Series. http://everythingisaremix.info/watch-the-series/.
Hempe, Barry. Making Documentary Films and Videos: A Practical Guide to Planning,
Filming, and Editing Documentaries (Buy at Matador Bookstore).
Inge, M. Thomas. “Collaboration and Concepts of Authorship.” (PDF in Moodle)
Kennedy, Krista. “Textual Machinery: Authorial Agency and Bot-Written Texts in Wikipedia.” (PDF in Moodle)
Kim, Inhwa, and Jasna Kuljis. “Manifestation of Culture in Website Design.” (PDF in Moodle)
McKee, Heidi. “Sound Matters: Notes Towards the Analysis and Design of Sound in
Multimodal Web Texts.” (PDF in Moodle)
National Writing Project, DeVoss, Danielle Nicole, Elyse Eidman-Aadahl, and Troy Hicks.
Because Digital Writing Matters: Improving Student Writing in Online and Multimedia
Environment (Buy at Matador Bookstore).
Porter, James E. “Recovering delivery for digital rhetoric.” (PDF in Moodle)
Schmidt, Christopher. “The New Media Writer as Cartographer.” (PDF in Moodle)
Selfe, Cynthia L. “The Movement of Air, the Breath of Meaning: Aurality and Multimodal
Composing.” (PDF in Moodle)
Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything (Buy at Matador Bookstore).
“Wikipedia: Five Pillars.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars
“Wikipedia: New Contributors’ Help Page.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:New_contributors%27_help_page
Wysocki, Anne Frances. “The Multiple Media of Texts: How Onscreen and Paper Texts
incorporate Words, Images, and Other Media.” (PDF in Moodle)
Course Requirements and Grade Distribution
Major Assignments (For detailed descriptions, see sample assignments below)
- Digital Literacy Narrative (10%)
- Audio Movie Review (20%)
- Documentary Film (20%)
- Collaborative Wikipedia Article (20%)
- Digital Portfolio (20%)
- Blog Responses to Course Readings (10%)
Logistics:
Students
A 120 or higher gigabyte portable or external hard drive, USB 2.0.
An 8 gigabyte SanDisk SDHC memory card, class 6
Required free materials include a blog space, a Flickr account, and a Twitter account.
Schedule
(Subject to change)
Part I: Digital Narratives/Composing with Sound
Week 1, August 24
M: Introduction to course syllabus. Setup of initial website. Sample post. Initial Twitter use/set up. Create Blogs. Introduce digital literacy narrative assignment.
Skills: Create multiple pages and posts; hyperlink pages and posts; import images; create parent-child pages; embed sound cloud audio; and embed Youtube videos.
Introduction to digital writing
National Writing Project: “Introduction: Why Digital Writing Matters.” From Because Digital Writing Matters.
John August: “The Challenge of Writing in a Digital Age”
Week 2, August 31
Digital Literacy Narrative Due.
Introduction to Audio Movie Review Assignment
Listen and analyze sample audio movie reviews: <http://www.npr.org/sections/movie-reviews/>
Selfe, Cynthia. “The Movement of Air, the Breath of Meaning: Aurality and Multimodal
Composing.”
Shipka, Jody. “Sound Engineering: Toward a Theory of Multimodal Soundness”
Discuss Fair Use. Watch Lessig’s TED Talk Video.
http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strangling_creativity?language=en
Audio review proposal
Blog Post 1 Due
Homework: Complete Audio Review Proposal.
Week 3, September 7 (Labor Day No Class)
Week 4, September 14
Audio Review Proposal due
Peer revision of audio review proposals.
Workshop on Sound editing. Drafting audio review script. Recording 30-60 seconds of audio review, and learning editing skills.
Listen to recordings. Further workshop.
Homework: Work on your movie review
Week 5, September 21
Workshop on audio review. Finalize your audio review
Homework: Read and Blog on part II, III and IV (pp. 37-216) from Berry Hempe’s Making Documentary Films and Videos.
II. Composing with Video
Week 6, September 28
Audio Review Presentation.
Introduction to documentary making assignment.
Watch a sample documentary film: A Billion Dollar Hippy:
Discussion on part II, III and IV (pp. 37-216) from Berry Hempe’s Making Documentary Films and Videos.
Workshop. Introduction to iMovie (IMovie tutorial by Apple.).
Blog Post 2 Due
Homework: Read and Blog on part V, and VI (pp. 217-346) from Berry Hempe’s Making Documentary Films and Videos.
Week 7, October 5
Some videos from Everything is a Remix Video Series. http://everythingisaremix.info/watch-the-xseries/.
Discussion on Barry Hempe’s part V, and VI (pp. 217-346) from Making Documentary Films and Videos.
Discussion of film composition and cultural and ethical issues surrounding copyright.
Proposal for documentary film due. Discussion of proposals
Blog Post 3 Due
Homework: Interview participants, and collect a lot of primary and secondary sources, including images, songs, videos, websites, journal, magazine and newspaper articles and other relevant data for your documentary.
Week 8, October 12
Workshop on video production/editing
Homework: Keep working on your documentary.
Week 9, October 19
Complete Documentary Composition.
Homework: Read and blog on Tapscott & Williams, “Wikinomics” from Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, and Richard Beach et.al “Co-Constructing Knowledge through Collaborative Writing” from Understanding and Creating Digital Texts.
III. Collaborative Authorship
Week 10, October 26
Documentary Screening.
Formation of writing groups
“The Five Pillars of Wikipedia“
Create a new Wikipedia account.
“The New Contributors’ Help Page.”
Tapscott & Williams, “Wikinomics” from Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything.
Richard Beach et.al “Co-Constructing Knowledge through Collaborative Writing” from Understanding and Creating Digital Texts.
Blog Post 4 Due
Homework: Read and blog on Thomas Inge’s “Collaboration and Concepts of Authorship,” and Krista Kennedy’s “Textual Machinery: Authorial Agency and Bot-Written Texts in Wikipedia.”
Week 11, November 2
Additional Documentary Screening
Thomas Inge, “Collaboration and Concepts of Authorship”
Krista Kennedy, “Textual Machinery: Authorial Agency and Bot-Written Texts in Wikipedia.”
Brainstorm and generate ideas for topics for Wikipedia article.
Blog Post 5 due
Homework: Write a proposal together as a group for Wikipedia article. Start composing the article.
Look at the Wikipedia Article Assignment for details. Your proposal should have these components:
- Topic for the article
- Creating New or Revising Existing Article
- Group Work Division
- Bibliography of Existing sources on the topic
- Schedule-
- Section Headings/organization Scheme
- Images
- Other Multimedia/Hyperlinks
Week 12, November 9
Small group conference with me @ Sierra Tower 834. Be ready to share your proposal with me.
Homework: Further develop your article and upload it to Wikipedia for peer review
Week 13, November 16
Peer Review of Wikipedia Article
Finalize your collaborative Wikipedia article.
Introduction to Digital Portfolio Project.
Homework:
Read and Blog (Blog Post 6) on Paul V. Anderson’s chapter, “Creating Reader-Centered Websites,” and Richard Beach et.al’s “Composing Multimodal Texts through Use of Images, Audio, and Video” from Understanding and Creating Digital Texts.
Also read and blog (Blog Post 7) on James E. Porter’s “Recovering delivery for digital rhetoric,” and Inhwa Kim and Jasna Kuljis’ “Manifestation of Culture in Website Design.”
Week 14, November 23
Wikipedia Article Presentation
Blog Post 6 and 7 Due
Discussion on:
Paul V. Anderson, “Creating Reader-Centered Websites.”
Richard Beach et.al “Composing Multimodal Texts through Use of Images, Audio, and Video” from Understanding and Creating Digital Texts.
Porter, James E. “Recovering delivery for digital rhetoric.”
Kim, Inhwa, and Jasna Kuljis. “Manifestation of Culture in Website Design.”
Workshop on your Digital Portfolio
Homework: Read and Blog on Anne Frances Wysocki’s “The Multiple Media of Texts: How Onscreen and Paper Texts incorporate Words, Images, and Other Media,” and Heidi McKee’s “Sound Matters: Notes Towards the Analysis and Design of Sound in Multimodal Web Texts.”
Week 15, November 30
Wysocki, Anne Frances. “The Multiple Media of Texts: How Onscreen and Paper Texts
incorporate Words, Images, and Other Media.”
McKee, Heidi. “Sound Matters: Notes Towards the Analysis and Design of Sound in
Multimodal Web Texts.”
Workshop/Peer Review on Digital Portfolio
Blog Post 8 Due
Week 16, December 7 (Last Day of Instruction)
Final Digital Portfolio Exhibit/Course Evaluation/Dinner
