Contents
OVERVIEW
In this class you will focus on developing your skills at new media writing, which are those types of writing that are common now that anyone with a computer has access to the necessary digital tools to compose messages to share with others online.
We will focus in particular on three types of new media writing: blogging (via the class blog), a Text-Based Genres Project, and a Visual-Based Genres Project. Most of the info below relates to the latter two projects.
Each of your two main projects will be in a different new media genre (Text-Based or Visual-Based, as described below), but they should also be different in at least one other way, in terms of topic, audience, purpose, and/or source of research. Each of those components is described below.
Working on these projects will help you achieve many of the skills outlined under our major course learning goals: Composing Processes, Rhetorical Awareness, and Digital Literacies.
TIME FRAME
Class Blog: Weeks 1-6 (and throughout)
Text-Based Genres Project: Weeks 7-10
Visual-Based Genres Project: Weeks 10-15
SUBMITTING FINAL VERSIONS
Class Blog: at the end of the semester, you will submit to D2L a reflection on learning that includes your evaluation of your participation on the class blog throughout the semester.
Text-Based Genres Project: You’ll submit the final version of the project in a new post on the class blog, which will contain a rhetorical analysis of the project as well as an embedded version or a link to the project elsewhere online. You’ll also submit a private self-evaluation of the project via D2L. The project will be due around Week 10 or 11.
Visual-Based Genres Project: You’ll submit the final version of the project in a new post on the class blog, which will contain a rhetorical analysis of the project as well as an embedded version or a link to the project elsewhere online. You’ll also submit a private self-evaluation of the project via D2L. The project will be due shortly after the end of the semester, most likely on our scheduled exam date. (We have no final exam.)
PROCESS
For the Text-Based Genres Project and the Visual-Based Genres Project, you’ll follow a similar process, with slight adaptations depending on the format and genre you’ve chosen to work with.
- choose a topic
- identify an appropriate and specific target audience for that topic
- identify a purpose
- select the format that would best enable you to reach each audience (from among the options described below under Text-Based Genres and Visual-Based Genres)
- search for examples of messages in the format you’ve chosen that might serve as models
- develop an outline, storyboard, or other form of plan for your message
- prepare a rough draft of your message for peer feedback
- revise and develop your message in response to feedback
- edit and polish your message for final submission
- post the final version along with a rhetorical analysis on the class blog when due, as well as a self-evaluation via D2L
WORKING IN GROUPS
You may work in a group of 2-3 total for EITHER the Text-Based Genres Project OR the Visual-Based Genres Project, but not for both.
If you want to work with a group, you may choose your own members from among all three of my sections of WRTG 3020. You will submit the proposal and all other aspects of the project as a group, except for the private self-evaluations, which you’ll submit individually.
If you do work with a group, you should choose a topic and format that is bigger in scope than what you would choose if you were working on your own, to account for the contributions of all group members.
TOPICS
You may choose your own topics for the Text-Based Genres and Visual-Based Genres Projects, but the topics should relate to the larger course theme of the rhetoric of gender and sexuality. See these pages for more info on the course topic: What does rhetoric have to do with gender? and About our Course Topic
I encourage you to consider taking on at least one topic that’s new to you, so that you have the opportunity to expand your knowledge.
In order to keep each project manageable, in terms of the time you’ll need to spend on research and writing, I recommend that you choose very narrow topics. Often the best bets for good topics are those that respond to specific situations, such as a current trend in pop culture or a recent event.
Please note that you will need to receive topic approval from me before you begin working on either project. That will happen after you submit a proposal for each project.
AUDIENCES
In order to meet the course learning goals under the category of Rhetorical Awareness, you’ll need to identify a very specific primary audience for each of your projects and then carefully apply rhetorical strategies designed to reach each audience.
An “audience” is a group of people who have enough characteristics in common that you can tailor your message to meet their specific needs and interests. If your audience is too broad, you won’t be able to apply specific rhetorical strategies to reach them. One way to tell if you’ve identified a suitable audience is if you can locate a web site or social media tool where you know you can reach members of that audience, so that you can publish your project there.
The “general public” is NOT an acceptable audience, as members of the general public have very little in common with each other, which makes it too difficult to tailor a message for them.
Our class may serve as a secondary audience, but I’d prefer that you choose a more specific and well-defined primary audience.
Here are a few fairly broad audiences, but you’re bound to come up with some much more specific audiences as you think about the message you want to compose:
- CU students (or a particular subset, by age, major, etc.)
- high school students
- parents of school-age children
- teachers or professors
- professionals in a particular profession
- members of a political party
- readers of a particular web site
- heterosexual married couples or LGBT couples
PURPOSES
In order to meet the course learning goals under the category of Rhetorical Awareness, you’ll need to identify very specific purposes for each of your projects, so that you can practice different strategies for communication, based on your purpose.
By “purpose” I mean the impact you want to the project to have on the target audience. Here are some sample purposes:
- inform
- educate
- analyze
- argue
- persuade
- critique
- advocate or protest
- entertain (perhaps with an underlying educational message)
SOURCES OF RESEARCH
To better understand your topic and support your points in your project, you will need to do some form of research, whether that involves reading scholarly articles, reading journalism and other kinds of non-academic articles, browsing web sites, watching documentaries, interviewing other people, or interrogating your own personal experience.
You should plan to draw on academic and/or journalistic research for at least ONE of your projects. Also, you may draw primarily on personal experience (yours or other people’s) for only one project.
I encourage you to draw on the academic articles as well as other articles available on the main Rhetoric of G&S Readings Library, or you may do research on your own, using the CU library databases. See my handouts on Information Literacy.
FORMAT OPTIONS FOR EACH PROJECT
- Options for the Text-Based Genres Project (Weeks 7-10)
- Options for the Visual-Based Genres Project (Weeks 10-15)
A NOTE ABOUT SAMPLES
Just as a point of clarification: I’ve pointed you to sample projects in a variety of new media genres that were made by my previous students, so that you can learn more about our course topic and so that you can see what new media genres look like. But not all of the sample student projects available on the main Rhetoric of G&S site would be appropriate in response to the assignment for Fall 2012 students in WRTG 3020.
A few of the samples were created by students in my LGBT 2000 class last Spring, which was comprised entirely of lower division students, so most of the projects were not substantial enough to count for credit in an upper division class. And a few other samples were created in response to shorter assignments, which I’ve tried to indicate in the notes that go with the samples. This is particularly the case with a few comic strips.
If you have any questions about the extent to which a sample might serve as an appropriate model for your own project, please contact me by email or arrange to meet with me in person.