Tech Fellows Proposal, Spring 2008 – Draft
1-2) The scope of this project spans over the entire 112 curriculum with an overarching theme, culminating in the collaborative production of a class digital publication in the 4th unit. The theme guiding the course explores some of the possible intersections of community, both within and outside the classroom walls, and technology/digital literacy, encouraging students to reflect on their own role in both and what it means to be in a particular place during a particular time. The internet provides us with the ability to not only make connections and interact between local and global communities, but also to share experiences with potentially large audiences and build community membership and participation. Because this project will look at several levels of community, digital writing, specifically with wiki’s, allows students to not only participate in collaborative writing within the classroom, but remediate projects onto the web, broadening the scope of their own work to include several spheres of readers, from classmates and instructor, to the larger UMass community and beyond. Authorial credibility will be a part of discussion in all units, as well as the expression of voice for different audiences, the importance of context and the rhetorical situation, and an understanding of design through not only rhetorical choices but light programming, particularly in the last unit.
It has been my (brief) experience that often freshman are hesitant to become active participants in the community around them, identifying more with the towns where they grew up than with the place where they currently reside. This results in them inhabiting a space where their only connections are with a relatively limited social group, which may limit their exposure to diversity and their exploration of social issues and action. While I would certainly never want to discourage their relationship to their hometowns or friends, I want to encourage students to begin to explore the area around them now, giving them permission if only for a semester to become more active participants in the Amherst community as well as in UMass. For the most part, assignments for this course will mirror closely those of the traditional Englwrit 112 curriculum, but with a twist to encourage aforementioned themes and a greater inclusion of technology use in the classroom. Each of the first three units will also provide a potential text for later revision and inclusion in the Unit 4 project.
This said, the first unit will continue to guide students towards reflection of self and context, analyzing these elements to create a clearer understanding of the space from which each student enters the classroom. More specifically, this unit will take the form of an expanded ‘This I Believe” essay, encouraging students to examine their context with added emphasis on the values and beliefs that guide actions. I feel that this approach provides an excellent opportunity for participants to begin the process of uncovering areas of interest as well as core values that will help guide them through the rest of the semester, asking them to question their motivations and drives, and using writing to discover possible reasons for doing what they do.
Unit 2 will also remain fairly consistent with the 112 curriculum, working to expand the exposure of students to issues that extend both globally and locally, learning to effectively summarize, respond to, and analyze texts through essay writing. Reading and discussing works from the Text Wrestling book, students will be encouraged to closely analyze the texts themselves as well as relate the text to their own lives, contemplating the effects of genetic engineering on their eating habits and lifestyle in conjunction with Barbara Kingsolver, for example, or the ways that social forces may be acting to influence their world views in conjunction with Barry Lopez. The essays selected for class discussion will be ones that hold pertinence to the local Amherst/Connecticut River Valley area, and though time allowances will restrict the amount of time spent with the connections, the hope is that the seed will be planted for the remaining units to come.
These ties between local and global continue through to Unit 3, as students integrate research into their writing projects. The main difference here with the traditional curriculum lies in the topic selection for the unit, as students will be more restricted than they normally would be in their research. While I find incredible productivity in allowing students to choose a topic they are interested in to research free of restrictions, for the scope of this project students will be required to choose topics that relate to the surrounding community, either UMass or the Amherst area (or both), beginning to historicize the area they currently occupy. There are several approaches to this essay, which will hopefully make it more accessible to students, including the relation of global events or conversations to local and student movements or opportunities for action, reviews and discussions of local attractions or activities, and exploring the history of the area. Internet research will play a large role in this activity, as well as print sources.
A list of topics will be provided for students, as well as the ability to come up with alternatives, assuming that they are consistent with the vision of the assignment. Possible topics include local industry, myths about the area, a look at actions in the area concerning sustainable living, student run business on campus, local response to domestic violence and violence against women (as well as other social causes), and reviews of area restaurants, coffee shops, and so forth, with emphasis on the economic and ethical background. While many of these topics may prove difficult to research, students will be encouraged to go into the community and experience different aspects of the town in which they are inhabiting, looking past the mere existence of book stores, for example, peering instead into demystifying the workings of the economy of publishing, or an investigation on textbooks and the options available to students in purchasing them.
Finally, Unit 4 will culminate in the dramatic revisions of one of the above unit essays for potential publication in an online class wiki. While all students will be required to revise a draft for this purpose, the publication will be optional, and students will also have the choice of using an alias in publishing the piece. Ideally, a brief peer revision will take place where students can gain experience editing wiki entries as well. The purpose of this project will be to not only provide students with experience dramatically revising an essay, but also with thinking about ways in which digital writing changes the way we look at a piece, not only through the introduction of a “real” audience, but also through the need in this case of more precise writing, and the ability to collaboratively create a work which does not remain static, but takes on the dynamic qualities of a entry which others can access and manipulate.
Through the launching of this wiki, students will participate in the remediation of not only their essays, but of community space onto the internet. As each piece will deal with as aspect of life at UMass and in Amherst, it would be ideal for links to the work to be accessible to the outside community as well as the UMass community, but decisions about advertising and obtaining audiences are ones that are perhaps better decided by the class as a whole than by myself. The ability for this project to extend to future semesters or other 112 courses could allow for future work to be done in this area, deepening our understanding of the role of the internet and technology in creating and sustaining a sense of community and working as a tool to help students access the opportunities that exist in the area beyond their immediate experience in dorms and in classes.
3) For the most part the only forms of writing new to the traditional 112 curriculum will be writing using wiki’s, which introduce increased involvement with collaborative writing and a closer understanding of knowledge as it can act as collective property within a community. The wiki best corresponds with the Unit 3 essays, as these are the most appropriate to not only offer to members of the area for reference but are also the most appropriate for revision by viewers at a later date.
4) Students will learn some coding to use the wiki, bringing them closer to the creation process or digital media and text, though because of time limits this will most likely be limited. The use of SPARK will also be prominent in the class, as students will be asked to post and respond to drafts, and have access to the class calendar. I would also like to explore further the use of the site for a class blog, to allow students access to various materials and handouts, though this may or may not be a significant part of the course.
5) Grading criteria for the Unit 4 projects will focus on the essay revisions, since participation in the wiki will be optional. Each revision will be read for conciseness of language and ideas, appropriateness for a public audience, appropriateness of topic in conjunction with larger class theme, the amount of revision that took place, and with consideration of the effectiveness of the final product itself.
6) The most effective method for judging how well class goals are met will be through Reflective Writing on each unit and through the Final Reflection, during which students will look back on their experiences and share the ways in which the course effected their writing and sense of community at UMass Amherst. Because the goals for this course extend beyond the walls of the classroom, success will register not only in increased competency and comfort in writing and digital text production, but also in the view students take of the community in which they have landed (purposefully or not), and their understanding of the context and history which they themselves now interact with daily during the school year. My hope then, is that this course will continue to influence the way students interact with their surrounding environments long after the semester ends, a goal which will be virtually impossible to follow up on without future interviews with students (which might actually be productive…).
7) Is there time for all this?? Will there be enough to write on for Unit 3? I have a list of topics, but I don’t know if they will all produce a 5 page essay…
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