Almost spring break, on Thursday the 25th

> How to make a blog narrative. Try one out!



> How to make a Google Maps narrative. Try one out!



> Hear about some projects (if there's time). Don't forget the revised essay is due after Spring Break.

Tuesday 3/23

> Please learn to post links in your blogs and not long urls as text!

> Research topic: Twitter. Social networking tool or new form of communication? Affordances and biases?

• Basic question: what are you doing?
• Micro-blog with 140 character limit per post.
• Reverse chronological, like blogs.
• Even more immediate and ephemeral than blogs.
• Important characters: # to tag and @ in reply to.
• Business model: paid tweets.

> You will make a creative gallery linked to your blog, where you extend your topic through something (or several things) you make. What can you make? Whatever you want! You might: make an iPod-ready soundtrack for your project, using audio that you find or create; make a hyperlinked story presented on a blog; make several YouTube videos; make a presentation with images and animation; make an online game; make a remix of the project, mashing up text images…; what else? All of the above and more...

Over the next several classes we will cover tools and techniques for text production, audio, and video. By mid-April, you should have a good plan for and drafts of one or more creations for your gallery. The remaining classes after that will be devoted to working on your gallery and showing it off.



> Look at examples. Revise your blog post: what are your thoughts right now about the creative gallery? Share some blog posts with the whole class.

Sunshine and Thursday March 18

> Talk about Creative Gallery

> Blogs




> Work on the collaborative text. General question: What are the shared claims? What is the logic of the claims? Goal: re-organize the document to follow some sort of organization/logic.

First, return to your writing in the collaborative text, and see if you want to revise. Add and expand as you see fit.

Then work on re-organizing. Rearrange sentences, paragraphs, and ideas to make the collaborative document stronger. Follow your sense of how the pieces fit together. Write linking sentences or phrases to connect the paragraphs.

Note: You will work on the collaborative document in groups. If you are not working on it, revise your essay on Google Docs.

Group 1. Alderman, Burkarth, Duverger, Hasbani, Houck, Lucas, Roberts, Rosenthal, Vanorsdale, Whiteford

Group 2. Burdette, Donato, Harris, Hewett, Koonse, Osborne, Rogers, Toler, Weese.

> Discuss projects. Hear about some.

It's Tuesday March 16 and time for ENGL 303

> Workshop essay. Due: Blog post with draft of essay. Remember, the final draft is due April 6.

> Take a moment to make sure your essay is in Google Docs and linked to your blog. Write a short note in the blog post where you reflect on the essay: What do you like about it? What needs the most work? Also, use the sharing button to make your essay editable by anyone: select Sharing > Get the Link to Share > and select the boxes to allow others to view and edit. The link should be the one you posted in your blog!

> As a large group, take a look at an essay.

> Then work in small groups. Choose a person to go first in the group. Everyone focus on that person's essay, making comments as noted below. Be sure work on one essay at a time, as a group, so that any questions can be cleared up in discussion with the author. Then move to the next essay. Make all comments directly in the Google Docs essay using a highlight and/or colored text. At the end of class, be sure to change the sharing on your own document back to allow only you to edit (so that no one else comes in and makes changes).

Group 1: Toler, Roberts, Lucas, Hewett, Duverger.

Group 2: Rogers, Osborne, Houck, Harris, Burkarth.

Group 3: Vanorsdale, Whiteford, Weese, Burdette, Rosenthal.

Group 4: Koonse, Hasbani, Donato, Alderman.

> First reading: Read the essay once for an initial response. Write a note at the end of the document about the following:

• Your overall impression
• What did you like? What didn't you like?

> Second Reading: Read the essay a second time for an in-depth response. Write about the following:

• What is the main idea / claim expressed in the essay? What are the sub-ideas or claims? Are the claims related to the main idea? Write directly into the essay where you see the main and sub- idea/claims. These will probably be expressed a number of different places in the essay. In your comments, suggest how the writer could improve and tightly connect these ideas/claims.
  
• Is there evidence supporting the ideas/claims? Write directly into the essay where you see the author discussing evidence for the ideas/claims. In your comments, suggest how the author could use more evidence or make better use of the evidence, and how.
• Does the writer use ideas and sources from the directed lectures/theories presented in class (theories of authorship, narratology, remix culture, social media, gaming, etc.)? Write directly into the essay where you see this material, or where you think this material could be incorporated. In your comments, discuss how the author could enrich and extend their use of this material.
  
• Are the parts of the essay connected in a logical, convincing manner, with supporting evidence? Write directly into the essay where you see transitions from one part to another, and where you think there should be a transition. In your comments, discuss how the transitions can be made more logical and persuasive.
  
• Where is the language of the essay confusing or unclear? Write directly into the essay where you find confusing and unclear language. Comment on how this could be improved.
  
• Finally, what should the writer focus on to improve the essay? What should she do next? Add to your end note suggesting the most important action item(s).
  

Activities for Thursday March 11

> Remember for Tuesday: draft of essay (the final essay is 2000 word minimum, not including Works Cited; the draft should be as substantial as you can make it), for review in class. The draft should be posted or written in Google Docs and linked onto your blog.


The very first YouTube video, from April 23rd, 2005.


Noah's YouTube Portrait over 2356 days.

> YouTube is the 4th most visited site on the net, after Google, Yahoo!, and Facebook. Write a blog post on how the "author" is constructed on YouTube. You don't need to discuss Facebook, but keep in mind the comparison to last class' discussion, where we decided that Facebook focuses on the author as 1) a dense network of relations and 2) as a bundle of attributes. How is YouTube different? Why is it called YouTube? How does the site work? (For example, how does it make money?) How does the medium (YouTube) structure the message? Write your blog post exploring how YouTube constructs authorship.

> The language of your essay.

• Focus on links and connections at the paragraph level. Every paragraph ends with an idea that links to the next paragraph. Every paragraph begins with an idea that carries from the previous paragraph. Follow the MEAL plan: Main idea, Evidence, Analysis, Link (to next paragraph). The MEAL doesn't necessarily have to be in that order but should include those in every paragraph.
  
• Focus on incorporating your materials, including the annotated bibliography and the ideas from the trail. Work on summarizing each primary material/source, then describing ideas emerging from this, then making links.

> Hear about some projects, starting with "punch lines" (which is also the hook, the deep point being made)

> Work on collaborative document (if there's time)

Get it together for Tuesday the 9th

> Attendance and getting grades back

> Hear about some projects, starting with "punch lines" (which is also the hook, the deep point being made)

> Question: how does Facebook construct the author? The point of the question is concrete description of a medium (as you will need to do in your project). Assume "the medium is the message," i.e. the medium determines the message we get. What can we say about Facebook? How do we "know someone" through Facebook? What kind of self does it present? What structures or patterns? Look at specific details ... e.g. Barack Obama Facebook

> Logical mapping. Your essay must have structure. Remember: 2000 word minimum, not including Works Cited (about 8 pages). You must think through the order of the parts. Here's one approach to brainstorming structure for your essay.

1. Create a Google Docs document and create a diagram
2. Write your single sentence research topic in the center of the diagram
   
3. Write your content areas each in separate boxes (what do you need to talk about to make the explore the research topic? what websites etc. but also what texts, essays, etc.)
4. Write your assertions/claims coming out of the topic each in separate boxes
5. Write your evidence/annotated bibliography texts each in separate boxes
6. Order and organize everything
7. Save the diagram and link it to blog post for today
   

> Work in pairs. Present today's blog post and the logical map to a partner. Discuss the structure of your essay. What parts does it include? What does it need? What part should you write first?

Here's a link to my excellent diagram

It's here! March 4

> Diigo bookmarks

> Working on the essay (draft due 3/16). Over the last three weeks, you heard mini-lectures summarizing and organizing arguments in relation to the class, on the follow topics:

1. What is an author?
2. Narrativity
3. Remix Culture
4. Social Media (Here Comes Everybody)
5. and Gaming

In writing your essay, you must make use of at least one of these areas (make use of = quote the work, engage with the arguments, and make it part of your thinking). Write a new blog post about which of these you will use. (You can use more than one.) Think over the lectures - you may want to look at the Google Doc presentations as reference - and consider which ones makes the most sense for you. Think of it as a theory for your essay. Then consider how you will use this theory. In particular, how does it let you specify the two guiding questions of the course - 1) what is a multimedia author? and 2) how does multimedia writing enable new forms of creativity? - in terms of your topic? What arguments and/or evidence will you adapt?

Before you finish the blog post, do the following. Based on your thinking so far, including your annotated bibliography and your trailer, what are the broad themes and arguments of your project? Remember: an argument involves a thesis, a position that you are taking and arguing for, and that someone could potentially argue against. Then, write a single sentence that sums up your project. It could be in question form or statement form, it could be causal (that was then, this is now, etc.), it could be funny or serious, but either way: make it provocative, the punch line, the slogan for your work.

Post it to your blog!

> Hear as many of these as possible.

> Google Docs intro. Remember, you will write your essay on Google Docs. 2000 word minimum, not including Works Cited. Here's a link to Google Docs.

March March March 2

> Due: Two resources to Diigo + annotated bibliography with at least ten sources, of which at least two must be from Project Muse and/or JSTOR, revised for grading. Note: if you're having trouble with formatting the annotated bibliography om your blog, you could try putting it in Google Docs and linking it to your blog. (You'll write your essay in Google Docs.)

> Diigo bookmarks

> Research topic: gaming

• Who plays games? What games do you play?
• Do games supplant narratives/writing as privileged cultural forms? (over 72% of all people in the US played video games last year, whereas more than 25% read no books in the last year)
• How is "playing" like "reading"?
• Is a game a narrative? Is it a kind of writing? Or are games a fundamentally different type of thing? (e.g. difference in types of events, difference in speakers, difference in temporality)
  
• Are things that we agree are games (chess? football?) also narratives? How about Tetris? Is it a narrative? Why or why not?
  
• OK, then is Zork a game? How so?
  
• Look at Nelson's Evidence. What is it? (game? narrative?) How about September 12 (which declares "This is not a game.")?
• What is the role of narrative/writing within games? How do games contain stories or comes within a story? We may narrate a game after the fact, but is this part of the game? (How?) Look at Dead-in-Iraq.
• What about hybrids? e.g. modding communities such as Sims3 modding, or PacManhattan, or Machinima ("Who's the tank?"), movies and books based on games (Resident Evil, Doom, etc.)