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Upper-level Writing Course:

Digital Rhetorics and Multimodal Composition


Rebecca Hallman
University of Houston

COURSE DESCRIPTION
In this course, we will explore how writing practices are changing in light of emerging digital technologies.
Recognizing that the act of writing can no longer be confined to the production of printed words alone, this course
will engage you in both analyzing and producing digital multimodal texts that blend alphabetic, visual, and aural
components. We will read/listen to/watch/discuss/analyze multimodal texts and also read scholarship in the area
of rhetoric and composition that focuses on the implications behind these emerging technologies. In addition, our
conversations in the latter part of the semester will center around your own course projects. Please expect to
document your experiences and come to class prepared to talk about how the research and composing of your work
is going.

LEARNING OUTCOMES
Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

Use rhetorical principles to analyze the persuasive strategies of digital, multimodal, and print-based texts
Consider critically the unique affordances and constraints of diverse modalities of writing (alphabetic, visual,
aural)
Compose arguments that are supported with text, images, and audio for particular audiences
Reflect on writing processes for inventing, drafting, and revising digital multimodal texts

COURSE STRUCTURE
This course requires you to participate in composing and discussions about composing in a variety of ways. Since
we will be focusing particularly on digital multimodal texts, we will utilize online spaces both formally and
informally. In course, you can expect to:

Discuss scholarship about digital rhetorics and multimodal writing in class


Participate in hands-on workshop style activities both in class and on the web
Create a Wordpress blog that you update regularly and comment on your classmates blogs
Attend peer-review writing groups with the instructor and several peers

MAJOR ASSIGNMENTS
Requirements

Percentage of Total Points

Project 1: Audio Essay


Project 2: Concept in 90
Project 3: Documenting Community Culture
In-Class Participation and Informal Writing
Assignments/Tech Exercises
Peer Reviews and Conferences

20
20
20
25

Total

100

15

POSSIBLE READINGS/VIEWINGS
All required reading/listening/watching for this course would be available as PDFs or online links within our course
site. Some of these texts will include:

Selections from NPR This American Life, Serial, Radio Lab, and The Moth and selected documentaries
Why We Need To Think About Digital Technology, Design, and Multimodal Composition: Read: Elizabeth Daley,
Expanding the Concept of Literacy EDUCAUSE Review 38.2 (2003); Cynthia Selfe, The Movement of Air, the Breath of
Meaning College Composition and Communication 60.4 (2009); Philip Tagg, Reading Sounds, or an Essay on Sounds, Music,
Knowledge, Rock, and Society (1987); Anne Wysocki, The Multiple Media of Texts: How onscreen and paper texts incorporate
words, images, and other media
Reading Images: Read: Scott McCloud, Blood in the Gutter Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (William Morrow, 2004) ;
Scott McCloud, Time Frames Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (William Morrow, 2004)
Digital Rhetoric / Storytelling
View: Ira Glass Introduction to Storytelling; Brian Satterfield, Eight Tips for Telling Your Story Digitally; New London Group,
Diagram of Multiple Modalities; Amy Johns, The Mountain; metroamv lost generation; Jason Van Genderen, Mankind is
No Island; Ny Times, One in Eight Million (watch two stories)
Composing with Image and Sound
View: Justin Cone, Building on the past; Creative commons, Get Creative; Lawrence Lessig, iCommons Summit Talk
Rhetorical Narratives
Read: Will Banks,Ethos, Pathos; Logos
View: A Vision of Students Today; Should We Abolish the Death Penalty?; equality video
Analyzing Voice-over Scripts
View: Scott Simon, How to Tell a Story;
YouTube as Rhetorical Commons
View: Michael Wesch, An anthropological introduction to YouTube, Howard Rhiengold, Vernacular Video in Culture and
Education; Eric Faden, A Fair(y) Use Tale
Documenting Digital Culture
View:Digital Dossier; How I Learned to Type; The History of YouTube;; Sejii Ikeda, Reasons Why We Tube; Lee
Redlingshafer, YouTube and Popularity; Curtis Schwieterman, Spread of Ideas on YouTube; Google, Parisian Love
Rhetoric of Social Media
View: Clay Shirky, How Cellphones, Twitter, Facebook Can Make History; Wikipedia, Social Media; Pew Center Internet,
Broadband, and Cellphone Statistics; Alexis Ohanian, How to Make A Splash in Social Media
Ethics and Representation in Documentary Work
Read: Center for Social Media Honest Truths: Documentary Filmmakers on Ethical Challenges in their Work (pdf)
Fair Use: Read The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video.
Place-Based Documentary Storytelling Techniques
Listen: 24 hours at the Golden Apple
Watch: Family Farm

SHORT PROJECT DESCRIPTIONS


PROJECT 1: Audio Essay
For this project, you are to create an audio essay in which you combine several audio files (some of which I will help
provide and you will find online, others of which you will record) with the goal of creating a layered audio
composition. Your composition should include music, interview material, and a voice-over reflection. In addition,
you might include short clips of interviews or audio compositions that youve found online to which you are
responding. Your Audio Essay should be approximately 3 minutes and must include a written reflection.
For examples of audio essays, check out these sources:
This American Life: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/
Radio Lab: http://www.radiolab.org/
This I Believe: http://thisibelieve.org/
Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives: http://daln.osu.edu/
Story Center: http://www.storycenter.org/
StoryCorps: https://storycorps.org/
As you compose, you might write drafts/scripts for sections of the audio essay. We will workshop some kind of
outline/plan for this assignment in class. You should plan to record interviews and your voiceover and to put them
into Audacity with the other audio files (music, clips from other sources, etc.) that you will then layer to create your
final essay.
Audacity is a free, audio editing and recording software available for download here: http://audacityteam.org/
*We will have an in-class workshop with audio finger exercises that will prepare you for this assignment, as well as
in-class workshop time to work on composing your audio essay.
Extra Credit Opportunity: Submit your audio essay to be published online
PROJECT 2: Concept in 90 1
For this project, you must create a 90-second videotext that illustrates the concept and/or power of multimodality.
You may build on something weve read in class, consider some element of social media, focus on education, or
pick another topic of your choice, as long as it is in some way related to digital rhetorics and/or multimodal
composition. Before you begin composing, you will be asked to submit a short project proposal.
Requirements
Your videotext must run 90 secondsno more, no lessincluding title screen and credits
Your videotext must take a critical, reflective, and/or interpretive approach to its subject matter
You must show facility with both literal and non-literal video and audio matching
You must use at least some materials that exist in the public domain, have been assigned Creative Commons
licenses, or for which you have secures permissions to use. You must give credit for all materials used in
your project.

This project is adapted from DMACs Concept in 60 project at The Ohio State University.

PROJECT 3: Documenting Community Culture


For the final project, you will work individually or in a group of 3-4 to craft a 5-8 minute documentary about some
aspect of a community or culture to which you belong. This culture could be related to on-campus life, your own
city community, a national/global subculture to which you belong, or some kind of extra curricular group to which
you belong. In your documentary narrative, you might focus on a particular place, on an issue of concern to you, on
a campus organization, or an intriguing person. While the choice of topic is wide open, all successful documentary
projects will meet the following rhetorical criteria:

Audience: Your documentary should target a specific audience. Are you creating the text for people within
the community? Are you attempting to raise awareness about a community-related issue for an audience
outside of a particular community?
Rhetorical Purpose: In crafting your documentary, you need to have a clear goal for how you want your
audience to think, feel, or act differently after they view your work. Furthermore, you need to be able to
demonstrative how your documentary complicates, transforms, or extends current representations of your
community culture on the web.
Primary Research: In composing your documentary, you will almost certainly take original photographs.
In most cases, you will also conduct audio or video interviews as well. You also may need to consult library
and/or archival sources in order to contextualize your topic. Keep in mind that experienced documentarians
almost always gather much more footage than they actually need so that they can choose only the best
selections for their final video. You will probably want to gather at least 30-40 minutes of interview footage
and over 200 photographs so that you can have a rich collection of material to choose from.
Arrangement: You need to carefully arrange your footage into a logical order (narrative sequence, topical
division, spatial division) that achieves your rhetorical purpose and appeals to your audience. You also will
likely want to employ voiceover narration and/or title slides in order to clarify aspects of your argument that
cannot be made clear through visuals and interview footage alone.
Ethics: You must ask your interviewees to give you permission to include their interviews in a video to be
published to the World Wide Web; you also should make sure that your interviewees have the option to
withdraw their participation at any time. You need to ask permission to take photographs of people, unless
you are taking pictures of a crowd in a public place.

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