English W412/W510

Exploring Literacy, Technology, Teaching, Writing

Schedule Update

March 28th, 2007 by · No Comments · logistics

Blogging Buddies for week of March 28/April 4
Respond to your buddy’s post(s)
Becky/Ryan/Alan
Amanda M./Amanda R.
Cherilyn/Heather
Trent /Mica
Amanda C./Glenn
Ashley/ Alissa
Britt/ Robert

Blogging Buddies for week of 11/18/25 April
Respond to your buddy’s post(s)
Becky/Ryan/Alan
Amanda M./Cherilyn
Trent/Amanda C.
Ashley/Britt
Robert/Alissa
Glenn/Mica
Heather/Amanda R.

Your blogging for the last week of class should reflect on your research and writing process, asking questions about what you are learning and how you are learning it.

Questions that may help you craft posts include:
What are you learning about that helps you answer your research questions?
Are the answers to those questions changing over time?  IF so, what’s making you see things differently?
What obstacles have you addressed as you have worked on this project?
What seems important to you about technology and literacy?
How does what is important to you fit in with our reading? With others’ views in class?
What goals do you have for your future as a technologically literate, empowered writer, reader, citizen?
What kinds of sources have been most helpful to you?

Presentation Schedule:

18 April: Mica, Robert, Amanda R., Alan, Becky, Trent, Amanda M.
25 April: Heather, Amanda C., Ryan, Britt, Glenn, Ashley, Alissa, Cherilyn

For your presentation: 10 minute presentation on your question and your research/writingprocess.  Tell us what’s important/cool/interesting about your project. Have questions for us (things you would like help with).  Have a short handout of resources (5-10) about your topic for our reference with a headnote providing context for the resources—what they’re useful for, what kinds of sources they are, how we might approach them.

Really Useful Technology Schedule

March 19th, 2007 by · No Comments · logistics

March 28: Becky, Ryan, Britt

April 4: Amanda M., Cherilyn, Robert

April 11: Amanda R., Alan, Trent

April 18: Heather, Alissa, Ashley

April 25: Glenn, Mica, Amanda C.

A Little About McCloud

March 3rd, 2007 by · 2 Comments · class materials

As I indicated on Oncourse, we’re having a surprise field trip: Scott McCloud is speaking at 7 p.m. on March 7, and we’ll go as a group to hear him. McCloud–about whom you can learn quite a bit at his website–is a comic book artist who is well known not just for his comics but also for his books about comics. Here’s how McCloud describes his own work:

  • Understanding Comics. A 215-page comic book about comics that explains the inner workings of the medium and examines many aspects of visual communication along the way. Understanding Comics has done well in stores, is in over 15 languages and, while not universally liked, is about as close to it as I’m ever likely to see. A favorite of interface, game and Web designers despite the fact that it doesn’t mention computers once. (Published 1993).
  • Reinventing Comics. The controversial 242-page follow-up to U.C. advocates 12 different revolutions in the way comics are created, distributed and perceived with special emphasis on the potential of Online Comics. Nearly every page seemed to step on somebody’s toes, and the debates in the comics industry over comics on the Web have gotten increasingly heated since its publication. Reinventing Comics is the only book I’ve ever written that’s been actually described as “dangerous.” (Published 2000). (indented material quoted from his own bio page)

I’ll bring part of Understanding Comics to class for you. McCloud lays out some simple–and important–ways of thinking about what comics permit. (He looks at the ways images can repeat what words say, can enhance or intensify what words say or might evoke, or can completely contrast with words, for example.) He’s also written quite a bit about what the developments in computer technology mean for writing and comics.

By reputation, he’s a marvelous speaker. In seeing him, we’ll have a chance to hear someone whose made his career from writing, taking advantage of the interplay between technology, writing, and drawing to make meaning and have fun. We will return to visual literacy after spring break, but this is too good an opportunity to pass up! So we’ll squeeze some attention to McCloud in, and we’ll have to focus hard in our first hour to look at your ideas for your final projects and some writing on blogging and myspace.

Snow Day Adjustments

February 14th, 2007 by · No Comments · logistics

February 14 will become February 21 in light of the campus’ snow day. I’ll rearrange things later in the semester, but for now, let’s just push everything back a week. See you on the 21st!

Class Handouts Available

February 1st, 2007 by · No Comments · Uncategorized

Check the schedule for links to handouts from class.  Let me know if you have questions!

Links and Resources

January 29th, 2007 by · No Comments · logistics

Reading guides are available over at my reading blog: click through from the blogroll.

I added a link on pencil history on the Resources page above.  Lots of beautiful pictures–enjoy!

Welcome!

January 3rd, 2007 by · No Comments · logistics

This blog and associated pages are the online center of two English courses at IUPUI: English W412, Literacy and Technology, and English W510, Computers and Writing. Undergraduate and graduate students meet together to study the mutual influences of literacy and technology and to explore the obligations English teachers and students have with respect to literacy technologies. I’m glad you’re here!