“The composition process is more than just putting words on the page or screen. In addition to writing print-based texts, you will also practice composing online, often making use of visual and audio forms.”
And this is exciting work! It represents an opportunity to thoughtfully and purposefully explore a range of textual production and consumption (and in between) with students. But, like all of our course goals and practices, it’s easier said than done.
I (Caitlin Larracey) spoke at the most recent faculty retreat to share tips, tricks, and frameworks behind digital writing. My slides are below.
There are a range of resources throughout the slides to direct your attention to scholarship about digital/multimodal writing, resources about assignments, and assistance with the technological side of it.
I wanted to add here though the insightful points added to our discussion by Alice Boone and David Kim. Alice talked about “playbor,” asking us to consider the platforms students use to write on in the classroom and the monetization of that work (that we often characterize as play). David noted that, though there may be “simple” or “easy” ways to consider digital writing in the classroom, it’s also important to have an understanding of the technologies that you are asking students to use – their interfaces and mechanisms, underlying assumptions and business models.
We welcome more discussion of digital writing in composition and hope these conversations can happen on the blog, in our classrooms, and at future professional development events.
Délice Williams led us in a wonderfully thought-provoking discussion about engaging with complexity in the classroom. Specifically, we considered how we (and how we might) help students to do this work with us. The full retreat notes – a list of texts and a list of practices – are below.
The practices seem like those common and key to the classroom. These categories of texts (as well as those specific ones listed in the notes) may be useful launching points for engaging students in these practices.
Lauren Wallis, Meg Grotti, and Hannah Lee (superstars of the library) spoke with us during the fall 2016 faculty retreat about information literacy and threshold concepts, those “troublesome, transformative, irreversible, integrative, and bounded” ideas that signify long-term learning of integral ideas and practices in a particular field.
Lauren, Meg, and Hannah introduced us to information literacy’s current threshold concepts and asked us to consider how our goals in E110 aligned with these concepts. They also showed us how many of these concepts worked alongside the Writing Program Administrators’ framework. Below are the slides from their presentation and discussion.
“aims to increase the impact of library instruction by introducing foundational skills and concepts prior to the class session, which can then be dedicated to hands-on learning related that helps students engage with your research assignment.”
The site also has a wealth of resources available to instructors (for students) in considering productive and purposeful information literacy. There’s also some sample lesson plans that consider how the concepts inform library instruction and research practices.
Lauren Wallis is the person to contact if you’re considering the pilot project or further support in information literacy; Hannah Lee can especially help you in your and your students’ multimodal and/or digital work at the Student Multimedia and Design Center.
Thanks to Meg, Hannah, and Lauren for sharing their expertise and advice with us at the retreat!
And the keywords created by the groups at our retreat
You’ll recall that I mentioned that I hope to form an ad hoc working group charged with reviewing and revising the course goals and practices for English 110. Please email me if you would like to participate in this working group.