To help keep us focused on your selected project for the semester, we will read from very few outside texts. The calendar below outlines the concepts we’ll discuss and the main readings we’ll draw from. Most readings are short excerpts. In exchange for the brevity, you’ll need to read the content intently. What we read for this class is theoretical in nature. The authors aim to help you re-imagine how rhetoric works in digital spaces. Further, those authors expect you to apply the theories to examples from your own experience. You’ll work with these theorists to help you think carefully about how and why you create digital texts.
Overall, our goal this semester will be to go slowly and deliberately. That goal is reflected in the calendar below. Our pace should help you build a deep and complex understanding of how writing works in digital spaces. It will also allow you time to experiment with, and work on, your individual project.
Below are simplified calendars of weekly reading assignments and broad project goals by unit. A complete course calendar, best viewed on large, wide screens, is also available. That complete calendar includes dates, all readings, and detailed weekly project goals in a single grid.
Readings Calendar
| Topic | Week | Author & Text/Section Title |
|---|---|---|
| Privacy and Agency on the Web | 1 | “Understanding and Maintaining Your Privacy When Writing with Digital Technologies” from Lindsey C. Kim (2022) and “Messy and Chaotic Learning” (text or audio) from Martha Fay Burtis (2015) |
| Positioning Terminology | 2 | “Intertextuality” § in “Defining and Locating Digital Rhetoric” from Doug Eyman (2015) |
| 3 | “Digital” § (pp. 18–20) in “Defining and Locating Digital Rhetoric” from Doug Eyman (2015) | |
| 4 | “Digital Literacy” § in “Defining and Locating Digital Rhetoric” from Doug Eyman (2015) | |
| 5 | “Digital Rhetoric” § (pp. 24–31) in “Defining and Locating Digital Rhetoric” from Doug Eyman (2015) | |
| Traditional Writing | 6 | “Speaking, Writing, and Literacy” § in “Old Media, New Media, and Knowledge” from J. D. Applen (2013) |
| 7 | “Text” § in “Defining and Locating Digital Rhetoric” from Doug Eyman (2015) | |
| 8 | “Visual Rhetoric” § in “Defining and Locating Digital Rhetoric” from Doug Eyman (2015) | |
| 9 | “The age of print and the late age of print” through “Words on pages and screens” (pp. 12–22) in “Old Media, New Media, and Knowledge” from J. D. Applen (2013) | |
| New Media | 10 | “New Media and Literacy” § in “Old Media, New Media, and Knowledge” from J. D. Applen (2013) |
| 11 | “New Media” § in “Defining and Locating Digital Rhetoric” from Doug Eyman (2015) | |
| 12 | Brock’s “Toward the Rhetorical Study of Code”, stopping at Critical Code Studies on p. 21 | |
| Platforms | 13 | “McLuhan and Media’s Messages” § in “Old Media, New Media, and Knowledge” from J. D. Applen (2013) |
| 14 | “Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)” to the end in “Defining and Locating Digital Rhetoric” from Doug Eyman (2015) |
Website Project Calendar
Because website creation and design is a creative, iterative, experimental process, our weekly goals need to be flexible. Early in the semester, you’ll create specific weekly goals for your project, and we’ll revisit those goals as the course progresses. Broadly stated, we’ll do the following in class:
| Topic | Project Goals & Assignments |
|---|---|
| Privacy and Agency on the Web | Establish a domain + hosting + practice blog post |
| Positioning Terminology | Install publishing platform (likely WordPress); select theme; build placeholder pages; 3 weekly blog posts |
| Traditional Writing | Complete layout mockups on all placeholder pages; 3 weekly blog posts |
| New Media | Complete text and advanced layouts on all pages; 3 weekly blog posts |
| Platforms | Aesthetics complete; connections to discourse community established; publicity plan; 4 weekly blog posts |
| Exams | Course Audit + textbook chapter |