Assignments
Your grade in this course will be determined by your performance on the following assignments. (Detailed descriptions for the assignments will be added as we discuss them in class.)
Unit #1: Video Narrative (15%)
This assignment asks you to tell a story—a narrative—about yourself or another member of the Virginia Tech community. Rather that writing a traditional essay, you will develop a digital narrative that combines your spoken voice with video clips or timed still images. In class, we will experiment with several tools for creating videos, but you may choose to use any software program that suits your goals for this project. Whatever approach you take to composing your narrative, the finished product should be a short video (3-5 minutes) that you can share on YouTube or Vimeo. Read more…
Unit #2: Tap Essay (15%)
Touch-screen devices like smartphones and tablets enable new ways of interacting with digital media. Where we once clicked and dragged with a mouse, we now tap and pinch with our hands. Recently, several writers have embraced the affordances (and constraints) of touch-screen devices by writing short essays and stories that are read (viewed? experienced?) by tapping through a linear series of screens. For this assignment, you will develop and disseminate your own tap essay using a software platform called Tapestry. Read more…
Unit #3: Multimodal Rhetorical Analysis (20%)
In preparation for Unit #4, you will analyze a successful, web-based advocacy project and present your findings in two formats: (1) an public, online essay that blends text and images, and (2) a short, rapid-fire oral presentation. Rather than merely summarizing the advocacy project, your essay and presentation should critique the rhetorical strategies used by the individual or organization behind the project and evaluate the effectiveness of the project. Read more…
Unit #4: Online Advocacy Project (20%)
Digital tools have simplified and accelerated the means by which people advocate for change in their communities, and even traditional causes now rely on Twitter feeds, Facebook pages, and IndieGoGo campaigns to communicate their message. For your final project in this class, you will work in small teams to achieve a simple goal: use the internet to change the world. Sound daunting? It should. Read more…