Technology Fellowship Program

Writing Program

University of Massachusetts, Amherst

2007-2008

A year-long collaborative effort directed by Donna LeCourt and assisted by Brian Houle in which selected Writing Program teachers study, plan, implement, and assess computers and writing projects for their classrooms.

Tech Fellows' Blogs

• Leslie Bradshaw
• Linh Dich
• Denise Paster
• Emma Howes
• Emily Miller
• Donna LeCourt
• Brian Houle

Schedule Outline

• 9/17/07: Process, the 112 Curriculum, and Blogging
  • Technology Statement:
    • Process issues
    • Collaboration/Class community
  • Introduction to Tools available at UMass
    • Blogs in 112 curriculum:
      • Barrios, http://www.bgsu.edu/cconline/barrios3/barrios3.htm
      • Fernheimer and Nelson, http://currents.cwrl.utexas.edu/fall05/fernheimernelson.html
  • Setting up Our Blogs

• 10/1/07: Circulation and Publication: What’s Public? Does publishing mean there is an audience? How can texts circulate (once published) in ways not intended? Possible readings:
  • Danah Boyd, “Social Network Sites: Public, Private, or What?” http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2007/?page_id=28
  • Sullivan, Laura. “Cyberbabes: (Self-) representation of women and the virtual male gaze” Computers and Composition, 14.2 (1997): 189-204
  • Baoill, Andrew. “Weblogs and Public Sphere” Into the Blogosphere. Eds. Laura Gurak, et. Al. http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/weblogs_and_the_public_sphere.html
  • Joe Moxley’s instruction to USF students on publishing online: http://writingwiki.org/default.aspx/WritingWiki/PublicWriting.html

• 10/15/07: Teaching Audience and Rhetorical Situation. Possible Readings
  • Turnley, Melinda. “Contextualized design: Teaching critical approaches to web authoring through redesign projects”. Computers and Composition 22 (2005): 131-48.
  • Alexander, Jonathan. “Digital spins: The pedagogy and politics of student-centered e-zines” Computers and Composition. 19.4 (2002): 387-410.
  • Samuels, Robert. “Integrating Hypertextual Subjects: Combining Modern Academic Essay Writing with Postmodern Web Zines.” Kairos 10.2 (2006). http://english.ttu.edu/Kairos/10.2/binder2.html?coverweb/samuels/index.html
  • Brown, James and Lacey Donahue. “In Between Lauding and Deriding: A Pedagogical Review of MySpace^?” Currents in Electronic Literacy (Spring 2007). http://currents.cwrl.utexas.edu/spring2007/brown_and_donohue

• 10/29/07: 112 and New Media
  • Sorapure, Madeleine. “Text, Image, Code, Comment: Writing in Flash” Computers and Composition 23 (2006): 412-29.
  • Houle, Brian R., Alex P. Kimball, and Heidi A. McKee^?. “Boy? Your Decide/Girl? You Decide: Multimodal Web Composition and a Mythography of Identity” http://www.bgsu.edu/cconline/houlekimballmckee/index.html
  • Mary Hocks, “Understanding Visual Rhetoric in Digital Writing Environments” College Composition and Communication 54.4 (2003): 629-656.
  • Visit by Professor Janine Solberg?

• 11/14/07: Open Topic. Some possibilities
  • Research literacy and intellectual property
  • More on new media
  • Civic discourse
  • Reading web as cultural site (e.g., Duffelmeyer, “Critical Work in First-Year Composition” in Pedagogy, 2.3

• 11/26/07: Generating and Drafting Project Proposals and Choosing Tools
• 12/10/07: Draft of Proposals Due for Response; Discussion of Assessment Plans

PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL READINGS THAT DON’T HAVE LINKS ARE AVAILABLE THROUGH E-JOURNAL IN THE LIBRARY