English/DTC 355: Multimedia Authoring
What the @#*%! is Multimedia Authoring?
Pretend you’ve put on your high-heels and are on your way to a party. Or pretend you’ve put on your cowboy boots and are on your way to a Faith Hill concert. Then think about how you speak in these different situations. At the party, I reckon slang and acronyms are being used your momma wouldn’t want to hear. And I reckon at the concert, you might lose your voice from screaming “Dump McGraw.”
There is something in common about these situations that is the focus of our future study. The commonality we are looking at is Multimedia Authoring.
In other words, whether you are the high-heel wearing, slang and acronym using person or the Faith Hill-o-phile in cowboy boots, you are using a variety of communication mediums (clothing on bodies and your vocal apparatus) to author yourself. Yeah, it sounds strange. In more words, it just means by wearing particular clothes (a visual and tactile medium), you are constructing yourself as a particular person in a situation. Maybe at the party, you showed respect by being dressy, or maybe your high-heels meant you were at the height of fashion. Or maybe it helped you appear taller or longer legged or more intimidating than usual. Similarly, the way you spoke reflects how you authored yourself to an audience—how withit were your acronyms and your slang. So there you are, already you are a multimedia author. But you still have to take the course.
And the reason you still have to take it is because English/DTC 355 takes this idea of multimedia authoring and applies it to the creation and critique of primarily digital texts. We will examine how rhetoric functions in constructing arguments that do not use traditional mediums L I K E the WORdS I am TypING that will be printed on paper. In different words, we will learn how authors or rhetoricians utilize not only TexT, but how they use color, shapes, sounds, smells, tastes, and fonts to create multimedia arguments. We will learn how to talk about this and in order to gain a better understanding of these types of arguments you will create your own multimedia arguments.
Technology
To author multimedia, you can’t just be rhetorically savvy; you have got to be digitally savvy as well. In this course, in addition to upping your rhetorical savvy, you will up your digital savvy by learning a variety of digital programs—Dreamweaver, Adobe Photoshop, and iMovie, for instance. If you already know them, then you are in great shape, can help out, and can learn more. If you don’t know them already then you have got to take English 300.
Course Goals
To become technorhetoricians by
°Investigating the rhetorical dimensions of multimedia texts.
°Demonstrating the ability to rhetorically analyze multimedia texts.
°Investigating the socio-historical dimensions of multimedia texts.
°Demonstrating an understanding of the socio-historical dimensions of multimedia texts.
°Generating a variety of multimedia texts for a variety of audiences that demonstrates an understanding of the rhetorical construction of multimedia texts.
°Upping your digital savvy.
Course Reading
Always bring the required readings to class along with ix Visual Exercises.
1. Any handouts provided in class or on the course website.
2. Visual Rhetoric in a Digital World: A Coursebook by Carolyn Handa.
3. ix Visual Exercises tech comm by Cheryl Ball and Kristin L. Arola.
4. The Non-Designers Design Book 3rd Edition by Robin Williams.
Policies
Attendance
Since we will be working collaboratively on many assignments, and since learning is a communal effort, your regular attendance is vital. If you miss more than six classes, you will receive an “F” for the course.
If you are tardy for class and I or your classmate has begun a lecture or presentation, you will be given an absence. Please schedule your tardiness in advance. And since some things come up unexpectedly, please remember you have three absences to account for these unexpected happenings.
Quizzes can be made up if you have an excused absence on the day of the quiz.
Late Work
Here is the deal: You can turn in one assignment one week late. This assignment cannot be a presentation and must be an individual project. You must email me on or before the due date and announce to me that this is the assignment you will turn in one week late. Otherwise, late work is not accepted.
Cellular telephones and Laptops
Cellular phones are banned forthwith from our classroom. If you do sneak one in and it rings or you engage in a cellular coversation, then you will be given a warning. The second time will result in an absence.
Laptops are allowed for taking notes and class discussion related searches. They are not for random surfing no matter how uninterested you might be.
Cellular phone exception: If an iPhone does ring during class, you are exempt from the above rule for two occurences as long as you allow me to use it for five minutes.
Students with Disabilities
I am committed to providing assistance to help you be successful in this course. Reasonable accommodations are available for students with a documented disability. Please visit the Disability Resource Center (DRC) during the first two weeks of every semester to seek information or to qualify for accommodations. All accommodations MUST be approved through the DRC (Admin Annex Bldg, Rooms 205). Call 509-335-3417 to make an appointment with a disability counselor.
@#*%! Academic Dishonesty
Plagiarism is not tolerated in any form. You will fail the course if you commit plagiarism knowingly or unknowingly. Please come to my office if you have any questions about citing sources.
WSU has developed helpful resources on plagiarism which identifies two types of plagiarism:
° Intentional plagiarism (i.e. cheating), “where one knowingly appropriates the work of others and passes it off as their own.”
° Unintentional plagiarism (i.e. misuse of sources), which includes “accidental appropriation of the ideas and materials of others due to a lack of understanding of the conventions of citation and documentation.”
See the following sites for more information on the university’s treatment of plagiarism:
Library Instruction Services
Office of Student Conduct
