College Writing 105: Intermediate Writing

Finding Your Voice With Others

Instructor: Jane Hammons        Meeting Time T-TH 3:30-5:00 & Place: T 125 Dwinelle Th online -TH 3:30-5:00Office: M17 Wheeler Hall         Office Hours: T 1-2 W 4:30-5:30e-mail: jhammons@berkeley.edu    Telephone: 642-8565Twitter: @JHammons & @CollegeWrtngUCBBlogs: Landscapes of the Imagination (teaching & learning) & Light Out for the Territory (my writing & photographs)Instagram: muchophotos

In this course you will hone your ability to read and write academic prose by analyzing issues related to authorial voice, the writing process and technology. Because this is a hybrid composition course, taught both in the classroom and online, you will use Web 2.0 writing tools to think critically about how these tools affect the writing process. In addition, this course offers you the opportunity to collaborate on a number of projects as is often required in both academic and workplace writing situations and which the required Web 2.0 writing tools are designed to support.  

UC Berkeley’s Honor Code: As a member of the UC Berkeley community, I act with honesty, integrity and respect for others.

REQUIRED TEXTSBorn Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives, John Palfrey and Urs GasserMicrostyle: The Art of Writing Little, Christopher Johnson (UCB alum, Linguistics)Course Reader: Available at Replica Copy, 2138 Oxford St.

MAJOR ASSIGNMENTS:

Digital Literacy Essay: In this essay, you will reflect on your use of various media while considering the terms, analysis and definitions in the assigned readings as well as in our class discussions. You may also choose to write an academic essay analyzing two required texts, and use your personal experience as narrative evidence. (4-5 pages; Reflective Essay 2 pages)                                   

30%

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Analytical, Persuasive Essay: Your choice of topic related to readings and topics that have come up in class discussion (4 pages; Reflective Essay 2 pages)

25%

Final Presentation and Reflection: make a Prezi on a topic related to things we’ve been discussing and doing in class, or you can choose a topic that reflects your interests and/or expertise on a topic unrelated to the course (in other words, making the Prezi is the important thing). 25%

Participation (completion of homework, forum    posts, collaborative online work,drafts, attendance,etc.)        20%  

WEB TOOLS and Free SoftwarebSpace Drop Box, Forums, ChatPrezi Online presentation tool (sign up for free version; use your berkeley.edu e-mail address, and should be able to use all the features—including privacy—free)Write or Die by Dr. Wicked Online freewriting tool (use the Web App for free)bubbl.us A mapping tool Twitter We’ll use Twitter to write economical, meaningful sentences by participating in a “contest” sponsored by the print magazine Creative Nonfiction @cnfonline using the hashtag #cnftweet (which gives us fewer than 140 characters to work with!). Last semester a couple of #cw105 students won micro essay competitions. Read the story on CWP’s website.Diigo a social bookmarking site (I’ll start a private group for our class and send an invite; the benefit of doing the online reading here is that you can highlight, leave comments and have conversations with people about the article or video). As with Prezi, join Diigo with your berkeley.edu email to get some freebiesWordPress Blog optional WordPress.com is free and does not involve any downloading (unlike WordPress.org)

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Important Dates:Be set up on Twitter and Diigo: Thursday, September 19 Digital Literacy Essay (4 pages and 2-page Reflective Essay) DUE Friday, October 4 (upload both by midnight)Persuasive Essay (2-3 pages with 1-2-page reflection) DUE Friday, November 8Prezi Presentations DUE: last week of class; schedule tba Some of the assignments below might change—especially those for the Th online class as I reserve the option to alter the assignment so that it reflects what has happened in class on T. Everything that is hyperlinked is also in our Diigo reading group, so you may want to read everything there. Sometimes I will ask you to read and discuss on Diigo during the Th online session.Every Thursday, I will post the online assignment in bSpaceResourceOnline Assignment Folder even if it is merely a repetition of what is on the syllabus.

About the Required TextsMicrostyle: Because Johnson is talking broadly about how language changes and more specifically about how it has changed in response to the Internet and new media, this book is relevant to your writing (in general) and the way you think about your use of language as affected by your use of Web 2.0 tools and social media (specifically in this class). So when you read from his book, annotate for things that are related to other assigned readings and to class discussions.

Born Digital: Here are some guiding questions to think about as you read from Born Digital and Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media (HOMAGO for short), excerpted in the Course Reader. We will use these questions in class discussion and also in Forum Posts and Chat sessions in our online class sessions:

1. As you read from these texts, think about how each is written. Think in terms of style, methodology, audience, voice, kinds of evidence, and use of evidence. The texts share a topic. Do they also share a purpose? How can you tell?

2. While the texts share an overarching topic, how does each text break that down? How are particular subtopics treated by each set of authors (note that each text has more than one author)? Which topics does BD treat in depth? HOMAGO? What does that tell you about the audience and purpose? About the writers?

3. Where do you feel that you are part of the discussion, regardless of whether or not you are considered a digital native or millennial (born since 1980)? If you are a millennial, how well do you think

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each text represents you? People 5-10 years younger than you? Possibly people 5-10 years older than you?

4. Each text makes claims about digital natives (I’m going to use this term rather than millennials since digital literacy is what we are interested in, and the term fits that better). How effective is the evidence? Keep track of evidence that you find particularly persuasive, and note what kind of evidence it is (for example, statistical data, interview, hypothetical example, reference to authority—specific citation of a resource (like the Pew Foundation, for example) or a person who writes or speaks from a position of authority (professional, for example, Chris Anderson, editor of Wired Magazine and author of Free: How Today’s Smartest Businesses Profit by Giving Something for Nothing and/or academic, Lawrence Lessig, for example, author of Remix, Professor of Law at Harvard).

Abbreviations: BD Born Digital, CR Course Reader, MICRO Microstyle 

WEEK ONE:Thursday, August 29ONLINE: Forum Post (see Announcement on bSpace if you haven’t done this yet)

WEEK TWOTuesday, September 3 Discussion: Course Requirements; Web 2.0 tools; Writing Tools; First Essay Assignment (Digital Literacy Narrative/Analysis/Argument)Assignment for discussion T Sept 9: Micro Introduction pp. 1-31 BD Demystify Writing Misconceptions watch the video. Some questions we’ll discuss on Tuesday: What are some of the beliefs you hold or have held about writing in general? How have they influenced (a) your writing habits and behavior and (b) the way you feel about and react to your own writing? BD Identities pp. 17-37 CR HOMAGO Media Ecologies pp. 29-34 Thursday, September 5Online Assignment: Read this Pew Research Center article Millenial Quiz Connected Confident Open to ChangeThen take the quiz Quiz: How Millennial Are You? post your results in the Millenial Quiz Forum on bSpace and briefly discuss. Did anything surprise you? Did the questions seem like good ones to you? Did you detect any bias or assumptions in the wording of the questions? If so,

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explain. Are there questions you would have added, deleted, or worded differently? Explain briefly. When you cut and paste to the Forum, do so from something like TextEdit rather than a doc. That way you avoid all the garble from the doc. Do the above during class time on Th 3:30-5:00. I’ll be available in the bSpace Chat Room during our class time if you have any questions.

WEEK THREETuesday, September 10Discussion: Micro, BD; writing; CR Media EcologiesAssignment for discussion T September 17: BD Introduction pp. 1-15, Afterword pp. 291-295 and Privacy pp. 53-82. Digital Divide Changing But not for Students Torn by It (read brief article and watch short video) Before Thursday’s online session, familiarize yourself with Write or Die so that you can do some online brainstorming for your first essay. MICRO Meaning and Be Clear pp. 33-52

Thursday, September 12Online Assignment: You will work with a particular method of brainstorming Thursday. You’ll need to check bSpace Announcements for the directions. I’ll be available online to get you started and give you the steps to the brainstorming.Save your Write or Die brainstorming session on a doc and upload to your Drop Box no later than 5 p.m. on Thursday, September 12.

WEEK FOURTuesday, September 17Discussion: BD Privacy (Intro & Afterword also); Digital Divide; MICRO; brainstorming; moving to the next stage of your draftAssignment to complete before Thursday’s online class: make sure you are on Twitter by Thursday. If you aren’t familiar with Twitter, here is a great Twitter Guide Book (you only need Chapter 1 for the purposes of this class). What Twitter Teaches Us About Writing Short and Well, Tenore; Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted, Malcolm Gladwell and Weak Ties, Twitter and Revolution, Jonah Lehrer. Gladwell and Lehrer are known for their good style (though Lehrer recently got fired from The New Yorker for “self-plagiarism” . . . we’ll talk ). Lehrer’s article is a response to Gladwell, so make sure you read Gladwell first. Also please note how Lehrer responds to Gladwell in terms of providing context; how he quotes from and represents Gladwell’s argument, etc. How is this similar to what academic writers do? How is it different?

Thursday, September 19Online Assignment: (see folder in bSpace)

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Assignment for discussion on Tuesday, September 24 BD Safety pp. 83-110 CR HOMAGO Intimacies pp. 35-44; work on a rough, first stage rough draft of your Digital Literacy Essay for Tuesday.

WEEK FIVETuesday, September 24DUE: first stage rough draft for peer reader-response feedback during classDiscussion: BD, Twitter, Tweeting, MICRO, Gladwell, LehrerAssignment for discussion Tuesday, October 1: BD Aggressors pp. 209-221; MICRO Choose the Right Word and Paint a Picture pp. 53-71 I Took a Web Detour, and Now I Feel Better, Jenna Wortham; Is Google Making Us Stupid, Nicholas Carr; Clive Thompson on the New Literacy, Thompson; TXTNG: THE GR8 DB8, Berkmann

Thursday, September 26Online Assignment: The Machine is Us/ing Us (about 5 minutes); read this short article Defining Digital LiteracyWatch the video then spend 20-30 minutes making some connections in a freewriting (just for yourself, not to share—so be as messy as you want) between the video and assigned readings (not all of them, obviously, but the ones you’ve been thinking about and/or using for your digital literacy essay), class discussions and, perhaps, to your Digital Literacy essay. Write a Reflective Forum Post (minimum 300 words) and respond to the posts of at least three classmates by midnight Friday, September 27. See the Rubric for Forum Posts before you complete your Reflection Post. Assignment for Tuesday, October 1: MICRO Zoom in on Telling Details pp. 83-89 and work on second stage draft of Digital Literacy Essay

WEEK SIXTuesday, October 1DUE: Second Stage draft of Digital Literacy EssayDiscussion: BD, MICRO, Wortham, Carr, Thompson, Berkmann; make arrangements with your draft partners for Thursday’s class (face-to-face; email exchange of docs; Google Drive, etc.)Assignment to read before you complete your Digital Literacy Essay: In case you are wondering at this point in the semester why in the world you chose to take a writing class, take a look at this article from Business Insider and note how many transferable skills you are working on in CW 105! Valuable Transferable Skills of the Future, Giang

Thursday, October 3

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Online Assignment: get some feedback from readers in your group; before class time Tuesday tweet something from your Digital Literacy Essay use #cw105Assignment to be discussed Tuesday, October 8: The Medium is the Message, Marshall McLuhan and Print, Space and Closure, Walter Ong (in bSpaceResourcesRequired Reading pdfs). These are complex essays, so give yourself time to read, annotate, etc. so that you will be prepared to discuss the questions they raise for you. Bring questions you have to class on Tuesday.

Friday, October 4DUE: Digital Literacy Essay—upload to bSpace Drop Box by midnight

For the next few weeks, many of the assigned texts will be somewhat more theoretical than those we’ve been reading. This should help you choose a topic and develop an approach to the analytical, persuasive essay, and also possibly give you a topic for your Prezi. While working on this essay, we’ll be putting into practice more of Johnson’s advice from Microstyle.

1. Make connections between the earlier readings, your experience (both as a student and as a user of digital media), and the theory we are reading. If the connections come in the form of questions—great. Write them down. Ask them (good possibility for tweets here).

2. Think about where these writers get their authority.3. Note the style. What is clear to you? Unclear? Think about why

some of the writing might be unclear. Is it because of the topic—a certain level of abstraction? Or is it because of the writing? Articles in CR by Brodkin and Lakoff as well as chapters in Microstyle can help us think about this.

4. As you develop questions in your engagement with these texts, you might also begin to think about a topic you want to investigate further for your final presentation.

WEEK SEVENTuesday, October 8Discussion: Ong, McLuhanAssignment to be discussed Tuesday, October 15 CR The Grooves of Academe, Robin Lakoff pp. 9-14 MICRO Tap into Metaphor pp. 90-95 and Keep It Simple pp. 123-126. As Ong tells us, when words became print, we began to claim ownership of our words and what they represent. The Internet disrupts ideas of and claims to ownership. This is an ethical question—and debate—that is important to consider as we create more

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and more content and software. Read the following short articles, note your response to each case. It is the same, or does it vary? Future of Open Source: Collaborative Culture, Wolk; Author, 17, Says It’s Mixing not Plagiarism, Kulish; South Park “Inception” Parody, Itzkoff; What happens when professors plagiarize? How I Caused That Story, Doris Kearns Goodwin.Assignment to read BEFORE Thursday, October 10 David Post’s Prologue to In Search of Jefferson’s Moose: Notes on the State of CyberSpace (about 10 pages) and the two-page excerpt from Part I Chaos (bSpaceResourcesRequired Reading pdfs) all in one file.

Thursday, October 10Online AssignmentWatch the search for a moose, Lawrence Lessig Lectures (30 minutes—a few sound problems, unfortunately) I’ll post a couple of questions to consider in a Forum Post due on Tuesday, October 8, so you can do this assignment whenever you want before 5:00 p.m.. You will also need to read and comment on a minimum of three Forum Posts by noon Tuesday, October 15.Assignment: Open an account on Prezi by Tuesday, October 15

WEEK EIGHTTuesday, October 15Discussion: plagiarism, ownership, your Forum post responses; Analytical/Persuasive Essay assignmentAssignment to read BEFORE Thursday, October 17: The Death of the Novel, Szilak (a fairly short article and brief interview with the editor of the Electronic Literature Organization)Assignment to read for Tuesday, October 22: Reading, Stealing, and Writing Like a Writer, Bishop (bSpace ResourcesRequired Reading pdfs) Marshall McLuhan YouTube The Medium is the Message and Scene from Mad Men “The Medium is the Message”. Then look at Thrown Into Theory, Or How I Learned To Love Spatial Rhetoric by Crystal N. Fodrey, which is an academic essay written with Prezi. You don’t need to think so much about the topic of this essay, but rather the form: how well does it work for academic writing? what do you like/dislike about it as a way to present information and analysis? What other things—besides using Prezi—does Fodrey do that surprise you in terms of your understanding of what academic writing is/should do?

Thursday, October 17Online Assignment

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Spend some time looking around The Electronic Literature Organization’s website What is e-lit?; then choose a minimum of 3 stories to read from the two volumes of the Electronic Literature Collection. How did you select the stories you read? How do these stories affect your understanding of what literature is? What do you have to do in order to read them? Also go to the The Silent History website and watch the video. Is this a novel you would want to read/participate in? Why or why not? You don’t need to make a Forum post today, but please note your responses in writing, write down the names of the stories you read; describe your reading process. Be prepared to discuss on Tuesday, October 25.

WEEK NINETuesday, October 22Discussion: electronic literature; how to read it; what do you think about it? We’ll use M. E. Hocks’s Understanding Visual Rhetoric (I’ll handout in class) to help us think about these stories, and more generally, how to evaluate visual texts.Assignment for discussion Tuesday, October 29. CR Remember When Writing Was Fun? Brodkin pp. 1-7; MICRO Structure pp. 145-153 and Repeat Structures pp. 186-189

Thursday, October 24Online AssignmentWrite or Die brainstorming session for Analytical Persuasive Essay; Tweet the link to a story from Electronic Literature; provide engaging/inviting intro to the link (you decide if you want to include the title and author’s name). I like bitly for shortening links, but there is also Google’s goo if you don’t mind the goo in your link

WEEK TENTuesday, October 29DUE: first stage rough draft Analytical Persuasive Essay

Thursday, October 31Online AssignmentGet feedback from peer group on your draftAssignment for discussion Tuesday, November 5 PowerPoint is Evil and Is PowerPoint in the Classroom Evil?

WEEK ELEVEN

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Tuesday, November 5DUE: Second Stage drafts

Thursday, November 7Online AssignmentIn preparation for your Prezi Assignment, go Prerzi’s Explore page and look at a variety of Prezis. Which ones do you like? Any that you don’t like? Reflect on Hocks’s Visual Digital Rhetoric and asses the qualities of the ones you like. How does it work? What is the arrangement of language, shape and image? What about the language is particularly effective? Also, note that there are Resume templates on Prezi; some of you might want to think about that for your Prezi.Assignment for discussion Tuesday, November 12 We Have Met the Enemy and He is PowerPoint

Friday, November 8DUE: Analytical Persuasive Essay upload to bSpace by midnight

WEEK TWELVETuesday, November 12Discussion: Prezi assignment and grading rubric

Thursday, November 14 (I am going to try to arrange a Prezi workshop with someone from Educational Technology Services for this Thursday) So TBA on this assignment. If I can arrange this, we’ll all meet together either in the classroom or in an ETS room in Dwinelle.

WEEK THIRTEENTuesday, November 19We’ll work on Prezis in class today and look at some CW105 student Prezis from previous semesters

Thursday, November 21Online AssignmentWork on Prezi—I’ll try to arrange a room so that those of you who have questions or need assistance can get it.

WEEK FOURTEENTuesday, November 26DUE: Prezi drafts/possibly presentations tba

Thursday, November 28THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY

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WEEK FIFTEEN: Prezi presentations in-class and onlineTuesday, December 3Prezi presentations: Last day of class

Thursday, December 5Online Prezis

WEEK SIXTEEN: RRR WeekIf we haven’t finished Prezi presentations, we will finish them on Tuesday, December 10