Major Projects Overview

This is the post for the Wednesday, September 7, 2016 class meeting.

Class Work for 9/7

  1. I was absent yesterday....Make any updates to the attendance chart in Canvas.

    Use of Tardy Label:
    Absences where you provide a note from Schiffert, the Athletic Dept, or some other university office are marked as “Tardy” in Canvas. Using the “Tardy” label for these excused absences allows me to still know when people were (or were not) in class while not having that absence count in the Canvas calculation for Attendance.

  2. A Calendar link is now in the site menu at the top of the page

  3. Go over the Planning Your Major Projects page, and talk about the 3844 Potential Topics List and Kinds of Audio and Video Projects.

    We’ll look at some partial examples:

  4. To practice identifying the modes of communication, we are going on a multimodal dig, a sort of personal inventory of multimodal texts.

    1. Begin by digging through your backpack or bag to locate all the multimodal texts that you have with you. Think broadly and creatively. One item may have more than one way that it is (or contains) a text. For instance, your smartphone could be a multimodal text, but Candy Crush Saga is a multimodal text that might be on that device. So you have multiple texts there.

    2. Go to the "Multimodal Dig" Discussion in Canvas for your class time, and create a Reply that lists the multimodal texts you have with you (or on you). It doesn’t have to be an exhaustive list. Aim for at least 10 texts, and look for the unusual.

    3. Once you have your list, label the items with the modes they include. You can use the first letters (e.g., L=Linguistic, V=Visual). See the slideshow or page 4 of Writer/Designer if you need a refresher. Additionally, note whether they are digital or not.

    4. Once everyone has posted, I will ask you to share your most unusual text with the class and how modes are used by writers as they create texts.
       

    This activity is graded Pass/Fail and counts as part of your participation grade as a class discussion. The grace period for this activity ends on Thursday, September 8 at 11:59 PM.

Homework

  1. Write Design Journal Entry #3 by noon Monday in Canvas:

  2. Read Chapter 2 of Writer/Designer for Monday. Read Chapter 3 of Writer/Designer for Wednesday.

  3. [Optional] Still time to post in the AMA discussion if you like.