Examining the Nexus of TechnoCultural Capital, Digital Rhetorics, and Writing

Studies in and for the 21 Century Carmen Kynard, Ph.D. | John Jay College of Criminal Justice

Guiding Curricular Questions

~What is technocultural capital

and what does it achieve? How do digital rhetorics and

digital justice intersect? What does writing and/or digital scholarship do in a multimedia age? How?

Major Components of the Course

• Updated Course Website• Peer Technology Mentors for Lab Days• Multiple, Scaffolded Student-Centered Projects• Point-Spreads/Guidelines for Grading (quantify student challenges; align assessment with digital design)

Course in Focus: ENG201 (second-semester of First Year Writing)

Course Website:http://www.digirhetorics.org/

Project I

Student sample above is taken from a webpage that is currently open to the public on digication/ePortfolio (students are not required to go public)

Digital Justice Presentations

Each class begins with a student’s 10-15 minute presentation (using

Google Presentations or Prezi) analyzing the digital rhetorics of an

activist or group committed to using digital tools in the service of

social justice today.

Project II

Student sample to the left is taken from a student webpage that is currently open to

the public on digication/ePortfolio (students are not required to go public)

Collaborative Essay (Rhetorical Analysis)

In this project, students take the scholars we have read in the early part of the

semester and bring them into conversation. The goal here is to offer a rhetorical analysis and write collaboratively.

Project IIIStudent sample below is taken from a

weebly website:www.changequalsuccess.weebly.com

The Collaborative Website

Students work in teams to create a website (using weebly) that archives the digital products and processes (primary sources) of activists and groups working

for social justice alongside secondary sources investigating histories and issues.

Project IV

Student samples to the right are taken from webpages that are currently open to the public on digication

ePortfolios (students are not required to go public)

Last Project: Digital Storytelling & ePortfolios

As the grand finale, we do digital storytelling to fuse sound, words, and graphics with video and then create a

digital archive of all of the work that we did for the semester.

Two Sample ePortfolios

AssessmentSample

Each project gets counted towards the overall 200 points of the course. Students receive detailed worksheets for each project. The 8 points above were part of the overall 35 points possible for the website project. Each of the 200 points of the course is done this way.

Collective Student Metanarrative:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucJbviCOu28

The 2 Most Visited Sites

http://changequalsucces.weebly.com

http://artisamovement.weebly.com