Coursework, completed or in progress:

Chloe Renee Lily Kronfeld Josh Bloom Hiro Kusumoto Jessica Andrews Malika Anderson Erin Penney Krysana Maragh Arome Obende Savannah Bacon Ocean Clarke Emma Reigel Jill Ford Caroline Adams Lena Sheorey

marcbousquet.net//pmbousquet@gmail.com//Callaway N118//Th 215-315 and by apt

Eng 363W Participatory Culture//course weblog

We are all authors. By way of YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, Change.org and Snapchat--by way of product reviews at our favorite online stores, or email, infographics and Powerpoint at work and school--we are all writers, social actors and "content creators." With a focus on sociable activism and transformative media, this course explores the long history of cultural contributions by ordinary Americans from the nineteenth century to the present. In addition to weekly reading, students will create media projects and publish them to their own personal web domain using readily-available, easy-to-use tools. This class participates in the Domain of One's Own initiative. No prior tech knowledge or media making experience is required.

Please download, print and annotate readings provided in pdf. The first reading is Henry Jenkins et al, Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. MacArthur Foundation/MIT Press, 2009. It can be downloaded free.

1. Aaron Delwiche and Jennifer Jacobs Henderson, eds. The Participatory Cultures Handbook. Routledge, 2012
   

2. Christian Fuchs, Social Media, a Critical Introduction. Sage, 2014
   

3. Tom Standage, Writing On the Wall: Social Media, the First 2,000 Years. Bloomsbury, 2013
   

4. Mary Kelley, Learning to Stand and Speak: Women, Education, and Public Life in America's Republic Omohundro Institute, 2006
   

5. Julia L. Mickenberg Learning from the Left: Children's Literature, the Cold War, and Radical Politics in the United States. Oxford, 2005
   

6. Julia L. Mickenberg et al, eds. Tales for Little Rebels: A Collection of Radical Children's Literature.
   

7. Brian Heagney , ABC's of Anarchy. CreateSpace, 2010.
   

8. Innosanto Nagara, A is for Activist. Triangle Square , 2013
   

9. Mckenzie Wark, The Spectacle of Disintegration: Situationist Passages out of the Twentieth Century. Verso, 2013.

January 13		January 15
Introduction		Jenkins et al, Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture, 1-41
January 20		January 22
Jenkins et al, Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture, 41-117		Bertozzi and Jenkins, “Artistic Expression in the Age of Participatory Culture”
January 27		January 29
Tom Standage, Writing On the Wall 1-123		Tom Standage, Writing On the Wall 123-250
February 3		February 5
PC handbook Ch 1-3; Fuchs Ch 1		PC handbook Ch 12; Fuchs Ch 2
February 10		February 12
PC handbook Ch 4-7		Fuchs Ch 3, 5
February 17		February 19
Weather Day		PC handbook Ch 10 + 27, Selections from Lessig, Remix and Free Culture
February 24		February 26
Fuchs Chs 6 +7, PC handbook Ch 13		Fuchs Ch 4, PC handbook Ch 17-18
March 3		March 5
PC handbook Ch 23, 25, 26, 28 and Fuchs Ch 8		No Class: Hubsite Production Day
March 1		March 12
Spring Break		Spring Break
March 17		March 19
Wark Chs 1-8		No Class Research Hypertext Production Day
March 24		March 26
Wark Chs 9-15		Wark 16-20
March 31		April 2
Kelley Intro-Ch 4		Kelley Ch 6, 7, Epilogue
April 7		April 9
Mickenberg LL, selections		iMovie/animation intro
April 14		April 16
Mickenberg/Nel, selections		Lynching/Spectacle Ch 3, Pageantry Ch 1 (both provided)
April 21		April 23
ABCs/Anarch		Last day, Workshop

 

Final project (civic engagement and reflective essay) due: May 11, 5pm.

OVERVIEW OF ASSIGNMENTS

Informal Writing, Discussion, Independent Reading, Digital Storytelling, and other forms of Participation. In preparation for (and during) some class discussions of homework reading, you will be expected to participate in informal online writing and other activities. This writing is just as important as more formal composition. You will build a home or hub site linking to your digitally published classwork under the Domain of One's Own rubric.

Research Hypertext Project. This will involve some form of participatory-action research/information gathering (broadly construed). You will simultaneously research and participate in a group’s culture and politics. Multimodal elements will include an infographic, presentation, and a short animated educational video.

Civic-engagement project: Tactical media projects on individual topics generated in class exercises. These projects engage a public with a sophisticated, well-researched media campaign. All topics require my advance approval. Will incorporate a 2000-word critical hyperessay (academic writing involving research), spread out over fifteen or more web pages. Must include other design elements encouraging or enabling civic engagement by site visitors. Required elements include a meme, infographic, literature review, lit review in comic form, interactive teaching (quizzes, games, children's book, etc) offering at least one digital badge, action request & page enabling the action, and web-published video in some form (remix, satire or parody, public service announcement, interview, testimony, journalism, guerilla theater, dramatization, etc). You may use other technologies and platforms to support the campaign: Social media, weblog, wiki, graphic display, photography, sound, etc. There will be a revision stage leading to a printable (linear) version of the hyperessay.

Reflective hypertext essay. Reflect upon your learning in the class. In particular, analyze your tactical media project using several of the course readings as a lens.

FEEDBACK AND GRADING. Because this is a practicum, you should expect to have direct, personal feedback from me frequently during class meetings. In addition, we will have at least two required conferences outside of class time and I am always available for help and additional feedback. The Writing Center and Writing Program will have special lab hours designated for individual assistance.

Attendance, academic integrity, and disability accomodation.  Because of the participatory and hands-on nature of the learning you'll do in this class, I suggest that you miss no more than 2 classes, and arrive late no more than once. Unexcused attendence problems beyond these guidelines will be reflected by a reduction in your final grade (usually 1/2 to 1 1/2 letter grades); attendance issues affecting 4 sessions will usually result in a failing grade. Emory maintains a detailed policy on academic integrity that applies to this course. Students who experience a circumstance or condition that may affect their ability to complete assignments or otherwise satisfy course criteria are encouraged to meet with me to identify, discuss, and document any feasible instructional modifications or accommodations. You are encouraged to explore formal support for ability issues. Any other issues? Please email or drop by the office to talk.

Grading Philosophy. You’ll develop your class projects in multiple versions and have the freedom to do unlimited revision in response to feedback from me, other students and, possibly, from viewers of your projects online. At the end of the term, you’ll prepare a hypertext letter (a learning essay) linking to your web-published class work and discussing what you’ve learned. If you like, you can also send me an email proposing a final grade, based on assessment criteria we’ll develop over the course of the term. I'm always available to talk if you have questions about your grade and will always take time to help you figure out how to do as well as possible.  As long as your participation remains satisfactory, extra credit is usually available.  

My approach to grading is holistic: I prefer to take all of the assignments together, including participation, and consider the context of your personal goals for the class, your growth as a writer and, especially, your self-assessment. Essentially what happens is that during our required consultations, I ask you: What grade are you shooting for in this course?And then I tell you what you need to do to get there.

There are many good things about this approach: most people feel that it’s fair and they appreciate that it’s individualized, and they usually appreciate that I take their opinions seriously.  Most people also feel that it helps to keep the focus on research and writing.  On the negative side, we sometimes prefer what feels like the clarity, simplicity, and familiarity of a universal grading rubric that focuses on the results of your efforts:  (“A C paper fulfills the assignment, but lacks sophistication,” etc). 

My way of handling that is to ask you to develop a set of goals for yourself and to describe the way those goals connect to the sort of grading possibilities you envision for yourself.  You’ll share those goals and ideas with others and with me, and those exchanges may motivate you to revise your goals. Eventually that statement will be part of your portfolio: your concluding letter will reflect on the work you’ve done and on your goals.  

While I retain full responsibility for assessing your final grade, I take your assessments and grade proposals seriously. In most cases where there appears the possibility of a substantially different assessment, or in cases where you feel that you haven’t been meeting your goals for a variety of reasons, you can request (or I may suggest) extra credit activities.

The Emory Writing Center is located in Callaway N-212. It offers 45-minute individual conferences to Emory College and Laney Graduate School students. EWC tutors can talk with you about your purpose, organization, audience, design choices, or use of sources. They can also work with you on sentence-level concerns (including grammar and word choice), but they won’t proofread for you. Instead, they’ll discuss strategies and resources you can use to become a better editor of your own work. They encourage writers to schedule appointments in advance and encourage you to bring a laptop if you're working on a digital or multi-modal text.

Multilingual students are a tremendous asset to any classroom, bringing a wealth of knowledge, culture and perspective to their peers. If you speak more than one language, please feel encouraged to develop research projects in a language other than English. Multilingual students who consider themselves English learners have substantial support for English-language communication of all types through ESL Services, including free one-on-one tutoring.

Electronic Devices will commonly be part of the learning experience in this class. However, using a device for activities unrelated to the learning experience commonly distracts you, your neighbors, and me. It's often perceived as disrespectful by others. In many cases the quality of learning suffers. Acceptable technology use policies are a matter of everyone's wellbeing, not individual choice. To secure the integrity of the learning environment, I've adapted some policy language developed by the CU School of Education and other sources. These policies apply to but are not limited to: cell phones, tablets, voice recorders, cameras and laptops.

1) All electronic devices must be turned off until there is explicit direction to use them for learning activities. Notes should be taken on paper and digitally transferred at another time.

2) You may not record the voice or image of any member of the class without their explicit permission, including the instructor and guest speakers.

3) Students with disabilities or exceptional needs, who require electronic or assistive devices for their day-to-day functioning in the academic setting, may coordinate the use of electronics during class sessions with me.4) Students using any electronic device in class for an activity not related to the learning experience, or without my permission, will receive a verbal warning on the first occasion. If a second occasion occurs, I'll email you a written warning, indicating that this activity affects my assessment of your participation in the class and will affect your final grade. A third event will result in an invitation to withdraw and/or additional serious penalties to your final grade.

5) In the event you face an urgent situation and expect emergency contact, please discuss the situation with me before class. We'll arrange for you to leave the class session in response to a silent notification on your cell phone.