Your grade in this course will be determined by your performance on the following assignments. (Detailed descriptions for the assignments will be added as we discuss them in class.)
Hashtag Analysis (20%)
In just a few short years, the hashtag has become the fundamental mechanism by which contemporary online discourse is organized, searched, and archived. Your first assignment in this course is to select a hashtag (probably on Twitter, but perhaps on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, or another platform), then spend a few weeks observing and collecting the associated content and conversations. In class, we will experiment with several tools for archiving and analyzing tweets so you can identify the methods that are best suited to your hashtag. The finished products of your work will be a short essay (roughly 1500 words) and a five-minute “lightning” presentation. Read more…
Book Review (20%)
In addition to the three edited collections we will be reading as a class, each of you will read one additional book on a topic in digital rhetoric that piques your interest, helps you connect this course with your other coursework, advances your research agenda, or improves your teaching. I will provide you with a list of “pre-approved” books, but you may also propose a book that you have discovered on your own. You’ll then write a scholarly review of the book, intended for (and, ideally, submitted to) a journal in your field, and you’ll deliver a substantive in-class presentation on the book. Read more…
Research Project (30%)
Your biggest assignment in this course is an individual research project, which you will design and develop throughout the semester. In order to accommodate the personal interests and goals of everyone in class, I have left the topic, tools, and medium for your final project almost completely open-ended. As long as you can demonstrate a connection to the themes, theories, and methods we have been studying, I will happily approve your proposal. I will negotiate the details of the research project with each of you in a personal conference, which will lead to a memorandum of understanding that will govern your work on the assignment. Along the way, you will present an early draft of your findings to your classmates and deliver an oral presentation about your research site and methods. Read more…
Class Participation and Short Exercises (30%)
You should come to class each day ready to contribute to our discussions, and your comments should show that you have completed the reading assignments and done any necessary outside research to understand and apply what you’ve read. In addition, I will occasionally ask you to complete small assignments, such as submitting drafts of your papers and projects, commenting on your peers’ work, serving as a discussion leader, or demonstrating a new tool in class. All of these efforts will contribute to your class participation grade. I will assign tentative participation grades at midterm, which will let you know where you stand and, if necessary, give you the opportunity to adjust your class participation efforts before the end of the semester.