Twitter @ the HMA Conference

@EmilySimnitt will be tweeting during the conference. Follow and add to the discussion at #HMAConf.

Sample Student Web SIte

http://www.wix.com/ssturman/bbw

Sample Video Assignment

Digital Assignment:
Students research a public health issue facing Boise State students and produce a 20-source annotated bibliography with multiple perspectives in a variety of source types. They reflect on audience, and, using research, create a 2-5 minute video PSA and post to YouTube. They present research and PSA to class and lead a discussion on choices/rhetorical strategies and how to make their video “go viral.”

Addresses WPA Outcomes for Rhetorical Knowledge as students:

• Produce research-based “writing” in two genres appropriate to subject, context, purpose and audience.
• Collaborate in small groups and as a class to test ideas and revise projects.
• Articulate rhetorical choices, illustrating audience and context awareness.
• Understand how work in composition class transfers to other contexts.

Digital Resources Used (students usually have their own cameras):

• Photostory
• iMovie/Moviemaker
• YouTube

Challenges/Barriers:

• Varying levels of digital literacy – among students AND instructor!
• Limited access to resources/software.
• Evaluation – some students re-mix; some write scripts and shoot; others do talking head. Which is best?
• Varying levels of institutional support. What is the future of social/digital media in the classroom?
• Credibility/authority.
• Group dynamics. In making this a group assignment, are there students who could benefit from being pushed to explore digital technologies who don’t?

Making Research Public: The Public Health PSA
Unit 1 introduced you to scholarly research. Unit 2 required primary research to understand and describe a local culture. Unit 3 builds on those research and analysis skills in a group project addressing a public health issue relevant to BSU students. Through extensive library research, your group will become experts on the issue and how it relates to BSU students. Then, using that expertise, you will create a multimedia presentation to educate and persuade an audience to take action.

Research component
To gain expertise, each of you will be responsible for finding, summarizing and analyzing a minimum of five sources on the issue selected by your group. This will be the basis of a group annotated bibliography that gives a detailed and broad overview of an issue. This research should include a variety of source types, including government publications, scholarly journals, newspapers, pop cultural sources, and interviews of experts. The goal of the annotated bibliography is to be as thorough as possible. It is up to you as a group to decide how to divide up the research.

Video component
Using the research you’ve gathered and your own perspective as Boise State University students, each group will produce a 2-5 minute multimedia digital presentation aimed at BSU students that communicate a simple, clear message that explains the issue and presents a persuasive call to action. You will share these projects -- and lead a discussion on your topic -- on the final day of class. To complete this component of the unit, you may choose to check out a video camera at the Micron/Simplot building (hours 9-11, 2-4 M-F) and edit your footage using computers in The Zone in the ILC (hours 8-5, M-F).

Writing Component
Your unit should include a 3-5 page group-written paper that introduces and justifies your research (the annotated bibliography) and your video. This paper should justify your topic choice, summarizing the issue and the process through which your group chose and researched the issue. The introduction should identify who the issue impacts and why it’s important to address and present possible solutions. Your group should consider the cultural origins of the issue. The paper also should describe the multimedia component of your project.
Lesson Sequence

• Assign individual annotated bibliography on public health issue. We define public health by researching the field as a class using the Internet.
• Students share research with their groups and identify a main message for their Public Service Announcement. As a class we evaluate each group’s message based on relevance to audience (BSU students ) and researched support/justification.
• Once students have finalized their message, we turn to analyzing the format: Video Public Service Announcements. Students help identify existing PSA’s (often involving the Idaho Meth Project) and we look at each as a class to identify audience, subject, purpose and strategies.
• As a class, we decide what works well for an audience of BSU students – and what is less effective. Based on this, and previous work done in class, we develop evaluation criteria.
• One section of class is set aside for a digital workshop. Students are encouraged to get help in The Zone for final video editing.
• Students create video plans that are refined in a peer review workshop.
• At the end of the unit, students present their research and video to the class. Students evaluate each other based on developed criteria. This score is factored in to the overall grade for the unit

Example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev4GwYu7vCw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac4mLTjMvkE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJuUMYOZgJE

And another sample blog assignment

English 201, Section 004

Commonplace Book—or, “equipment for living”

As you read in Chapter 1 of Rhetoric: A User’s Guide, the commonplace book is a traditional rhetorical tool, a book for collecting images, words, any scrap or snippet to aid the rhetorical canon of invention. In addition to offering a mechanism for developing ideas, the commonplace book supported its owner’s rhetorical education. Although we may not dedicate the time students once did to the work of invention, we do have excellent tools for collecting, storing, and sharing these pieces. The options are numerous, but for our purposes we will be using Tumblr, a microblog that allows you to “share anything”—and that’s exactly what you will be expected to do. The purpose of our commonplace book is twofold—to establish a collection of idea-developing marginalia and to develop intentionality in relation to our writing.

This assignment includes a lot of flexibility. Tumblr allows you to post text, photographs, quotations, weblinks, dialogue, and audio and video clips easily, and you are open to experiment with any and all of these. Again, the purpose is collect bits of inspiration. There are only two requirements/limitations related to content. First, you must post commentary for any links, photographs, or audio-visual clips. This commentary doesn’t need to be lengthy; a sentence should suffice. Second, your classmates will be required to read your Tumblr. With that in mind, do not include content that your classmates could construe as discriminatory, indecent, or harassing.

commonplace book reviews
Though the theme, content, and medium of the items you include in your commonplace book are open, the frequency is not. In order to receive an A on this assignment, you must post five times per week for thirteen weeks, and reblog/reply one time per week. You may start as soon as you like, but the clock will start running next week.

week	day	date	posts		reblogs/replies
			on date	total	on date	total
4	Thursday	9/15	10	10	2	2
7	Tuesday	10/04	15	25	3	5
9	Thursday	10/20	10	35	2	7
12	Tuesday	11/08	15	50	3	10
15	Thursday	12/01	15	65	3	13

If you maintain the schedule above, you will be on track to receive full credit for the assignment. Completing 85% (55/11) will earn a B, and so on. You will keep a Google spreadsheet log of both your posts and your replies/reblogs. You should keep it updated, but it must be current on the days we hold Commonplace Book Reviews.

Sample Blog Assignment

blog project

One of your three major projects for this course, the blog project will run most of the semester. In compliance with university FERPA regulations, you will be required to submit the FERPA Consent for Course Blog Participation prior to beginning this assignment.

objectives and goals
This project serves a number of course objectives. You will

• Personalize for course

In addition to the serving these course objectives, the blog project will meet a number of other goals. Specifically, you gain experience in covering an issue and begin to build an online identity as a writer.

the assignment
For this project, you will start a blog in which you write about, explore, or report on something of interest to you--with the intention of distinguishing yourself as a unique voice. The theme or topic of your blog is completely up to you, though you will submit a proposal for approval to your instructor.

the blog (100 points)
You are expected to write in the general style of blogs while completing this project. Be sure to give your entries enticing titles (i.e., not "Blog Post 1"), and don't reference the assignment in your post. Your audience for this assignment is web users interested in your topic (in addition to your instructor and the rest of the class).

The general blog requirements are as follows:

• The blog must include a minimum of ten posts by the assignment due date.
• Individual posts will be 250-500 words.
• The blog's design should be intentional and fit with the writer's purpose.
• The writer should use a tone and style appropriate to his/her purpose.
• Blog posts should occur throughout the semester, not just after the blogging period begins or just before the assignment due date arrives.

You will negotiate specific blog requirements with the instructor during the proposal process, and you will be expected to adhere to those requirements. You may use the blog service of your choosing for the blog assignment.

blog proposal (20 points)
You will begin this project by determining the topic you would like to write about on your blog and researching the work that is already being done in that area. Your blog proposal will include two parts: a review of current blogs and a proposed new blog.

Review of Current Blogs: Your review of current blogs must include references to at least five blogs, including URLs, and demonstrate an understanding of their intended audiences and the need(s) they are meeting for their readers. Some guiding questions you should think about: What is the overall topic of the blog? What is the tone of the writing? How often does the author generally post? How long (word count) are most of the entries?

Proposed New Blog: You will describe your proposed blog and demonstrate a) how it will be different from current blogs, b) who your audience will be, and c) what need(s) you will meet for them. Be sure to explain the "look" you anticipate for your blog and at least one potential title. Some guiding questions you should think about: Which topics are you uniquely qualified to write about? What tone is most comfortable/do you enjoy most? Will your topic require you to post more/less at particular times during the semester? How long should your entries generally be?

blog project presentation (15 points)
You will present your blog to the class in a five-minute presentation. The purpose of this presentation is to inform your classmates and instructor about your experience as a blogger.

blog reflection (15 points)
You will submit to your instructor a reflection on the choices you made while researching, designing, and writing your blog.

Sample Blog Assignment

blog project

One of your three major projects for this course, the blog project will run most of the semester. In compliance with university FERPA regulations, you will be required to submit the FERPA Consent for Course Blog Participation prior to beginning this assignment.

objectives and goals
This project serves a number of course objectives. You will

• Personalize for course

In addition to the serving these course objectives, the blog project will meet a number of other goals. Specifically, you gain experience in covering an issue and begin to build an online identity as a writer.

the assignment
For this project, you will start a blog in which you write about, explore, or report on something of interest to you--with the intention of distinguishing yourself as a unique voice. The theme or topic of your blog is completely up to you, though you will submit a proposal for approval to your instructor.

the blog (100 points)
You are expected to write in the general style of blogs while completing this project. Be sure to give your entries enticing titles (i.e., not "Blog Post 1"), and don't reference the assignment in your post. Your audience for this assignment is web users interested in your topic (in addition to your instructor and the rest of the class).

The general blog requirements are as follows:

• The blog must include a minimum of ten posts by the assignment due date.
• Individual posts will be 250-500 words.
• The blog's design should be intentional and fit with the writer's purpose.
• The writer should use a tone and style appropriate to his/her purpose.
• Blog posts should occur throughout the semester, not just after the blogging period begins or just before the assignment due date arrives.

You will negotiate specific blog requirements with the instructor during the proposal process, and you will be expected to adhere to those requirements. You may use the blog service of your choosing for the blog assignment.

blog proposal (20 points)
You will begin this project by determining the topic you would like to write about on your blog and researching the work that is already being done in that area. Your blog proposal will include two parts: a review of current blogs and a proposed new blog.

Review of Current Blogs: Your review of current blogs must include references to at least five blogs, including URLs, and demonstrate an understanding of their intended audiences and the need(s) they are meeting for their readers. Some guiding questions you should think about: What is the overall topic of the blog? What is the tone of the writing? How often does the author generally post? How long (word count) are most of the entries?

Proposed New Blog: You will describe your proposed blog and demonstrate a) how it will be different from current blogs, b) who your audience will be, and c) what need(s) you will meet for them. Be sure to explain the "look" you anticipate for your blog and at least one potential title. Some guiding questions you should think about: Which topics are you uniquely qualified to write about? What tone is most comfortable/do you enjoy most? Will your topic require you to post more/less at particular times during the semester? How long should your entries generally be?

blog project presentation (15 points)
You will present your blog to the class in a five-minute presentation. The purpose of this presentation is to inform your classmates and instructor about your experience as a blogger.

blog reflection (15 points)
You will submit to your instructor a reflection on the choices you made while researching, designing, and writing your blog.

Sample Re-Genre Assignment

Re-Genre that Essay!

The goal of the super-fun re-genre assignment is to get you to think critically about your writing and the course objectives. I hope this project will help you:

· *apply strategies for generating ideas for writing, for planning and organizing material, for identifying purpose and audience, and for revising intentionally;

· * revise to extend your thinking about a topic, not just to rearrange material or “fix” mechanical errors;

· *articulate the rhetorical choices they have made, illustrating their awareness of a writer’s relationship to the subject, context, purpose, and audience;

· *provide appropriate, engaged feedback to peers throughout the writing process;

How? For this assignment, I want you to select one of the three essays we have worked on this semester and completely rethink it. You will have to communicate the same message, but in an entirely new format. Did you write an op-ed about the increasing cost of higher education? Maybe you could turn it into a blog that targets other students across America, with links and resources to help your reader engage your topic further. Did you write a review of a new tech gadget? Create a YouTube video the houses audio and visual components of the review. I want you to play with technology and use that technology to rethink how you target your audience and the purpose of your writing.

There are lots of tools to help you with this assignment.

1) Visit The Zone—an interactive learning center to help you produce digital media projects. http://at.boisestate.edu/elearning/thezone/default.asp

2) Try the following free software:

Audacity

Jing

Wix

Photostory

Blogger

3) Bug your peers. Your classmates can be a great resource for ideas, tools, and feedback.

4) Visit The Zone (yes, I know I listed this twice)

Important Details:

Week 12 we will work on these projects in class. Bring your thinking hats. Ask questions. We will also brainstorm our criteria for a good digital media project. These criteria will be used to create the grading rubric used to evaluate these projects.

You must submit a one page, double spaced reflective letter that explores the following questions:

What did you learn from this project?

Who was your target audience and how did you try to appeal to them?

What was your purpose? What did you want your audience to understand?

What challenges did you face? How did you overcome these challenges?

We will present our re-genre projects to our peers during week 15 in small groups. Give feedback, ask questions, share your stress, and your success. Your cover letter and a link to your file will be due November 30^th by 5:00. E-mail the link or the attachment to me and type your cover letter in the body of the e-mail. In the subject of the e-mail, put your first and last name and the title of your project.

Do not panic. I am aware that some students are more tech savvy than others. That is fine. However, keep in mind that writing is often merged with technology; news appears on websites, people communicate through blogs, or write scripts for audio. We need to learn how to use technology productively. Think of this as a learning experience. It is college after all. Learning in college is good.