MATERIALS

What do you need for this class?

Our primary textbook is Everything’s a Text by Dan Melzer and Deborah Coxwell-Teague. (Pearson Education, Inc., 2011) However, we will be using a number of articles from various writers (linked as pdf’s on the Moodle site) as well as media derived from the web, from fellow student writers, and from class discussion.

Aside from the specific textbook purchase, you must also be able to print certain articles and make copies of your own writing for the class. All of the readings will be accessible from our class Moodle site; you are expected to have daily access to Moodle for both reading and class assignments.

You also must purchase a daybook (composition or spiral bound) to keep your notes in class. You will be using the daybook when we are not on our laptops. You must bring your daybook to class with you everyday.

You also need access to a laptop computer for our online work with our websites. Very often, tablets are not powerful enough to work with our online spaces--please make sure that you have access to a laptop.

Book: Everything's A Text

To be literate today means more than being a strong reader and writer of print texts. Students must excel at analyzing and composing print, visual, and digital texts-and those that combine these mediums. Contemporary definitions of literacy are expanding to include cultural, academic, civic literacies, and more. Everything's a Text features chapters dedicated to each, with readings and projects that help students analyze and compose in a variety of situations, for different purposes and audiences, and in a range of genres.

Contemporary readings range from essays and articles to blogs, photos, lyrics, editorials, graffiti, advertisements, posters, and more so that students develop their abilities to think critically about the kinds of texts they encounter daily. Assignment options range from reflections, textual analyses, and researched arguments to documentary films and poster campaigns to give students practice at producing a full range of texts in circulation today.

Publisher's Description

Daily Writing and Daybooks

We will be using a writing notebook or journal as part of our daily classwork. You will be expected to bring the notebook with you to every class—a laptop or tablet will not work as a substitute unless you have permission from the Disabilities Resource Center.

Consider your daybook the place where you do your thinking and your writing in a private space. Much of the writing that we do in this class will be public, but I believe that there should also be a place where you can get your ideas out just as they are. Therefore, your daybook will be a place where you write without editing and without revision. It will be an outward manifestation of your inward thinking process.

You can also think of your daybook as a junk drawer or kitchen sink of sorts--you will keep handouts, notes, brainstorms, group work, and invention work all in one place. There will be time every class that is devoted to daybook writing--bring it everyday.

Laptops and Technology

We will be relying heavily on laptop use in the classroom during the semester. Make sure that you have a reliable laptop that is readily accessible and charged. Please note that you can check out laptops from the library free of charge. There are many days where a laptop will be necessary for you to participate in class.

You should have daily access to Moodle and your campus email. Much of our work relies on discussion forums and materials available on Moodle. You must be able to get to the Moodle site at least once a day. I make daily changes to Moodle and send out class messages. You will also be creating a website through Wix and you will be creating an account through their website.

You will be expected to back up all of your own writing with a different file for each stage of drafting. Please dedicate a flash drive to this class only. You will need access to all different drafts of your essays. Please save as Rough Draft, Revised Draft, Final Draft with the assignment title.

You will be creating an e-portfolio for this class, so keeping materials organized is necessary. Although we will be creating e-portfolios as online websites, you should keep your drafts as well as class work organized in a way that will make later access understandable. Your portfolio will not only be an archive of your classwork, but rather a rhetorical reading or analysis of the connections that you have made in class, what you have learned about yourself as a writer, and how you see writing in general.