Marc C. Santos

Expository Writing as Digital Citizenship

This course re-imagines writing instruction, moving away from 20th century models based on print scholarship and toward 21st century models of digital citizenship. To jump the horse several steps ahead of the cart: this course argues that contemporary university education has to be more attentive to maximizing new communicative tools, including blogs, wikis, aggregators, bookmarks, and networking technologies, if it wishes to foster a more participatory and ethical democratic public.

Traditional writing classes, especially those "academic" in nature, instruct students to write for imagined audiences, for a projected disciplinary audience, or for "a general conversation of mankind." Often, students end up writing papers for their teacher. If we imagine the goals of the University to center on producing researcher-scholars capable of producing new knowledge, then there is nothing too wrong with these formulations of audience. I would argue, however, that the purpose of University education in the earlier 21st century deals less with producing productive researcher-scholars than it does with producing productive participatory citizens. Thus, I, for the most part, denounce writing for an universal / incorporeal audience [the general conversation of mankind]. Instead, I'm advocating an approach to composition that emphasizes locating and engaging corporeal audiences.

Using blogs, social aggregators, bookmarking technologies and RSS feeds, you will be writing this semester to an audience of your choosing. I will be asking you to do more than write to an audience-I will be asking you to participate in a network. This means demonstrating to me an authentic relationship with this social group. You will be entering into a discourse community, learning in its social conventions, and reporting back to the class on its values, purposes, and intrigues.

To clarify in simpler terms: I am asking you to select a hobby or interest that you have and write about it. But, more than that, I am asking you to read and respond to other people's writing on that same subject. In technical terms, I am insisting that your writing this semester be dialogic. This requires give and take-or, as Graff and Berkstein put it, a "they say, I say."

My way of fostering productive citizens is to introduce you to blogging as a critical, civic, and participatory social exercise. Thus, this will be a course on blogging. This is not to say that this will be a course that uses blogs. I am proposing something a bit more extensive than that. I am proposing that blogging will not simply augment the material of the course, it will compose the material of the course. Playfully, composing blogs will be the expository exercise. Blogs are more than a technological affordance. They are a way of thinking, a way of communicating, a way of inhabiting and being in the world.

We will be reading, discussing, and (of course) writing about the viability of blogging as an approach to expository writing. We will discuss the goals and purposes of the traditional expository class in relation to your experiences in this class. We will use a contemporary academic argument handbook, They Say, I Say, assessing whether the values of academic prose translate into blogging. In their work, Graff and Birkenstein argue that "rote instruction [has] indeed encouraged passivity and drained writing of its creativity and dynamic relation to the social world" (xv). This class, then, can be understood as an attempt to revitalize and reprioritize writing. I am looking to teach a form of writing that is creative, dynamic, an integrally tied to your social world. Graff and Birkenstein's brief handbook provides bridges to help facilitate, organize, and direct meta-criticism.

Furthermore, we will theorize blogging through the two contemporary "crisis" in Higher Education reported in Academically Adrift and Not For Profit. These books will provide us with a lens for considering whether blogging is a viable activity for students in higher education (and the answer might be that its not-but unless we try it, and theorize it, we'll never know).

This course will operate similar to a creative writing workshop; in each session we will examine posts from the previous session. Our attention will be spread over a variety of aspects of the writing process: focus, purpose, arrangement, cohesion, syntax, pathetic appeal, style, and grammar. I imagine all of you will be writing on different topics (and entering into different communities, crafting different voices, different styles of blogs). These class sessions, then, will be dedicated to providing peers with meaningful and helpful feedback (critical in its least pejorative sense). You should be prepared to share and discuss your work, ideas, and thoughts in a respectful manner. Every class session will also address the rhetorical and theoretical readings for that week; second, I will provide a brief lecture on a rhetorical or compositional strategy for you to incorporate into that weekend's posting.

Teaching Philosophy

Good teachers don't tell students what to do. Good teachers open a space for students to invent things, and then get the hell out of their way.

You can read more about my teaching philosohpy here.

Contacts

• Email: insignificantwrangler at gmail dot com
• Office: Cooper 301c
• Office Hours: Monday and Thursday 11:00-12:30

I am also available at other times-email if you want to make an appointment (or shoot me a question).

Required Materials

Course Texts

• Arum, Richard and Josipa Roksa. Academically Adrift.
• Graff, Gerald and Cathy Birkenstein. They Say, I Say.
• Nussbaum, Martha. Not for Profit.
• Articles and online readings distributed electronically

Course Technologies

• Blogger
• Blackboard
• Google Documents
• Google Reader (or other RSS technology)

Things You Probably Know

But That I Have to Write Anyway

Students with a disability and thus requiring accommodations are encouraged to consult with the instructor during the first week of class to discuss accommodations. See Student Responsibilities: http://www.sds.usf.edu/Students.htm. Each student making this request must bring a current Memorandum of Accommodations from the office of student Disabilities Services.

You are excused from class for major observances of your religion. Inform the instructor at the beginning of the term when you expect to be absent for these events.

Plagiarism: See http://www.usg.usf.edu/catalogs/0405/adap.htm for USF Undergraduate Catalog's definitions and policy, and consult with the instructor if you are uncertain. Essentially, plariarism refers to using another writer's words or ideas without proper citation. This boils down to giving credit to others.

Attendance is mandatory. I will excuse one absence this summer semester. Any absences above one will result in a 5-point penalty per absence. If you have a family or medical emergency that will require you to miss class, then you need to contact me as early as possible so we can make adequate arrangements.

Class starts at 12:30. I will close the door at 12:30. The door locks.

This is a computer lab. There is a computer in front of you. There is also a professor in front of the class. Know when to pay attention to the computer and when to pay attention to the professor.

While not an art course, this is a course that deals with aesthetics. We will be workshopping writing this semester--I will ask you to pay attention to how particular writings make you feel. This course will involve public instructor and peer criticism. Please be respectful, but also please tell us what you think. People require feedback to grow-while I don't want anyone to be mean, I also don't want anyone to be silent out of fear of hurting someone's feelings.

This is a course on writing; writing is a technology. We will be working with a few web-based technologies this semester. That said, I don't expect anyone in this classroom to be familiar with the technologies we'll be using in class. I do expect, however, that students will not fall back into "technophobia." I will expect a willingness to engage contemporary technologies.

Work

Blog Report Forms

Blogging consists of three different components, each differently weighted. You will report to me, by 11:59 pm on every Saturday, your progress that week. Every blog report will follow a template (I will distribute the template via email). Blog reports will be submitted via Google Docs. Blog reports address:

Blog Posts (45% of final grade): Over the course of the semester, you will write 15 posts outside of class for your blog. Posts should be in the neighborhood of 350 to 500 words. These posts will constitute 45% of your final course grade. Your blog report form will include URLs to all posts made to your blog that week, and it will highlight the post on which you would like me to comment.

Blog comments (15% of final grade): I will expect you to follow along with each others work and to provide substantial comments on classmates' writing over the course of the semester (substantive comments should be, at the very least, a few sentences. "A" comments will be in the neighborhood of 200 words). The blog report will contain URLs to all comments made on peer blogs that week. Additionally, it might include links to other places in the web where you left comments (or trackbacks, etc) that week.

Blog Roll & Bookmarks (5% of final grade): We'll be approaching blogging as a methology for engaging a community. As such, I will be invested in helping you develop a reading list (to enter into a conversation). You'll keep track of this reading list on your blog. Your blog report should indicate what you are reading (i.e., what you have added to your Google Reader along with a few sentences describing the new feed).

Blogging Proposal (5% of final grade)

In preparation for our third class meeting, I will ask you to compose a well-researched blog proposal of 300 to 500 words.

Reading Notes (10% of final grade)

In addition to blogging, I'll be asking you to read two recent books on the state of education--Martha Nussbaum's Not for Profit and Arum and Roksa's Academically Adrift. Every time you have a reading assignment in one of these books, I'll ask you to produce reading notes along the lines of "how I read." [link forthcoming]

Final Paper (15% of final grade)

There's two primary options for the final paper in this class. I am also open to inviting other final options. Whatever option you select, I'll ask for a 7 to 10 page research-driven paper (containing a minimum of five new sources) that offers some kind of argument to a very specific audience. That said, I see these papers as opportunities to engage new material, wander intellectually, and discover things.

Option One: Not too Adrift?: This option asks you to compare and contrast elements of our two readings this semester, Academically Adrift and Not for Profit, bringing to them additional sources. Then, based on that comparative exposition, the paper would make a recommendation to change a specific, local, University policy.

Option Two: Engaging a Community Argument: This option asks you to conduct research on an argument you uncovered/engaged during your time blogging.

Evaluation

Blog Posts	45%
Blog Comments	15%
Blog Roll	5%
Blogging Proposal	5%
Reading Notes	10%
Final Paper	15%

Calendar