As the quotes above suggest, language is widely viewed in anthropological and philosophical circles today as a powerful force that is essential to human existence and experience. In particular, language has come to be understood as a primary medium through which humans make meaning of the world, and thus in a sense make the world. In relation to the primary issue of this class, disability, Tanya Titchkosky has intriguingly argued that "Disability appears as we speak it" and thus in order for us to begin talking about disability, we need to first critically think through how we talk about disability, and the literal words we use to do so (Titchkosky, 51). In order to do this, I have proposed that for the first third of the semester we will work as a collective to research and compose a publicly accessible digital glossary of such words. Each of you will choose one word that you will then be responsible for contributing a 750-1000 word multimodal glossary entry for to the project. To be clear, these entries are not intended to be comprehensive accounts of these words, but rather researched meditations on the words, explicating for a public audience some of the issues surrounding them and their use, including what exactly they mean, how they mean that, to whom they hold such meanings, and when precisely they have meant such things in the American context. The choice of how precisely to research, reflect on, and represent your findings on these words is ultimately up to you and will depend on your word itself as well as the unique insights and abilities you bring to the project (for example, competency in multiple languages can allow you to undertake a comparative approach that those of us who are monolingual cannot).
Leading up to the production of your final multimodal glossary entry, you will complete a variety of short low stakes (LS) assignments that will help you to think through just a few of the ways by which you might analyze and discuss your chosen word, including via personal reflections as well as analysis of dictionary definitions, statistical information of the word's historical usage, and the social debates that have surrounded the word. Since the variety of words we will be researching as a class is quite wide, please expect that some of the low stakes assignments will be more productive for some of you than they will be for others and take advantage of the differing results of those approaches to help you ultimately determine the best approach(es) for your glossary entry.
In the end, the responsibility is yours as to how you will present your chosen word in an entry for the project and you need not feel constrained to any single one of these approaches, but should rather mix and match them as you feel necessary and even go beyond them if you so chooses. Thus, you might also want to explore other avenues for linguistic research, such as examining the word’s use in a notable cultural text or its current use on Twitter or, as previously mentioned, if you have multilingual abilities, by comparing and contrasting your English word to its counterpart in another language. If you choose to use Twitter, it is important that you utilize screenshots or Storify to permanently capture the tweets you want to analyze and discuss.
Works Cited:
Titchkosky, Tanya. The Question of Access: Disability, Space, and Meaning. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011.
Leading up to the production of your final multimodal glossary entry, you will complete a variety of short low stakes (LS) assignments that will help you to think through just a few of the ways by which you might analyze and discuss your chosen word, including via personal reflections as well as analysis of dictionary definitions, statistical information of the word's historical usage, and the social debates that have surrounded the word. Since the variety of words we will be researching as a class is quite wide, please expect that some of the low stakes assignments will be more productive for some of you than they will be for others and take advantage of the differing results of those approaches to help you ultimately determine the best approach(es) for your glossary entry.
In the end, the responsibility is yours as to how you will present your chosen word in an entry for the project and you need not feel constrained to any single one of these approaches, but should rather mix and match them as you feel necessary and even go beyond them if you so chooses. Thus, you might also want to explore other avenues for linguistic research, such as examining the word’s use in a notable cultural text or its current use on Twitter or, as previously mentioned, if you have multilingual abilities, by comparing and contrasting your English word to its counterpart in another language. If you choose to use Twitter, it is important that you utilize screenshots or Storify to permanently capture the tweets you want to analyze and discuss.
Works Cited:
Titchkosky, Tanya. The Question of Access: Disability, Space, and Meaning. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011.
Assignment Sequence Breakdown and Due Dates:
Defining Disability
(20%) 750-1000 word entry + 250 word self-assessment
(20%) remediated multimodal artifact with a 250-500 word reflection on the remediation process and your rhetorical choices
(60%) Revised 750-1000 word multimodal webpage glossary entry + 250 word self-assessment
Due Sept. 6 (LS) (Assignment 1.1)
Write a 150-250 word blog post unpacking your own personal reflections on the word you have chosen for the Defining Disability project, the connotations it might hold for you, your experience with it, etc. A useful place to start such a reflection might be with why you choose your word, though if there is no particular reason for your choice please do not feel compelled to make one up. Try to be concrete and honest and use this post as an opportunity to recognize and think through your past/current assumptions before you begin actively researching and learning about your word.
Due Sept. 9 (LS) (Assignment 1.2)
Write a 150-250 word blog post analyzing some part of the definition of your word in a dictionary. Consider any and all facets of the entry, including the word's etymology, part of speech, and its multiple, potentially differing definitions, as potential material for critical reflection on your word. Some questions to think about answering in this post include: what does this word specifically mean? where does this word come from? How do its potentially differing meanings relate to each other?
Resources:
http://www.oed.com/
http://www.onelook.com/
http://www.urbandictionary.com/
Due Sept. 13 (LS) (Assignment 1.3)
Write a 150-250 word blog post using statistical analytical tools to draw some kind of conclusion about the changing historical usage of your word.
Resources:
http://corpus.byu.edu
http://books.google.com/ngrams
Due Sept. 16 (LS) (Assignment 1.4)
Write a 150-250 word blog post discussing the debates that surround the use of your word. Think about what your word might mean to different groups and how it might be used for different ends. Some questions to consider include: Why might some dislike this word? Who might those people be? Why might others prefer it? And who might they be? Try doing some basic research on such issues and please remember to link out in your post to any material that you use so that your readers might also have access to those materials to think about the issue for themselves. It is fine to begin doing such research with Wikipedia, but I would recommend that you critically evaluate the information you gather from there and corroborate it via at least one other source.
Also, post your "Introduction to the World," 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 to the blog on your newly established domain in the appropriate order.
Due Sept. 20
Bring two paper copies of a working draft of your glossary entry (comprised of at least 500 words) to class for a peer review workshop.
Due Sept. 25 (Assignment 1.5)
Your 750-1000 word text-only glossary entry must be published to your website before class. As this is a formal version, please make sure to cite all sources in MLA style, with in-text citations and a works cited page. For any queries on citation style please see the links on the resources page. In addition to the text for your glossary entry please email me a 150-250 frank self-assessment of it, outlining what you see as its strongest and weakest points and perhaps gesture at what areas you would like to work on further if you had more time.
Due Sept. 30 (Assignment 1.6)
Following up on our in-class workshops, publish a blog post with an embedded Prezi presentation (with 10 frames) that uses multiple modes (images, audio, text, movement) to remediate some portion of your glossary entry and 150-250 words reflecting on the experience of remediating your original glossary entry and outlining what important changes and rhetorical choices you had to make in order to suit this new medium and articulating your reasoning behind those choices. Here is an example of what your blog post should look like: Example Prezi Blog Post. And the following link provides easy instructions as to how you should embed your Prezi presentation in a post on your website: https://prezi.zendesk.com/entries/22451538-Embedding-prezis
Due Oct. 14 (Assignment 1.7) [must be posted to your personal website by midnight]
Incorporating my feedback from the purely textual version of your glossary entry as well as the lessons you have learned about multimodal presentation and the importance of visual design from the remediation of the entry into a Prezi, publish to your website a multimodal 750-1000 glossary entry. Don't just paste text onto a webpage. Think critically about your presentation of the materials and how you need to compose for web users, which means taking advantage of the range of multimodal possibilities afforded in a digital text (you can incorporate audio, video, images, pull-out quotes, titles and other graphics, as well as hyperlinks). In addition to publishing your final glossary entry to your website, once again please email me a 150-250 word self-assessment of it. Here are some examples that show just a few of the different strategies of movement/navigation you might incorporate into your webtext:
Web Text Glossary Entry Example for Handicapped
Defining Disability
(20%) 750-1000 word entry + 250 word self-assessment
(20%) remediated multimodal artifact with a 250-500 word reflection on the remediation process and your rhetorical choices
(60%) Revised 750-1000 word multimodal webpage glossary entry + 250 word self-assessment
Due Sept. 6 (LS) (Assignment 1.1)
Write a 150-250 word blog post unpacking your own personal reflections on the word you have chosen for the Defining Disability project, the connotations it might hold for you, your experience with it, etc. A useful place to start such a reflection might be with why you choose your word, though if there is no particular reason for your choice please do not feel compelled to make one up. Try to be concrete and honest and use this post as an opportunity to recognize and think through your past/current assumptions before you begin actively researching and learning about your word.
Due Sept. 9 (LS) (Assignment 1.2)
Write a 150-250 word blog post analyzing some part of the definition of your word in a dictionary. Consider any and all facets of the entry, including the word's etymology, part of speech, and its multiple, potentially differing definitions, as potential material for critical reflection on your word. Some questions to think about answering in this post include: what does this word specifically mean? where does this word come from? How do its potentially differing meanings relate to each other?
Resources:
http://www.oed.com/
http://www.onelook.com/
http://www.urbandictionary.com/
Due Sept. 13 (LS) (Assignment 1.3)
Write a 150-250 word blog post using statistical analytical tools to draw some kind of conclusion about the changing historical usage of your word.
Resources:
http://corpus.byu.edu
http://books.google.com/ngrams
Due Sept. 16 (LS) (Assignment 1.4)
Write a 150-250 word blog post discussing the debates that surround the use of your word. Think about what your word might mean to different groups and how it might be used for different ends. Some questions to consider include: Why might some dislike this word? Who might those people be? Why might others prefer it? And who might they be? Try doing some basic research on such issues and please remember to link out in your post to any material that you use so that your readers might also have access to those materials to think about the issue for themselves. It is fine to begin doing such research with Wikipedia, but I would recommend that you critically evaluate the information you gather from there and corroborate it via at least one other source.
Also, post your "Introduction to the World," 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 to the blog on your newly established domain in the appropriate order.
Due Sept. 20
Bring two paper copies of a working draft of your glossary entry (comprised of at least 500 words) to class for a peer review workshop.
Due Sept. 25 (Assignment 1.5)
Your 750-1000 word text-only glossary entry must be published to your website before class. As this is a formal version, please make sure to cite all sources in MLA style, with in-text citations and a works cited page. For any queries on citation style please see the links on the resources page. In addition to the text for your glossary entry please email me a 150-250 frank self-assessment of it, outlining what you see as its strongest and weakest points and perhaps gesture at what areas you would like to work on further if you had more time.
Due Sept. 30 (Assignment 1.6)
Following up on our in-class workshops, publish a blog post with an embedded Prezi presentation (with 10 frames) that uses multiple modes (images, audio, text, movement) to remediate some portion of your glossary entry and 150-250 words reflecting on the experience of remediating your original glossary entry and outlining what important changes and rhetorical choices you had to make in order to suit this new medium and articulating your reasoning behind those choices. Here is an example of what your blog post should look like: Example Prezi Blog Post. And the following link provides easy instructions as to how you should embed your Prezi presentation in a post on your website: https://prezi.zendesk.com/entries/22451538-Embedding-prezis
Due Oct. 14 (Assignment 1.7) [must be posted to your personal website by midnight]
Incorporating my feedback from the purely textual version of your glossary entry as well as the lessons you have learned about multimodal presentation and the importance of visual design from the remediation of the entry into a Prezi, publish to your website a multimodal 750-1000 glossary entry. Don't just paste text onto a webpage. Think critically about your presentation of the materials and how you need to compose for web users, which means taking advantage of the range of multimodal possibilities afforded in a digital text (you can incorporate audio, video, images, pull-out quotes, titles and other graphics, as well as hyperlinks). In addition to publishing your final glossary entry to your website, once again please email me a 150-250 word self-assessment of it. Here are some examples that show just a few of the different strategies of movement/navigation you might incorporate into your webtext:
Web Text Glossary Entry Example for Handicapped