Assignment Three, part III [aka Module]
Electronic Literature
ENC 4420/5420-W61
Dr. Saper, Professor
Module 3, part III: Historical Context for Electronic Literature
Included in this module: Goals; Assignment; Due Dates; Links to Web-site; Assessments; and Grading Rubric. Read this entire module before starting the assignment or asking any questions about the assignment.
Goals:
Students read hypertext novels. They also read about the historical contexts of these works. They read about Kittler’s important historical work and use it to place electronic literature in a complicated historical context. They read Talan Memmott’s Lexia to Perplexia (2+ hours) work in relation to that history and context.
These goals correspond to the overall goals of the course: to learn about electronic literature in both its forms and contexts.
Assignment:
Students will read Hayles paying close attention to her explication of Kittler’s work. They will read the large and demanding work by Talan Memmott, Lexia to Perplexia (2+ hours).
Students will examine both Memmott’s novel and a reading of the novel. The time commitment for the reading alone is 3+ hours for this assignment.
1. Read Hayles’ Electronic Literature, pp. 87-131.
2. Read Talan Memmott, Lexia to Perplexia (2+ hours).
3. Please note: the hypertext works do not have page numbers; so, I have supplied you with an estimate of size and the approximate time needed to read Memmott’s work.
4. Describe in your notes how you read Memmott, and relate how Kittler, in general terms, and Hayles, in specific terms, read this work.
5. Write a clear and concise 1250 word essay on your conclusions – jam packed with information and avoiding wordiness. In your conclusions, specifically discuss how Kittler’s history might place electronic literature in the history of texts and technological change. Discuss with very specific details from the hypertext work, Hayles’, and your own, reading experience. What is the historical context for this type of work?
Due Dates:
Include this part of the module in your overall Module and Assignment 3. Turn the entire project in by the due date. This will give you an opportunity to ask questions about the assignment and make revisions. No late projects accepted, no exceptions.
Where: Post the finished assignment to the blog, but post a draft to a discussion on the course site. Since everyone gets credit for helping (and you can help more than one of your peers each assignment) you will find someone to give you suggestions for improvement. If you cannot offer any suggestions, then you might want to consider an alternative to academia.
Assessments:
Content: Do the materials include the following elements:
A. full name of student and helper(s)
C. description of reading experience (yours and others).
D. description of details from lexias and general plot lines and themes. Also describe how the readings relate to historical change in texts and literacy. Relate everything to Kittler’s historical studies.
Form: Did the student include the following technical aspects?
A. turned-in the project in electronic form on the blog
B. prose contains no grammatical, stylistic, or typographical errors
The grader [in this case Professor Saper] will study the essay (including the prose), and ask the following questions.
1. Does this material present a clear representation of the student's thinking about Memmott, Kittler, and Hayles, the contexts for reading these works, and how these works fit in a larger history?
2. Did the student have interesting insights about Memmott’s work and Kittler’s description of historical changes?
3. Were the insights expressed clearly? Did the student modify their time-lines to reflect the new information?
4. Is the essay interesting, unique, expressive, and informative?
Grading Rubric:
Passing Grade (in the D range): fulfilled number one in the assessment.
Adequate Grade (in the C range): fulfilled one and two in the assessment.
Good Grade (in the B range): fulfilled numbers one through three in the assessment.
Excellent Grade (in the A range): fulfilled all of the four criteria in the assessment.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Read and Respond to Chapter One of Hayles
All you need to do by next Monday is read and respond to chapter one of Hayles. It will keep you engaged -- I know you probably will want to turn to other distractions -- I want to keep you focused on the most ambitious part of the course that will take all of October.
So for next Monday -- or perhaps next Thursday [since I think we pushed the dues date a bit -- am I correct?] ...
1. Read Hayles’ Electronic Literature, Chapter one [for part 1 of assignment].
2. Take notes.
3. Look at your notes, find patterns, and add your own research.
4. Outline Hayles’ argument.
5. Write a clear and concise 500 word essay on chapter one – jam packed with information and avoiding wordiness.
Due Dates:
Post the final project by week ten of the semester, but start reading chapter one, take notes, and post just the 500 word essay [1-2 pages] by next Monday October 13, 2008.
So for next Monday -- or perhaps next Thursday [since I think we pushed the dues date a bit -- am I correct?] ...
1. Read Hayles’ Electronic Literature, Chapter one [for part 1 of assignment].
2. Take notes.
3. Look at your notes, find patterns, and add your own research.
4. Outline Hayles’ argument.
5. Write a clear and concise 500 word essay on chapter one – jam packed with information and avoiding wordiness.
Due Dates:
Post the final project by week ten of the semester, but start reading chapter one, take notes, and post just the 500 word essay [1-2 pages] by next Monday October 13, 2008.
Correction to Due Date, Apologies
Thanks to John B. for noticing the error in the due date. Obviously, that date is incorrect. I think you were to do some of the parts now and some later. I wanted to post the entire module now so that you would have about a month to work on it.
The work for module 3 is not due until the end of October or the beginning of November [I'll have to check my calendar to figure out when week ten falls].
The work for module 3 is not due until the end of October or the beginning of November [I'll have to check my calendar to figure out when week ten falls].
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Assignment Three, part II
Here is the second part of assignment three.
Assignment Three, part II [aka Module]
Electronic Literature
ENC 4420/5420-W61
Dr. Saper, Professor
Module 3, part II: Intermediation
Included in this module: Goals; Assignment; Due Dates; Links to Web-site; Assessments; and Grading Rubric. Read this entire module before starting the assignment or asking any questions about the assignment.
Goals:
Students read a hypertext novel. They learn how to read this type of work, and they learn why this particular novel is significant in literary studies. The students learn why many consider Michael Joyce’s Afternoon a classic work in modernist or postmodernist literature, and why it was included in the Norton Anthology of Postmodern Literature. Students also read important hypertext novels.
These goals correspond to the overall goals of the course: to learn about electronic literature in both its forms and contexts.
Assignment:
Students will read two works by Michael Joyce [or just Twelve Blue, if Afternoon not available]. They will also read Judd Morissey’s The Jew’s Daughter (2+ hours), Maria Mencia, Birds Singing Other Birds' Songs (1/2 to 1 hour). They will learn why these works count as literature. Students will examine both the novels and readings of the novels. The time commitment for the reading alone is 8 hours for this assignment.
1. Read Hayles’ Electronic Literature, pp. 43-87. Read a description and guide to reading Michael Joyce’s Afternoon by Jill Walker at http://jilltxt.net/txt/afternoon.html
2. Read Michael Joyce’s Twelve Blue and Afternoon [if available]. [one to two hours and two hours respectively]. Read Judd Morissey’s The Jew’s Daughter (2+ hours), Maria Mencia, Birds Singing Other Birds' Songs (1/2 to 1 hour).
3. Please note: these works do not have page numbers; so, I have supplied you with an estimate of size and the approximate time needed to read these works.
4. Describe in your notes how you read these works, and relate how Walker and Hayles read these works.
5. Write a clear and concise 1250 word essay on your conclusions – jam packed with information and avoiding wordiness. In your conclusions, specifically discuss how this type of reading fits in the history of texts and technological change. Discuss with very specific details from the works, Hayles, Walker, and your own reading experience how literacy and reading have changed or might change in the future. Include, when these changes occurred in your overall diachronic analysis, and insert these changes and new hypertext and hypermedia novels in your time-line.
Due Dates:
Include this part of the module in your overall Module and Assignment 3. Turn the entire project in by the due date. This will give you an opportunity to ask questions about the assignment and make revisions. No late projects accepted, no exceptions.
Where: Post the finished assignment to the blog, but post a draft to a discussion on the course site. Since everyone gets credit for helping (and you can help more than one of your peers each assignment) you will find someone to give you suggestions for improvement. If you cannot offer any suggestions, then you might want to consider an alternative to academia.
Assessments:
Content: Do the materials include the following elements:
A. full name of student and helper(s)
C. description of reading experience (yours and others).
D. description of details from lexias and general plot lines and themes. Also describe how the readings relates to historical change in texts and literacy.
Form: Did the student include the following technical aspects?
A. turned-in the project in electronic form on the blog
B. prose contains no grammatical, stylistic, or typographical errors
The grader [in this case Professor Saper] will study the essay (including the prose), and ask the following questions.
1. Does this material present a clear representation of the student's thinking about Joyce’s works, the contexts for reading these works, and how these works fit in a larger history?
2. Did the student have interesting insights about the hypertext work and historical changes to literacy?
3. Were the insights expressed clearly? Did the student modify their time-lines to reflect the new information?
4. Is the essay interesting, unique, expressive, and informative?
Grading Rubric:
Passing Grade (in the D range): fulfilled number one in the assessment.
Adequate Grade (in the C range): fulfilled one and two in the assessment.
Good Grade (in the B range): fulfilled numbers one through three in the assessment.
Excellent Grade (in the A range): fulfilled all of the four criteria in the assessment.
Assignment Three, part II [aka Module]
Electronic Literature
ENC 4420/5420-W61
Dr. Saper, Professor
Module 3, part II: Intermediation
Included in this module: Goals; Assignment; Due Dates; Links to Web-site; Assessments; and Grading Rubric. Read this entire module before starting the assignment or asking any questions about the assignment.
Goals:
Students read a hypertext novel. They learn how to read this type of work, and they learn why this particular novel is significant in literary studies. The students learn why many consider Michael Joyce’s Afternoon a classic work in modernist or postmodernist literature, and why it was included in the Norton Anthology of Postmodern Literature. Students also read important hypertext novels.
These goals correspond to the overall goals of the course: to learn about electronic literature in both its forms and contexts.
Assignment:
Students will read two works by Michael Joyce [or just Twelve Blue, if Afternoon not available]. They will also read Judd Morissey’s The Jew’s Daughter (2+ hours), Maria Mencia, Birds Singing Other Birds' Songs (1/2 to 1 hour). They will learn why these works count as literature. Students will examine both the novels and readings of the novels. The time commitment for the reading alone is 8 hours for this assignment.
1. Read Hayles’ Electronic Literature, pp. 43-87. Read a description and guide to reading Michael Joyce’s Afternoon by Jill Walker at http://jilltxt.net/txt/afternoon.html
2. Read Michael Joyce’s Twelve Blue and Afternoon [if available]. [one to two hours and two hours respectively]. Read Judd Morissey’s The Jew’s Daughter (2+ hours), Maria Mencia, Birds Singing Other Birds' Songs (1/2 to 1 hour).
3. Please note: these works do not have page numbers; so, I have supplied you with an estimate of size and the approximate time needed to read these works.
4. Describe in your notes how you read these works, and relate how Walker and Hayles read these works.
5. Write a clear and concise 1250 word essay on your conclusions – jam packed with information and avoiding wordiness. In your conclusions, specifically discuss how this type of reading fits in the history of texts and technological change. Discuss with very specific details from the works, Hayles, Walker, and your own reading experience how literacy and reading have changed or might change in the future. Include, when these changes occurred in your overall diachronic analysis, and insert these changes and new hypertext and hypermedia novels in your time-line.
Due Dates:
Include this part of the module in your overall Module and Assignment 3. Turn the entire project in by the due date. This will give you an opportunity to ask questions about the assignment and make revisions. No late projects accepted, no exceptions.
Where: Post the finished assignment to the blog, but post a draft to a discussion on the course site. Since everyone gets credit for helping (and you can help more than one of your peers each assignment) you will find someone to give you suggestions for improvement. If you cannot offer any suggestions, then you might want to consider an alternative to academia.
Assessments:
Content: Do the materials include the following elements:
A. full name of student and helper(s)
C. description of reading experience (yours and others).
D. description of details from lexias and general plot lines and themes. Also describe how the readings relates to historical change in texts and literacy.
Form: Did the student include the following technical aspects?
A. turned-in the project in electronic form on the blog
B. prose contains no grammatical, stylistic, or typographical errors
The grader [in this case Professor Saper] will study the essay (including the prose), and ask the following questions.
1. Does this material present a clear representation of the student's thinking about Joyce’s works, the contexts for reading these works, and how these works fit in a larger history?
2. Did the student have interesting insights about the hypertext work and historical changes to literacy?
3. Were the insights expressed clearly? Did the student modify their time-lines to reflect the new information?
4. Is the essay interesting, unique, expressive, and informative?
Grading Rubric:
Passing Grade (in the D range): fulfilled number one in the assessment.
Adequate Grade (in the C range): fulfilled one and two in the assessment.
Good Grade (in the B range): fulfilled numbers one through three in the assessment.
Excellent Grade (in the A range): fulfilled all of the four criteria in the assessment.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Assignment Three [aka Module], Part I
Texts and Technology in History
ENC 6801-W61
Dr. Saper, Professor
Module 3: Historical Context for Electronic Texts
Included in this module: Goals; Assignment; Due Dates; Links to Web-site; Assessments; and Grading Rubric. Read this entire module before starting the assignment or asking any questions about the assignment.
Goals:
Students learn how to place a survey of electronic literature in the historical context of diachronic changes to texts in relation to technology.
These goals correspond to the overall goals of the course: to learn about the history of texts and technology in history using digital modes of communication.
Assignment:
Students will learn about the major historical modes of communication and cultural memory relate to new electronic forms of literature:
1. Read Hayles’ Electronic Literature, Chapter one [for part 1 of assignment].
2. Take notes.
3. Look at your notes, find patterns, and add your own research.
4. Outline Hayles’ argument.
5. Write a clear and concise 500 word essay on chapter one – jam packed with information and avoiding wordiness.
Due Dates:
Post the final project by week ten of the semester, but start reading chapter one, take notes, and post just the 500 word essay [1-2 pages] by next Monday October 13, 2008. This will give you an opportunity to ask questions about the assignment and make revisions. No late projects accepted, no exceptions.
Where: Post the finished assignment to the blog, but post a draft to a discussion on the course site. Since everyone gets credit for helping (and you can help more than one of your peers each assignment) you will find someone to give you suggestions for improvement. If you cannot offer any suggestions, then you might want to consider an alternative to academia.
Assessments:
Content: Do the materials include the following:
A. full name of author and helper(s)
C. at least three definitions, arguments, and stories learned from chapter one of Hayles (please do not plagiarize).
Form: Did the student include the following technical aspects?
A. turned-in the project in electronic form
B. prose contains no grammatical, stylistic, or typographical errors
Grader will study the materials (including the design).
1. Does this material present a clear representation of the student's thinking about both Hayles argument and sense of history?
2. Did the student have interesting insights about Hayles especially in terms of Ong?
3. Were the insights expressed clearly?
4. Is the essay interesting, unique, expressive, and informative?
Grading Rubric:
Passing Grade (in the D range): fulfilled number one in the assessment.
Adequate Grade (in the C range): fulfilled one and two in the assessment.
Good Grade (in the B range): fulfilled numbers one through three in the assessment.
Excellent Grade (in the A range): fulfilled all of the four criteria in the assessment
Texts and Technology in History
ENC 6801-W61
Dr. Saper, Professor
Module 3: Historical Context for Electronic Texts
Included in this module: Goals; Assignment; Due Dates; Links to Web-site; Assessments; and Grading Rubric. Read this entire module before starting the assignment or asking any questions about the assignment.
Goals:
Students learn how to place a survey of electronic literature in the historical context of diachronic changes to texts in relation to technology.
These goals correspond to the overall goals of the course: to learn about the history of texts and technology in history using digital modes of communication.
Assignment:
Students will learn about the major historical modes of communication and cultural memory relate to new electronic forms of literature:
1. Read Hayles’ Electronic Literature, Chapter one [for part 1 of assignment].
2. Take notes.
3. Look at your notes, find patterns, and add your own research.
4. Outline Hayles’ argument.
5. Write a clear and concise 500 word essay on chapter one – jam packed with information and avoiding wordiness.
Due Dates:
Post the final project by week ten of the semester, but start reading chapter one, take notes, and post just the 500 word essay [1-2 pages] by next Monday October 13, 2008. This will give you an opportunity to ask questions about the assignment and make revisions. No late projects accepted, no exceptions.
Where: Post the finished assignment to the blog, but post a draft to a discussion on the course site. Since everyone gets credit for helping (and you can help more than one of your peers each assignment) you will find someone to give you suggestions for improvement. If you cannot offer any suggestions, then you might want to consider an alternative to academia.
Assessments:
Content: Do the materials include the following:
A. full name of author and helper(s)
C. at least three definitions, arguments, and stories learned from chapter one of Hayles (please do not plagiarize).
Form: Did the student include the following technical aspects?
A. turned-in the project in electronic form
B. prose contains no grammatical, stylistic, or typographical errors
Grader will study the materials (including the design).
1. Does this material present a clear representation of the student's thinking about both Hayles argument and sense of history?
2. Did the student have interesting insights about Hayles especially in terms of Ong?
3. Were the insights expressed clearly?
4. Is the essay interesting, unique, expressive, and informative?
Grading Rubric:
Passing Grade (in the D range): fulfilled number one in the assessment.
Adequate Grade (in the C range): fulfilled one and two in the assessment.
Good Grade (in the B range): fulfilled numbers one through three in the assessment.
Excellent Grade (in the A range): fulfilled all of the four criteria in the assessment
Monday, September 22, 2008
Texts in e-Tech and e-crit
Of course, the e-crit is a pun (see O'Gorman, E-Crit, U Toronto Press) on Derrida's ecriture [literally writing, but also that which mediates between message and reader, and how that ecrit has its own initiatives and visual non-phonetic non-logocentric paths] and on electronic critique. The question for us, how to appreciate the history of graphic design as a way to understand media-forms [oral, literate, electronic] historically and in terms of scholarly critical work. How will writing proceed as electronic forms now inflect even non-electronic forms? If scholarship must respond to, apprehend, and shape electronic forms, then what lessons does the history of graphic design offer us? What warnings? What clues? What paths to follow? Finally, if the issue is about the mediation [not some mistaken and over-simplified notion of sender/receiver], then how does design function over time, in the historical context, and with what specific elements? More importantly, Drucker/McVarish ask us to look in detail at concrete instances in an historical context -- it is that work that will make up the core of any study of texts and technology. Please comment and not sure where the conversation has shifted now -- to the webcourses site? offline? in person? or to other classes and concerns?
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Drucker in context
Good e-vening, whatever time it is, I wanted to give you a very brief context on Johanna Drucker and on why we might include this history of graphic design textbook in our T&T course. First, Drucker has taught at Yale, University of Virginia, and a few other Universities; and, she is about to start at UCLA. She was an endowed Chair at UVa and worked closely with Jerome McGann there McGann, as some of you know, is a leader in digital humanities as well as literary studies [not just in one period, but multiple], and one of his many books is on the required reading list for T&T's exam list. Drucker began her illustrious career as an artist's book printer and designer. Her work is considered important in that area, and then she went on to start publishing histories of artists' books and visual poetry. She became the most important scholar in that area, and then started working more generally on information arts, and started to make the connection between artists' books and experiments in printing to new media. Her Chair at UVa was in New Media Studies. Her new position at UCLA is in Library Science. This year she is at Stanford U. I suspect from her new position she will begin to publish about digital archiving and the connection with book arts.
Why include a book artist and art historian in our course? The reason should be clear. She makes the historical lineage from the artists books and graphic design through electronic design. We live in an era when information, knowledge, and even trivial communication depends on graphic design for its expressive meaning not merely as ornamentation.
When I first came to UCF to design the doctoral program, we really did not have the pieces of the puzzle because T&T is such a new field with an emerging set of concerns and a history that is unfolding as we try to write its history.
We had the history of T&T as it relates to modes of communication (Ong, Havelock, and others), but we did not have the specific critical history to place the text. So, one could become easily confused that there was an unproblematic and simple relationship between neutral design and textual message. One could imagine that a message should limit the design to a supposedly clear unobstructed view of a given-pre-designed message. We need to remind ourselves regularly that there are problems with that argument, and that we cannot step outside history to produce a pure undesigned message.
Drucker/McVarish present a specific and detailed description of how design is not simply ornamental to messages.
The best response will be equally specific, detailed, concrete, and aware of the design as an expressive message.
If the work is as strong as module 1's then we might want to talk about publishing the results.
Why include a book artist and art historian in our course? The reason should be clear. She makes the historical lineage from the artists books and graphic design through electronic design. We live in an era when information, knowledge, and even trivial communication depends on graphic design for its expressive meaning not merely as ornamentation.
When I first came to UCF to design the doctoral program, we really did not have the pieces of the puzzle because T&T is such a new field with an emerging set of concerns and a history that is unfolding as we try to write its history.
We had the history of T&T as it relates to modes of communication (Ong, Havelock, and others), but we did not have the specific critical history to place the text. So, one could become easily confused that there was an unproblematic and simple relationship between neutral design and textual message. One could imagine that a message should limit the design to a supposedly clear unobstructed view of a given-pre-designed message. We need to remind ourselves regularly that there are problems with that argument, and that we cannot step outside history to produce a pure undesigned message.
Drucker/McVarish present a specific and detailed description of how design is not simply ornamental to messages.
The best response will be equally specific, detailed, concrete, and aware of the design as an expressive message.
If the work is as strong as module 1's then we might want to talk about publishing the results.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
A Student Project to Look over
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~da344953/
This is a student website from my undergraduate course on Digital Rhetoric.
It is the undergraduate version of module 1, and also speaks to other issues.
Enjoy
This is a student website from my undergraduate course on Digital Rhetoric.
It is the undergraduate version of module 1, and also speaks to other issues.
Enjoy
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Module 2
All good suggestions.
Please modify the module. Make your presentation follow the design of a magazine/newsletter -- WIRED a fine model or a newsletter. If you are familiar with McLuhan, then you might want to take a look at some of his experimental works like The Medium is The Massage that borrows from print advertising to discuss the networked world and how it will change the sensorium as well as rhetoric [the art of effective communication]. I know at least one of you is familiar with McLuhan, but if you are not, then please take a look at his work.
Instead of focusing on one chapter, please focus on one issue that strikes you as significant in the social history of graphic design. It can be something concrete like the use of writing tools or mechanisms or something more abstract like identity or time or space/place.
You might focus more on some chapters than others, but it is the themes and details that run through the entire history that I am interested in examining.
OK?
[btw, I was waiting for everyone to respond with an email to me about module 1 before I started to respond back in a trickle ... but now I think I might have left a few hanging waiting for everyone. So, write me again [if I haven't talked w/ you on email about module 1] or write me for the first time.]
Please modify the module. Make your presentation follow the design of a magazine/newsletter -- WIRED a fine model or a newsletter. If you are familiar with McLuhan, then you might want to take a look at some of his experimental works like The Medium is The Massage that borrows from print advertising to discuss the networked world and how it will change the sensorium as well as rhetoric [the art of effective communication]. I know at least one of you is familiar with McLuhan, but if you are not, then please take a look at his work.
Instead of focusing on one chapter, please focus on one issue that strikes you as significant in the social history of graphic design. It can be something concrete like the use of writing tools or mechanisms or something more abstract like identity or time or space/place.
You might focus more on some chapters than others, but it is the themes and details that run through the entire history that I am interested in examining.
OK?
[btw, I was waiting for everyone to respond with an email to me about module 1 before I started to respond back in a trickle ... but now I think I might have left a few hanging waiting for everyone. So, write me again [if I haven't talked w/ you on email about module 1] or write me for the first time.]
Monday, September 8, 2008
Module Two Proposal
Please look at this sample of a potential way to post the work collaboratively, but with everyone doing their own work.
Paul Czech has suggested a newspaper format.
http://www.paulczech.com/t&tTimes/
What I would like now is to collect your ideas about what you can contribute (e.g., a 1250 word article on the ideas to focus on from module 2; an equivalent comic strip on the ideas to address in module 2; an equivalent advertisement; a video; or something else).
I would like to appoint Paul Czech as the technical editor, but we also need an editor and compiler of the issue -- looking for volunteers. Also, if you have some hidden talents, then let us know.
This is meant to be a way to graphically [or electronically] express complicated ideas about texts and technology in history.
Paul Czech has suggested a newspaper format.
http://www.paulczech.com/t&tTimes/
What I would like now is to collect your ideas about what you can contribute (e.g., a 1250 word article on the ideas to focus on from module 2; an equivalent comic strip on the ideas to address in module 2; an equivalent advertisement; a video; or something else).
I would like to appoint Paul Czech as the technical editor, but we also need an editor and compiler of the issue -- looking for volunteers. Also, if you have some hidden talents, then let us know.
This is meant to be a way to graphically [or electronically] express complicated ideas about texts and technology in history.
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