Short Paper Due Dates: 3/8, 3/22, 3/29, 4/5
Expanded Paper Draft Due Date: 4/12
Expanded Paper + Mashup Due Date: 4/19
The second half of our course will explore the logic of the mashup. We'll be reading rhetoricians, ancient and modern, and then figuring out what new rhetorical concepts we can build when mashing up these theorists. Each short Ancient+Modern paper will take one ancient rhetorican and one modern rhetorician and combine them to create a new term or concept.
Papers will be 750 words long and will be posted to the class blog. The papers will include a 250-word summary of each theorist and a 250-word explanation of the concept or term that you've created.
These papers will be difficult to write. I'm asking you to do a lot in only 750 words, but this is part of the assignment. When summarizing, you'll have to distill longer pieces of writing. Your task is to give us a 10,000 foot view of these writings and to point out what is most important. Summary should not include any evaluation. I'm not asking you to agree or disagree. I'm asking you to provide a 250-word summary of the author's argument.
Your mashup concept should find a hinge-point between these two authors. What point of overlap can you find? What is the significant of that overlap?
My recommended procedure for these papers is as follows:
1. Read and take notes
2. Set aside for at least one day
3. Read again (paying attention to your notes)
4. Summarize
5. Look for an overlap, a “hinge point” between the two texts
6. Make up a word, concept, phrase
7. Explain what you made up
During class, we'll be working with technologies that you might use to create mashups. You'll have the opportunity to use the concepts you develop in creating those mashups
You will write four of these short papers, and you will expand one of the four into a longer paper for your final project. That expanded paper will be 1500 words long and will be accompanied by a mashup (in whatever medium you choose) that demonstrates the rhetorical concept you've developed.
When grading these Ancient + Modern papers, I will be asking these questions:
- Have you observed the word limits?
- Are you summaries fair and concise?
- Does your concept combine these authors to create something new?
- Have you clearly articulated what your concept means?
- Is your paper written effectively and coherently with very few grammatical errors?
- Was the paper turned in on time?
