Classical Rhetoric:
Read Overview; choose between Brooks & Mara, Fleckenstein, or Rice; read Prior et. al. Core Text; and choose one Prior et. al. node to read
Ball and Hewett, Eds. Special Issue “Classical Rhetoric and Digital Communication: A Canon Blast into the Net” Kairos 11.3 Summer 2007.

Activity Theory:
Read Introduction; choose one article each from “Producing Work and the Economy,” “Producing Selves in Community,” and “Producing Education.”
Bazerman and Russell, eds. Writing Selves/Writing Societies: Research from Activity Perspectives.
Lochlan and Patrick

Genre Theory:
Read Introduction; Choose 3 articles
Bazerman, Bonini, and Figueiredo, eds. Genre in a Changing World.
Brian Doyle and Jen

Feminist Theory (and Technology):

Haraway, Donna. “A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s”
DeVoss, Danielle. “Rereading Cyborg(?) Women: The Visual Rhetoric of Images of Cyborg (and Cyber) Bodies on the World Wide Web”
Christine and Katie

Theories of Place:
Discourses in Place: Language in the Material World- Ron Scollon and Suzie Wong Scollon

Chapter 1: Geosemiotics
Chapter 4: Visual Semiotics
Chapter 5: Interlude on Geosemiotics
Brian Baxter and Georgia

(Video)Game theory:
Nakamura, Lisa. “Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Game: The Racialization of Labor in World of Warcraft”
Murray, Janet. “Toward a Cultural Theory of Gaming: Digital Games and the Co-Evolution of Media, Mind, and Culture.”
Brooker, Will. “Camera-Eye, CG-Eye: Videogames and the “Cinematic”

or, if you can get it:

James Paul Gee: Part 1 from What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy

Comic Theory (you have to get the book)
Scott McCloud Understanding Comics (the rest of the book)

New Media Theory I:
Marshall McCluhan- “Part I” from Understanding Media
Vince and Parker

New Media Theory II:
Lev Manovich: Chapter 1 – “What Is New Media?” from The Language of New Media
Lev Manovich-  Chapter 6. “What Is Cinema?” from The Language of New Media
Amanda and Tom

Visual Rhetoric:
James Elkins. Visual Studies.
Bridget and Danny

Visual Rhetoric II
Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright. Practices of Looking.
Liz and Davis

For your final project in Writing Across Media, you will be creating a polished artifact utilizing the skills and techniques acquired over the course of the semester. While the requirements for this project are simple, the work that you do here should reflect your finest and most thoughtful work to date. First, you will read a small body of scholarship that focuses on a theory related to work we have done in WAM. Then, you will work to remediate that theory using several modalities–in other words, the tools and methods we have utilized this semester and others you might bring to the table. I’d like for you to explore the theory thoroughly and then demonstrate your understanding of the theory in a way other than the typical alphabetic text representation. Simply put, do what you’ve been doing all semester!

The amount of work you do here should be the equivalent of a ten page research paper, but of course, there need not be any traditional “pages.” I assume that most of you will choose to do a time-based project/presentation, if so, please limit it to 7-10 minutes. In your initial proposal, due on the 19th, you should tell me your plan for the project including all of the media/mediums you will use and how you plan on representing the theoretical ideas of your scholarship. The most important part of the proposal and the project will be a display of your ability to think deeply about both the theory you will be covering and the concepts that we have discussed this semester. Final written “artifacts” should be at least 1000 words.

Time line:

• Assign project and choose theory: Thursday Nov 12
• Project proposal (one per partnership) due on Thursday the 19th (500 words) via email to bellwoar at illinois dot edu
• Have reading nearly completed by the 21st
• Final project due December 3rd, Presentations the 3rd and 8th