> In this course students will develop their existing composition skills by writing in various genres and modes for diverse audiences while exploring the course theme, participatory culture. According to media scholar Henry Jenkins, participatory culture is a culture in which the public are not only consumers, but also producers of cultural content, a possibility not limited to but clearly facilitated by current affordances of the web. Websites such as Flickr and Vimeo, for instance, have made it easier to share creative expressions while wikis, discussion forums, and consumer reviews have facilitated collaborative knowledge sharing and blogs and online forums have arguably increased possibilities for civic engagement. Rich in participatory potential, these cultural forms also bear ethical challenges that are worth examining as a means of developing new media literacies and critical thinking skills. Viewing these circulations, collaborations, and expressions as scenes of!
writing also grants us interesting opportunities to develop our understanding of rhetoric and genre and thereby grow as expository writers.
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> With these aims in mind, students in this course will explore and investigate the web, collecting and critically examining participatory media forms and completing writing projects about them. Supporting this work will be course readings by Henry Jenkins, Laurence Lessig, Marshall Poe, Andrew Sullivan, Jurgen Habermas, and others. Students will also be supported by in-class and online discussion as well as peer and instructor feedback throughout the writing process. Please note that, while this course has no formal prerequisite, it is an intermediate writing course, and instructors expect entering students to know how to formulate claims, integrate evidence, demonstrate awareness of audience, and structure coherent sentences, paragraphs, and essays. Also, while we will pay close attention to the web, this is not a web writing course, although some interest—but not necessarily any expertise—in the web and new media will be assumed.

Course Pack

Prerequisites:

While 281 has no formal prerequisite, this is an intermediate writing course, and instructors expect entering students to know how to formulate claims, integrate evidence, demonstrate awareness of audience, and structure coherent sentences, paragraphs and essays. Thus we strongly encourage students to complete an introductory (100 level) writing course before enrolling in English 281.