For many instructors, teaching about the past can be problematic, especially to Georgia Tech students who may have little interest in any time period that predates their existence, or who may have the interest, but don’t see how such topics can aid them in their pursuit of a STEM degree…. Continue reading
At Stony Brook University, where I spent my Fall Break, I learned all about the Curse of Knowledge … from Alan Alda. A few feet away from me, Alda gave the keynote speech at the Center for Communicating Science’s Fall Institute, explaining passionately that once we know something really well,… Continue reading
Jason W. Ellis and Olga Menagarishvili will lead a discussion on digital literacy and social media issues for technical communicators in this week’s seminar. How does digital literacy in general and social media more specifically figure into the Technical Communication classroom? Should we challenge our Technical Communication students to be more… Continue reading
Hi D-Ped folks, this Wednesday, we’ll be discussing using digital and other pedagogical methods to work with ELL students and otherwise defined “at-risk” students in our classes. We’ve provided some very short readings we’d like you to read before Wednesday. Fair warning: we’d prefer that everyone be “devices down,” or… Continue reading
Jason W. Ellis and Rachel Mahan will lead a discussion on single-sourcing and user experience issues for this week’s seminar. While technical communication often focuses on software technologies, those same technologies influence and shape what technical communication is and how technical communication is done. A specific area of pedagogical interest… Continue reading
On Wednesday, October 24th our seminar will be discussing visual rhetoric*: Drs. Barnes, Fontaine, and Ratiu will lead discussion contextualizing visual rhetoric theory from the required reading and lead an exercise to develop assignments and documents. Among our goals for the seminar is to explore the historical/contextual theory of visual… Continue reading
What is hate, and how do we combat it? Recently, I attended a symposium organized by Gonzaga University’s Institute for Hate Studies and American University’s Washington College of Law. The symposium was on “Hate and Political Discourse” and was organized by John Shuford and Robert Tsai in honor of the… Continue reading
On Wednesday, Drs. Mollie Barnes, Joy Bracewell, Leah Haught, and Jon Kotchian will present on designing, incorporating, and assessing multimodal portfolios in our courses. As you recall, the portfolio assignment allows our students to demonstrate certain competencies: With these outcomes in mind, our presentation will consider how student portfolios can… Continue reading
In our Digital Pedagogy talk on Wednesday, October 10, Noah Mass, Sarah Bleakney, James Gregory, and Emily Kane will discuss strategies for assessing student work. In our discussion, we will focus on two forms of assessment: self-assessment by the student in peer response and revision, and assessment of student work… Continue reading
Or, Why Teach Shakespeare to Georgia Tech Undergraduates? This is the third term I’ve used early moden drama as the theme for my 1102 classes. In fall 2011 I taught a course on London City Comedy (The Shoemaker’s Holiday, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Bartholmew Fair); last spring I… Continue reading
James Gregory and Rachel Mahan will lead Monday’s Tech Comm Seminar discussion on visual literacy, visual design, and information design. We would like you to read and watch the following: “What is Information Design?” Janice C. Redish (pp. 211-17 in Teaching Technical Communication) From “The Vocabulary of Comics” Scott McCloud… Continue reading
John Harkey, a second-year Brittain Fellow in Georgia Tech’s Writing and Communication Program, recently served as editor for a facsimile edition of Lorine Niedecker’s handmade book of poems from 1964, Homemade Poems. The edition has just been published through The City University of New York’s (CUNY) Center for the Humanities,… Continue reading
Brittian Fellow in the Writing and Communication Program, Rachel Dean-Ruzicka, gave an invited talk at a special symposium held at American University – Washington College of Law on September 27th. The symposium was held in honor of the 10th Anniversary of the Journal of Hate Studies and was organized around… Continue reading
by Jennifer Orth-Veillon Memorial Day, July 4th, 9-11, Veterans Day. Over the past year, I have spent each of these commemorative holidays planning and teaching my English 1101 course, “American Veterans and the Non-Traditional Memoir.” While helping students improve their writing and communication skills, the class examines the way veteran… Continue reading
In the first weeks of my 1101 course, The Allure of the Unreliable Utterance, I introduced my students to Socratic irony and to Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism. We watched snippets of The Colbert Report and The Daily Show—programs which rely on irony for their satirical humor—and we read Plato’s Symposium—a… Continue reading
In this week’s D-Ped seminar, led by Leah Haught, Lauren Holt, Emily Kane, and Julie Hawk, we will focus on innovative assignment design. This week will be a very practically oriented session, so come prepared to put on your workshop hat and get an assignment remixed and ready to use…. Continue reading
Brittain Fellow Diane Jakacki’s book chapter, “The Roman de la rose in Text and Image: A Multimedia Research and Teaching Tool” (co-authored with Christine McWebb) has just been published in Digitizing Medieval and Early Modern Material Culture (Brent Nelson and Melissa Terras, eds. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2012). This chapter presents… Continue reading
On Wednesday, Sept. 19th, Drs. Jonathan Kotchian, Amanda Golden, Mirja Lobnik, and Noah Mass will lead a digital pedagogy seminar on “Moving Toward Multimodality in Crafting, Drafting, and Reviewing.” We’ll show how using some experimental digital tools and methods can enrich different stages of the composition process. Discussion Topics: Jon… Continue reading
Second-year Brittain Fellow Aaron Kashtan’s article “My mother was a typewriter: Fun Home and the importance of materiality in comics studies” is now available as an online preprint from the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics and should be available in print form in 2014. Based on a close reading… Continue reading
In this seminar session, Dr. Patrick McHenry and Dr. Andy Frazee will lead discussion on the “soul” of business and technical communication; in so doing, the seminar will also discuss the “soul” of academia. What is our responsibility as teachers and academics to the workplaces our students are going into?… Continue reading
An ongoing series by new Brittain Fellow, Rebecca Weaver I am a new Brittain Fellow in Digital Pedagogy at Georgia Institute of Technology, where I teach a 21st Century version of First-Year Writing. This class focuses on the WOVEN curriculum, a broader curriculum of communication than that of traditional writing… Continue reading
In this seminar session devoted to new media, we (Jason W. Ellis, Peter A. Fontaine, James R. Gregory, and Patrick McHenry) will discuss forms of writing online and writing across/within networks. Specifically, we will discuss theoretical approaches and practical uses of Twitter, LinkedIn, and blogging. We will share our ideas… Continue reading
Look out for MONSTERS, a new composition textbook co-edited by third-year Brittain fellow Brandy Blake and former assistant director of the Writing & Communication Program Andrew Cooper. The textbook is part of the Fountainhead Press V Series, each of which focuses on a single, specific topic and its relevance to… Continue reading
An article by former Brittain Fellow Katy Crowther, now an Assistant Professor of English at Georgia Perimeter College, is featured in the current issue of the Journal of Victorian Culture Online: Punking the Victorians, Punking Pedagogy: Steampunk and Creative Assignments in the Composition Classroom | Journal of Victorian Culture Online. Continue reading
During this year’s Decatur Book Festival, second-year Brittain Fellow John Harkey read from a book he recently edited: “Homemade Poems,” Lorine Niedecker’s handmade book of poems from 1964. Lorine Niedecker was an American “objectivist” poet who explored conjunctions between plain, vernacular language and experimental techniques such as disjunction, wordplay, and… Continue reading
