Letter from a New York City Jail: Reacting to the Past in First-year Composition

When my student Patrice was arrested, I was amused. We were in my English 1101 seminar, “Romantic Revolutions,” and Patrice had been assigned the role of an indebted farmer in 1770s New York. My class was using Patriots, Loyalists & Revolution in New York City, 1775-76 to revive the independence… Continue reading

Teaching Composition with Interactive Fiction, Part Three

In two earlier posts in this series, I gave an overview of why I use interactive fiction games in my composition classes, and described an “easy way” to do this: that is, using these games as “the reading” for a course unit.  If you’re just joining us and you want… Continue reading

Marty Fink’s Spring ENGL 1102 course, Queer New Media

Britts, help spread the word about the Marty Fink’s Spring ENGL 1102 course, Queer New Media. The course will be the first of its kind at Georgia Tech, and will engage questions of digital media through an investigation of queer fiction and cultural production. There will also be a heavy… Continue reading

Teaching Composition with Interactive Fiction, Part Two

In an earlier post, I explained why I think interactive fiction (IF) computer games can drive valuable experiments in the multimodal composition classroom.  You can check out Part One for an overview of what IF is and what I think it can do for students.  In the present post, I’ll… Continue reading

Teaching Composition with Interactive Fiction

Regular readers of TECHStyle may remember my mentioning, back in September, my plans to use interactive fiction (“IF”) computer games in my multimodal composition classes.  After two semesters of teaching students to read, play, and write IF games, I can say that the experiment was mostly a success.  While we… Continue reading

Future Media Fest: General Introduction

During the week of October 4, Georgia Tech will play host to Future Media Fest, a conference that bills itself as “an interactive mash-up of talent, ideas, trends and technology.” This event promises to provide a glimpse at some emerging technologies and social formations involving digital media, including social media,… Continue reading