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100Fall2018

Page history last edited by Chris Werry 4 years, 4 months ago

 


 

Where To Find RWS100 Teaching Resources

This page is the main resource for RWS100 in fall 2018. It contains a lot of teaching material. If you find it overwhelming, you may wish to focus 
on the main "collection of teaching materials" file for each unit (see Collection of Teaching Materials for unit 1collection of teaching materials for unit 2,

and Collection of Teaching Materials for unit 3.

 

There is also a "Contribution" page that contains teaching resources created by TAs, and a Homework page where TAs have published
a lot of 100 materials.  You can also take a look at the wiki sites created by several 100 teachers.  These contain teaching material and homework.

 

 

Orientation Schedule and Powerpoint

 

Syllabus, Assignments and Schedule

 

Main Texts for RWS100 Fall 2018

 

Teaching Materials for the First Two-Three Weeks 

Unit 1: Thompson's "Public Thinking"

The Text

  • Excerpts from Clive Thompson's "Public Thinking," chapter 1 of Smarter Than You Think (Penguin Press, 2013.) The excerpts are 
    pages 45 - 61, 66-68, and 77-82. If you are feeling ambitious and would like to use the complete chapter for assignment 1 you can do so.

 

Background & Links

 

Collected Teaching Materials for Unit 1/Thompson's "Public Thinking"

 

Examples of Public Thinking

Thompson talks about the importance of “public thinking” and “networked” reading and writing of texts. At the end of his chapter he asks, “What tools will 
create new forms of public thinking in the years to come?” His answer is that “as more forms of media become digital, they'll become sites for public 
thinking… Marginalia may become a new type of public thinking, with the smartest remarks from other readers becoming part of how we make sense of a book.” 
Thompson also discusses how reading and writing are becoming “blended,” and quotes literacy theorist Debbie Brandt: “People read in order to generate writing; 
we read from the posture of the writer.”


We can examine some contemporary examples of tools and publishing experiments that embody Thompson's ideas. These may help us understand what Thompson 
is on about, but also determine the extent to which his claims are plausible.

  • Hypothesis is one of many new new tools that experiment with "social reading and writing." Hypothesis enables people to publicly comment on and annotate 
    online texts, and also lets you form groups, and follow people whose annotations you like. Example: if you look at Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” you’ll see 
    a scholar has recorded his response in the margins. (You will need to have added the extension to see this). Political speeches are starting to be publicly 
    annotated by academics. For example, the sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom annotated Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic national Convention using Hypothesis.
  • The annotation tools “News Genius” and “Rap Genius” let users comment on, explicate, analyze and annotate news stories and music lyrics. Rap genius is used a lot 
    and may be of interest to students.  Consider the following: T. S. Eliot's The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock has been nicely annotated. The line “Do I dare disturb the 
    universe” is discussed, along with the fact that the line was remixed and used by rapper Chuck D. http://genius.com/Ts-eliot-the-love-song-of-j-alfred-prufrock-annotated 
    If you click on the line the link to Chuck D will appear.   The Genius annotation system is used for fan fiction, creative writers, and many genres of "high" and 
    pop culture.  The literature page is here: http://lit.genius.com/ Consider this annotation of Shelley's "Ozymandias". Note also that users vote on which 
    annotations should be listed at the top, and there is a scoreboard of most popular writers and annotators.  Note also that while fans annotate pop songs, 
    some artists annotate their own songs. Consider the recent hit "Broccoli," by D.R.A.M., which is annotated by the songwriters. Other 
    writers and artists who have annotated texts are here  (you can follow them).
     
  • Writers comment and annotate their own (and others) texts. Lena Dunham has used Genius to annotate a chapter from her book Not That Kind Of Girl, 
    a collection of essays.
  • The Washington Post has posted annotated versions of major speeches by politicians using the annotation tool “News Genius.” They 
    published an annotated version of Donald Trump’s speech to the Republican National Convention and Hilary Clinton’s speech at the Democratic National Convention.
  • The magazine platform Medium enables readers to comment on and annotate articles, follow writers and annotators, and reply to comments/annotations. 
    Dana Boyd, one of the authors we will read, has a page on Medium. You can see all the articles she has written and also the notes she has made, and you can follow both. 
    See also this piece, at 1.25:  https://noteworthy.medium.com/sarah-cooper-f8a23893e6a0
  • There are many scholarly tools for annotating texts. Some have been developed by writing faculty. For example there is MIT's Annotation Studio, and 
    CMU's Classroom Salon. There is also CommentPress, an open-source plug-in for WordPress developed by folks at the Future of the Book initiative. This tool "aims 
    to turn a document into a conversation (view examples here). Readers can comment on, say, an academic paper before it has gone to press and add insights and 
    questions in the margins of the text." 

 

Unit 2: Strategies & Sources

 

Texts

  • Three short texts about campus smoking policies you can use to introduce and scaffold the assignment (Miller, Shieh and Shelbourne)
  • Three short texts about the impact social media on thought, politics and social life (McNamee, Tufecki, and Golumbia). We will use these 
    for assignment 2. 
  • Optional: you could use Carr's "Is Google making Us Stupid?" instead or in addition to the three short texts on social media. 

 

Videos for Day Papers Due & to Introduce the Topic

 

 

Teaching Materials for Unit 2

 

Fun with Online Sources

  1. Examine these two sites. Can you quickly determine if they are credible? Gateway Pundit  Natural News
  2. Compare the web sites for two organizations, the American College of Pediatricianshttps://www.acpeds.org/, and the American Academy of Pediatrics,
    https://www.aap.org/  Before looking these up, start by examining  the two sites. Which seems more reliable, credible or authoritative, or do
    they both seem reliable, credible and authoritative?
  3. Now use your search skills to determine which source seems more reliable. What do you find?  How did you make your determination?
  4. National Vaccine Information Center 

 

 

Unit 3: Boyd's "Literacy: Are Today's Youth Digital Natives?'"

 

Collected Teaching Materials for Unit 3

 

Background on Boyd & her book

 

Main Text

 

Other Texts that Can be Used for Unit 3 

 

Videos of Boyd and other Writers discussing Digital Natives

 

 

Are You Smarter than a Stanford Student?

Use your critical digital literacy skills to determine which of  these two sites seem more credible.

Compare the web sites for two organizations, the American College of Pediatricianshttps://www.acpeds.org/ and the American Academy 
of Pediatrics
https://www.aap.org/  Before googling these sites, start by examining them. Which seems more reliable, credible or 
authoritative, or do they both seem reliable, credible and authoritative? 

Now use your search skills to determine which seems more reliable, 
credible or authoritative. What do you find? (You could consider who links to the sites to help with this). How did you make your determination?

  1. https://www.acpeds.org/
  2. https://www.aap.org/en-us/Pages/Default.aspx

 

Skim this article. What  do you think?

 

Now look at the site's "about" page." What clues make you think credible (or not)? 

 

 

Unit 4: Fake News/Evaluating Sources Project

 

Texts and Teaching Materials

 

Debates

 

Analyzing Online Material Shared at House Intelligence Committee

November 1, 2017, the House Intelligence Committee released a few of the 3,000 political ads published by one troll farm linked to the Russian government between 2015 and 2017. They also identified two popular twitter users named Jenna Abrams and Pamela Moore, as Russian trolls.  They were some of the 2,750 fake Twitter accounts created by employees at the Internet Research Agency, a “troll farm” in  St Petersburg. Their accounts, @Jenn_Abrams and @Pamela_Moore13 have been deleted, but many tweets have been saved and can be accessed on tweetsave.com.

Fourteen sample ads were shared, along with some of the purchasing information for each ad.


Ads and tweets for analysis

 

Videos and news articles that provide background

 

 

Tools and Resources for Evaluating Fake News

 

 

Sample Web Sites for Analysis

 

  1. Natural News http://www.naturalnews.com/  and  http://www.naturalnews.com/About.html
    “Fluoride and Why You Need to Avoid It.” By Tru Foods Nutrition, Natural News Blogs, August 14, 2017. 
    http://www.naturalnewsblogs.com/fluoride-and-why-you-need-to-avoid-it/ 

  2. BlackMattersUS https://blackmattersus.com/
     
  3.  Consevative Daily Post  https://conservativedailypost.com
     
  4. Global Research http://www.globalresearch.ca/
    Putin is Taking a Bold Step against Biotech Giant Monsanto
    http://www.globalresearch.ca/putin-is-taking-a-bold-step-against-biotech-giant-monsanto/5526691
    Let’s Save the World – Trump Must Go! http://www.globalresearch.ca/lets-save-the-world-trump-must-go/5603920 
  5. Veterans Today http://www.veteranstoday.com/

    "Busted: Idlib Gas Attack Fakers Murder 68 Kids in Bus Slaughter" http://www.veteranstoday.com/2017/04/17/busted-idlib-gas-attack-fakers-murder-68-kids-in-bus-slaughter/
    "US Produced Sarin Gas Used in Syria" http://www.veteranstoday.com/2014/04/08/296525

  6. Infowarshttps://www.infowars.com/
    "Elite Stage Race War to Enslave America"   https://www.infowars.com/exclusive-elite-stage-race-war-to-enslave-america/  
    Antifa Creates Violence To Provoke Alt-Right Into Aggressive Reaction 
    https://www.infowars.com/antifa-creates-violence-to-provoke-alt-right-into-aggressive-reaction/ 

 

 

Fake News Repositories 

 

 

Fake Sites with Debunking Guide

These fake sites can be used for analysis. They come with model "debunkings."

  1. Army Sniper Takes Out Neighbor’s Home Intruder From Bedroom Window. Here is how the story was debunked 
  2. Over 30,000 scientists say 'Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming' is a complete hoax and science lie. Here is how it was debunked. For Revkin's comments 
    (and similar sites) see this sit
    e.
  3. Check the "about" link at bottom of global warming story page. http://www.naturalnews.com/About.html It says, "Website Affiliations. Natural News stories 
    are frequently copied and posted by other alternative news organizations, including Infowars.com, DailyPaul.com and a variety of other sites spanning subjects 
    as diverse as the environment, liberty, self-sufficiency and vaccines." The fact that Infowars is a major distributor of the site is a red flag.

 

Sample Fake News Stories from before and after the 2016 Election

A) What does the story or post say?  B) Does it seem credible? Why or why not? C) How can you tell? What criteria or tools did you use to determine credibility? 
Work through some critical digital literacy exercises.  Start with reverse image searches on the pictures on the stories. Examine who links to the site and where the 
site's links go. Who owns the site - what can you find out?  

  1. Private Email Server story
  2. Amnesty Plans Story about how Obama and Clinton are promising amnesty to non-citizens who vote
  3. Pope Endorsement (copy saved at archive.org. Images missing. Ask students to examine links, esp."About Us").  Story appeared on Facebook feeds like this
  4. Benton Strategy Group Leaked Report, "Salvage" Plan 
  5. Clinton Adviser Scandal (skim report, but look at the first 10 comments - what are they like? 
  6. Twitter posts by Alex Jones on Podesta "Scandal"  
  7. Now: are protests against Trump staged and full of paid protesters? (retweeted by president Trump)
  8. This timeline of key moments in fake news by the FirstDraftNews organization does a wonderful job tracking fake news stories and has links to key articles.   
  9.  The "Pizzagate" story (claims hacked emails show child sex ring operating out of Pizza parlor that hosted dinners for democratic party leaders.) A related
    fake news story led to a twitter war between Jake Tapper of CBS news, and General Flynn's son (and perhaps the strangest interchange ever seen between 
    a chief of staff and a journalist.) David Graham, claims "The 'Comet Pizza' Gunman Provides a Glimpse of a Frightening Future" (The Atlantic Monthly, Dec 5, 2016).   

 

 

Digital Literacy Resources - Using Blogs and Hypothesis (Annotation)

 

Using Wordpress Blogs for Homework, Class Discussion and Portfolios

Some teachers use blogs in class. Some encourage students to read and respond to each others' blog posts and they also discuss 
blog writing in class.  In 100 students will read about blogging as a form of "public thinking" and as a component of digital literacy.

 

Using Hypothesis for Annotation, Social Reading, Peer Review & Feeedback

Annotation tools such as Hypothes.is are used for annotation, bookmarking, peer review and feedback. We have piloted using Hypothes.is for 
A) Individual and group annotation of texts, B) Collaborative reading and analysis of texts, C) Embedding texts in discussion, D) Modeling teacher 
analysis and note-taking, E) Commenting on student writing & peer review F) Examining how scholars annotate texts.

 

Multimodal Rhetorics

 

 

Online Versions of Texts That Can be Annotated Using Hypothesis

We have created a number of versions of the course texts for annotation with Hypothesis.  You can have your students 
annotate a text that we have created for you, or you can collaborate with other teachers to annotate texts together.
(We can also all annotate the same texts if that is preferable). 

 

 

WPA Materials

  • The WPA prompt, the WPA rubric, and sample readings used in WPA placement tests in 2018 and 2019.
  • powerpoint on the WPA, handout on the the difference between 8 and 10 (and how to get a 10). You may wish to use this in the final two weeks. It explains why the WPA exists, what is expected,
    how it works, etc.  It also includes some light PR in order to address some of the misinformation that has come to be associated with the WPA. If you use it you will likely want to edit it down to whatever you are comfortable with (and perhaps change the slide design, which is hideous).
  • Main WPA site  contains an explanation of the test, sample texts, the scoring criteria, a powerpoint that dissects the WPA, and some instructional videos.  Here's a file of information that I've used for a final unit on the WPA that could work for 100 or 200. It includes info on the WPA, an outline on the lesson plan, sample article, essay and WPA evaluation. Here's an evaluation assignment (students respond to a classmate's essay) that partners with the unit.    
  •  More End of Semester Resources & WPA material

 

 

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