Unit 2 the Sources Assignment: Boyd, Digital Natives and Digital Literacy

Danah Boyd, "Literacy: Are Today's Youth Digital Natives?'"

• Danah Boyd's "Literacy: Are Today's Youth Digital Natives?" (here are the footnotes for the chapter)  

Background on Boyd & her book

• Some background on Boyd: her homepage, blog, twitter feed, social bookmarks (on delicious), wikipedia page  

• The text we are reading is a chapter from Boyd's book, It's Complicated: the Social lives of Networked Teens."
  Boyd has made the text freely available online as a .pdf (what does that tell us about the author and her attitude to her work?) 

Videos of Boyd and other Writers discussing Digital Natives

• Boyd talk to Leo Laporte about how the idea of 'Digital Natives' is a misnomer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0k-Rx4sht8 (4 minutes)
• Boyd talks to UW Comm undergraduate Austin Williams about her book, "It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTvR2EFXRYU (12 minutes)
• Marc Prensky (often credited with coining the term “digital natives”) explains digital natives to PBS interviewer on Frontline https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGQLTHyRG_g
• Two talks that show how widespread the terms “digital natives” and digital immigrants” are.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_9gI0B4nS4 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRQdAOrqvGg (shows existence and popularity of the term ‘digital native’)
• Do "Digital Natives" Exist? Idea Channel, PBS Digital Studios. Fun entertaining video that echoes many of Boyd’s claims. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WVKBAqjHiE
• Boyd cites the influential work of Tarleton Gillespie on the politics of algorithms.
• This 5 minute interview of Gillespie by an undergraduate spells out some main ideas of his work in an accessible way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cT1i1_Nydw

Main Collection of Teaching Materials for Boyd and Unit 2

• This file contains a collection of teaching materials for Boyd and unit 2. This includes pre-reading ideas, discussion questions, charting ideas, argument maps, reading responses and some classroom activities.  
• Here is a collection of materials for drafting paper 2. It includes sample prompts, peer review forms, templates, etc. 
• A selection of source texts and "research frames" for analyzing Boyd's article. 
• Boyd's article annotated with notes/charting ideas (by Jamie.)

Digital Literacy Materials for Unit 2

• a collection of materials for introducing and teaching digital literacy. 

Digital Literacy exercise: GIBill.com

As an exercise in digital literacy you could have students look at the site GIBill.com. This was a site set up by a group of for-profit colleges designed to persuade 
veterans to enroll in for-profit schools. It was shut down by the federal government as it was deemed to be a deceptive site that tricked veterans into thinking it
was organized by the government and was primarily informational and educational. The site has now been replaced by this message:

Using the archive.org site you can go back in time and see the GIBill.com site. For example: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://gibill.com

Consider these snapshots of the site

Jan 29, 2011: https://web.archive.org/web/20110129071743/http://www.gibill.com/ and see the FAQ section (what seems missing?)
Dec 28 2011: https://web.archive.org/web/20111228165411/http://www.gibill.com/

Jun 27 2012 https://web.archive.org/web/20120627203241/http://www.gibill.com/

You could ask students to consider how the site works to persuade its audience, and why the government might have objected to some
of the strategies used. It might be interesting to compare the GIBill.com site with the department of veterans affairs site that
has replaced it, http://www.benefits.va.gov/gibill/. 

Unit 2 Teaching Materials from Previous Semesters

• This collection of materials should help with most aspects of teaching Pinker, from pre-reading, to discussing, to drafting and analyzing the text.
• Sample student paper 
• An op-ed that provides a good example of how authors often use one text to complicate another. David Brooks summarizes the common idea that the internet has played an important role in polarizing political views over the last 10 years. He then discusses how recent research complicates this view. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/20/opinion/20brooks.html?hp   

The Assignment, Grading and Rubrics

• Prospectus assignment (a warm-up assignment to outline sources before they write their draft)
  

• Assignment prompt with drafting advice (Alicia), Assignment prompt and rubric and Assignment Breakdown (Rose)

• Assignment checklist and grading rubric

• Paper #2 Prompt.doc (Daniela - Fall 2011), Paper #2 Prompt (Tyler - Fall 2011)

• Sample charting of draft paper (from previous semester)

Sample Schedules & Ideas for Modeling How Authors Extend, Complicate, Illustrate, etc. a Text 

• Overview of possible class activities/plans for unit 2

• Student group projects and presentation activities (uses Food Inc.) 

• Sample schedule for unit 2 (Alicia)

• Introducing the project: Practice with extending, complicating, refining, and qualifying an argument (Rose)

• Bittman's "Junk Food Guidelines Won't Help - short opinion piece about regulating junk food. See comments section to model how readers respond by extending, illustrating, challenging, etc.

• Model sources and how to connect them to Gladwell - uses Jared Diamond, but also texts that discuss cultural legacies, fictional texts, case studies, etc.

• More model sources - how to use the Tough article ("What it Takes to Make a Student") which complicates Gladwell's use of KIPP schools and education research, plus Alicia's example of how to build a body paragraph using a text that complicates the rice paddies chapter.

Drafting and Peer Review

• COLLECTED DRAFTING MATERIALS, templates, body paragraphs, sample papers, etc. for unit 2

• Guide to the organization/moves for paper 1, by Amanda Fiore and Rachel Gellman.

• COLLECTED GRAMMAR, editing and mechanics advice unit 2

• Exercises and groupwork for drafting paper

• Writing a prospectus/structured outline

• Drafting exercises - helping students connect the texts

• Drafting template - provides framework of major moves students should make, plus examples.

• Body paragraph templates and then a body paragraph template with model (using Gladwell and a complicating, outside text)

• Template for introducing authors

• Sample body paragraphs on Rifkin (Rose)

• Sample body paragraphs and template phrases

• Sample peer review form for paper 2

• SAMPLE STUDENT PAPERS - 5 sample papers of varying quality

• Words and exercises to use for making transitions, signaling relationships, establishing connections, etc.

• Guideline for Assignment 2 (Outline) this was used for Chua, but can be useful when thinking of how to structure this assignment.

Researching, Finding/Evaluating Sources, Creating an Annotated Bibliography, and Avoiding Plagiarism

• Teaching students about research, finding and evaluating sources, creating an annotated bibliography, and avoiding plagiarism. By Emma Lee Whitworth, with editorial assistance from Michael Underwood and Julie Williams.