Multi-Media Writing
Dr. Sean Meehan
Essay Assignments
Essay #1: My Media Space
Assignment: 2-3 page essay, digital, double-spaced; posted to Blackboard.
Select a particular site or space in the world of digital media that you know and perhaps know well from personal use: from a web site (blog, MySpace, Google, YouTube, online game) to a communication medium (instant messaging, digital phone, email, digital photography or video, a word processing program) to anything else you might suggest that is digital in nature. Your task is to explain this site of digital mediation to the rest of us, presumably others who know little or nothing about it (think of your target audience as your parents or high school English teacher, suspicious of your interest in this new-fangled thing you use) and to reflect on your use of this site. Though your focus at this point is more explanatory and reflective than analytical and argumentative (later essays will offer more analysis and argument), in the process of explaining this site/space of digital mediation, you need to suggest why you think this site is important and of interest—what makes this site worthy of our attention? Why should we care? The answer to this question is your thesis. You need not do secondary research for this essay (that will come later), other than exploring and researching the site (your primary text) fully; however, you do need to make at least one direct connection to an idea or insight from the book Remediation—put something from that book to work for you in your explanation and development of your thesis, especially in explaining how this site is a form of mediation.
Note: This essay will also be the basis for your first speech.
Evaluation: All five aspects of the CC rubric will be considered for this essay, however we will give particular attention in our revision workshop to the Thesis. [See Rubric]
Essay #2: Reading Media
Assignment: 2-3 page essay. Select a particular digital medium for in-depth reading, research, and analysis. This medium may be continued from your previous focus; it may be an entirely different one. For examples, consider the range of new media explored in chapters 4 – 14 of Remediation. This time, your task is not to explain this new, digital medium; rather, your task is to offer, by way of your research and close reading, an understanding of how and what this medium is and means. As you read and analyze this medium, what are the key characteristics of its identity? In terms of our book, what does this particular medium you have chosen ‘remediate’ and how does it do that? How does this medium communicate with and/or connect with others? These are the kinds of questions of significance that your thesis will need to take up and your evidence will need to support and develop.
For this essay, you will begin library research and be required to have a working bibliography of at least 3-5 sources and at least 2 works cited.
Evaluation: All five aspects of the CC rubric will be considered for this essay, however we will give particular attention in our revision workshop to the Evidence and Style. [See Rubric]
Essay #3: Remediation
Assignment: 4-5 page essay. Revise, expand and remediate your previous essay. In doing this revision and remediation, in addition to pursuing further research and going further with what you have already begun, you will keep your eye on two additional ideas. The first is the fact that this essay will be the basis of your second speech (a multi-media presentation to the class): in revising the essay, consider ways you might move it closer, as an essay, towards that multi-media presentaion; you might also consider a more digital or hypertext version of this essay—presumably a version that in some way conveys and reflects the already multi-media aspect of the medium you are presenting. The second new idea concerns the insight from the last three chapters of Remediation that focus on the relationship between new media and conceptions of self. What are the links between the medium you have focused on in your reading and our conceptions of self and identity? How might further analysis of this issue enhance your overall focus and change your thesis? Does your medium remediate the self, as Bolter and Grusin put it? To what extent is the relation between this medium and the self (and ourselves) a key characteristic of the medium? These are additional questions you can take up and factor in to your own remediation/revision of your second essay.
For this essay, you will expland your library research and be required to have a final bibliography of at least 5-10 sources and at least 3 works cited.
Note: This essay will be the basis for your second speech.
Evaluation: All five aspects of the CC rubric will be considered for this essay, however we will give particular attention in our revision workshop to the Organization and Citation mechanics. [See Rubric]