Syllabi Ideas

By Anna, Simone, Elias, Corey, and Kristen

Unit Schema: Intro/Framing – thinking about media schema, print/oral/digital. Dene’s textbook schema.

1 – fragmentation / generation (could do wordclouds/data visualization in this unit if we wanted) (sea & spar between; Tokyo gorge poems; poetry bot?)

2 – sensoria (the struggle continues; the waves one; you do not deserve such praise)

3 – obsolescence / ephemerality (preservation issues – Patchwork Girl?; degeneration one?; one-off events eg. the being @spencerpratt; location-specific?)

Possible 4 – authenticity/unreliability – being @spencerpratt netprov; the Baghdad blogger; Fake News; use of digital medium; War of the Worlds broadcast? (intimacy, orality – precursor to twitter; podcasts?) kairos (hypertext essays)

Unit 1: Fragmentation/generation

Week 1 – Framing: oral/print/digital. McLuhan (the Medium is the Message?) Theory reading? Hayles?

Week 2 – Sea & Spar Between (http://nickm.com/montfort_strickland/sea_and_spar_between/index.html) and the Tan Lin systems theory/Art of French Cooking one (http://supercentral.org/cookingsystem/)

Week 3 – Toroko Gorge poems & remixes (http://nickm.com/taroko_gorge/)

Week 4 – Oulipo & Word Replacement Machine? The N+7 Machine (http://spoonbill.org/n+7/) & content Forever

Word Replacer II

Unit 2: Sensoria

Week 5 – YHCHI text
Week 6 – Nothing You Have Done Deserves Such Praise
Week 7 – slippingglimpse; hatnote Listen to Wikipedia http://listen.hatnote.com/
Week 8 – something involving walking around? Clio History Project? Project Ararat? Pokemon Go? (resist fine art – have something pop culture); projects pinning stories/narratives to map like LA Flood Project?)

Possible assignments:

– if not time to teach code, can make some kind of collaborative text using google docs, or twitter, or a wordpress, or…

OR – teach code, make something in Twine

Unit 3: Obsolescence/Ephemerality

Week 9 – Patchwork Girl & early elit (ELMCIP in-class assignment?)
Week 10 – the Listeners?
Week 11 – LA Flood Project? Being @spencerpratt?
Week 12 – round-up problematizing summary week; future of elit (new tech? How to Rob A Bank (phones, social media)); bigger discussion about surveillance, we’re all generating our own texts all the time; debate on whether we should document ephemeral texts? fundamental corruption of meaning? http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/att-nsa-skyscraper-building-new-york-surveillance-hub-snowden-a7421951.html this fantastic building on a powerpoint slide

By Adela & Scott

ENGL 227: Introduction to Electronic Literature

Dr. Rogers/Ramos

  • Build a solid understanding of electronic literature, how it is made, how it is read, difference between print and digital, what are the different kinds of elit that shape the field.
  • Make a story taking advantage of the affordances available
  • Employ tools and technologies to convey an experience
  • Critical understanding of software, code, materiality, play, platforms, 
  • Leveraging digital tools and technologies and social justice through storytelling, play, …

Module 1: Highlights, Texts, Concepts, and Platforms

Goal:

  • Introduce elit
  • Contrast with print
  • Introduce concepts
  • Develop vocabulary for discussing, analyzing, and engaging with elit
  • Practice analysis

Day 1: What is Electronic/Literature?

Introductory assignment – Describe this work of electronic literature, identify commonalities and differences, questions about content, reading practices, software, etc.

Texts to examine:

  • How to rob a bank
  • Her Story
  • Gone Home
  • Stanley Parable
  • Beneath Floes
  • The Temple of No

  • Introduction to story:
  • Guest speaker ~ Jason Skipper | What is story
  • Medium and Platform
  • Narrative Structure (linear, non-linear, multilinear)
  • Character and Setting
  • POV, Mood, and Tone
  • Theme, Symbol/Motif/Leitmotif, Metaphor
  • Interactivity and Multimedia

Assignment #1: Analysis and close reading of one work of their own choice.

[Assign project for next module so that ss start considering what they want to do and use class days in Module 2 to intentionally build toward their story]

Module 2: Digital Storytelling

Goals:

  • Fluency in creating and editing a story
  • Fluency in creating a choice of software
  • Practicing Module 1 concepts by applying them
  • Workshops, peer review, feedback (in-class, co-teaching, etc)

Structure model so that they can prototype their project as we move along

Guest instructor: Jenna Stoeber and Misty Jones

  • Sound and Gesture
  • Sensory Modalities: Movement
  • Teach the tool
  • Storyboarding and story development – prototyping
  • Workshopping, peer review, feedback

Materials and Resources:

  • Traditional (audio, video, still photo)
  • Twine
  • Kinetic Poetry (After effects, Apple motion, Hype 3.5)

Assignment #2: Story or Kinetic Poem

Module 3: Social Justice Games

Goals:

  • What does it mean to do work for social justice?
  • Examine sample texts:
    • Fox Harrell
    • Never Alone
    • Papers Please
    • That Dragon, Cancer
    • Games for Social Change
    • Limbo
    • Life Line
    • Hearts and Minds

Guest Speakers:
Joel Zylstra
Saiyare Raphaei (Jones)
Kate Hoyt (?)
Galen Ciscell

Assignment #3: Build a game, collaborative project

Test: usability, etc., assessment

Final Exam: Exhibit at the UC to test