Syllabus

Course Information: WRIT 4260/5260—Section 001, course # 55128/56691—meets Monday/Wednesday/Friday from 12:00-12:50 in ENGR 204. Course home page:<http://www.d.umn.edu/~cstroupe/f08/5260/>

Dr. Craig Stroupe, 726-6249, Humanities 425, cstroupe@d.umn.edu; Office hours Mondays and Wednesdays from 1:00-2:30 or by appointment.

Purpose | Expectations | Resources Needed | Grades

Purpose

In addition to teaching you the mechanics of graphic production, "Visual Rhetoric and Culture" draws widely on the disciplines of digital design, statistics, narrative literature, engineering, and technical writing to offer you the interpretive and strategic skills to conceive, to think about, and to write about visual texts critically.

This course is designed to give you the skills, practice, and understanding to realize the following goals:

  1. employing principles of rhetoric and design to create visual projects that convey information and analyical insight;
  2. creating projects that effectively combine visual and verbal discourses;
  3. discussing graphic work in critically and historically informed ways;
  4. working with teammates and clients in productive relationships;
  5. using a variety of software to create graphic projects for delivery via the Internet;
  6. engaging potential audiences of visual texts on a variety of levels;

Purpose | Expectations | Resources Needed | Grades | Top

Expectations

Exercises and Projects

This course is organized as a series of project and exercises. The projects are long-term, individual works. The exercises are done together in class, usually in 15 to 30 minutes.

The Projects. As described on the Works Page, the projects are larger pieces of work that you'll complete individually over a period of two or three weeks using the skills you learned from the exercises and insights from the readings and class activities. One of the projects is an essay about an image of your choice. You will also have an opportunity to do a "global revision" of one of the projects.

There is a three-point penalty per day for late projects, including the commentaries and printouts that are explained later.

  • Digital projects are late if the URL is not posted to the correct Webx discussion as of the day and exact time specified in the schedule. A digital project that's five minutes late is the same as one that's 23 hours late. Changes made to the projects after the assigned day/time may or may not be included in the evaluation.
  • Paper-based projects need to be submitted as a hard copy at the time and place assigned. I will not accept e-mail-attached or electronic copies of paper-based projects.

Due dates for all requirements are included in the online schedule, which will be updated throughout the semester.

Exercises. We'll do the exercises together in class to learn particular skills or techniques, and you'll have 24 hours after the class meeting (if needed) to complete and post each exercise to the Web for credit.

Extra Credit for "Technique/cal" Help Meetings via the Experts List

Given the wide range of experience and learning styles in a class like this, it is important that each of you be responsible for your own progress in developing the hands-on skills in Photoshop and other software necessary to complete the screen-based projects. The exercises—and the portions of class time devoted to them—are intended to acquaint you with these skills, but for some of you the exercises in class will not be sufficient, and for others these introductions will be unnecessary.

I will offer extra credit to

  1. those experienced among you who will be willing and able to serve as "experts" in these softwares and techniques, and
  2. those who need the help and are willing to seek it out as a "client."

We will use the Webx discussion board to match experts and clients, and allow you to arrange times and places outside of class to meet face-to-face. You can check the lab schedules to find available full-service labs if you wish.

After you've met, both the expert and client should document details of their meeting via a Web form that I will make available, and this report will also serve as the means of applying for this extra credit.

The amount of extra credit for each reported meeting may vary from zero to 1% of your total grade (up to a maximum of 8% for the semester) based on the specificity of the report and the usefulness of the meeting.

Since this extra credit is based on the honor system, I will ask you to explain in the report the very specific skills and techniques that you taught/learned, and to point to the results in particular exercises, projects, or other samples of work. I will rescind the extra credit for reported meetings if the skills and techniques claimed do not become part of the client's everyday working skill set.

Printouts and Commentaries

I will give you detailed directions for submitting particular, finished projects and exercises. The following, however, are some general guidelines:

All screen-based projects should be:

  • posted to the Web,
  • the URL sent to the Webx discussion board, and
  • printed out and handed in. Be sure to number the pages of your printout.

In a separate, printed document, you will write a commentary on your project:

The commentary should explain—in at least one substantive paragraph, and no more than two pages—how your project fulfills the criteria and goals of the assignment. More than just a list of mechanical features, your commentary is a chance to make big claims for your project as you look back at it—even if you weren't aware of everything you were accomplishing at the time you were working. In the commentary, explain why you did what you did.

Use terms from the readings and class discussions to put the project and the process of creating it in critical focus. These critical terms should be in bold.

This explanation should also reflect the depth of your understanding of the assignment and the meaning of your work fulfilling it: that is,

  • what it asks you to do rhetorically and creatively,
  • what issues of writing and design it raises,
  • what's interesting about it as an occasion for social, cultural, civic, or cultural work
  • what it led (or leads) you to realize about web design and/or digital culture

Other Writing and Design Work

In addition to the design, creation, and/or writing of the projects themselves, you will complete

  • writings on our online Webx discussion board
  • brainstorming sessions and preliminary writings or designs for your projects,
  • peer critiques for workshops
  • other writings.

Readings

On days when readings are assigned, please do the following:

  • have the readings done by the beginning of class;
  • expect brief quizzes or guided reading responses at the beginning or end of class. There are no make-ups on these responses if you are absent, late or leave early.

Attendance

Since this class will function as a community of writer-designers, your regular attendance is absolutely necessary.

  • Absences in excess of 4 (in a MWF class) or 3 (in a TR class) will deduct 3 percent each from your overall grade.
  • The possible absences short of this limit can be spent however you wish and so there are no "excused" or "unexcused" absences. Save your "free" absences for a rainy (or snowy) day.
  • If you are absent, you are responsible for all material covered in class.
  • In the case of absences or lateness, some requirements like quizzes and guided in-class activities cannot be made up when timeliness or group interaction is critical.
  • In addition to your budget of allowed absences, you also have 3 or 4 instances (depending on the TR or MWF schedule) of arriving late or leaving early to use (with or without an excuse) if necessary. Instances in excess of this allowance will decrease your overall grade by 2 percentage points each. If you need to leave class early, even if it's one of your allowed instances, please arrange it with me in advance.

Participation

A larger goal of this course is to establish a community or network of writer-designers—with a wide variety of backgrounds, expertise, and interests—to enhance your learning and enjoyment during the next sixteen weeks. The class is designed to provide a number of avenues for this community building, including brainstorming sessions, peer workshopping and critiquing, in-class "studio sessions," support groups, and various Internet-based communications and collaborations. Your sincere and regular contributions to maintaining this collaborative environment will count in your grade, and of course will greatly benefit your final products in the course. Because your work is the subject matter for this course, turning in all projects and writings on time is critical; work turned in late will be assessed a 3% penalty per day.

Special Needs

If you have a disability, either permanent or temporary, which might affect your performance in this class, please notify me at the beginning of the semester. Methods, material, or testing will be adapted as required for equitable participation.

Incompletes

Incompletes for the semester will be given only in the following very limited circumstances:

  • you must contact me in advance of the semester's end to make a request for an incomplete;
  • no more than one or two weeks of class, or one or two assignments, can have been missed;
  • you must be in good standing in the class (not already behind, in other words);
  • you must have a documented family or medical emergency, as required by university policy;
  • you must arrange a time table with me for completing the missed work that is acceptable to both of us.

Academic Integrity and Student Conduct

Please see UMD's pages concerning these two issues:
<http://www.d.umn.edu/assl/conduct/integrity/>
<http://www.d.umn.edu/assl/conduct/code/>

Purpose | Expectations | Resources Needed | Grades | Top

Resources Needed

  • Molly Bang's, Picture This, Little Brown, 2000
  • Edward Tuft's Visual Explanations, Graphics Press, 1997
  • Weinmann and Lourenkas' Photoshop CS for Windows and Mac, Peachpit, 2004
  • a UMD e-mail account
  • a package of 4x6 index cards
  • a USB drive (a.k.a., jump drive, pocket drive, thumb drive) for saving and transporting your work (at least 100 Mg.)
  • occasional access to a digital camera, which can be checked out from ITSS.
  • access to a printer, or funds for printing

Grades

  • Your work on the major projects and various exercises (weighed according to the size and complexity of the project): 90% total
  • Participation in class generally, including in-class activities and contributions, online discussions, attendance, conferences, quizzes, peer workshop responses, Webx discussions, class discussion, promptness: 10%

Purpose | Expectations | Resources Needed | Grades | Top

 
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