londie t. martin - digital storytelling and culture syllabus

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  • 7/27/2019 Londie T. Martin - Digital Storytelling and Culture Syllabus

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    TEACHING PORTFOLIOUniversity o ArizonaSchool o Inormation Resources & Library Science1515 East First Streetucson, AZ 85719

    [email protected]

    www.londietmartin.com

    LONDIE T. MARTIN, PH.D.

    digital storytelling and culture

    spring 2014 / 30 students

    course description

    Now, perhaps more than ever, our daily lives require, invite, enchant, or otherwise call us to engage inmultimodal communicationor communications that make meaning through multiple modes o expression:linguistic, visual, spatial, gestural, and aural. In this course, we will consider what we, as digital storytellers,gain rom increasingly multimodal communication as well as what we lose. We will consider the ways inwhich alphabetic text has been privileged as our primary method o creating and circulating knowledge, andwe will, ourselves, attempt to shake up this privilege by crafing digital stories that explore multimodality,challenge assumptions o linear narrative by exploring alternative orms, and advocate or local communityissues and concerns. Tus, this course will lay a oundation or understanding how stories shape communities,identities, memories, and perspectives on our lives. In addition, this course will provide opportunities or thetheoretical analysis o representation, composite narratives on behal o others, cultural heritage, and memoriesas they are preserved and perormed within stories and through narrative. Influences on digital storytellingsuch as the sociocultural and institutional contexts o production, the audience, and the needs or goals o thedigital storyteller will be examined. Students will be required to call on their own intellectual, emotional, andimaginative processes, as well as to develop their own skills in digital storytelling, interviewing, oral historycollection, and the use o relevant digital storytelling tools.

    suggested materials

    While there are no textbooks required or this course, the digital nature o the work we will do this semestermakes certain materials desirable or the course: a flash drive or portable hard drive suitable or storing andtranserring large media files and headphones or engaging with digital audio.

    required materials

    Tere are only two required materials or the course, and both are digital media platorms. First, you will needaccess to Google Drive (drive.google.com) through either your UA CatMail address or your personal Gmailaddress. Second, plan to spend $15-$20 purchasing Gone Home, a game text we will be playing and readingduring week 11 (March 27). Purchasing inormation or the game is available here: www.gonehomegame.com.You can expect to spend approximately 2-4 hours attempting to complete the game, so please plan your studytime accordingly.

    course objectives

    Upon completion o this course, students should be able to:

    Articulate the role o narrative in everyday lie as well as the ways in which stories shape communities,identities, memories, and cultural perspectives.

    Define basic concepts that relate to digital storytelling such as representation, lie history, culturalheritage, memory, and narrative.

    Critically evaluate the many ways that narratives impact or unction within cultures and communities as

    mailto:londiem%40email.arizona.edu?subject=mailto:londiem%40email.arizona.edu?subject=http://www.londietmartin.com/http://drive.google.com/http://www.gonehomegame.com/http://www.gonehomegame.com/http://drive.google.com/http://www.londietmartin.com/mailto:londiem%40email.arizona.edu?subject=
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    Digital Storytelling and Culture Syllabus

    LONDIE T. MARTIN, PH.D.

    teaching portfolio

    well as or individuals. Comprehend relevant theories used in research on digital storytelling (e.g., approaches to narrative,

    multimodality, ). Exhibit understanding o storytelling events (e.g., contexts, teller, audience) and o skills in composing

    stories or particular groups, gathering narratives through interviews, writing composite stories romindividual narratives, and/or perorming community narratives or oral interpretations o stories.

    summaries of major assignmentsGraded Short Assignments (10%)

    Short assignments may include short-answer reading quizzes on course texts, in-class writing exercises, orother brie activities designed to prepare you or larger, more complex aspects o the course projects.

    Collaborative Course Facilitation(15%)

    In the collaborative course acilitation project, you (together with 2 peers rom class) will acilitate one o ourclass meetings. Te primary goals or acilitation are to: (A) stimulate productive discussion o the coursereadings, (B) help each other connect personal experience to theory, and (C) generate ideas or connecting thecourse readings to the shape and purpose o our semester projects (see each o the assignments detailed below).Class activities should ocus on specific issues raised by the readings and create opportunities or all members o

    the course to contribute. In your groups, you will decide how to acilitate class or the day, and I encourage youto consider some o the ollowing activities: guided analysis o relevant examples, small group work to explorespecific concepts, mini-workshops on a particular skill, perormative expressions that illustrate importantconcepts, and larger class discussion about key issues and concerns. One week prior to your course acilitationday, your group will meet with me during office hours to share a first draf o your detailed class agenda. Inadvance o the meeting, you should read the course text(s) or the day you will be acilitating class, locate at least2 potential digital story examples that connect to the days text(s), start writing down issues you want to raise inyour acilitation, and begin mapping out a detailed agenda or the class day.

    Audio Intertextual Collaboration(15%)Tis assignment will give us the opportunity to experiment with the orality and aurality o collaboration,

    multiple perspectives, and experimental narrative structure. First, you will use the texts weve explored thus arin the semester (those on visuality, spatiality, orality, aurality, and multimodality) to record an audio essay inwhich you reflect on, explore, and perorm the affordances o sound as an aspect o digital storytelling: Whatcan we do with sound that we cant do with written text? What are its limitations? In what ways does sound,specifically storytelling, shape community? During the second phase o the Audio Intertextual Collaboration,you will weave excerpts rom you classmates audio essays into your own essay in order to heighten, extend, orcomplicate the ideas (and the narrative structure through which you present them) you developed in your essaysfirst iteration.

    Course Research Journal(20%)

    Troughout the semester, I will invite you to use thick description to craf critical responses that consider andconnect the texts we engage in the course and the projects we pursue, both individually and collaboratively.At the end o the semester, your research journal should provide us (you and me) with a richly textured mapo your experiences this semester. In evaluating your journal, I will consider: Do you strive to unearth themany and sometimes taken-for-granted rhetorical decisions you encounter as you shape your various projects?And do you consider semester readings with curiosity and creativity as you attempt to make meaning of yourproject experiences? You will compose a total o 7 journal entries: 4 journal entries in class and 3 journal entries(approximately 3-4 pages) outside o class at your own pace.

    Collaborative Documentary Digital Story(30%)

    During this capstone project, you will work with a small group o classmates (in pairs or trios) to craf a digital

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    Digital Storytelling and Culture Syllabus

    LONDIE T. MARTIN, PH.D.

    teaching portfolio

    story that documents and engages with an issue o local concern. Te orm that your digital story takes will beup to you. Your project as a whole should demonstrate a critical understanding o the dynamics o narrativestructure, genre, orm, and audience awareness. Tat said, your digital story might take the orm o a film, ananimation, a hypertext environment, a game, an audio landscape, or something entirely different. Additionally,your digital story should demonstrate a nuanced understanding o and ethical engagement with the people yourepresent in your work, the interview and consent methods you use to invite community members to participatein your project, the audience you want to reach with your work, and the positions you advocate. Finally, at the

    end o the semester each group will present its digital story to the class, and I strongly encourage groups to invitecommunity partners to class presentation days. Tis event will give you the opportunity to share what youvelearned with a wider, interested audience, and it should also help you grapple with and negotiate the complexitieso perorming or/with community audiences. o complete this assignment, each group will deliver ouritems: (I) a proposal describing your groups anticipated digital story project, (II) a finished digital story, (III) acollaboratively written Artists Statement with Works Cited to accompany your groups digital story, and (IV) aclass presentation o your groups digital story.

    Digital Storytelling Reflection(10%)

    At the end o the semester, afer all projects have been completed, I will invite you to write a brie narrative essay(approximately 3-4 pages) in which you reflect on your experience with the Collaborative Documentary Digital

    Story assignment. In your writing, you should also reflect on how your experience o this assignment connectswith other course assignments and readings. Tis reflection assignment offers you a moment to pause, to reflecton what you have learned, and to make predictions about how you will carry what youve learned into yourbright uture.

    daily course schedule

    Unless otherwise specified, media reerenced in the calendar can be ound on our course D2L website.

    Week& Topic

    Date Daily In-Class ActivitiesReadings & Assignments Due at the

    Beginning of Class

    1Introduction tothe Course

    Tu

    1/16

    Welcome!

    Course inormation, syllabus, assignments, themes Introductions through stories

    2Terminology:Multimedia &New Media

    ue1/21

    Reading quiz & class discussion o Read:Borges, Te Garden o Forking Pathso Read:Ryan, Will New Media Produce New

    Narratives?

    Tu1/23

    Reading quiz & class discussion Research journal 1: everything I learned

    about technology I learned rom...

    o Read:Punday, From Synesthesia toMultimedia: How to alk about New MediaNarrative

    3Practices ofLooking

    ue1/28

    Reading quiz & class discussion Research journal 2: who are your

    storytellers?

    o Read:Berger, ch. 1, Ways of Seeingo Read:McCloud, ch. 6, Understanding Comics

    Tu1/30

    Reading quiz & class discussion Research journal 3: what stories need to

    be told?

    o Read:Mirzoeff, Te Right to Look

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    Digital Storytelling and Culture Syllabus

    LONDIE T. MARTIN, PH.D.

    teaching portfolio

    Week& Topic

    Date Daily In-Class ActivitiesReadings & Assignments Due at the

    Beginning of Class

    4ExploringVisuality &Spatiality

    ue2/4

    Field rip: Meet in the lobby o theCenter or Creative Photography.We will engage in a graded shortassignment while at the CCP (whichwill include todays reading).

    o Read:Nast and Kobayashi, Re-corporealizingVision

    Tu

    2/6

    Collaborative Course Facilitation,

    Group 1

    o Read:hooks, Black Vernacular: Architecture

    as Cultural Practiceo Read:Anzalda, ch. 1, Borderlands / La

    Frontera: Te New Mestiza

    5What SoundCan Do

    ue2/11

    In-class guided practice: preparing orthe Audio Intertextual Collaborationassignment

    I you can, bring a laptop with Audacityinstalled

    o Read:download and experiment withAudacity @ audacity.sourceorge.net

    o Read:browse through Audacity tutorials @audacity.sourceorge.net/manual-1.2/tutorials.html

    Tu2/13

    Collaborative Course Facilitation,Group 2

    o Read:Sele, Te Movement o Air, theBreath o Meaning: Aurality and MultimodalComposing

    o Due:Audio Essay 1.0 is due by 5 pm on Friday2/14 via Google Drive.

    6What Is Said &What Is Heard

    ue2/18

    Collaborative Course Facilitation,Group 3

    o Read:Rabinowitz, Music, Genre, andNarrative Teory

    Tu2/20

    Collaborative Course Facilitation,Group 4

    o Read:Haas, Wampum as Hypertext: AnAmerican Indian Intellectual radition oMultimedia Teory and Practice

    7Digitizing OralStories

    ue2/25

    Collaborative Course Facilitation,Group 5

    o Read:Green, Te Way We Hear Ourselvesis Different rom the Way Others Hear Us:Exploring the Literate Identities o a BlackRadio Youth Collective

    o Read:Cherubini, Te Metamorphosis oan Oral radition: Dissonance in the DigitalStories o Aboriginal Peoples in Canada

    o Due:Audio Essay 2.0 is due by 5 pm onWednesday 2/26 via Google Drive.

    Tu2/27

    Sharing: listen to some o our Audio Intertextual Collaborations Research journal 4: sound reflections

    8WeavingPiecesTogether

    ue3/4

    Collaborative Course Facilitation,Group 6

    o Read:Lessig, Remix: How Creativity Is BeingStrangled by the Law

    Tu3/6

    Collaborative Course Facilitation,Group 7

    o Read:Lotherington, Digital Narratives,Cultural Inclusion, and EducationalPossibility: Going New Places with Old Storiesin Elementary School

    9HandsOn DigitalStorytelling

    ue3/11

    In-class guided practice I:storyboarding your CollaborativeDocumentary Digital Story

    o Read:Lambert, Seven Steps o DigitalStorytelling

    o Read:Lambert, Storyboarding

    Tu3/13

    In-class guided practice II:storyboarding your CollaborativeDocumentary Digital Story

    o Read:Lambert, Designing in Digitalo Read:Lambert, Distribution, Ethics, and the

    Politics o Engagement

    10Spring Break

    3/15-3/23

    Spring Break, no class

    http://audacity.sourceforge.net/http://audacity.sourceforge.net/manual-1.2/tutorials.htmlhttp://audacity.sourceforge.net/manual-1.2/tutorials.htmlhttp://audacity.sourceforge.net/
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    Digital Storytelling and Culture Syllabus

    LONDIE T. MARTIN, PH.D.

    teaching portfolio

    Week& Topic

    Date Daily In-Class ActivitiesReadings & Assignments Due at the

    Beginning of Class

    11QueeringStorylines &Lifelines

    ue3/25

    Collaborative Course Facilitation,Group 8

    o Read:Alexander and Rhodes, Queerness,Multimodality, and the Possibilities o Re/Orientation

    o Read:Alexander and Rhodes, Queered

    Tu3/27

    Collaborative Course Facilitation,Group 9

    o Read:Aarseth, Quest Games as Post-narrativeDiscourse

    o Play:Gone Home, a game you can purchaseand download @ www.gonehomegame.com

    o Due:Proposal or the CollaborativeDocumentary Digital Story due via D2Ldropbox by 5 pm.

    12ActionResearch &Digital Stories

    ue4/1

    Collaborative Course Facilitation,Group 10

    o Read:urner et al., Critical Multimodal HipHop Production: A Social Justice Approachto Arican American Language and LiteracyPractices

    Tu4/3

    In-class workshop: Collaborative Documentary Digital Story Mini-conerences with groups to brainstorm / troubleshoot project plans

    13Media =Embodiment,part I

    ue4/8

    Collaborative Course Facilitation,Group 11

    o Read:Wysocki, Drawn ogether: Possibilitiesor Bodies in Words and Pictures

    o Due: Course Research Journal due via D2Ldropbox by 5 pm.

    Tu4/10

    In-class workshop: Collaborative Documentary Digital Story Mini-conerences with groups to brainstorm / troubleshoot project plans

    14Media =Embodiment,part II

    ue4/15

    Collaborative Course Facilitation,Group 12

    o Read:Ensslin, From (W)reader to Breather:Cybertextual De-intentionalization and KatePullingers Breathing Wall

    Tu4/17

    In-class workshop: Collaborative Documentary Digital Story

    15Final ProjectPresentations

    ue

    4/22

    Sharing course projects: Collaborative Documentary Digital Story AllCollaborative Documentary Digital Story projects are due today beore noon

    Tu4/24

    Sharing course projects: Collaborative Documentary Digital Story

    16Final ProjectPresentations

    ue4/29

    Sharing course projects: Collaborative Documentary Digital Story

    Tu5/1

    Sharing course projects: Collaborative Documentary Digital Story

    17Presentations& Refections

    ue5/6

    Sharing course projects (I we need the extra time.) Review criteria and strategies or the Digital Storytelling Reflection essay

    Tu5/8

    Reading Day (no class meeting)

    18Final ExamWeek

    ue5/13

    Digital Storytelling Reflection essay due by 12:30 pm (the end o our scheduled final examtime) in the appropriate D2L dropbox older

    http://www.gonehomegame.com/http://www.gonehomegame.com/