English 168.7 home

Engl. 168 (Cultural Studies) section 7
TR 2:55-4:10
Uris Hall G28

Writing in the Electronic Age

Stuart Davis, Senior Lecturer
Department of English
Rockefeller 184
607-255-6281
Hours: W 2:00-4:00 and by appointment
sad4@cornell.edu

In this course, we study the impact of new technologies of writing and reading on the way we work, live, and experience ourselves as personal and social beings. We’ll read, view, or surf materials composed in at least several media for various audiences: articles, essays, Web sites, films, short stories, advertisements, public documents, news reports, polemics. This is not a workshop in new technologies but a freshman writing seminar promoting critical literacy in both print and electronic media and the exploration of on-line resources for expression and research. Luddites, digerati, and the undecided are alike welcome. Students should be ready to use standard Bear Access tools and to present and share their work in a networked classroom.

Texts you should acquire:

Gail Hawisher and Cynthia Selfe, eds. Literacy, Technology, and Society: Confronting the Issues. Prentice Hall.

One course supplement, to be available at KC Copy on Dryden Road at different points in the semester (I’ll tell you when).

Supplies:

Because some of our work will be done in electronic media (and because everybody needs to get into the habit of storing texts and other data carefully), you should buy a five-pack of unformatted 3.5" diskettes at the Campus Store. Bring it with you to all class meetings.

Reading and surfing:

You should expect to do some course reading on line and to spend time out of class exploring the Internet. Go to http://www.cit.cornell.edu/computer/computers/ to learn how C.I.T. looks at the world and what resources it furnishes you with (labs, technical help, orientation, etc.).

This course has a Web site, which will be used for posting some course materials and linking to other sites. Its address is: http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/ Courses/engl168.7/168FT98.index.html . You are there.

Writing:

You'll be writing six or seven essays of from two to ten pages in length and revising at least two of them. (Revisions count as separate papers). You'll also be asked to write a few ungraded assignments and do some in-class exercises and experiments. Reading and writing assignments will be scheduled on the course syllabus, which will be a subject of discussion among us and will be "finalized" soon.
You should compose final versions of all writing assignments on a word processor, keeping copies of everything you write and keeping a back-up disk with duplicates of all the work that is on your text disk. NUMBER THE PAGES. You should bring assignments to class in both electronic and hardcopy form.
Length. It’s important for people in a writing course to get used to writing at some length. Duh. "A page," in my book, has about 275 words; so when I ask for a 5-page paper, I mean a paper of around 1400 words, however you format it.

Other guidelines and traffic regulations:

English 168 is a discussion course, not a lecture course: it requires your regular attendance and active participation. So come to class with breathtaking regularity.
If you are absent (regardless of the reason), you're responsible for finding out what went on in the class you missed and for coming to the next class fully prepared.
Your final grade will be based primarily on the quality of your written work. But your participation in all class activities will have a bearing, too. Active, cogent contributions to class discussion can help that grade, while more than three unauthorized absences will lower it, as will failure to meet deadlines for written work.
You can expect to discuss your work with me occasionally during the semester, either during my office hours (above) or at a mutually convenient time.

Why is this class meeting in an electronic classroom?

We’ll be using Macintosh computers for a certain amount of in-class work, including peer review of student writing. That does NOT mean that Windows or DOS users are unwelcome; all it means that they will need to become familiar with a few features of the Macintosh interface if they don’t know it already.

Writing that you do in class will be done with a Macintosh text-editor called "SimpleText." Be sure to save files that you create with this program to a floppy diskette and take them with you.

You can do your out-of-class writing on the software and platform of your choice. But you must save a copy of it in "Interchange" (Rich Text) Format (RTF), bringing it to class in converted form. If your word processor doesn’t create files in RTF, save them as "Text-only" or "DOS" files.

In a week or two, you will have an account on the g28 file server, which will help you to access and exchange documents.

Here are some topics we may take up, spending one to two weeks on each. We’ll talk about these at the first meetings of the course.

2001 revisited: A look at HAL’s progeny and legacy, or, What the past’s future looks like from the present. Links for 2001
Communities: real, virtual, imagined: The social history of Cyberia.
. "On the Internet, no one knows you’re a dog": Identity online.
"Women and children first": Gender and age on the Net.
"Digital diploma mills": What is education coming to?
Legal issues in cyberspace: Intellectual property, privacy, pornography, freedom of speech.
The fate of the written word and the "codex book." (Is "secondary orality" a disease or a developmental stage?)
While the world wakes: News coverage online.
". . . . . . . . .": Your suggestions?

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Last modified 8.31.98