HOW WE WRITE
We Use a Process Model With Three Steps
Maps are not only the colorful squares and globes that we traditionally imagine when we think of them. We “map out” a strategy, or we “map our future” when we plan a career. Thus, to “map” something means to understand it. Our maps are going to be drawn in words, in ideas, and in our general understanding of a topic.
When you write, you will understand what has already been thought, and then you will improve the “map” by adding, removing, and correcting information. For an introduction to the map metaphor, visit the "Key Concepts" link at the top of this page.
The Modes
ENGL 1180 uses “modes” to help you master this approach to writing. Modes are types of writing such as narration, description, process, comparison, and argument. The terms are handy labels for different parts of effective writing. Our assignments will emphasize these various modes, but you must recognize that in the real world of employers, scholars, and researchers, the modes don’t exist. They are building blocks.
WHAT WE WRITE ABOUT
Digital Redlining
There’s little recognition that most educational software track students, collect data, and use it for product design, curricular constraint, and the sort of predictive analytics that ultimately create a new kind of redlining -- what some call “digital redlining.” We will ask questions about digital identities, privacy, quantified selves, big data, and the commodification of students and education. After we have completed our background papers, we will create a publication, a "zine," that presents -- through images and words -- your thinking about the digital issues that are invisibly controlling our lives.
For our project, we will first build background knowledge about types of education, socioeconmic classes, and our own experience in education. It is an experience shaped by educational software, curricula, politics, and many other forces. We will read and write about some of these. Our work will improve our understanding of how they control our lives.