Course Information for TCS 191

Technocultural Studies 191 — Writing Across Media
Winter 2015 • CRN 91940 • Mondays and Wednesdays 10:00-11:20 • Art Annex

Instructor:  Andy Jones
Office:  353 Voorhies
Hours: Wednesdays 2-3; Thursdays 9-10; and by appointment (including often Sunday evening office hours at Crepeville)
Phone: 530-752-3408 (phone is answered during office hours)
E-mail: aojones@ucdavis.edu (I respond to emails primarily on T, W, Th, and Sundays)
Twitter: @andyojones (for faster responses)

Course Description: TCS 191 introduces students to experimental approaches to writing for different media and artistic practices, including photography, art installations, radio, film and film criticism, and live staged and multimedia performances. Participants in the class will explore how written texts relate to the images, sounds, and performances in digital and media production. Participants will complete a significant number of in-class and out-of-class writing assignments, both individually and as parts of groups. Our common themes, creativity and discovery, will inform all your reading and writing assignments, and prepare you to engage, challenge and impress readers, viewers, and listeners.

Texts:  The large course reader will be made available digitally and will include excerpts from the following texts:

Imagining Language: An Anthology—edited by Jed Rasula and Steve McCaffery
A Book of the Book: Some Works and Projections About the Book and Writing—edited by Jerome Rothenberg and Steven Clay
Screen Writings: Scripts and Texts by Independent Filmmakers— Scott MacDonald
Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality, edited by Randall Packer and Ken Jordan
The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, edited by Alan Kaufman

Grading Percentages And Course Requirements:

1. 10% class participation
2. 20% group assignments
3. 30% individual assignments (perhaps one with a partner)
4. 10% in-class presentation of readings
5. 30% final assignment

Explanations and Examples of Assignments and Expectations (See also the separate document titled “Assignments and Grades for TCS 191”)

1. Students will be expected to attend all classes, to have completed assignments on the days for which they are due, and to participate eagerly and confidently in class discussions and writing exercises. Such active participation depends upon students having finished and digested the readings before they are due. Students participate best who restrict pixelated distractions. If you cannot plan to attend and participate in every class, please yield your spot in the class to someone who will.
2. Students will be expected to work with peers on writing and performance assignments in small and large groups. Grades for such assignments will reflect the efforts and leadership of the participants, and especially the ambition, quality and creativity of the final products. Productive collaboration is an especially important goal for those planning to maintain their senses of creativity and innovation in technical and aesthetic workplaces.
3. For individual writing assignments, class participants will research writing tasks and functions in their specific areas of specialty within Technocultural Studies (or in the ways that Technoculture applies to their chosen fields), apply creative and philosophical concepts discovered in class readings and lecture, and prepare for the final creative assignment. Consider making one of these three assignments be collaboratively written.
4. Class participants will write and present/ perform position papers on assigned readings, and should choose to keep reading journals that reflect research into terms, concepts, people, and movements. Students who wish to impress will keep their reading journals online, such as via Tumblr.
5. Each student will research and create a capstone project. This assignment will pair creative and “scholarly” writing as the student creates and presents a creative, substantive example of a studied genre of writing.

Late Work: When possible (such as in the case of essays and other creations that can be shared digitally), assignments should be shared via Canvas. When assignments are submitted in paper form, they should be handed to me in person or slipped under my office door on the due date, and then you should submit an online paper-submission “assignment” via Canvas (for my bookkeeping). Do not submit assignments via email. Late work will be demerited one-third of a grade per day late (with exceptions made when warranted, but only when requested in writing). Please save all your in-class work digitally.

Revision: After consulting with me, you may revise your position paper, and one of your individual assignments. Students wishing to revise a paper must ask me about submitting a proposal. When approved, this proposal becomes a contract to be followed by the student author. If the revision is substantial and does indeed improve on the original effort, and if it is submitted according to the student-written contract, I will evaluate it, grade it, and average the new grade with the original grade. Revisions are due no later than our final class meeting.

Plagiarism: Carefully read the handout prepared by Student Judicial Affairs on plagiarism. You must correctly document any material that you borrow—direct quotes or ideas, from published or unpublished sources, from print or electronic media. We will discuss how to document source material in class, but in the meantime, if you have questions about how to use source material, please ask me.

Office Hours: Visit me during office hours to discuss your writing concerns, my comments or grades on returned work, and your ongoing projects. Expect additional nighttime hours at Crepeville, downtown Davis, on Sunday evenings. Evening office hours often provide us an extended time to discuss your more ambitious writing projects, both for our class and for other audiences. If you have a quick question or wish to show me a perfect page of prose, we might be able to meet directly after class at 11:20.

Social Networking: I will welcome suggestions for extending the boundaries of our class via web-based academic environments, as well as via Canvas. Twitter and Tumblr would be obvious examples.

Class Participation: I expect and value class participation. If you can think of a way that our class can better approach an assigned topic, or if you would like to suggest resources for us to review, I would like to hear from you. I also encourage you to make relevant announcements of cultural and technocultural events, especially those that are student-originated or student-run. To find such events, check the relevant campus, community, and Dr. Andy-run calendars.