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Tag: student-produced multimedia

Student Success in Writing Conference: February 3, 2012

Composition for Change: Documentary Projects in First-Year Composition Courses

This presentation will review how students can create documentaries to reach a wide and real audience as they propose solutions to the most important issues of the day. The speaker will also address concerns with multimedia assignments, such as considerations of copyright and fair use as students navigate the right-click digital age.

Student Produced Documentaries in First-Year Composition

1) Multimodal Composition and the use of documentaries in first-year composition courses was the basis for the mixed methods case study I conducted last year as the subject of my dissertation.

In my study,  students reported that multimodal composition:

  • Allows for more engagement with topics
  • Creates a heightened sense of audience awareness and gives more purpose to their arguments
  • Presents the opportunity for more personal expression through textual, visual and aural outlets
  • Teaches time management, organization and research skills
  • Builds self-confidence in communication and technical skills
  • Provides a beneficial resource  for professional communication

2) The proposal documentary assignment:

  • Asks students to identify a local, regional, national or global problem and offer viable solutions that can be implemented by members of the community
  • Asks students to use similar research, organization and rhetorical skills used in traditional academic writing
  • Gives students an opportunity to add elements of visual and aural rhetoric into their understanding of persuasion
  • Allows students to become critical producers and consumers of media (Anderson)
  • Asks that students publish their work to the world via YouTube and opens the classroom to discussion about how their compositions can influence their community and society (critical teaching pedagogy)
  • Opens the writing classroom to the issues of copyright, Fair Use  and Creative Co
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From Document to Documentary: Integrating Research and Information Literacy Through Librarian-Instructor Collaboration And Digital Media Projects

Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy

September 23-24, 2011

Georgia Coastal Center

Savannah, Georgia

Presentation by Jeannie Parker Beard

3:00-3:30 Room 1002

I am so happy to have the opportunity to present on the collaboration that took place between myself and the amazing library staff at Chattanooga State Community College last year.

Combining the Proposal Research Paper and the Proposal Documentary Project in my first-year composition courses with instruction from the library staff members at every phase of each project did the following:

  • Created a dynamic relationship between faculty, students, and librarians
  • Invited students to become familiar with the library resources
  • Allowed students to enhance their information literacy skills
  • Exposed students to principles of  visual and digital literacy

The Amazing Library Staff

Tisa Houck, Lori Warren and Pam Temple

  • Provided instruction both in the library and in the classroom
  • Offered students support throughout the entire process, including help with research and technology issues
  • Created in-depth Library Guides for each aspect of the project

The Research Paper

  • Proposal Argument, Critical Teaching in the 21st Century
  • Engaging Students as Community Citizens
  • Addressing Problems through Viable Solutions

The Documentary Project

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“Media Convergence: Creating Content, Questioning Relationships” A Special Issue of Computers and Composition (2008)

Special Issue: “Media Convergence: Creating Content, Questioning Relationships” Computers and Composition 25 (2008) Special Issue In 2008, Computers and Composition published a special issue focusing…

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