Social Media as Authorship: Methods for Studying Literacies and Communities Online
Draft copy to appear as: Stornaiuolo, A., & Higgs, J., & Hull, G. (in press).
Social media as authorship: Methods for studying literacies and communities online. In P. Albers, T. Holbrook, A.S. Flint (Eds.), New Literacy Research Methods
.
Employing a Multiliteracies Pedagogy through Multimodal Composition: Preparing Twenty-First Century Writers
Multimodal Literacies and Emerging Genres
Tracey Bowen and Carl Whithaus, eds.
Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh Press, 2013. 356 pp.
See: Jody Shipka, in “Including, but Not Limited to, the Digital: Composing Multimodal Texts”
It's Not 2.0 Late: What Late Adopters Need to Know About Teaching Research Skills to Writers of Multimodal Texts
Showing posts with label assemblage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label assemblage. Show all posts
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Friday, May 2, 2014
Intertextuality and the Discourse Community (Porter)
Intertextuality provides rhetoric with an important perspective, one currently neglected, I believe. The prevailing composition pedagogies by and large cultivate the romantic image of the writer as free, uninhibited spirit, as independent, creative genius. By identifying and stressing the intertextual nature of discourse, however, we shift our attention away from the writer as individual and focus more on the sources and social contexts from which the writer's discourse arises. According to this view, authorial intuition is less significant than social context; the writer is simply part of a discourse tradition, a member of a team, and a participant in a community of discourse that creates its own collective meaning. Thus the intertext constrains writing. (34-35)
Iterability: "every discourse is composed of 'traces,' pieces of other texts that help constitute its meaning. (35)
Presupposition: "assumptions a text makes about its referent, its readers, and its context--to portions of the text which are read, but which are not explicitly 'there'" (35).
Texts not only refer to but in fact contain other texts. (36)
Jefferson's skill as a writer was his ability to borrow traces effectively and to find appropriate contexts for them. (37)
The creative writer is the creative borrower (37)
Even if the writer is locked into a cultural matrix and is constrained by the inter text of the discourse community, the writer has freedom within the immediate rhetorical context. (41)
Writing is an attempt to exercise the will, to identify the self within the constraints of some discourse community. We are constrained insofar as we must inevitably borrow the traces, codes, and signs which we inherit and which our discourse community imposes. We are free insofar as we do what we can to encounter and learn new codes, to intertwine codes in new ways, and to expand our semiotic potential--with our goal being to effect change and establish our identities within the discourse communities we choose to enter. (41)
This dashing image appeals to our need for intellectual heroes; but underlying it may be an anti-rhetorical view: that writers are born, not made; that writing is individual, isolated, and internal; not social but eccentric.
This view is firmly set in the intertext of our discipline. Our anthologies glorify the individual essayists, whose work is valued for its timelessness and creativity. Freshman rhetorics announce as the writer's proper goals personal insight, originality, and personal voice, or tell students that motivations for writing come from "within." Generally, this pedagogy assumes that such a thing as the writer actually exists--an autonomous writer exercising a free, creative will through the writing act--and that the writing process proceeds linearly from writer to text to reader. This partial picture of the process can all too readily become the picture, and our students can all too readily learn to overlook vital facets of discourse production. (41)
Intertextual theory suggests that the key criteria for evaluating writing should be "acceptability" within some discourse community. "Acceptability" includes, but goes well beyond, adherence to formal conventions. It includes choosing the "right" topic, applying the appropriate critical methodology, adhering to standards for evidence and validity, and in general adopting the community's discourse values--and of course borrowing the appropriate traces. Success is measured by the writer's ability to know what can be presupposed and to borrow that community's traces effectively to create a text that contributes to the maintenance or, possibly, the definition of the community. the writer is constrained by the community, and by its intertextual preferences and prejudices, but the effective writer works to assert the will against those community constraints to effect change. (43-44)
Iterability: "every discourse is composed of 'traces,' pieces of other texts that help constitute its meaning. (35)
Presupposition: "assumptions a text makes about its referent, its readers, and its context--to portions of the text which are read, but which are not explicitly 'there'" (35).
Texts not only refer to but in fact contain other texts. (36)
Jefferson's skill as a writer was his ability to borrow traces effectively and to find appropriate contexts for them. (37)
The creative writer is the creative borrower (37)
Even if the writer is locked into a cultural matrix and is constrained by the inter text of the discourse community, the writer has freedom within the immediate rhetorical context. (41)
Writing is an attempt to exercise the will, to identify the self within the constraints of some discourse community. We are constrained insofar as we must inevitably borrow the traces, codes, and signs which we inherit and which our discourse community imposes. We are free insofar as we do what we can to encounter and learn new codes, to intertwine codes in new ways, and to expand our semiotic potential--with our goal being to effect change and establish our identities within the discourse communities we choose to enter. (41)
This dashing image appeals to our need for intellectual heroes; but underlying it may be an anti-rhetorical view: that writers are born, not made; that writing is individual, isolated, and internal; not social but eccentric.
This view is firmly set in the intertext of our discipline. Our anthologies glorify the individual essayists, whose work is valued for its timelessness and creativity. Freshman rhetorics announce as the writer's proper goals personal insight, originality, and personal voice, or tell students that motivations for writing come from "within." Generally, this pedagogy assumes that such a thing as the writer actually exists--an autonomous writer exercising a free, creative will through the writing act--and that the writing process proceeds linearly from writer to text to reader. This partial picture of the process can all too readily become the picture, and our students can all too readily learn to overlook vital facets of discourse production. (41)
Intertextual theory suggests that the key criteria for evaluating writing should be "acceptability" within some discourse community. "Acceptability" includes, but goes well beyond, adherence to formal conventions. It includes choosing the "right" topic, applying the appropriate critical methodology, adhering to standards for evidence and validity, and in general adopting the community's discourse values--and of course borrowing the appropriate traces. Success is measured by the writer's ability to know what can be presupposed and to borrow that community's traces effectively to create a text that contributes to the maintenance or, possibly, the definition of the community. the writer is constrained by the community, and by its intertextual preferences and prejudices, but the effective writer works to assert the will against those community constraints to effect change. (43-44)
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Seeing the Text (Bernhardt)
visually informative vs. non-visually informative text
We can assume that visually informative texts achieve rhetorical organization, just as do texts which are relatively non-informative visually. Both types must provide direction to the reader as to how the text is to be read: what transaction is intended, what the major divisions are, what is considered important, and what relations exist amongst the various subpoints. But the manner in which visually informative texts achieve rhetorical control differs in important ways from that in the non-visually informative text, at all levels of organization: in the whole discourse, in the paragraph, and in the sentence. (67)
Also important in the design of the fact sheet was the distribution of printed information on the page. To attend to the layout of the text requires considering the text as a visual gestalt, focusing attention on the total visual impact of the text on a prospective reader.
In an integrated, non-visually informative text, the desideratum is a seamless text. In the visible text, the goal is to call the read- er's attention visually to semantically grouped information, focusing the reader's attention on discrete sections. (73)
With a visible text, it may not be fruitful to talk about paragraphs in terms of topic sentences and support, or opening and closing sentences, or sentences of transition. In fact, it may not be useful to speak of paragraphs at all, but of sections or chunks. In the visible text, the headings take over the task of generalizing or identifying the topic. Levels of subordination are indicated by variation in typeface, type size, or placement of headings, rather than through subordinators or cohesive ties which indicate semantically dependent relations. (73)
We can assume that visually informative texts achieve rhetorical organization, just as do texts which are relatively non-informative visually. Both types must provide direction to the reader as to how the text is to be read: what transaction is intended, what the major divisions are, what is considered important, and what relations exist amongst the various subpoints. But the manner in which visually informative texts achieve rhetorical control differs in important ways from that in the non-visually informative text, at all levels of organization: in the whole discourse, in the paragraph, and in the sentence. (67)
Also important in the design of the fact sheet was the distribution of printed information on the page. To attend to the layout of the text requires considering the text as a visual gestalt, focusing attention on the total visual impact of the text on a prospective reader.
- Pragnanz: Perhaps the most relevant law is that of equilibrium, or pragnanz, which suggests that items in a visual field strive for balance or equilibrium with other items in the field.
- Continuation: A second law of gestalt, that of good continuation, or good figure, suggests that visual perception works to pull figures out of the background, to give them definition against the undistinguished field in which they are located.
- Closure: When good continuation or good figure is not provided by the visual stimulus, the perceiver has a tendency to fill in the missing gaps, to provide the missing definition, as evidenced by the ability of readersto process even highly degraded copy, in which much of the information provided by the shape of letters is missing.
- Similarity: suggests that units which resemble each other in shape, size, color, or direction will be seen together as a homogenous grouping. (71-72)
In an integrated, non-visually informative text, the desideratum is a seamless text. In the visible text, the goal is to call the read- er's attention visually to semantically grouped information, focusing the reader's attention on discrete sections. (73)
With a visible text, it may not be fruitful to talk about paragraphs in terms of topic sentences and support, or opening and closing sentences, or sentences of transition. In fact, it may not be useful to speak of paragraphs at all, but of sections or chunks. In the visible text, the headings take over the task of generalizing or identifying the topic. Levels of subordination are indicated by variation in typeface, type size, or placement of headings, rather than through subordinators or cohesive ties which indicate semantically dependent relations. (73)
Friday, April 18, 2014
Intertextuality and the Writing Process: An Overview (Jack Selzer)
In Spilka, Rachel (Ed.), Writing in the workplace: New research perspectives; Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. 1993. 171-180.
While the concept of intertextuality still is radically undermining central notions in literary study, where the myths of the solitary writer and self-contained text and passive reader remain relatively entrenched, the notion of intertextuality probably seems relatively uncontroversial to those who study technical, scientific, and institutional discourse, because writing and reading in the settings are so overtly social. It may be difficult to wean ourselves from considering Austin or Chaucer or Blake or falter as individual geniuses created their masterpieces alone, difficult to take the experience of reading Emma or the "songs of innocence "out of the individual study; but it is quite routine (as many chapters in this volume demonstrate) to see you writing and reading on the job as cooperative and social. for this reason, technical and scientific and institutional writing might well be considered laboratories on intertextuality places where the implications of intertextuality for understanding of "writer," "text," and "reading" might be teased out. (177)
While the concept of intertextuality still is radically undermining central notions in literary study, where the myths of the solitary writer and self-contained text and passive reader remain relatively entrenched, the notion of intertextuality probably seems relatively uncontroversial to those who study technical, scientific, and institutional discourse, because writing and reading in the settings are so overtly social. It may be difficult to wean ourselves from considering Austin or Chaucer or Blake or falter as individual geniuses created their masterpieces alone, difficult to take the experience of reading Emma or the "songs of innocence "out of the individual study; but it is quite routine (as many chapters in this volume demonstrate) to see you writing and reading on the job as cooperative and social. for this reason, technical and scientific and institutional writing might well be considered laboratories on intertextuality places where the implications of intertextuality for understanding of "writer," "text," and "reading" might be teased out. (177)
Who is the "writer" or "author" of a simple engineering proposal, for instance? According to my experience with one Chicago based transportation engineer, authorship is anything but individual. Of course, a specific person's name usually can be found on the proposal, and, of course, particular words are crafted by individual people: a specific engineer might be in charge of compiling a final version of the proposal, incorporating along the way the contributions of other engineers (who might even draft specific parts), professional technical writers (who might concoct graphics, edit the engineers draft, and manage the "look" of the final product), and even company managers (who might oversee and approve a specific proposal – and on occasion intervene in the composition of it). But behind these individuals might stand an army of unacknowledged others: the composers of "boilerplate" (portions of previously written documents appropriated and sometimes revised for the occasion now at hand); secretaries to type and silently amend; letter writers and telephone or's and emailers who advice gets incorporated along the way; "authors" of company style manuals; advisers who are called upon to make suggestions for the developing draft; colleagues whose ideas and practices has shaped the engineers work. (176-177)
How authorship is communal and inter-textual at work (177)
Figuring out where authorship begins and ends this problematized by the concept of intertextuality, that is probably because the notion of "text" is problematized too. (178)
All texts, after all, Are intertextual; they are created and consumed in relation to other ones. … from the perspective of both writer and reader, individual texts blur into and join texts at the edges, and at some remove. On the one side, a given document (such as a proposal) is a response to a prior document (such as an RFP), without which it makes no sense. On the other side, the document motivates new ones (for example, acceptance letters contracts, subsequent reports, perhaps articles and conference papers, not to mention the attendant letters, progress reports, internal memos, phone messages, and so on that can be understood only in relation to it. Together, particular documents lose their particularity. What emerges instead our communication chains – networks, webs, fabrics (pick your metaphor) – that together comprise meeting or glimpses of meaning. Intertextuality invites us to look forward from a document as well as back, to consider not only those prior documents that generated it but also future documents inspired by it. It invites us to consider text not as self-contained artifacts but as open ended contributions to ongoing conversations, conversations that in their totality create and constitute meaning. (178)
Thinking About Templates
Thinking About Templates
To create digital multimedia (what Kress
and van Leeuwen term multimodal) works, one needs an understanding
of the affordances of different media, modes, and genres - what we might call the semiotic aspects. But to express
themselves, students must also learn to use the technological aspects: the digital equipment and tools:
cameras, recorders, telephones, and computers with corresponding software.
A template is a piece that is already partly made: it has a
selected visual (or aural) style, a hierarchy, and has blank fields for the
necessary parts of the piece that the user must remember to create.
Any writing technology will have an impact on the texts
authors create with it.
Templates imply a somewhat new form of writing, with
somewhat different influences on the writing process.
It seems that a broader understanding of how templates influence finished works
is an important part of digital literacy.
I will give a
systematic overview of the ways I found that templates influence what authors
can create. I will conceptualize these as prescripts and provide a
typology of their different kinds before discussing concept of prescripts in a
broader context.
If we are to teach students how to be computer literate, we
must direct their attention to the different prescripts of different authoring
tools. We cannot escape templates and
their prescripts, but every user should ideally be aware of them, be able to
choose to work with them or against them, and then also choose alternative
templates when available and suitable.
Interface Prescripts
Interface prescripts are prescripts that make it
simpler to create a text by taking away choices.
The main benefit of
templates is that people who lack the skills to communicate effectively with
computers can get the necessary confidence and head start to produce something
they will be proud of.
The most important aspect of templates is that they make
authors out of people who otherwise would never create anything. Templates
enable but can only simplify the process by limiting the range of possible
expressions.
Design Prescripts
In my experience, most of my students, friends, and
colleagues are more comfortable with writing than graphic design. Although this
probably is different in some professions, it seems that quite a few people are
happy to find that many professionally created visual designs are available as
templates.
However, the
prescribed design may - and will often - collide head on with the text of the
user. For instance, a prescribed design may invoke connotations (additional
meanings) that do not align to the written text, or the design may set aside
areas for text that are too small or too large.
We can at least see two reasons why this is desirable for
users.
1. If, as is often argued, a home page or weblog is a way to
present an image of who one wishes to be, then a coherent visual (or aural)
style adds to this. Layout styles, color schemes, and typography bring
connotations with them, as do music and editing effects. The aspiring home page
or weblog author would want to have a look that matches his or her perception
of being conservative or cool, fashionable or geeky, a hip-hopper or a surf
dude.
2. Another reason may be an aesthetic desire of creating
something beautiful, or at least almost professional looking, and the pride
from achieving this.
Design Prescripts
Templates are generally made according to some
well-established genre, and much of what they prescribe is actually genre
conventions.
A template is normally created with a special genre of
communication in mind, which has incorporated typical traits of that genre.
In computer templates, much of the genre is set in stone. It
is part of the mould, and will shape every material poured into it.
Understanding: Metaphors
How should we then understand the template? A few possible
metaphors come to mind, each with different strengths and weaknesses. Templates
could be likened to:
- Collaboration between the template author and the user,
- a platform to stand on to reach higher,
- a mould to shape an object, or
- the framing of a house that is clad in brick or wood.
Understanding: Forerunners
Creativity-as-selection is restricted to the predefined
choices, yes, but Manovich sees these restrictions as necessary for creative
practice: if everything were to be coded from the bottom up, it would take a
very long time to create anything interesting. We should add that a great many
people who do blog, edit home video, or maintain home pages would never be able
to do so without templates and creativity-as-selection.
…a "computer literate" is one who realizes that
prescripts are necessary and limiting at the same time, and that a different
tool or a different template will not free him or her from prescripts, but just
bring other prescripts.
Prescripts and Digital Literacy
If we are to teach students how to be computer literate, we
must direct their attention to the different prescripts of authoring tools. We
cannot escape templates and their prescripts, but every user should ideally be
aware of them, be able to choose to work with them or against them, and then
also choose alternative templates when available and suitable.
Essential to Digital Literacy
Prescripts of templates influence the creation process and
the finished work in (at least) three ways. Prescripts
- limit the means of expression (interface prescripts),
- add meanings in another sign system (design prescripts), and
- tie the text to a genre (genre prescripts).
…one important part of teaching digital literacy is to teach
students to be attentive to the prescripts of authoring software.
A digital literacy will have many parts, and I have
argued here that one part of digital literacy is attention to the software's
prescripts. A digital literate knows that there are prescripts in
software, and that it is necessary and practical. But she or he also knows that
the prescript has its limits, and that other prescripts are possible.
Students need to be taught that when they find it difficult
to create something, it is often the prescripts that hinder them and not their
own lack of skills. Much of what we
think of as "computer literacy," "experience," or
"expertise" is in fact experience in working around the prescripts in
a template.
Sources
Kress, Gunther. Literacy in the New Media Age.
London: Routledge, 2003.
Ulmer, Gregory L. Internet Invention: From Literacy to
Electracy. N.P.: Longman, 2002.
Kress, Gunther, and Theo van Leeuwen. Multimodal
Discourse: The Modes and Media of Contemporary Communication. London:
Arnold, 2001.
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Plagiarism, Originality, Assemblage (Johndan Johnson-Eilola, Stuart A. Selber)
In addition, this highlighted separation is frequently constructed as a hierarchy in terms of the writing process: The best work of writers is understood to be their original text with citations and borrowed materials situated as useful but less valuable support. As we will main- tain, however, this distinction is not only problematic but also counterproductive, especially as teachers attempt to prepare students to be writers in their professional and personal lives. (376)
If we take either a problem-solving or problem-posing approach, as a great number of people in composition claim to do, then so-called unique texts have little inherent value. Instead, teachers should be encouraging students to learn ways to use existing information to solve real, concrete issues. (378)
What happens, however, if we tell students that their goal is not to create new, unique texts but to filter and remix other texts in ways that solve concrete problems or enact real social action? What if we expect and encourage them to copy other texts? Plagiarism, in these situations, becomes much less of an issue, for students are encouraged to make explicit their borrowings and appropriations. What counts, in this new context, is the ability of students to remix texts in ways that address specific issues, readers, and situations. (380)
And what I'm interested in in the second half of this chapter is the "how to" of helping students to develop such "remix" abilities....
From our perspective, composition still focuses too heavily on the evaluation of performance—in particular, performance tied to the display of one extremely limited and outdated version of originality. We want to change the goal of writing from performance to action or effect in context. That is, we want to lend some weight to a movement that shifts the terrain of the assignment by shifting our approach to writing instruction and assessment: What if the “final” product a student produces—a text—is not concerned with original words or images on a page or screen but concerned primarily with assemblages of parts? Importantly, in this reconception, the assemblages do not distinguish primarily between which parts are supposed to be original and which have been found and gathered from someplace else; assemblages are interested in what works, what has social effects. The distinction between original and existing fragments in a text is, if not meaningless, at least secondary. In essence, we are arguing for a reorganization that is actually implied if not valued in many rubrics for assessing writing used by teachers who take a social approach: Rhetorical purposes can be addressed in context by either original or borrowed/quoted texts without a hierarchy of distinction between the two. (380)
But what happens if we downplay the value of originality? What if we put the emphasis on problem-solving, originality be damned? (380)
But assemblage as a writing practice in academic courses is only beginning to appear on our collective radar screen despite the fact that remixed artifacts are everywhere, all around us, and not just in popular culture. We want teachers to start seeing assemblages as a valid and valued form of student writing—and of writing in general. (380)
In most cases, the recognition of assemblages (often going under related terms such as “remix,” “collage,” or “boilerplate”) is not represented as a replacement of other methods of writing or designing but as one valid practice among many. Our intent here is not to replace the acts of writing prose by individuals but to augment practices by enriching repertoires with one more equally valued approach. (382) ...the nature of doing assemblage work. (383)
On Templates:
Of course, the template instantiates a design vision that speaks directly to the people who first preview it and then download it. This vision involves a rectilinear grid pattern with conventional navigation bar, an area that emphasizes main content, secondary content areas for different categories of subordinate information, and a column with bordered rows for items that should be delineated in some clearly discernable fashion (the placeholder text displays a chronological organization for old news items). Although the designer did not use browser-safe colors, the color scheme is rather conservative, combining medium-ranged blues and grays into a cool, muted pattern. All of these design elements constitute a starting point for making an assemblage. (384)
Sources on Visual Design:
Bernhardt, Stephen A. (1986). Seeing the text. College Composition and Communication, 37, 66–78.
Wysocki, Anne Frances, & Johnson-Eilola, Johndan. (1999). Blinded by the letter: Literacy as a metaphor for every- thing else? In Gail E. Hawisher & Cynthia L. Selfe (Eds.), Passions, pedagogies, and 21st century technologies (pp. 349–368). Logan, UT: Utah State UP.
Types of Assemblages:
Webpages
To take another close-to-hand example, weblogs (including those driven by remixed templates such as those discussed above) are locations for remixing a wide range of materials: quotations from (words, texts, images both still and moving), links to, and sum- maries of other texts on the Web; updates on books, movies, and music the weblog author is currently reading, viewing, or listening to; commentaries on the weblog author’s experiences; short or even long original essays; and more. For many academics (and others), weblogs are a primary form of writing as assemblage and remix. (388)
Johndan’s weblog, for instance, provides examples of many of those forms of assemblage: template, link, summary, text, image, and original text. (388)
a mix of original and found content from numerous sources. (389)
A traditional approach in composition would create at least two hierarchical levels of value among these materials: The quotations, links, and default elements of the template would be valued less than the original text (original images, personal narrative, and summaries). After all, one might say, the other materials were all pre-existing: Johndan merely found them. (390)
While we could continue to maintain that original composition and remixing lie on different planes of value, the distinction between the two planes or levels seems increasingly difficult to maintain. In part, we provided these examples to respond to the concern that remixing is tantamount to stealing.
That view misses what is really going on, at least in many projects. First, creating assemblages requires the same rhetorical sophistication as any text: One must do much more as a designer than download templates and replace their placeholder items with real content. Second, the designs on which assemblages are based introduce another element into the rhetorical situation, making that situation all the more complex and challenging. Third, those designs themselves often derive from conventional practices that cannot be attributed to a single person or project—practices that, in a very real sense, reside in the public domain, the commons. Fourth, many assemblages make their borrowings explicit or obvious, even trading on their connections to other work. Fifth, and finally, the communities that support assemblage practices encourage exchange and re-appropriation. In fact, some of these communities exist only to sustain remix processes and products. Although there are legal and ethical issues to consider (which we raise in the final section), the context for assemblages is decidedly rhetorical. (391)
the “original” versus “borrowed” hierarchy (399)
We want to argue that quotation and plagiarism continue to be largely connected, in a hierarchy of value with theft at the bottom and art at the top (not withstanding Picasso’s “Good artists borrow; great artists steal,” a maxim often cited but only rarely fully embraced except as a postmodern-ironic rhetorical move). Assemblage remains caught in the middle of this hierarchy, positioned as something slightly better than plagiarism (when properly attributed) but not as valuable as an author’s original text. (399)
The difficulty, for us at least, comes because that honesty is not just honesty for honesty’s sake but framed in the hierarchy we have been discussing: part of a binary arrangement between “original” text and “borrowed” text. Students are told to be honest about making clear the division between the two so that we, as teachers, can more effectively place primary value on the original text in our assessments. (400) But if we take away that hierarchy, we remove the impulse for students to lie about it. If a piece of the assemblage is valued primarily for its function rather than its place in a hierarchy, students are no longer pushed so hard to hide the citations for their sources. In fact, if skills at making assemblages are made the focal point, then teachers would want to put great value on the ability of students to find existing chunks of text they can reuse. Re-inventing the wheel becomes an inefficiency, a misplaced waste of effort. “You borrowed that chunk? Great! Where did you get it from? Maybe I can use it, too.” (400)
In the end, as we see it, this all comes down to a reconfigured notion of “creativity,” one more in line with postmodern work. Creativity is no longer, as we said, re-inventing the wheel, which does not remove creativity but shifts it to the assemblage: Take what already exists and make something else, something that works to solve problems in new, local contexts. Creativity, in this rearticulation, involves extensive research, filtering, recombining, remixing, the making of assemblages that solve problems. Citation is no longer a way of marking subordinate elements in a text to downplay their value in student work but a way to reward students for their new skills, to situate texts not only in pre-existing but new contexts. (400)
Learning to value assemblage and remix as valid practices and products in writing... (400)
Producing original text in the form of an essay or report is only one possible response—not necessarily the best possible response—among many. So while a writing pedagogy might focus on the production of original text in some instances, it might also focus just as productively on assemblage, remix, or collage in the same way. At a broad level, admitting such forms to our pedagogy requires we avoid automatically slotting them into a hierarchy that limits their value in specific situations. (400)
The shift we are suggesting is a pretty simple if powerful one: Stop encouraging students to produce “original” texts all the time. Tell them, at least occasionally, to work on texts that are complete assemblages. (400)
If we take either a problem-solving or problem-posing approach, as a great number of people in composition claim to do, then so-called unique texts have little inherent value. Instead, teachers should be encouraging students to learn ways to use existing information to solve real, concrete issues. (378)
What happens, however, if we tell students that their goal is not to create new, unique texts but to filter and remix other texts in ways that solve concrete problems or enact real social action? What if we expect and encourage them to copy other texts? Plagiarism, in these situations, becomes much less of an issue, for students are encouraged to make explicit their borrowings and appropriations. What counts, in this new context, is the ability of students to remix texts in ways that address specific issues, readers, and situations. (380)
And what I'm interested in in the second half of this chapter is the "how to" of helping students to develop such "remix" abilities....
From our perspective, composition still focuses too heavily on the evaluation of performance—in particular, performance tied to the display of one extremely limited and outdated version of originality. We want to change the goal of writing from performance to action or effect in context. That is, we want to lend some weight to a movement that shifts the terrain of the assignment by shifting our approach to writing instruction and assessment: What if the “final” product a student produces—a text—is not concerned with original words or images on a page or screen but concerned primarily with assemblages of parts? Importantly, in this reconception, the assemblages do not distinguish primarily between which parts are supposed to be original and which have been found and gathered from someplace else; assemblages are interested in what works, what has social effects. The distinction between original and existing fragments in a text is, if not meaningless, at least secondary. In essence, we are arguing for a reorganization that is actually implied if not valued in many rubrics for assessing writing used by teachers who take a social approach: Rhetorical purposes can be addressed in context by either original or borrowed/quoted texts without a hierarchy of distinction between the two. (380)
But what happens if we downplay the value of originality? What if we put the emphasis on problem-solving, originality be damned? (380)
But assemblage as a writing practice in academic courses is only beginning to appear on our collective radar screen despite the fact that remixed artifacts are everywhere, all around us, and not just in popular culture. We want teachers to start seeing assemblages as a valid and valued form of student writing—and of writing in general. (380)
In most cases, the recognition of assemblages (often going under related terms such as “remix,” “collage,” or “boilerplate”) is not represented as a replacement of other methods of writing or designing but as one valid practice among many. Our intent here is not to replace the acts of writing prose by individuals but to augment practices by enriching repertoires with one more equally valued approach. (382) ...the nature of doing assemblage work. (383)
On Templates:
Of course, the template instantiates a design vision that speaks directly to the people who first preview it and then download it. This vision involves a rectilinear grid pattern with conventional navigation bar, an area that emphasizes main content, secondary content areas for different categories of subordinate information, and a column with bordered rows for items that should be delineated in some clearly discernable fashion (the placeholder text displays a chronological organization for old news items). Although the designer did not use browser-safe colors, the color scheme is rather conservative, combining medium-ranged blues and grays into a cool, muted pattern. All of these design elements constitute a starting point for making an assemblage. (384)
Sources on Visual Design:
Bernhardt, Stephen A. (1986). Seeing the text. College Composition and Communication, 37, 66–78.
Wysocki, Anne Frances, & Johnson-Eilola, Johndan. (1999). Blinded by the letter: Literacy as a metaphor for every- thing else? In Gail E. Hawisher & Cynthia L. Selfe (Eds.), Passions, pedagogies, and 21st century technologies (pp. 349–368). Logan, UT: Utah State UP.
Types of Assemblages:
Webpages
To take another close-to-hand example, weblogs (including those driven by remixed templates such as those discussed above) are locations for remixing a wide range of materials: quotations from (words, texts, images both still and moving), links to, and sum- maries of other texts on the Web; updates on books, movies, and music the weblog author is currently reading, viewing, or listening to; commentaries on the weblog author’s experiences; short or even long original essays; and more. For many academics (and others), weblogs are a primary form of writing as assemblage and remix. (388)
Johndan’s weblog, for instance, provides examples of many of those forms of assemblage: template, link, summary, text, image, and original text. (388)
a mix of original and found content from numerous sources. (389)
A traditional approach in composition would create at least two hierarchical levels of value among these materials: The quotations, links, and default elements of the template would be valued less than the original text (original images, personal narrative, and summaries). After all, one might say, the other materials were all pre-existing: Johndan merely found them. (390)
While we could continue to maintain that original composition and remixing lie on different planes of value, the distinction between the two planes or levels seems increasingly difficult to maintain. In part, we provided these examples to respond to the concern that remixing is tantamount to stealing.
That view misses what is really going on, at least in many projects. First, creating assemblages requires the same rhetorical sophistication as any text: One must do much more as a designer than download templates and replace their placeholder items with real content. Second, the designs on which assemblages are based introduce another element into the rhetorical situation, making that situation all the more complex and challenging. Third, those designs themselves often derive from conventional practices that cannot be attributed to a single person or project—practices that, in a very real sense, reside in the public domain, the commons. Fourth, many assemblages make their borrowings explicit or obvious, even trading on their connections to other work. Fifth, and finally, the communities that support assemblage practices encourage exchange and re-appropriation. In fact, some of these communities exist only to sustain remix processes and products. Although there are legal and ethical issues to consider (which we raise in the final section), the context for assemblages is decidedly rhetorical. (391)
the “original” versus “borrowed” hierarchy (399)
We want to argue that quotation and plagiarism continue to be largely connected, in a hierarchy of value with theft at the bottom and art at the top (not withstanding Picasso’s “Good artists borrow; great artists steal,” a maxim often cited but only rarely fully embraced except as a postmodern-ironic rhetorical move). Assemblage remains caught in the middle of this hierarchy, positioned as something slightly better than plagiarism (when properly attributed) but not as valuable as an author’s original text. (399)
The difficulty, for us at least, comes because that honesty is not just honesty for honesty’s sake but framed in the hierarchy we have been discussing: part of a binary arrangement between “original” text and “borrowed” text. Students are told to be honest about making clear the division between the two so that we, as teachers, can more effectively place primary value on the original text in our assessments. (400) But if we take away that hierarchy, we remove the impulse for students to lie about it. If a piece of the assemblage is valued primarily for its function rather than its place in a hierarchy, students are no longer pushed so hard to hide the citations for their sources. In fact, if skills at making assemblages are made the focal point, then teachers would want to put great value on the ability of students to find existing chunks of text they can reuse. Re-inventing the wheel becomes an inefficiency, a misplaced waste of effort. “You borrowed that chunk? Great! Where did you get it from? Maybe I can use it, too.” (400)
In the end, as we see it, this all comes down to a reconfigured notion of “creativity,” one more in line with postmodern work. Creativity is no longer, as we said, re-inventing the wheel, which does not remove creativity but shifts it to the assemblage: Take what already exists and make something else, something that works to solve problems in new, local contexts. Creativity, in this rearticulation, involves extensive research, filtering, recombining, remixing, the making of assemblages that solve problems. Citation is no longer a way of marking subordinate elements in a text to downplay their value in student work but a way to reward students for their new skills, to situate texts not only in pre-existing but new contexts. (400)
Learning to value assemblage and remix as valid practices and products in writing... (400)
Producing original text in the form of an essay or report is only one possible response—not necessarily the best possible response—among many. So while a writing pedagogy might focus on the production of original text in some instances, it might also focus just as productively on assemblage, remix, or collage in the same way. At a broad level, admitting such forms to our pedagogy requires we avoid automatically slotting them into a hierarchy that limits their value in specific situations. (400)
The shift we are suggesting is a pretty simple if powerful one: Stop encouraging students to produce “original” texts all the time. Tell them, at least occasionally, to work on texts that are complete assemblages. (400)
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