Schedule – Social Media Spring 2010

Week-by-Week Schedule for English 654: Social Media, Spring 2010

January 19: Why are Social Media Relevant to Digital Literacies?

Introduction to course, review of assignments, expectations, contexts.

Guest speaker –  Drew Harry, MIT Media Lab. Topic: Understanding a Massively Multiplayer Game Community (Eve Online)

Initial discussion of Mark Bauerlein’s The Dumbest Generation.

January 26:  The Opposite of Dumb

Due: Finish discussion of Bauerlein.

Due: Stephen Johnson’s Everything Bad is Good For You

Introduce semester research project goals and expectations.

Introduce subject of memes and internet cultures, specifically Julian Dibbell’s work on Anonymous and Scientology. Review Rocketboom’s run-down on the same topic. (Bonus: the Rocketboom narrative video makes an inconspicuous reference to “Over 9000.”)

In-class viewings of current social media; examinations of their cultural models.

February 2: Introduction to the New Literacy Studies and Literacy Myths – Part 1

Due: Tyner, K. (1998). “Pause on literacy fast forward” (pp. 10-24) and “Expanding literacy” (pp. 25-41). In Literacy in a digital world. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates

Due: Arnove, R., and Graff, H.J. (1987). National literacy campaigns. Reprinted in Literacy: A Critical sourcebook (Cushman, Kintgen, Kroll, & Rose, Eds.). 2001: pp. 591-615.

In-class viewings of current social media; examinations of their cultural models.

February 9: Introduction to the New Literacy Studies and Literacy Myths – Part 2

Due: Your selection of online fan/participant community. Be prepared to introduce us to this community and explain why you chose it, what’s interesting about it, what you hope to discover, and what you’ve learned thus far.

Due: Gee, J.P. (1995). Literacy, discourse, and linguistics and Introduction: What is literacy? In Literacy: A Critical sourcebook (Cushman, Kintgen, Kroll, & Rose, Eds.). 2001: pp. 525-544.

Due: Brandt, D. (1990). Literacy as involvement: The Acts of writers, readers, and texts. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. pp. 13-32.

Due: Duranti, A. (1997). Linguistic anthropology. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. pp. 1-50 (“The Scope of Linguistic Anthropology” and “Theories of Culture.”)

February 16: Studying Language and Fan Cultures

Due: Gray, J. (2009). Why Study Fans?

Due: Black, R.W. (2009). Online fanfiction, global identities, and imagination. Research in the Teaching of English 43(4), pp. 397-425.

Due: Steinkuehler, C. (2006). Massively multiplayer videogaming as participation in a discourse. Mind, Culture and Activity 13(1), pp. 38-52.

February 23: Digital Literacies

Due: Digital Literacies: Concepts, Policies and Practices (Colin Lankshear and Michele Knobel, eds.) Read the introduction, chapter 1, chapter 4, and chapter 11. (Lankshear & Knobel; David Bawden; David Buckingham, L&K again.)

March 2: Digital Literacies (continued)

Due: Digital Literacies: Concepts, Policies and Practices (Colin Lankshear and Michele Knobel, eds.) Read the introduction, chapter 1, chapter 4, and chapter 11. (Lankshear & Knobel; David Bawden; David Buckingham, L&K again.)

March 9: Class Canceled

March 16: Spring Break.

March 23: Annotated Bibliographies Due. Intro to Remix culture and copyright.

Due: Be prepared to talk in detail about your community and project. Watch: Lessig, L. (2007, March). How creativity is being strangled by the law. TED Talk http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strangling_creativity.html

March 30: Copyright and The Commons

Due:

Hardin, G. (1968). The Tragedy of the commons. Science 162(3859), pp. 1243-1248. Retrieved January 14, 2009 from http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/162/3859/1243

Rosforth (2007). Good copy bad copy: A documentary about the current state of copyright and culture. Retrieved January 14, 2009 from http://www.goodcopybadcopy.net

Wikipedia entry on “The Tragedy of the Commons.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

Wesch, M. The Machine is us-ing us (final version). http://www.youtube.com/user/mwesch

Hess, C. and Ostrom, E. (2006). An overview of the knowledge commons. In Understanding Knowledge as a Commons (Hess, C. and Ostrom E., eds.), pp. 3-26. http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11012&mode=toc

April 6: Qualitative Research on Digital Literacies: Guests Betty Hayes & Jayne Lammers – http://simsavvy.asu.edu/

Due:

Denzin, N. and Lincoln, Y. (2000). Introduction: The discipline and practice of qualitative research. In Handbook of Qualitative Research (N. Denzin and Y. Lincoln, eds.), 2nd ed., pp. 1-32. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage USA.

Gee, J.P. and Hayes, E. (2010). Passionate Affinity Groups: A New Form of Community that Works to Make People Smarter. In Women and gaming: The Sims and 21st century learning. pp. 105-124. New York: Palgrave.