This course takes up the technologies and issues of the open-source movement to explore and research contemporary contexts for technical writing. In the early portion of the semester, we will consider the impact of open source on the evolving scene of writing in the workplace, and in our daily lives, as well. So, for starters, we'll ask questions like:

What is a wiki? What does does a wiki do?

What is the role of technical communication practice now, and how will it

change in the future, as it adapts to distributed work?

What are the political and ethical response-abilities incumbent upon technical writers?

What roles will open source technology play in an economic climate in which knowledge, expertise, and intelligence are widely distributed? What does software documentation look like when users consult Google as on oracle, and routinely google (verb form) context-specific questions?

What case studies can be used to illustrate the role/implications/effects of the open source movement on technical writing/communication?

These questions and other heuristics will spur collective consideration, research, discussion, and writing which will create a framework for the middle portion of the semester. Here, we will evaluate the readability and accessibility of technical writing and case studies in technical writing. Our critiques and solution strategies will produce project proposals.

Each student will lead a project and serve as a secondary investigator on at least 2 peer projects. Each project will yield multimedia technical writing solutions that educate, inform, and make a difference. Read on for more details regarding course policy, expectations and responsibilities.

Bare-minimums

*For the duration of the course, you will perform at least three significant writing actions per week to this wiki, and link your writing to your "home" page, which you will link to your section's class roster page. In other words, we will blog. This means you will need regular and reliable internet access. More than three unexcused absences will result in a failing grade.

*as important as it is to blog 3 times weekly, it's even more important to interact. If you arrive on time prepared to discuss your writing and the writing of your peers, you're on the path.

*Prepare to collaborate openly and effectively with your peers.

*Complete a proposal and a semester project DueDates in a timely fashion. Late work depreciates one full letter grade per day!

*Open a tab for this wiki in your browser whenever you are online. Monitor our RecentChanges and the RSS feeds on the MetaWiki, Check the Course Calendar, read and respond to your peers' wiki posts, create links...in other words, keep "tuning up" regularly and you'll stay in tune with weekly assignment prompts.

Prosody Workshops, Peer-Review, and Response-able Participation

We will dedicate a large portion of each class meeting to reading our writing aloud, making presentations based on our readings, and workshopping our writing as it happens. Because our course is premised on the idea that ideas and revisions emerge by means of frequent and dynamic exchanges, students will be expected to visit our recent changes page and revise pages in common, daily. In-class participation will depend on staying in tune with our wiki's activity during the week, by reading and responding to each others' writing. Although daily blogs, responses to peer blogging, and early versions of working drafts need not be “polished,” our early-and-often uploads should address the prompts and issues of the week, as well as address and solicit feedback from your peers. Under no circumstances will I accept a “final” version of a major assignment, proposal, or final project unless I have seen a regular rhetorical process. Students show up to class on the day an important draft is due without having posted draft work by midnight the night class will forfeit all possible participation points for that week.

Attendance, Participation/Assignments, and Grades

Attendance in this course is required. While it is understood that emergencies / University-sanctioned activities may arise which result in your missing one or more classes, frequent absences will negatively affect your final grade. As a rule, one or two absences will have little impact on your final grade, assuming you participate enthusiastically when you are in class and realize you are responsible for all material covered during the missed class(es). In the event that your prepared attendance, or lack thereof, becomes a problem, I will ask you to meet with me to discuss our options. These options may include a failing grade or a lower grade than you might have earned had you attended classes regularly. In short: show up prepared to talk and write about the wiki's RecentChanges.

Participation--For both sections: timely and thrice weekly wiki posts during the first 10 weeks of the course will account for 100 points, or 33 and 1/3% of your final grade.

Unit assignments, listed below and on the course calendar, will tally another 33 and 1/3%, and FinalProjects will fill out the scale.

To this end we invented variety in many forms unit assignment options

final project: 100 points

Grades: we will rigorously pursue an evaluation process known as peer-grading. Response-able and consistent interaction in wiki will help us create rubrics for each assignment, and each student will do an evaluation of each group assignment. This "swarm" approach will ensure a steady and ample rate of useful and ongoing feedback on our projects. The instructor will in turn grade the rationales detailing and justifying each evaluation, and will also, where necessary and at his discretion, override any "off-the-mark" peer-assigned grades.

GradingStandards: these standards will help us produce accurate, consistent, and rhetorically-informed assessments.

Information Management

Please back up everything you write for this course. You should either write your wiki posts in a word processor and save before posting. Or, if you like the feel of writing directly in wiki, cut and paste your work to an open word processing window, saving a back-up version in this way as you proceed. Information technologies carry a trace of instability, so it is always good to have redundancy in your writing process: make copies and put them in different places!

Freedom of Speech and Cognitive Liberty

As you will see, classrooms and wikis are both spaces devoted to free inquiry.

This is a rhetorical space, one where composers are response-able to each other: they think and write in response to each other, and not to a preconceived notion of each other. Assume the best in those you study with and be generous with your respect, and you will teach them to respond in kind.

The First Amendment of The United States Constitution

Religious observance absence policy

Students who find a meeting time in conflict with a major religious observance must provide notice of the date(s) to the instructor, in writing, by the second class meeting.

Disability access policy

In my capacity as instructor, I will do everything I can to make fully available the educational resources we use and create in ENC 1101. Any student with a disability should be encouraged to meet with the instructor privately during the first week of class to discuss accommodations. Each student must bring a current Memorandum of Accommodations from the Office of Student Disability.

Basic Requirements

weekly: analysis, informal writing, and 280 user-testing/faq-ing

four unit assignments

1 leadership on a final project + secondary investigator participation in at least 2 final projects