First Readings, TIRP#1, and Guiding Questions

Dear All,

Next week's readings are accessible in our Canvas Course Library (CL) so please "accept" the invitation you received as soon as you are able. If you have not yet received an invitation via e-mail, please let me know ASAP!

You'll see that I have included a brief introduction at the beginning of Plato's Phaedrus, for those who are unfamiliar with the context of his dialogue. Feel free to skim that.

One reading is available via weblink: the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) Animate series lecture on "Changing Paradigms." (I do apologize for mis-titling it as "Education" on our syllabus).

As you have probably noticed, TIRP Assignment #1 is posted.

Here are some guiding questions for our discussion next week--questions that often accompany "origin" stories of writing, and questions you'll likely see reflected in the readings:

• What is writing and where does it begin?
• Who owns it, and how should it be taught and learned (in light of its evolving nature and context)?
• What can be taught, and who can learn it?
• Whom does it serve?

Feel free to write those in on your syllabus; I'll offer some inclusive topics and key terms when we meet on Wednesday.

Many thanks,
-Prof. Graban

Welcome to ENC 4500

Dear All,

Welcome to the course blog powering "Theories of Composition" this semester. As of this moment, the blog is only partially built, but you'll begin to see it populated with weekly preparation and assignment details within the next few days. Check in often.

Given the odd scheduling of our section, Wednesday's class session represents the full first week of instruction! That said, after I spend some time introducing the course, we will get started almost right away with some discussion and an activity. It won't be too mentally taxing for your first week, but it will go better if you can read and prepare a few notes ahead of time on the following:

• Lynn Lewis's "Introduction: The Trope of Crisis" in a newly released web-book called Strategic Discourses: The Politics of (New) Literacy Crises (found at http://ccdigitalpress.org/strategic/) AND 
• any 1 of the 7 other chapters (or webtexts) in her book.

The chapters are multimodal, so please give yourself some time to navigate your chosen chapter, explore it, and figure it out. When we meet for our first class discussion, I will ask you to talk a little bit about how the chapter you chose to read embodies, enacts, complicates, or disrupts the "literacy" concerns that Lewis wrote about in her introduction. You'll want to pay attention to content/argument as well as mode/form in thinking this through.

Don't be afraid. Enjoy it, jump right in, and you'll do just fine.

I look forward to meeting you next Wednesday,
-Professor Graban