goals

Goal #1:  This particular assignment has serves multiple purposes and aims toward multiple goals in my classroom, but in particular it asks students to work toward achieving one of the learning outcomes for the First-Year Writing Program at DePaul University:

Composing in Electronic Environments

As has become clear over the last twenty years, writing in the 21st century involves the use of digital technologies for several purposes, from drafting to peer reviewing to editing. Therefore, although the kinds of composing processes and texts expected from students vary across programs and institutions, there are nonetheless common expectations.

By the end of FYW, students should be able to demonstrate that they can:

--Use electronic environments for drafting, reviewing, revising, editing, and sharing texts

--Locate, evaluate, organize, and use research material collected from electronic sources, including scholarly library databases; other official databases (e.g., federal government databases); and informal electronic networks and internet sources

--Understand and exploit the differences in the rhetorical strategies and in the affordances available for both print and electronic composing processes and texts
--Articulate, for multiple audiences, meaning-making capabilities of textual, graphic, auditory, and video modes

--Compose in multiple modes with intended rhetorical effects and articulate the steps taken to achieve those effects

--Contextualize meaning-making capabilities of multimodality for academic, professional, and community audiences

Goal #2:  Because students are asked from the very start of the process to consider the ways in which both visual elements and features are used together to make meaning, one of the most important goals of this assignment is help students begin to break down the perceived binary of form and content.  In this writing project and in their final ePortfolios, students are tasked with not just peppering their written text with pictures and video, but they are charged with thoughtfully considering the ways in which the rhetorical choices and effects afforded to them as writers in this particular medium.  

Goal #3:  The implicit goal of this assignment is to prepare students to produce complex, multimodal final ePortfolios to showcase their best texts throughout the quarter, present themselves as writers to a digital audience, and provides a space to represent, reflect on, and evaluate their work.  I use this assignment to provide a low-risk opportunity to learn how to customize the arrangement and other visual elements of the program so that students feel confident and prepared to use Digication to prepare their final ePortfolios.