Multimedia Writing at Purdue University:
From the Purdue English Department Website: “Multimedia writing for networked contexts. Emphasizes principles, and practices of multimedia design, implementation, and publishing. Typical genres include Web sites, interactive media, digital video, visual presentations, visual argument, and user documentation.”
Course Design:
Instructors of ENGL 419 are encouraged to contextualize the course around their research interests, areas of expertise, and diverse genre options. In designing the course, I focused on my interest in archival practice and digital rhetorics to create three units to guide students through different iterations of curation, archiving, and multimedia composition. For samples of these unit assignments and the course structure, see below. I taught this course in the Spring and Fall of 2019 and will be teaching a section in the Fall of 2020.
Course Description (Spring 2019, Fall 2019, In-Person):
From the syllabus (available below): This class focuses on multimedia writing through the lens of archiving and curatorial practices. Students will be engaging in various genres that provide a chance to explore the complex rhetorical systems that surround the multimodal and multimedia forms of writing found in the analysis, preservation, and creation of archives, both personal and general.
This class explores both the material and digital archives available in the 21st century, as well as touching on the materiality of data and storage, social media use and presentation, and professional ethos. Starting with the individual and moving outwards, this course provides the opportunity to unpack personal archival and curatorial practices and then broaden the scope of that practice to analyze and eventually create archives on a broader scale. The course also considers questions of the rhetoric of creating and preserving data in archives, the ethics of data storage and distribution, and the complex intersections of curation, access, and memory.
Syllabus and Calendar for Fall of 2019: docx | PDF
Syllabus for Spring of 2019: docx | PDF
Unit 1 Assignments:
Unit 2 Assignments:
- Her Story Interface Analysis: docx | PDF
- Existing Archive Analysis: docx | PDF
- Archive Wiki: docx | PDF
Unit 3 Assignments:
- Archive Project Proposal: docx | PDF
- Archive Project White Paper: docx | PDF
- Final Archive Project: docx | PDF
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Course Description (Fall 2020, Asynchronous Online Design):
This course is focused around the core definition of the term Multimedia, and the near infinite applications of it across different genres, systems, and expressions of creative and analytical processes. To write in a multimedia context means composing, drafting, and revising across genres, spaces, and places, and this course will give you the opportunity to explore those multimodal contexts in a self-determined but guided series of exercises and assignments that take a leaf out of the concept of a Choose Your Own Adventure game. Multimedia Writing is flexible and adaptive by nature, and so too is this course. You will be presented with all the tools you need to determine your path through what it means to engage with Multimedia contexts, and in doing so will gain valuable experience in project management, analysis, and design across multiple forms of writing, media, and composition.
Syllabus and Calendar for Fall 2020: docx| PDF
Project 1 Assignments:
- Project Overview and Options: docx | PDF
- Project Concept Assignment: docx | PDF
- Project Rubric: docx | PDF
Project 2 Assignments:
Project 3 Assignments:
Final Portfolio Assignment:
Other Assignments:
All assignment sheets and syllabus content are mine unless otherwise noted. Please do not adapt or reproduce without credit/permission.
Lee W. Hibbard, Ph.D. 