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Unit Three: Self-ReflectionIn the third unit for this course, we will read about the ways in which individual users’ experiences are mediated by various textual forms. While social media is designed to promote user-to-user interaction, the codes and algorithms that make up these sites are not neutral: they are created by people with their own biases and inclinations meaning that only certain kinds of user-to-user interactions are encouraged. As we read texts from folks with a variety of perspectives on media engagement and interaction, you will reflect on and analyze your own experiences with media.Each unit in this course is constructed around a core set of texts. My use of the word “text” is broad: for our purposes, a text can be an article, a video, a podcast, a comic, or any number of forms. Our core texts for the third unit are as follows:Joy Buolamwini: “How I’m Fighting Bias in Algorithms”Contrapoints: “Incels”Blake Culley: “What It’s Like Growing Up Transgender and Deaf”Lindsay Ellis: “YouTube: Manufacturing Authenticity (For Fun and Profit!)”Emojipedia: “Google’s Three Gender Emoji Future”Amanda Hess and Quoctrung Bui: “What Love and Sadness Look Like in 5 Countries, According to Their Top GIFs”Lauren Michele Jackson: “We Need to Talk about Digital Blackface in Reaction GIFs”LifeLock: “What’s Your Digital Identity?”Memoir Mixtapes Vol. 4: AnthemsZara Rahman: “The Problem with Emoji Skin Tones that No One Talks About”Janelle Shane: “This Neural Net Hallucinates Sheep”The reading schedule for these texts is included in the course syllabus. Since informed discussion is critical to the success of this course, you should come to class each day having read and taken notes on the assigned text in order to properly contribute to class discussion. Building from these readings and in-class discussions, you will:develop an understanding of media engagement, including mediated communication, representation of identity in and across media, and the complex relationships between ideology and media;compose texts that engage with various writers’ conceptions of media engagement and the arguments they make regarding the relationship between self and mediated self;practice self-reflection and analysis of your own engagement with various media.This unit is worth 20 points and thus accounts for 20% of your final grade in this course. In order to earn those 20 points, you have a few different options:Unit Plan & Reflection: 5 points (required)The required portion of your points for this unit (and for all subsequent units) is a Unit Plan and Reflection. The Unit Plan is a short (100 - 200 words) description of how you plan to complete your points for the unit and a rationale explaining why you have chosen the particular activities that you have. A rough draft of this document is due early in the unit to indicate that you are making progress on your plan; a revised draft of this document is due later in the unit to account for any major changes to your plan; the final draft of this document is due by the end of the unit.The Reflection is a slightly longer piece (300 - 500 words) in which you reflect on what you have learned in this unit by addressing at least three of the texts that you read/watched/listened to as part of the unit, by describing the work you did in order to fulfill your points for the unit, and by discussing how the texts and work you did as part of the unit contributed to you fulfilling the unit learning outcomes (see above).Blog or Journal Entry: 5 points (limit 2)Blog or Journal Entries are written responses (predominantly linguistic) to course content. Depending on whether you’ve chosen to set up a course blog or to use the private journal function on Compass, how you submit this writing will change, but the requirements for these responses are the same. The response (500 – 700 words) must: 1) engage with the ideas, theories, and concepts introduced in the texts associated with this unit; 2) apply these ideas, theories, and concepts to additional multimodal text that you find yourself (minimum 1 outside source); and 3) develop an analysis of this outside multimodal text, using the required unit texts OR an outside text on similar subject matter (minimum 2 sources [required and/or outside]) as an analytical lens. While this written response should be mostly linguistic in nature (hence the word count requirement), like your other Blog or Journal Entries for participation points, you should take into consideration the affordances of the textual form and incorporate other modes of communication (e.g. GIFs, videos, music, etc.) as appropriate.Mini-Project: 5 points (limit 2)A Mini-Project is any short multimodal composition and accompanying rationale that engages with the ideas, theories, and concepts introduced in the texts associated with this unit. Depending on the form your multimodal composition takes (e.g. podcast, video, zine, etc.), the definition of “short” may shift, but the minimum length for the rationale remains the same (500 – 700 words). The rationale is a linguistic-driven text in which you 1) describe your thought process in creating the project, 2) detail the choices you made in composing the piece, and 3) justify your choices using support from the course readings OR outside texts on similar subject matter (minimum 2 sources). Major Project: 10 points (limit 1)A Major Project is a more extensive multimodal composition and accompanying rationale that engages with the ideas, theories, and concepts introduced in the texts associated with this unit. Depending on the form your multimodal composition takes (e.g. podcast, video, zine, etc.), the definition of “extensive” may shift, but the minimum length for the rationale remains the same (750 - 1000 words). The rationale is a linguistic-driven text in which you 1) describe your thought process in creating the project, 2) detail the choices you made in composing the piece, and 3) justify your choices using support from the course readings OR outside texts on similar subject matter (minimum 4 sources).Deadlines:You can turn in your completed Blog or Journal Entries, Mini-Projects, Major Project, and accompanying rationales at any point over the course of this unit, though I recommend waiting until after the in-class workshop day on Thursday 11/14 to do so. The deadlines associated with this unit are as follows:Rough Draft of Unit Three Plan DUE to class Drive folder (by 11:59pm on Thursday 10/24)Revised Draft of Unit Three Plan and in-progress Writing & Projects DUE in class for workshop (Thursday 11/7)All in-progress Writing & Projects DUE in class for workshop (Thursday 11/14)All Unit Three work DUE to class Drive folder (by 11:59pm on Saturday 11/16) ................
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