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This class is about composition, rhetoric, civic engagement, and new media. Throughout the semester, you will compose "texts" using a range of available technologies and media (from alphabetic texts on the page to multimodal compositions on the web, among others). You will write/compose in a variety of genres and for a variety of audiences and purposes. As composition, rhetoric and digital media scholars Cynthia Selfe and Pamela Takayoshi put it, “[i]n an increasingly technological world, students need to be experienced and skilled not only in reading (consuming) texts employing multiple modalities, but also in //composing// in multiple modalities, if they hope to communicate successfully within the digital communication networks that characterize workplaces, schools, civic life, and span traditional cultural, national, and geopolitical borders” (//Multimodal Composition//, 3). We will use this wiki to both **publish** your multimodal pieces, and to work through the **collaborative process** of developing ideas for larger multimodal pieces. ** In his book //Soul of a Citizen//, writer and activist Paul Rogat Loeb maintains that the personal story has the power to "provide the organic connection that binds one person to another" (119), a crucial element in building community. ** Telling our stories and reflecting on our lives, he says, can "help us connect with the stories of others, and with a larger narrative of being" (148). So, in this class, we begin the semester by exploring personal beliefs and telling stories that inform those beliefs in a This I Believe audio essay. ** Click on the page names in the left column to read and listen to each student's essay. **


 * Click on the page names in the left column to read and listen to each student's essay. **

By classtime **Monday 2/15**, ** post your own idea or two for the project on the wiki ** (or express support/agreement for an idea, or clarify/elaborate on one of the ideas). To do this, click on the CWA Campaign Project link on the left column on the wiki, then select Edit on the top right part of the page. (Remember: You must be signed in to be able to edit a page!)
 * STUDENTS: **
 * We will use the wiki as a space to brainstorm ideas for the CWA media campaign project. **

It is up to you how you choose to format your wiki posts; for example, you might want to change the color of the font to indicate that you added a change. Also, you are free to create a new page on the wiki if you want to start a page for a specific project. (For example: say you know that you want to work on a print campaign project. You could add a page called "Print Campaign" and type your ideas there. Then, anyone else who wants to work on the print campaign can contribute to that wiki page.)

And finally -- and this is optional but useful -- post links to any images, websites, videos, etc that inspire you or give you ideas for this project.