Conversations with Myself: Thoughts on Digital Rhetoric

I noticed that Troy Hicks shared an interesting video of his children talking about how they use technology to write, as part of his post for a blog carnival on the topic of ‘What does digital rhetoric mean to me?” over at the Digital Rhetoric Collaborative.

Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. (from Wikipedia)

So, given this kind of definition, I guess we might consider what makes digital writing unique in this regard. Like Troy, I decided that this kind of exploration of digital rhetoric should come in the form of a digital piece of writing, so I created this Digital Poster with some of my ideas (around fluidity of writing, connectiveness of ideas, and impact of multimedia). What was interesting is that I first created a short video for the poster, and then realized that I had some counter-points to make. So, like some version of Andy Rooney, I created a second video that took issue with the first video — as a sort of conversation with myself. Finally, I added a third video pulling together those strands and acknowledging that all of these ideas are still in flux. Which is what makes it so interesting to be a writer and a teacher of writing in the midst of all this change.

View the Digital Poster at Glogster (where the videos are a bit easier to see) or see the embedded version below:

 


Peace (amidst all the chatter),
Kevin

 

2 Comments
  1. Kevin, you continue to amaze me with your critical and creative thinking!

    The design of this Glogster as an argumentative/informational text is great in and of itself, yet I am most intrigued by your point related to getting our students engaged in creating digital writing.

    Yes, anyone can take an existing video from YouTube and embed it in their Glog, but how many students begin by making their own video and then using it like you did?

    This is really important thinking, and I appreciate your creative approach to sharing it with us.

  2. Pingback: Digital Rhetoric « Becca's Blog

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