Note: This Web site contains important information about the policies of this course. You should read and understand the information posted here. If you are not clear about any aspect of the course, its requirements, activities, or method of evaluation, please let me know. Students who remain in the class after the 12th class day (October 10) are assumed to accept these policies.
Unique Number: 28000
Time and Place: Tuesday/Thursday 12:30-2:00, Parlin 102
Instructor: Dr. M. A. Syverson
Office: Parlin 124
Office hours: Tuesday 9-10:30, Friday 1:30-3
Phone: 471-8734
email: syverson@uts.cc.utexas.edu
Important Links
New technologies for composition and communication have produced fundamental changes in many aspects of our culture, including mass media, the workplace, and recreation and entertainment. These changes are both reflected and constructed in online environments, in everyday conversations, and in the world beyond computers and their networks. This course represents an inquiry into the dynamics of those changes and an exploration into the technologies that are shaping the new ways that people write, think, work, play, and communicate with each other.
E309M is a composition course about writing in the computer age. our concept of "writing" in these environments is expanded to include
engaging in real-time written conversations with people who might be in the same room or thousands of miles away
creating documents that include not only text but graphics, sound, and video
building "webs" and "hypertexts" quite different from conventional print formats
creating text-based "spaces" in which we can interact with other people in fictional settings
We will explore, practice, and analyze, through readings and regular writing activities, different forms of "electronic discourse" made possible by the computer revolution: hypertext, electronic mail, real-time conferencing, newsgroups, MUDs and MOOs, multimedia, and the WorldWide Web.
We meet in the Rhetoric Division's computer classroom in Parlin 102. Many assignments will also require access to a computer outside of class. The hypertext reader, This is Not a Textbook, is available only in the DRC classrooms (Parlin 102 and FAC 10) and the Multimedia Lab in Parlin 6. Othe work may require the use of the computers in the DRC classrooms, in the Student Microcomputer Facility (FAC 212) or elsewhere.
Questions? Email Peg Syverson: syverson@uts.cc.utexas.edu