Reading Notes: L’hypertext et Latour d’ANT (part 1)

Finding common ground in this week’s disparate readings was difficult. More precisely, Latour’s introduction to actor-network-theory (ANT) had almost nothing to do with reading from Joyce and Johnson-Eilola, other than the fact that hypertext as object might be an instantiated mediator within a collective. More precisely, the hypertext itself may function as a trace of…
Read more

Theory Application Rubric: A Class Construction

railings at water looking like rubric checkmarks

This rubric really is a social construct: class members collaborated (with a great deal of momentum generated by Maury’s contributions) on the beginnings of our rubric. While each of us likely added or removed bits of the collaborative work to personalize the rubric, I’m proud to be part of this socially constructed, class-sourced rubric development…
Read more

Mindmap #6: Getting a Little CHATty

rock layers - photo

In this week’s mindmap I found myself struggling to remember where things were to which I wanted to connect CHAT. I added a node for Prior et al. (representing the core text and the various operational representations included in the Kairos Remediating the Canons topic) and for CHAT, with its three basic areas of focus: literate activity…
Read more

Reading Notes: Theorizing a CHATty Canon

map of Apollo 11 trajectory

Cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) opens wide the theory of composition to the laminated materiality, space, and time of rhetoric, elements missing from the classical rhetorical canon that focuses primarily on the rhetor. “CHAT offers a richer map of activity. Where the classical canons mapped the situational, productive acts of a rhetor, this CHAT map points…
Read more

Mindmap #5: Operationalizing Theories

lego assembly line vizualization

In this week’s mindmap, I started thinking about big-picture issues, like operationalization and agency. Theorized vs. Operationalized In terms of operationalization, I added nodes for Theorized and Operationalized, relating to each of the theories we’ve discussed to date. I found Hardware/Network descriptions matched Genre Tracing as operationalized, while the other theories were, as the name…
Read more

Applying Foucault’s Archaeology of Knowledge to Google Analytics

street sign photo: rue foucault

 Introduction: A Brief Overview of Google Analytics Google Analytics consists of two main components: Google-programmed Javascript code embedded on each page within a website “which collects and sends visitor activity to your Google Analytics account” (“How Analytics Impacts,” 2014) and the reporting mechanism connected to the Javascript code where visitor activity is collected and displayed…
Read more

Reading Notes: A New Spinuzzi on Genre

Apple computer form factors - image

Summary This is a book about operationalizing understandings of genre. Spinuzzi is interested in practical, user-friendly applications of genre theory and activity theory in professional contexts. He introduces genre tracing as a methodology “for studying these ephemeral, invisible, ubiquitous innovations” (p. x) — workplace innovations, practical solutions to work-a-day problems that arise in an organization….
Read more

Mindmap #4: Drawing Some Genre Lines

This week, like others in the class, I felt a need to add a little more structure to my mindmap. In response, I added a color key in the top left that codes each popple according its function in the map or relation to theorists. I identified two functions, marked in black and blue (without…
Read more

Response to Annotated Bibliographies: So Now I’m a Node

Mindmap visualization

I responded to Maury’s annotated bibliography of VanKooten’s “Toward a Rhetorically Sensitive Assessment Model for New Media Composition,” and I also responded to Amy’s annotated bibliography of Bourelle’s et al. “Assessing Learning in Redesigned Online First-year Composition Courses.” I appreciated Maury’s conclusion that the model VanKooten offers is plausible because I trust her academic, pedagogical, and…
Read more