Dr. Shannon Carter presents to Commerce faculty

Dr. Shannon Carter

Department of Literature & Languages

Faculty Center Advisory Committee member

presents

Writers and Their Tools: How to Help College Writers Select the Best Technology for the Job

Monday, September 29, 2014

3:30 – 4:30 p.m.

CFEI Conference Room (AGIT 222)

Description:     From cave paintings to clay tablets and typewriters to new media, technological advances are constantly changing the way writers write. Today, students have so many choices as writers they often don’t know where to begin. The purpose of this workshop is to help our writing students think more strategically about the “affordances” (Cynthia Selfe) of various technologies in order to choose the best ones available for the job. In this hands-on workshop, participants will explore various roles played by a writer’s tools by experimenting with materials rarely associated with writers and readers in academic contexts: clay. We’ll begin with a brief discussion of the important ways new technologies have affected the way writers write throughout time. How did writers approach a writing task when the only tools available were clay tablets? How about later as paper became more cheaply and widely available? How did the invention of the typewriter change things, not to mention the pencil, ballpoint pins, correction tape, White Out? Together we will experiment with a variety rhetorical situations and a range of likely unfamiliar tools (including clay!), then discuss their impact on the resulting composition and the composing process itself. In addition to experiencing this classroom activity, participants with come away from the workshop with teaching notes for this activity, including a sample handout for students.

For more information, refer to Dr. Shannon Carter’s Faculty Profile at http://www.tamuc.edu/aboutus/administrativeOffices/committeesAndCouncils/facultySenate/facultyProfiles/shannonCarter.aspx