*Pre-requisite: Successful Completion of one of the following with a C or better: WRTG 104, WRTG 105, WRTG 105B, WRTG 105E
M/W 2:00-3:15
Why take this course?
- You want to understand how the tools we use affect our thoughts and lives
- You want to understand digital technology and “why things are the way they are” by understanding where we’ve been
- You want to use the other side of your brain, too, to play, explore, and be creative
Key opportunities/skills you’ll gain
- Unique opportunities to work hands-on with analog technologies from ranging literal quill feathers, setting a printing press, to typewriters
- Critical thinking (especially about impacts of technology)
- Media literacy
Full course description
Technology involves the development of a tool to solve a problem. In this way, writing itself can be seen a technology to aid memory, thinking, and communication. Since the invention of writing, other newer technologies have further changed how we write and how we think. Each new technology offers us a range of options that are more or less effective depending on our audience and purpose. This course will explore some of the many writing technologies that have come (and gone!) over the history of writing, from clay tablets to Snapchat. The class will take a hands-on approach and allow us opportunities to experiment with writing technologies to get a better sense of how technologies affect what we think, what we communicate, and what we think we can communicate. Students will propose individual research projects on a writing technology of their choice, which may involve some combination of original composition, scholarly research, and ethnographic study.