This semester, I want to encourage a robust, inclusive, and deliberative sense of community through the course blogs. When done well, this aspect of the course should hardly feel like work–more like a permeable extension of the course that trickles seamlessly into your world outside this course. In some ways, blurring the boundaries between “work” and “life” is what a genuine belief in the value of the civic is designed to accomplish; in the ideal scenario, this course doesn’t begin and end at the classroom door, but occupies a certain amount of your intellectual space even on days we don’t meet.
Being a great commenter has five major criteria:
- Posting robust and helpful feedback on specific individuals’ work in progress
- Posting timely and thoughtful questions and commentary on your group members’ civic issue posts
- Posting energetic and encouraging support on your favorite passion blog posts
- Responding promptly and directly to others’ comments on your own blog posts
- Acting as a sort of civic missionary, spreading the good news of posts and arguments and circulating information so more people have access to it. You don’t have to agree with everything you circulate; sometimes you re-post something or want to talk about it because it’s important, because you think it’s worth debating, or precisely because you have major questions to ask about it.
You’ll notice, from the criteria above, that being a great commenter involves three major activities: “commenting,” “responding,” and what I might call “promoting.” The first two tasks are fairly self-explanatory and should feel continuous with what we’ve already been doing since August. I’ve included the fourth criteria, about responding to others’ comments on your work, as a reminder to be courteous and continue ongoing conversations with people kind enough and responsive enough to address your work seriously. The fifth criteria, promoting/circulating/evangelizing, will involve using Twitter to circulate our blog posts both inside and outside the space of the classroom (and the space of our individual section, as at least one other RCL class is using Twitter extensively this semester).
This is what gets called a “pedagogical experiment”—although I’ve used Twitter in most of my literature classes as an alternative means of participation, this is the first time I’ve tried to work it into a rhetoric/composition class. But I want to take the possibilities of Twitter seriously as a type of deliberative and civic public space, as I think it has enormous potential as such, and I know it’s been of huge intellectual benefit to me over the years. (You may think Twitter is entirely made up of Justin Bieber fans, Ashton Kutcher, and mundane posts about what someone’s cat ate for breakfast, but there’s absolutely nothing inherent to the medium to limit it to that—and indeed, if you’re looking in the right places, Twitter is an incredibly productive space for all sorts of smart people and communities.)
You have three options with regard to Twitter.
- If you already have a Twitter account and want to use it for this course, follow me on Twitter (@noendofneon) and I’ll follow you back. Repeat the process with other students in class. Use your Twitter before, during, and after class to link to blog posts you like, carry on conversations about your blogs with people outside the course, and even shine a little light on the space of the classroom itself for those who might be curious. That is to say, feel free to have your phones or laptops out and live tweet during class, using the hashtag #RCL1314. (This hashtag gets curated at the overarching RCL course site. I strongly advise checking out two posts by Penn State College of the Liberal Arts Dean Chris Long, on one particular experience of his and a broader reflection on live tweeting.)
- If you are uncomfortable using your regular Twitter account for this course (you don’t need to tell me why), create a new “burner” account for the purpose of this class. Follow, get followed, tweet, live tweet, circulate content, etc.
- If you are uncomfortable using the medium of Twitter for this course for political, ethical, social, and/or technological reasons, this requirement can be waived. I respect those individuals who believe they have valid reasons not to use this technology. However, in order to receive a waiver from this aspect of the course, you will need to do three things (roughly equivalent to the amount of work I believe I am asking the tweeters to do). First, you are asked to write a well-written, three-page personal narrative that constructs an argument why you do not want to (and perhaps should not have to) use Twitter in this course. Feel free to draw from other sources in your account. Second, during the course of our semester together, reflect on the reasons why you chose not to tweet and how the experience of the course changes, modifies, or reinforces your motivations. If you can stomach it, it may be worth checking in on the course hashtag (which you can do without a Twitter account) to see what’s gone on there, so that you have something to compare your experience to. Third, write a three-page reflection essay on that process and how your beliefs changed/didn’t change/etc., due April 18.
If you decide to adopt Twitter during the course of the semester, you should begin tweeting by February 7th. I’m excited to try this out, especially given this semester’s focus on the possibilities of different kinds of deliberative spaces—and I hope it goes well!