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Writing 270, Composing the Internship Experience: Digital Rhetoric and Social Media Discourse (ALP, W)

Writing 270, Composing the Internship Experience: Digital Rhetoric and Social Media Discourse (ALP, W) 

Online Asynchronous in Summer 2022.

Are you planning to participate in an internship or work experience this summer? Do you want to strengthen your facility with social media in professional contexts?

Join this online asynchrohttps://careerhub.students.duke.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/128/2022/02/writing-270-flyer-2022.pdfnous course from wherever you are this summer. In Writing 270: Composing the Internship Experience (ALP, W), you will have the opportunity to reflect meaningfully on and narrate your internship/work experiences using digital rhetoric and social media.

See DukeHub for sections and dates. For more information about Writing 270, please read the information below, view the video course description and/or visit Dukehub. To request a permission number, please contact Jessica Corey in the Thompson Writing Program.

 

General information and FAQs about Writing 270 (Summer 2022):

Course Description:

Students will have the opportunity to meaningfully reflect on and productively narrate internship or other work-related experiences using digital rhetoric and social media. Topics and readings include theoretical perspectives on social media, composing in digital platforms, and examining audience, purpose, and context in the public sphere. Students will apply course concepts to internship/work experience to produce the following four social media writing projects: 1) a semester-long blog about the work experience/internship (at least 500 words each/6-8 total entries); 2) microblogging analysis and strategy development for a platform such as Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat; 3) a digital story about your internship/work experience using a platform such as iMovie, Spotify, or Toon Doo; and 4) a digital-based project of your own choosing and related to your internship/work experience, such as a website, a vox-pop, a Ted-like talk, a podcast, infographics, etc.). Students will participate in an extensive cycle of drafting, feedback, and revision for each writing project, including feedback from both instructor and peers. ALP, W

Dates of Writing 270 (2022): Although the course is technically a Term I course, it actually runs in two different configurations, 8 weeks or 14 weeks, depending on which version you take. Both versions offer full course credit, and adjust weekly workload according to length of term. All sections follow essentially the same syllabus, though distributed differently across length of course:

  • 8-Week Version:Writing 270, Section 1, May 23-July 18, 2022 (Professor TBD)
  • 14-Week Version:Writing 270, Section 2, May 11-August 26, 2022 (Professor Denise Comer)

Note: Some final assignments may be due a day or two after the end date of the class.

How to choose between the 8-week version or the 14-week version:

Students choose between the 8-week or 14-week versions of Wr 270 by thinking about workload and overall summer plans. It’s the same course, but the 8-week version is more compacted, so the expected workload each week is higher (see below) since it only spans 8 weeks. Some students, though, don’t mind the 8-week heavier workload because they would prefer not to take a 14-week course over the summer if they have other plans or want to have some weeks without a class. Internship dates do not need to corollate perfectly with the dates of the course.

FAQ: Do my internship/work dates have to align exactly with the course dates? No. Since the class content involves digital rhetoric and social media theory, your exact internship dates do not have to correlate precisely with the dates of the class. It is acceptable for your internship/work to begin prior to the start of class, to begin within the first week or two of the class, and/or to extend beyond the end of the class. However, your internship/work experience should have significant overlap with the dates of the class in order for you to be able to meaningfully reflect on your work/internship through the course assignments.

FAQ: What if I need to sign a confidentiality/non-disclosure agreement with my workplace and therefore cannot blog about my work? This is not a problem. The course’s learning outcomes can be satisfied with you writing about the place you are living in, your experiences managing time while working, and/or aspects and issues of the profession writ large, and not related to a specific workplace or company. Also see below about writing, confidentiality, and privacy.

Modality: The course is fully online. Coursework is self-paced, with semi-weekly deadlines on Mondays and Thursdays. We don’t have any regularly scheduled class meetings. The course includes several one-hour small-group writing workshops via Zoom (instructions will be provided), but these are scheduled according to your availability, and since they are small-group, we won’t need to make sure all students are present at the same time.

Tuition/Financial Aid: Tuition is normal summer tuition: http://summersession.duke.edu/duke-students/tuition-aid  Please contact the financial aid office if you have questions about financial aid/living expenses and Writing 270.

Class Schedule/Workload:  There will be expectations for readings, discussion-forum posts (via Sakai), and writing project drafts, feedback, and/or revisions each week, with deadlines on Mondays and Thursdays. Part of the course involves coaching on how to develop a manageable schedule for fitting coursework in smoothly to your summer work schedule. The workload is equivalent to the expectations for any summer course with in-class time and out of class time, taking into account that Writing 270 runs 8 weeks or 14 weeks, as opposed to 5.5 weeks:

  • 8-week version workload: 10-12 hours/week of time (reading, podcasts, writing, interacting on forums with classmates, etc.). 
  • 14-week version workload: 5-7 hours/week of time (reading, podcasts, writing, interacting on forums with classmates, etc.).

Again, the time each week is flexible and you can work the course time around your summer schedule on a weekly basis. Please make sure you think you can make time for this amount of work each week for the course.

Writing, Confidentiality, and Privacy: The course invites you to examine digital rhetoric and social media discourse and write about your internship experiences. Some organizations ask interns to sign confidentiality statements. Doing so will not hamper your performance in Writing 270. The course does not require that you reveal any privileged information, nor any specifics about your particular internship, and it does not require that you make your writing public beyond sharing it with the other members of the class.

Full Course Credit/Repeatability: The course counts as a full-credit course; the transcript will list it as Writing 270, W and ALP, and nothing on the transcript designates that it is an online course as opposed to a Summer Term regular course that you might take here on campus at Duke. Writing 270 is a repeatable course, so you can take it multiple summers. The expectation, however, is that all work for each time you take it will be new and original (i.e., students cannot recycle their own work from a prior 270 enrollment).

If your internship/employer requires credit: Duke students who need credit for unpaid internships can either: 1. take Writing 270 in the summer or 2. do an independent study in the fall when you return to campus, if you can set one up with an appropriate faculty member and if this satisfies the requirements for your internship employer. Students make decisions about which credit option is the better choice for them based on a variety of factors and in consultation with their advisor, financial aid advisor, and DUS.

Waiver of Liability Regarding Internship Supervision: This course asks you to reflect on your internship experience but it does not constitute a supervision of your internship experience. Enrolling in the course means that you understand that Writing 270 does not constitute internship supervision and you will therefore absolve the Writing 270 instructional staff and Duke University of liability regarding any matters related to oversight of your internship.

Enrollment & Eligibility: If, after reading this information, you would like a permission number to enroll, please contact Denise Comer, who will provide a permission number, pending space availability and you communicating briefly via email your internship/work experience plans. Please note: If you plan to participate in a “Duke-In” global education or other credit-bearing study away program this summer, please indicate the dates of your program (we cannot allow overlap of these summer offerings).

 

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