課程教學
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數位化教學
本課程主要要達成兩個目的：它循序漸進地灌輸闡述性寫作的技巧，並鼓勵學生批判性地思考數位化技術，以及這些技術改變我們的文化的方式。上述兩個目的，雖然往往相輔相成，但也有矛盾之時，一般而言，在課堂內討論良好寫作的時間仍無法深入主題。同時，課外的強化寫作作業，也將限制了大量閱讀的時間。因此本課程達成折中的方法：在發展其寫作技巧和研究數位化文化上，為學生提供一個良好的開端。本課程的希望是，學生將在本學期結束後繼續進行這些研究。
數位化技術及其文化反響是本課程的研究主題。此一主題是通過比較數位化前後的科技或文化習慣而達成的。因此標題「成為數位化」，是指數位技術進入並塑造其所屬文化的過程。本課程的標題，也指尼古拉斯．內格羅蓬特（Nicholas Negroponte）的《數位化》。標題第一個詞的不同，是為了特別顯示對內格羅蓬特書中，對數位化文化歡呼雀躍和不加審視之態度的反對。批判性，不僅僅是出於數位化技術效果的審慎態度，而且是優秀闡述性寫作的最重要特質。
論文
本課程分成四個單元，每單元末以一個寫作作業為結尾。在作業設置中，第四個作業會相對地減輕大家的壓力和工作量，前三個會逐步地增加對學生的挑戰性，逐漸要求更長篇幅的論文，以增強學生的思考能力。
第一單元，要求學生比較一幅傳統的記錄圖片和一個數位合成的圖像。兩類圖像都挑戰了當前的性別分類。傳統攝影和數碼影像最顯著的區別，在於圖片與真實的關係，每幅圖像中，對性別的挑戰與真實性問題有複雜又微妙的關係。會向學生們提供對數位化成像發展的兩種不同觀點：威廉．米切爾（William Mitchell）稱，數位成像推翻了傳統攝影中影像與真實的關係，而Lev Manovich明確反對米切爾，認為這樣的固定關係在以往任何時候都未曾真的存在，因此，數碼影像，並不是米切爾所稱的革命性的改變。
展示這兩張圖像和兩份閱讀後（輔以一些額外讀物），學生要寫一篇文章來比較這兩種不同類型的圖像，學生可以選擇對比的角度。由於本論文的特性，學生在尋找論題上或有困難。困難處在發現一個觀點，既能激發對這兩個特別圖像的初始理解，同時又能超越這兩個圖像的特殊性來提出結論。大多數的草稿往往宣稱：「這兩個圖像都挑戰了性別觀念，但它們還是略有區別的 」。雖然這是一個恰當的開頭，但並非一個出色的論斷，因為要更具特殊性和全面性。更具特殊性，意味著要得出一個比「圖像挑戰性別觀念」更犀利的觀點；更具全面性，是指要顯示出這兩類圖像的比較，如何在圖像之外產生影響。舉例來說，這兩類圖像的比較，有可能展示了用於創造這類圖像的有關技術，或見證了五十年來對於性別的文化反應之變遷。
第2單元給學生展現關於由網際網路引起的眾多道德問題之新聞報導。剽竊、盜版音樂軟體、未成年色情、資料安全、身份盜竊，以及電腦病毒，是可供學生考慮的一些話題。學生會瞭解到一些基本術語和倫理分析理論，如功利主義和義務倫理學的分別。（如果時間允許的話，這些理論將會進行哲學原典的講授，如果時間緊迫，則將透過二手資料和課堂討論講授。）作業要求學生選擇一個案例以進一步研究，並且寫一篇引用該案例，來研究網際網路如何改變人們倫理行為的論文。案例可以是一個普遍的行為（盜版）或該行為的某一特定實例，具體取決於現有的證據以及學生的傾向。
這個作業的挑戰，仍然是奮力從特殊性導向普遍性的情況。學生們大多會樂意於表達他們對於倫理議題的觀點，寫前作業也引導他們向讀者展示自己的觀點。但更成功的論文，則並不在於捍衛學生對於案例的觀點，而將更多關注於網際網路環境，如何加劇或激化了問題。
第3單元作業的結論最為開放式的，要求學生選擇一些與數位化技術有關的現象，並探討該現象的文化含義。比如說，播客如何揭示了現代美國人以及他們與數位化科技的關係？或者，遊戲工業的成長如何影響社會的性別關係？這又對未來科技意味著什麼？這是本課程唯一要求學生自己進行研究的作業，雖然研究量微乎其微。特別是，學生將被要求尋找「原材料」 — 未經分析的論據，可能來自仔細的閱讀 — 以作為瞭解自己所選擇之研究現象的途徑。一篇關於網路即時通訊的論文，原材料可以是即使通訊對話本身，或者是即時通訊軟體本身。一篇關於播客的論文，其原材料有可能是報紙上關於播客的文章或者播客自身。此外，強烈鼓勵學生找到一些理論來源，可以提供框架，以有助於理解和分析正在被研究的現象。
第3單元的補充讀物，沒有對學生可能要進行的各種分析提供範例。讀物材料涵蓋音樂、娛樂、部落格（博客）以及其他的現象，這些活動用不同方式顯示了它們是構成文化之不同層面的象徵。為確保學生論文的成功，課堂討論的一個重點，便是這些讀物素材該如何使用論據。學生往往不能好好利用自己的「原料」，最終撰寫出的論文帶有推測性，而缺乏了充足的理智辯證。回歸論據是避免這些問題的最好方式。
第4單元要求學生寫一個電腦遊戲的評論。閱讀材料除了評論還有電腦遊戲的分析（在文學、文化層面），以向學生顯示評論的角度，並非只有「一味贊同」。
寫作過程
本課程的主要目的之一，是幫助學生培養出一種有效率的寫作過程。許多學生在上大學寫作課程前，幾乎沒有意識到寫作是有一個步驟的。他們通常只是列出一個大綱，以段落補充之、檢查拼寫、然後列印並提交。因此，很重要的是灌輸一個概念，即寫作是發現和形成思路的一種途徑，而不僅僅是一種表達現有觀點的途徑。本課程主要通過從草稿到稿件-修改的形式，以及每單元的預寫作業，來教授寫作過程的價值。
為了讓學生有機會以他們最大膽和最深遠的觀點進行試驗，草稿不會被評分（雖然是必須的）。這種方法的缺點是，有些學生根本就不在草稿中作任何努力，而把整個論文完整地在修改稿中直接寫出。然而，大多數學生承認提交打分前充分評注和估量的價值，也至少以初始觀點來構建草稿。得到重要的批判性評注時，學生普遍會在修改稿中，做大幅度的修改，通常會遞交上一篇全新的論文，僅保留草稿中的少數幾行或某個觀點。
評注在草稿和修改中都會大量出現。評注旨在主要關注觀點的價值，鼓勵學生選擇自己最原創和動人的觀點以進一步展開，並且對自己的思考也更加自省。評注草稿時也可能糾正文法、格式以及其他重要形式的問題，而修正版的評注也會注意到這些問題，但不著眼於修正它們，除非它們妨礙觀點呈現的明晰性。
預寫作作業的目的是，讓學生對於真正著手寫的論文有所準備。理想的情況下，完成了預寫作業，學生就會發現大部分的論文本身已經成文。這些作業也可以幫助學生，判斷尚未被評分之論文的論點優劣，以便於他們從授課教師處得到回饋和指導。這些作業往往在課堂上指派，其他類似的寫作練習，有時也在課堂上完成。
Becoming Digital Pedagogy
This course serves primarily two purposes: it instills expository writing skills and it encourages students to think critically about digital technologies and the ways in which those technologies are changing our culture. These two purposes, though often complementary, are not always harmonious; in general, time spent in class discussing good essay writing is time not available for in-depth discussion of the subject matter. And writing-intensive homework assignments limit opportunities to assign significant readings. This course thus represents a compromise, offering students a good start at developing their writing skills and examining digital culture. The hope for this course is that students will continue these studies beyond the semester.
Digital technology and its cultural repercussions is the main subject matter for this class. This subject is approached through comparisons to pre-digital technologies or cultural habits. Thus the title, Becoming Digital, refers to the process by which digital technologies enter and shape the culture they belong to. The title of the course is also a subtle reference to a book, Nicholas Negroponte's Being Digital. The different initial term in the title of the course is intended to signal a deliberately critical response as opposed to the celebratory and uncritical examination of digital culture in Negroponte's book. Criticism is warranted not only as one component of a wise caution regarding the effects of digital technologies but also as the most important quality of good expository writing.
Essays
The course is organized into four units, each culminating in a writing assignment. While the fourth assignment is intended to lighten the mood and the workload, the first three are progressively more challenging to the students, demanding successively longer essays and placing a greater burden on the student in developing her own ideas.
The first unit asks students to compare a traditional documentary photograph to a digitally-manipulated image. Both images challenge prevailing categories of gender. As the most pressing difference between traditional photography and digital imaging concerns the image's relationship to truth, the challenge to gender in each image relates in complex and subtle ways to the question of truth. Students are given a pair of readings that offer two perspectives on the growth of digital imaging: William Mitchell claims that digital imaging overturns the relationship in traditional photography between image and truth, while Lev Manovich explicitly opposes Mitchell, arguing that no such fixed relationship ever really existed and that therefore, digital imaging is not the revolutionary alteration that Mitchell claims it to be.
Given the two images and the two readings (supplemented by some additional readings), students are asked to write an essay that compares the two images, where the nature of the comparison is left up to the student. Despite the specificity of the assignment, students have a hard time finding a thesis for this essay; the difficulty is to discover an idea that both motivates an original reading of these two particular images while also offering some conclusions that extend beyond the particularity of the two images. Most drafts tend to make a claim like this: "These two images both challenge notions of gender but they do so somewhat differently." While this is an adequate beginning it is hardly an excellent thesis, for it must be made both more specific and more general. Additional specificity means making a more pointed claim than just "the images challenge notions of gender," and additional generality means showing how the comparison of the two images has repercussions beyond these images. For instance, the comparison between the images might demonstrate something about the technologies used to create the images or about the change in cultural responses to gender in the fifty years between the two images.
Unit Two presents students with a small library of journalistic writing on various ethical issues arising in the context of the Internet. Plagiarism, software and music piracy, underage pornography, data security, identity theft, and computer viruses are some of the topics available for student consideration. Students are also presented with some basic terms and theories of ethical analysis, such as the distinction between utilitarian and deontological ethics. (If time allows, these theories are taught through original texts in philosophy; if not, they are taught through secondary sources and class discussion.) The assignment asks students to choose a case for further study, and to write an essay that uses the case as an opportunity to consider the ways in which the Internet reshapes the territory of ethical conduct. A case might be a general behavior (piracy) or a particular instance of this behavior, depending on available evidence and the student's inclination.
The challenge of this assignment is once again to wrestle with the move from the particular to the general. Students are fairly keen to express their opinions about the ethical subject matter, and a pre-writing assignment invites them to lay their own beliefs out for readers. But the more successful essays will focus less on a defense of the student’s opinion about the case and more on the question of how the context of the Internet has heightened or intensified the issue.
Unit Three is the most open-ended assignment, asking students to choose some phenomenon relating to digital technology and discuss what this phenomenon tells us about culture. For example, what does podcasting reveal about modern Americans and their relationship to technology? Or how does the growth of the gaming industry shape social relations of gender, and what does this mean for future technologies? This is the only assignment for this class that asks students to do their own research, and even so research here is minimal. In particular, students are asked to find some "raw material" - unanalyzed evidence that can be subjected to a close reading - as a way of getting at their chosen phenomenon. Raw material for an essay on instant messaging might be transcripts of IM conversations or even the IM software itself. Raw materials for an essay on podcasting might be newspaper articles about it as well as actual podcasts. In addition, students are strongly encouraged to find some theoretical sources that can provide frameworks to help understand and analyze the phenomenon under study.
Supplemental readings for Unit Three do not so much offer material for student use as provide examples of the sorts of analyses that they might undertake. Readings cover music, entertainment, blogging, and other phenomena, showing the various ways in which these activities are symptoms of underlying aspects of culture. To ensure successful student essays, one emphasis in discussion is on the ways in which the readings use evidence; students too often fail to make good use of their "raw material," and end up writing essays that are somewhat too speculative and without sufficient intellectual friction. Returning to the evidence is the best way to avoid these problems.
The fourth unit asks students to write a review of a computer game. Readings include reviews but also analyses (literary, cultural) of computer games, in an attempt to show students the dimensions of a review beyond just "thumbs-up."
The Writing Process
One of the chief goals of the course is to help students develop an effective process of writing. Many students arrive in college writing courses with almost no sense that there is a process for writing; they generally make an outline, fill it out with paragraphs, spell check, then print and submit. It is thus crucial to inculcate the notion that writing is a way to discover and develop ideas, rather than just a way of expressing thoughts already held. This course attempts to teach the value of the writing process primarily through the draft-revision format of the assignments, and also through a number of pre-writing assignments in each unit.
In order to provide students with the opportunity to experiment with their boldest and most far-reaching ideas, drafts are ungraded (though required). The disadvantage of this method is that some students simply don't bother to put any effort into the draft, essentially writing the entire paper for the revision. Most students however recognize the value of an opportunity for substantial commentary and evaluation prior to a graded submission, and they invest the draft at least with their initial ideas. Receiving significant critical commentary, students generally alter revisions dramatically, usually submitting a whole new essay and retaining only a few lines or an idea from the draft.
Comments are very extensive on both draft and revision. Comments tend to focus primarily on the value of the ideas, to encourage students to choose their most original and engaging ideas for further development and to be more critical of their own thoughts. Draft commentary may also correct problems of grammar, formatting, and other important formalities, while revision commentary will note such problems without focusing on them, unless they prohibit a clear access to the ideas.
Pre-writing assignments are designed to prepare students for writing the essay. Ideally, having completed the pre-writing assignments, students will discover that much of the essay itself has already been written. These assignments are also intended as opportunities for students to test the merits of ideas in an ungraded context, so that they may receive feedback and direction from the instructor. These assignments are often shared in class, and other similar writing exercises are sometimes performed in class.
