"How do authors interact with the sources
they discover?"
In project 1, students practice the moves that writers make to incorporate
the knowledge of others into their own work.
Students will produce an annotated bibliography--a document
that often has 3 attributes:
"How does historical perspective affect our understanding of the past?"
In each option for project 2, students consider how a single historical
figure or event can be seen through an unlimited variety of perspectives.
In the above image, a single event straddles the intersection of two
timelines. This implies that different people approaching history from
different perspectives will understand events completely differently. It's
as if they each imagine two competing timelines, each depending on the the
opinions and assumptions of the different historians.
"How do technologies affect authors' agency?"
In project 3, students consider how different situations call for the use of
different communication technologies.
In the above image, the "slots" represent different rhetorical situations.
The student writer/rhetor has analyzed some situations and decided that the
best way to communicate in one is to compose a podcast, while in others she
chose to write a blog or an essay. She has "agency"; she is an acting
"agent" with the power to decide how best to communicate!
Students writing project 3 analyze these decisions, the historical uses of
communication technologies, and how human behavior is affected by
technological changes.