Step 1: About Me
Unit 1 | Week 2 | ePortfolio Digital Track
Goals: Students first encounter media and think about writing beyond the page, themes introduced, beginning of rhetorical analysis, getting comfortable in digital/visual space.
Now that your students have written a letter back to you, they’ll be revising this letter into a new form: an ‘About Me’ webpage for their new blogs.
As the first part of this, you will introduce a digital genre for students to imitate in their About Me pages. What this component will be is ultimately up to you, and will depend on which modes you’ve chosen to engage with in the class (if you want examples, see how Leo and Maria approached this on the following pages).
Your goal will be to prompt students to analyze examples of this genre, and begin experimenting with multimodal composition.
Preparing for Step 1:
❏ Post resources for students: Post the student resources from the toolkits on your course page. You’ll want to include the Web Toolkit, as well as the toolkit for whatever media you’re engaging in the class.
❏ Gather examples: You will want to find and share real-world examples that align with your chosen genre for the introduction letter. You may also want to look at the Demo Lessons for Unit 1 (found in the Visual, Video, and Audio Toolkits) to help guide this analysis.
❏ Adapt the “About Me” Handout: Modify the highlighted portion of the “About Me” handout to include your genre of choice (see an example of this with the Knolling Assignment from the Visual Track).
Examples of step 1 in action:
Leo (Audio Track): When Leo’s students go to write their About Me, he asks them to include an audio introduction. During the first unit, he shows students the resources from the Audio Toolkit, and then he runs through one of the sample lessons for Unit 1 (asking students to record several 3-second audio clips and stitch them together), so that students can learn how to do some basic audio editing.
Maria (Video Track): When Maria’s students begin to think about writing their About Me, they ask them to include a video introduction. During the first unit, they show students the resources from the Video Toolkit, and then they run through one of the Demo Lessons for Unit 1 (asking students to record several 3-second video clips and stitch them together), so that students can learn how to do some basic video editing.
Maria also asks their students how they interact with video on a daily basis. Their students are very into TikTok, Instagram, and (maybe) Snapchat. They take this chance to tell them about the good ol’ days of Vine.
Maria’s students end up having a lot of fun with this assignment and ask if they need to create their own video or if they can make recordings of other videos. Maria encourages both but takes this opportunity to review copyright and how to properly cite sources. Maria likens the classroom space as a test track, whereas outside things run a bit differently.
A lot of students create TikToks or Instagram stories and post them to their personal sites to count as their video introduction. Maria also takes this opportunity to talk about what is public facing and what is private or hidden from the public user.
Tips and Tools:
Demo Lesson: There’s a demo-lesson in each toolkit for Unit 1 that will scaffold the digital-making skills students will need for the About Me project. Find the Demo Lesson for this unit, and adapt it for your students.
Ask students what digital tools they already use: It can be helpful to know what kinds of media your students are already using! You may learn about genres you weren’t familiar with, new social media apps, etc. This can not only help you find relevant examples, it will keep you hip and cool.
In Maria’s case, students were already bringing up content they were familiar with. They easily could have asked students to bring in their own examples for analysis!
(Recommended) Put students into groups: Students will have an easier time figuring out new digital tools with people to turn to. Putting students into small groups (4-5) can help them, and reduce your workload.
You might also consider asking groups to select roles (like a leader who schedules meetings, a notetaker, etc.) and make one of these roles tech-help. By nominating one savvyhead student, you will save yourself a lot of questions! Offer groups a chance to earn bonus points when they report each other for being helpful.
You can even have students introduce themselves to each other, with their new About Mes!
Back to Start Here.
Next to Step 2.