Step 4: Putting Media in the Memoir
Unit 2 | Week 5-6 | ePortfolio Digital Track
Goals: Students will explore some more personal, but simple media incorporation by weaving it into their memoirs. Students will begin to consider audience.
Now that students have analyzed some modal examples of memoir, you'll want to encourage them to include a small modal component of some kind to enhance their own memoirs! Note that this isn't a full remix into a digital mode-- the opportunity to do that will come later; this is scaffolding for that later project, and a way to make them think about digital genres and rhetoric.
Preparing for Step 4:
❏ Set expectations for some basic media content in the memoir (a sound file, an image, etc.). This can be the result of a single activity or assignment, but with the goal to start students thinking beyond ink-on-wood-pulp.
Examples of Step 4 in action:
Leo (Audio Track): Leo thinks that part of the reason that the About Me pages’ audio was so bad was because there wasn’t any music on anybody’s audio. For the Memoir assignment, he picks an activity from the Audio Toolkit and asks students to include a playlist on their site that follows along with the essay.
A few students ask Leo if they can include pictures as part of their essay. Leo says “uh...sure?”, and posts the resources from the Visual Toolkit. They ask if this will get them bonus points: Leo says no, but that it may help them better make their points!
Maria (Video Track): Maria decides that while some of their students are into TikTok, not all of them are so excited. They decide that there will eventually be multiple options for the final remix because they are also worried students will only focus on TikTok. They want to prepare for that well in advance.
Maria brings a few copies of graphic novels they checked out from the library or ordered through interlibrary loan. They couldn’t find what they needed initially, so they emailed the English Librarian Sara Whitver and she was very helpful in helping Maria locate physical copies and PDFs of memoir-related graphic novels.
Maria has their students complete the “Portrait of an Artist” activity from the Visual Toolkit. This ends up being a great ice breaker in future classes. Maria continues to discuss audience by sharing that some stories they might share with family, while others they might only share with their friends. Many students then include their ‘portraits’ on their Memoir page.
Tips and Tools:
Remember to keep it simple! Students will have the option to thoroughly remix this project later in the semester. For now, you’re just trying to get students to bring assignments together, and think about digital forms.
Don’t forget about the sample lessons including the “Portrait of the Artist” activity. Something as simple as this can set up for a big difference in how the final memoir comes together!
There are people here to help! The librarians are an invaluable resource in tracking down examples of a kind of form. Even if you don’t know where to find examples (like of graphic-novel memoir), they probably do! They can also help you work around access barriers (such as if some materials aren’t accessible due to COVID-19).
Back to Step 3.
Next to Step 5.