What to do for class, Wednesday, February 13

To follow up on class discussion, look around sites associated with fan fiction and think about the questions we began considering. Fan fiction raises many significant questions about digital spaces and digital interactions (many of which take place through writing). There might be an idea for a project in there.

In class Wednesday we will talk about The Vocabulary of Comics. In class Monday I asked you to think about why I was asking you to read an graphic text on comics for a "Writing in Cyberspace" class. You indicated it was because the internet uses spacial and visual rhetorics (though you said it differently) and I agree. We talked briefly about the fact that in some ways, digital spaces were a "remediation" of comics. Think about some of the ways the internet remediates conventions for making meaning used in comics. There are some interesting ideas in there. To take a look at one scholar's discussion of connections between comics and rhetoric/making meanings in general - take a look at slideshare a site where speakers share powerpoints. Slide 10 of Kevin Brooks talk on Scott McCloud's 'Big Triangle' provides a graphic representation of how we make meanings. It is worth while to think about the way the author has laid out relationships among abstract meanings (at the top); scientific prose/reaslistic images; and icons/verbal cliches. Something to think about.