Resources for Instructors
As always, we love to work with students – especially early in their composing process – but we also support Writing Program faculty to teach writing with technology, and collaborate with faculty on the digital work they’re assigning. We hold regular faculty professional development workshops and provide online resources for a variety of digital assignments common in Writing and Rhetoric courses.
On this page, you’ll learn more about
- What the Digital Writing Studio does
- Arranging a class visit from DWS staff
- Service we provide for faculty
- Resources we provide for teaching digital writing
What the Digital Writing Studio does
We can help at all stages of the writing process, but we can provide the most helpful support early in the writing process, to help think productively and rhetorically about their digital compositions. A founding principle of the DWS is that “learning technical skills is most effective when combined with rhetorical understanding.” We serve writing at the intersection of functional and rhetorical computer literacy. As an illustration, here are the types of conversations the DWS tries to foster:
- A first-year student assigned a vlog of his daily language practices works with a consultant on what type of translation is necessary for his intended audience for the scenes where he is speaking a Spanish dialect. What should be captioned? Where? What should be voice-over? What should be left untranslated?
- A graduate student building a professional e-portfolio works on two prototypes: one that positions her as a young scholar on an academic job market and another that promotes her professional writing training and experience as a technical editor.
- A team of students remediating their research project into a podcast creates a focused topic outline that allows natural conversation, debating how the language should be edited from the original project, while a consultant suggests various strategies to cite the referenced sources.
- A student creating a scripted video essay works with a consultant on using jump cuts to allow her to record one line at a time for a more natural and clean delivery.
How we work with faculty
Class visits and presentations
The DWS regularly visits classes for presentations, demonstrations, and support sessions by request at MMC, BBC, and Zoom. If you’re introducing a new digital writing project, we would be thrilled to visit your class to explain the type of work we do. Consultants are also trained to provide presentations and class workshops to introduce digital writing genres (podcasts, infographics, video essays, multimodality) and/or programs. Some previous class presentation materials are archived on our site.
You can fill in the contact form on the right to request a class visit.
If you think your students could benefit from DWS support, make sure they know about us and how to reach us. Here is a blurb you can include in your syllabus or a course announcement about the studio. Visiting the DWS provides students an overview of what they can expect when they visit the Studio.
The Digital Writing Studio is a media lab meant to support digital writing projects. Our consultants can offer student support for the creation of multimedia texts like websites, ePortfolios, presentations, blogs, wikis, posters, photo essays, and more. Digital writing is a hands-on process, and the DWS provides design guidance, technology support, rhetorical advice and more. For more info visit the DWS website or contact the studio coordinator at cgregory@fiu.edu.
Service for faculty and program digital needs
We consult with faculty and teaching assistants in using digital tools to enhance instruction and professional development. We can assist with developing digital teaching portfolios, poster design for conferences, or help with providing effective digital assessment.
Our consultants can provide service learning support to faculty as well. We may be able to caption your video, conduct usability testing on your course material, record your students’ presentations, and provide needed services to Writing Program faculty. Requesting our services helps us to provide our student interns with important learning opportunities.
Resources for teaching digital writing
- The Digital Writing Gallery is a collection of digital writing by FIU students. Feel free to explore the drop-down menu to find student writing that you can use for modeling, peer response practice, or for analysis with your class.
- Previous Professional Development presentations the DWS has coordinated for FIU faculty and graduate TA’s are archived as well.
The DWS also provides online resource pages for a variety of digital assignments common in Writing and Rhetoric courses. Below, you can find assignment sheets, pedagogical advice, and guides to support a variety of digital writing and multimedia assignments.
If you have suggestions or requests for other assignment or media resources, please reach out to cgregory@fiu.edu.
Resource pages you may assign to your students
- Creating a WordPress Site with FIU MyWeb – Provides reasons that students can benefit from using MyWeb and/or WordPress in their writing classes, including a video demonstration of the process
- Citing in Digital Writing Environments – Includes a video lecture and advice for students on the considerations they should make when citing in online and multimedia writing.
- Blogs for Writing and Rhetoric Courses – Gives a rhetorical overview of blogs, and how students may encounter them as assignments in their writing classes.
- Eportfolio – Originally designed for TAs in the Teaching Composition graduate course, focuses largely on e-portfolios for building a professional, academic identity. Includes a video demonstration
Resource pages written for faculty
- Website Tour – Assignment sheet and student models of a screencast Website Tour assignment, a way to rhetorically analyze web writing.
- Video Projects – Scaffolding plan and advice for assigning video projects. Also includes a Vlog project assignment sheet and student samples.
- Audacity and Podcasting – Includes both a video and podcast-style tutorial for using Audacity to create podcasts and other sound projects.
- Scientific Poster – Assignment sheet and student sample of a Scientific Poster assignment.
More ways to become involved with the DWS
Since many Writing Program faculty have great expertise in digital composing, please reach out if you have ideas for collaboration or resources you’re willing to share with us.
You can nominate students to work with the DWS if you think they are well suited for the work we do and are looking for a course-credit internship. You can also nominate student writing for the Digital Writing Gallery if you think it is a good model of the digital composing your students are doing.