Makeademia

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Welcome to the course blog for the Summer 2018 section of Advanced Exposition at the University of Florida! This course is designed to practice public writing, digital rhetoric, and multimodal composition. All of the required course assignments and readings are in the schedule. In addition, all required course tools are free for students, including Canva, Arduino, Instructables, Cura, and Tumblr. Assignment prompts and student responses are all tagged and searchable for future educational purposes.

(This course Tumblr is designed as a closed, secondary group blog, meaning that students need a Tumblr account and an invitation to access, and no external replying is allowed.)

Please contact the instructor, Emily Brooks, at emilyfbrooks [at] gmail [dot] com if you have any questions!

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This class is unlike any other class I’ve taken at UF and was among my favorite. When I originally heard that the class was called “advanced exposition” I had expectations that we were going to be doing a lot of persuasive writing. I was surprised to find out that many of the assignments were actually very personal and artful.

I find that a lot of the time, classes rely on writing during the word requirement to produce essays. Often, I find myself writing essays for English classes that are not something I’m particularly passionate about. But in this class, I had the opportunity to choose many of the topics of our activates and cater them to my own interests, such as the Alice in Wonderland book I created or my many projects involving dogs.

I also enjoyed reading the assigned textbook for this class although it is not something I am familiar with. I never specifically learned grammar in middle or high school so have been relying on hear-say rules for many of my assignments in college, or from feedback from my professors. It was nice to come back to writing to be understood instead of writing for academia.

One of my favorite projects was the book-making activity. I found that this to be my favorite just because I liked to see how everyone’s books reflected their own individual strengths. Art and crafting has always been something I was interested in from a young age. I have even been interested in expanding on this project and creating some sort of short story to accompany the book.

As for what I’ve learned, I can safely say most of what I learned has to do with communication. Not only did the textbook teach me a lot about how to communicate with others in an effective way by using less academic jargon, but also through class discussions I have learned a great deal about communicating with people who have different opinions than me. I didn’t expect so many of the students to be of different majors than English, and I truly believe that taking this class in the Fall may have impacted the amount of people who were in it for the word requirement opposed to the 3000 level English course, or any other reason they may have.

It was nice to talk to people of different educational backgrounds and learn in space where people’s opinions are heard and matter. I thank you for this experience.

Reuploaded GIF since imgur hosting wasnt working. Also redone to more suit this class.

              My first impression of the class was one of worry as hearing the course syllabus and the 2000s pop music made me assumed the worst. I am glad to have stayed and to have taken this class over the sociology courses I planned to take this semester. I learned a lot about rapid prototyping and the dimensions behind writing and creativity not commonly featured in academia. It was like being in the Matrix and the academic style I was taught to write were the Mr.Smiths. I learned to just write and not be as apprehensive when it came to writing blog posts and completing assignments. A good example was when I completed the narrative code for the first week of class. I didn’t expect to get the feedback I did and I brushed it off as disingenuous until I came into to class the following week. The class did force me to learn how to create things and be more proactive with my research when reading. The more and more I thought of all the potential questions that could arise from my writing, the more I was able to clarify while not worrying about the word limit. It was really cool to see all the books at the special collections library. I would have never learned about the place and the resources for 3-D printing at Marston had it not been for this class. My favorite reading was the one that was about remixing books and transforming the way in which we interact with them. My ideas behind writing and humanities have changed to the point where I became an English minor while taking this course. I was always amazed at the creativity that people had with the books with such as broad assignment. I do not function well without rubrics or clear expectations but also recognize that those things could potentially hinder the creations people could’ve came up with in the class. If I had to say anything was the weakest part of the class for me, it would have to be the style readings. While the exercises were helpful and insightful, I felt that their could’ve been more questions asked if the chapters were gone over like we did with the articles towards the end of the class. The class discussion really benefitted from having questions and the highlighted text to accompany it. The most important thing I learned is to not assume that Tumblr is full keyboard warriors ready to attack at the first thing I post on the platform.

I consider this class to be the hallmark of my summer (most of my time was dedicated to this work, but it didn’t feel like work!) and I know that I am fortunate to have been in it. Beyond the array of technical skills I’ve learned, I am now more comfortable with campus resources that I was curious about before but was always too hesitant to try on my own.

I like that this class blended creative and technical writing in a way (i.e. Instructables, infographic) as well as challenging our expectations of what constitutes as formal and informal writing. I think I speak for many English majors here when I say there’s pressure to “properly” interpret and appreciate texts, even if it is terribly written or hard to decipher. In contrast, here, evaluating the author’s execution of his/her ideas was always a relevant discussion topic as was the implications of these choices. From satanic interactive children’s literature to fairytales for grown-ups, I welcome this break from classic novels, as I tend to gravitate towards the modern media/colloquial side of English anyhow.

Upon looking through the Tumblr archive, I fully understand now why STEM got changed to STEAM. Art really did play into everything we did on computers. In having access to public posts, I constantly witnessed the evolution of a project far before it ever became finalized, which is just so cool to me. Even in online tutorials, every step is edited to look clean and effortless (even the bloopers, Jesus) which, to me, makes the craft look intimidating and sets unrealistic expectations for beginners. With that being said, this class served as an outlet for me to do what I wanted without the constraints of perfectionism. Of course, failing to produce my vision the way I’d intended was discouraging at times, but it did get me out of the mindset that drafting and revising is analogous to trial and error. We aren’t algorithms. Even while inputting computer codes, creativity is needed to produce different effects that necessitate the functionality of our program. Mistakes are inevitably bound to occur, and I admire how we were finally encouraged to work with them rather than against them.

Above all, I found that even the most grandiose concepts reviewed in our scholarship could be easily-replicated, albeit on a smaller scale. using whatever cheap materials we had. Openly professing my lack of competency to someone in hopes of getting help is something I’d normally only do as a last resort. However, in class, sharing tips [and horror stories] really facilitated the learning for me. Even in moments in which I doubted my abilities to complete projects (see gifs/ gif captions above), I could regain inspiration from others undergoing the same processes I am. As cheesy as it sounds, the level of heart that went into everyone’s creations could never be endeared the same way just by reading traditional academic publications.

In hindsight, I would definitely recommend this course to anybody. Scratching the surface of so many different platforms was already fun on its own, but going more in depth (perhaps over a longer semester) with them would be amazing. 

Don’t be strangers,

This was the most amazing literature class I have ever taken!  When I teach English, I want my classes to be structured exactly the same way.  I love how hands-on, creativity, technology, and literature were balanced to make us push beyond the conventual mindset of what is considered as the standard form for literature.  I really liked that communication seemed to be the undertone to all of the assignments and the many ways we can communicate what we want to tell others. Just thinking about all the possibilities has developed a different kind love and appreciation for literature in me. I can clearly see the distinct reason behind why some people want to keep the traditional classic literature the same, but something has to be said about the fact that technology, accessible knowledge and variety of tools available should and must be allowed and encouraged to be part of literature.  After all, paper, pen, and a book are all technology, accessible knowledge and tools.

I wished that we had had more time to make our assignments.  I would have liked to go beyond the basics in all of the assignments and think about doing so if I have time in the future.  Although I am not much for social media and I have to remind myself to let people know that I am still alive once a month on Facebook, I liked being involved in the class Tumblr.  I now wish I had the drive to post my own daily stuff and follow everyone else, but my schedule demands otherwise.  I would still post the progress of my book the class Tumblr.

I was incredibly excited when the assignment was to make a book.  I had always wondered about the processes and tools that went into making a book and always wanted to make one.  I did not, however, think that it would turn into an actual idea that I would decide to change, refine, expand, and will submit to be published after the term is over.  I am grateful for the support everyone has given me and the feedback that I hope to receive as I develop my idea.

There have been so many things that I wanted to know how to do and we covered some of them in this class. I never know where to start when learning and this class has been that starting point.  I am grateful that Emily taught the class as I know it would not have been the same had someone else taught the class.  Her knowledge and the experience she provided to us has opened so many doors, resources, and starting points for me.  I can say with gusto and a mind full of wonder that I go forth into the world, and the rest of my many college years, with confidence that literature is not dead, it is being transformed into some amazing and beautiful butterflies (even if critics can’t see it yet :P ).

It is hard to believe that in just six weeks, our ENC 3310 class has come to a close. Coming into this class, I honestly did not expect to be working on projects and assignments like the ones we have had this summer semester. I expected to be writing 1000 word papers and taking dreaded pop quizzes. Instead of a traditional class set-up, I was writing Tumblr posts, creating awesome digital media content, and exploring the intersections between art and technology.

There are many aspects that I have enjoyed about this class. As someone who studies in Smathers Library East, I never knew this library kept a great secret, that is its Special Collections. While touring some of the pop-up and movable books and rare fanzines in the Special Collections, I became fascinated with the level of detail that authors put into their works. From being able to see, touch, read, and play with these books, I discovered a new meaning for books. I learned that a book can be so much more than content as it can provide a fully interactive experience for its readers. The articles in this class were also fairly interesting. I enjoyed discussing our readings in class while also relating our assignments to real-life. Articles that focused on the topics of diversity, such as feminist hacker spaces, and copyright issues, such as the Abraham Lincoln life mask controversy, particularly piqued my interest. In class, we were able to share our views openly and even spark up some scholarly debate. Speaking of discussion, having a class Tumblr played a unique role in opening up more active learning experience in an online space. It was nice to see and react to my classmates’ posts on Tumblr, while they could comment or react to my posts too.

Some of my favorite assignments from this class included making our own fanfographics, zines, podcast, and 3D print creation. If I had not taken this class, I would have never thought that I would be able to make a 3D print creation of my own. It was extremely satisfying to receive my mini 3D printed Eiffel Tower from the Marston Help Desk and to have the Help Desk worker say to me how stunning my piece was. The podcast assignment also gave me more confidence in my public speaking skills and ability to take control of my own ideas and platform. Creating my first podcast also gave me a chance to connect more with my peers while opening my eyes to the music industry.

I will miss this class and our discussions about art, books, media, museums, and technology. Taking this class has allowed me to think critically and creatively, and I am really thankful for the knowledge and skills I have gained over a quick summer semester.

When I first came to UF, I was adamant about not being an English major. I didn’t want stuffy professors to make me read stuffy books and articles by stuffy authors and then write equally stuffy articles about such readings. I had a minor existential crisis that led me to add the English major at the last minute, which is why I’m taking two English classes in one summer semester, right before my final year at UF. I was stuck somewhere between dreading the idea of taking an advanced exposition because I hate writing essays and being nervous about taking a makeademia class because I am neither a tech nor art person. I have to say though, I absolutely love this class. I tell everyone about it. I have been excited to do almost every project. English is about so much more than just reading books by dead white guys (or reading books in general), and this class was both a reminder and proof of that. 

Our textbook taught me so many things that I knew (yes, I wrote that correctly). The writing tips seemed simple and obvious: put your subject in the beginning and get to the point when writing. I had heard some variation of the information at some point. However, seeing all of that information written out in front of me with examples and practice problems made me really pay attention to the words. This was great for my own writing. For reading other people’s writings, though? It kind of ruined me. I can barely read those stuffy academic texts anymore, and it’s not like I had such a great time doing it before. The lessons of the textbook were so real that I have become an even stronger critic of academic writing. Again, this is a good news/bad news scenario. 

I also loved how much I learned about UF itself. I complain about this school a lot (because let’s face it, the school messes up a lot), but learning about all the awesome things they make available to the students…well, it didn’t change my mind but it certainly did give me a newfound appreciation for parts of the university. My absolute favorite thing I learned about/project we completed was 3D printing. I genuinely called Marston three times through the renting process to double-triple-quadruple check that this process was entirely free because it was unbelievable to me. I brought a 3D printer to my apartment and printed whatever on Earth I wanted. I printed three keychains and a cake topper. Because I could. And I absolutely plan on renting a printer out again. Literally just because I can.

Well, the end of this very short and crazy summer semester is here.  Coming into this course, I was expecting to be writing an essay a week explaining some weird specific topic.  Imagine my surprise when I get in class and we start making quipus!  At first, my adjustment to this misassumption was a little rough.  I didn’t quite understand how what we were doing was related to exposition.  However, as the class went on, I started to figure it out.  Throughout my time in the public education system, I have always been prepared for what seems pretty boring, a life of long analytical essays on topics I care little about.  However, this class prepares us for modern types of exposition.  Technology is changing the world including the job market. People make boatloads of money on Instagram or making youtube videos, so how is exposition a part of that? How has exposition changed to be interesting, different, and up with the times.  Once I made this connection, I really started to absorb the knowledge this class had to offer as well as enjoy what we were doing more.  In modern forms of exposition, writing becomes extremely public.  For me, vloging and writing the instructable was scary and nerve-wracking, but surprisingly fun! I still feel a little embarrassed for people to see it, but I think it was important in pushing me out of my comfort zone. I enjoyed most of our in-class assignments, like the play-doh activity, the paper circuits, the flip book, etc.  The in-class assignments I didn’t like included the get to know each other activity at the beginning of the semester where we were in that oval, the quipu, and making the different types of books.  My favorite classes were probably when we were in special collections. I never knew that existed and I can’t wait to go to research there.  I learned a lot about myself in this class, particularly that crafting is an awesome way to start my day because I ended up spending the day a lot less stressed. I also learned that I have issues typing too fast. If I want to catch my mistakes, I literally have to read what I write out loud, otherwise I just read right over them.  I feel like this class opened my mind to what education could offer.  I thoroughly enjoyed this class and everyone in it.  I’ve never had a class where everyone talked and discussed so much.  

Have a great summer everyone!

In this class I learned the different ways to tell stories and I think I’ll elaborate on which kinds were my favorite and why. The twine assignment was for sure my favorite because it allowed for an openness that no other form of story telling I’ve ever seen has. This is because in typical story telling you have to pick a character with rigid choices and how that affects their future however in “choose your own adventure” this isn’t necessarily the case. This really allowed me to focus on telling the story rather than telling the right story and worrying weather the story was right or wrong or weather I was in the right track or not. I could tell the story in a plethora of different forms and ways and that was a freedom I particularly enjoyed. The next major form of story telling that I really enjoyed was making our own books. I think that making a book and not worrying about weather it was good or not really opened a lot of doors for me. But also creating a boom that is fun and informative but modern is was something I enjoyed doing. And as much as I enjoyed doing it others enjoyed reading it. This class also allowed me to find things I love in the things I hate. For example I was really dreading that faninfographic however the openess is the subject and picking the correct subject made me really love doing the project and made me want to do it well. This has also translated into other parts of my life. If you find the particular thing that you love about something and you hone in on that it’ll make you want to do that thing and that’s a lesson that we can all translate into our lives. I think one thing that I learned for sure throughout this process is that the Smathers library Jewish collections room is fabulous. One thing I for sure learned about my writing is that I suck at grammar and clarity isn’t a particular strength of mind. I found myself reading the clarity book and being like no. Just no. Don’t tell me what to do with my words. Even though a part of me was like... okay maybe you have a point the other part of me is so territorial over my writing that I wanted to bite the books head off just for offering advice.

In my final reflection on Emily Brooks’ Advanced Exposition class, I will be answering a few of the questions provided for our class to gain inspiration in writing his assignment. The first question: what was I expecting from this class and how did it meet or subvert my expectations? Well, to be honest, when I registered for this class I expected to write essay after essay to meet the 6,000 words writing requirement. I was slightly disappointed that I didn’t have to write essays because I wanted to improve upon my writing skills and receive feedback on them. However, after taking two summer classes in the same 6-week period for summer A, I am glad that I didn’t have to write essays that amounted to 6,000 words. I also have to admit that I was expecting to be required to write a persuasive essay. I was a tad excited about that because I have the perfect topic that I can persuade people on all day, every day. That is the topic of breed specific legislation and why it should be disbanded.

My favorite project would have to be the 3-D printing project because I got to check out a 3-D printer from the school library. I didn’t even know that was possible until this semester! I enjoyed the 3-D printing process until the printer I checked out malfunctioned. I was able to get my object printed enough to have a usable model. I printed the Deathly Hallows symbol from Harry Potter.  My next favorite project was the quipu making project. I was able to use my full creative powers while making my quipu. 

As for the variety of the projects, it was nice to have a variety of projects to do. I don’t really feel like it was a legitimate college class, though. This is a good thing because it made the class a little bit easier than it could have been. Variety is generally nice to have in a class. I was not a fan of having to move classrooms after the start of the semester, especially since the new classroom was farther away from my first class of the day. I was even less of a fan of the classroom change after I broke my leg and had to travel that distance by knee scooter or crutches.

What strengths did I rely on? I relied on my strength of procrastination to get things done. Procrastination has never failed me yet! Lol, That’s only a joke, my friends, only a joke.

It was great meeting everyone and I hope to see some of you in my Philosophy classes in the future!

Much love ya’ll,

During this essay, I will be reflecting on my time spent in this class called Advanced Exposition ENC3310. What I learned from this class was important.  I learned how to do a lot of writing projects. These projects were creative learning experiences and they were fun to do. For example: We learned how to do narrative code, make an Instructable, make a fan-fograph, a definition book, and a compare and contrast Vlog. I learned a lot through watching these projects develop.  Another example was I learned lots of ideas I didn’t know before, like how to use some of the writing websites the class used to help us create the projects. Like Pikochart for our Fan-fographics and Instructable to help us with making our writing come alive. The project I enjoyed the most had to be the Fan-fographics.  There, I was able to do it on something I really loved and wanted to show people how much I enjoyed it.  I also loved a lot about the class readings. One thing I discovered was that most scientific writings at a college level aren’t very easy to read for the public. I also learned how to annotate a lot better. I knew how to do it before but this class really helped me get better at it. What I learned from making my work public is that a lot people have different thoughts or ideas and that constructive criticism is ok.  It can help you make your work that much better than it was before. I really enjoyed using Tumblr. I never used this app before and I had a positive experience with it. I always thought the app was kinda silly. One of the things I found challenging was being able to come up with ideas for projects and create them in the best way I could. This class really helped me improve my writing and I believe grow intellectually .  What was I expecting from this class was just a lot of writing of papers, reading homework and doing quizzes on the reading; just like a normal English course. I thought this class really changed my perspective on understanding some things. I liked how the course was made up of projects that included writing, but made it fun and interesting to learn about the concepts we were being taught. This course definitely surpassed my expectations, and I’m glad it did. I also learned that things around the house and cheap tools can be made into things that you’d never thought was possible. I guess that’s why little children find the smallest things so much fun to play with like cardboard boxes and pots and pans. Overall, I enjoyed this course and wish all of my other courses were structured this way.  It would make going to college that much more enjoyable and easier to learn and improve.