COURSE SYLLABUS

Term: Spring 2016 (2015-2)

Course: EWPC 317X Digital Marketing and Publishing

Instructor Name Mark Cassello Office Number: Room 180 Phone Number: (219) 473-4322 Email: [email protected] Hours Available: Tuesday 11:00-3:00, Wednesday 2:00-5:00pm, or by appointment Instructor Background: Like many of the students at CCSJ, I am a first generation college student that hails from a working class family. My mother emigrated from Norway after the Nazi invasion of Oslo during World War II. My father dropped out of high school and earned his GED in the army where he served in Korea shortly after the Korean War. Later, he worked for CTA in Chicago as a laborer and foreman with the South Shops. As for myself, while working full-time, I attended Indiana University Northwest for my undergraduate degree. Buckling under the pressure of juggling work and school, I left college for a decade to pursue a career in retail management for Wal-Mart and Office Depot. Unhappy with this career path, I took classes in the evening and eventually finished my BA in English. Soon after, I earned a Master’s Degree in American Literature from Indiana University in Bloomington where I am currently completing a Ph.D.

Course Information:

Course Time: Tuesday, 3:30PM-6:30PM Classroom: 261 (Communications Lab) Prerequisites: EWPC 316 or consent of instructor Required Books & Available online or provided by instructor Materials: Learning Outcomes/ Competencies: 1. Know how to distribute and promote creative work on public, web-based platform. 2. Understand how to write for the rhetorical situation of a particular, public audience. 3. Demonstrate ability to use a distinct, personalized, and appropriate authorial voice. 4. Analyze a variety of web-based texts to discern their form, language, and audience. 5. Synthesize knowledge of form, language, and audience to produce effective non-fiction prose. 6. Evaluate the effectiveness of prose written by their peers and others. Course Description: Using popular digital publishing and social media platforms, this course introduces students to the fundamentals of publishing and promoting creative works on the Internet. Students will develop a creative brand, identify a target audience, and promote their works to this market. Prerequisites: EWPC 316 or consent of instructor.

2400 NEW YORK AVE. ! WHITING, IN 46394 ! TEL. 219-473-7770 ! 773-721-0202 ! FAX 219-473-4259

Learning Strategies: Lecture, discussion, hands-on tutorials, video tutorials, experiential learning, project based learning, annotation, the writing process.

Experiential Learning Opportunities: -Project based learning: publication of creative works on Medium web platform. -Special guests: Political Writer extraordinaire, Carol Felsenthal Joe Macaré, publisher of Truthout (web chat) Rick Perlstein, New York Times best-selling author (web chat) Christine Brandel, columnist for Pop Matters (web chat) Michael Golden, author of Unlock Congress and ex-political consultant (web chat) -Optional Field Trip: Poetry Slam with Marc Kelly at the Green Mill in Chicago (21 and over)

Assessments:

Major Assignments: Final project: Students will publish a final work drawing 30% upon the theme from our earlier collection. It will be evaluated upon its literary quality and substance, as well as, the level of reader engagement it generates.

Stories: As a class, we will prepare a collection of stories 30% on Medium around a specific organizing principle—it could be a genre, topic, historic period, or event. We’ll choose our organizing principle, and then you will contribute a story to our collection. You’ll turn in a writing process portfolio that includes notes, drafts, peer feedback, a marketing plan, and your final draft.

Weekly Reader: Each week, students will complete a 20% textual analysis of a set of three articles selected from the Medium website. You’ll complete a “textual analysis” worksheet for each article. This worksheet will help you begin to dismantle a text to understand how its form and language work to appeal to a specific audience.

Class Participation: Students will be assessed on their 10% demonstrated familiarity with class readings.

Attendance: Students receive credit for their attendance 10% and participation.

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Grading Scale: 100-92 A <92-90 A- <90-88 B+ <88-82 B <82-80 B- <80-78 C+ <78-72 C <72-70 C- <70-68 D+ <68-62 D <62-60 D- <59-0 F

Course Schedule:

Understanding the Schedule of Assignments: READ = Read and annotate text prior to that class session DUE = Work submitted for a grade All assigned readings are hyperlinked below

Week One Connecting in the Digital Age Tues 1/12 READ: “I Hate New Year’s Day” by Antonio Gramsci (translated by Alberto Toscano) “The Easiest Way to Lose 125 Pounds Is to Gain 175 Pounds” by Bill Barnwell “The Sudden But Well-Deserved Fall of Rahm Emanuel” by Rick Perlstein

In this first class, we’ll review the syllabus and course policies. But we’ll also discuss what it means to be a writer in the digital age. You and your classmates will brainstorm about the possibilities and challenges this new media world presents. We’ll practice how to do the “Weekly Reader” assignment with a sample article. Then you’ll sign-up and begin to explore our new digital publishing home, the website Medium.

Week Two Finding a Hero Tues 1/19 DUE: Weekly Reader #1 READ: “Consider the Lobster” by David Foster Wallace “The Emperor Miramaximus” by

Great stories have a hero. The hero can be a person, place, or thing. If writing is great, you might even fall in love (or hate)—with a character, a place, or an idea. In this class session, we’ll look at these two articles and figure out if each has a hero. Then, we’ll choose the organizing principle for our story collection on Medium. Read this article, too, it will help you generate some ideas for your first story.

Week Three Platform Dive Tues 1/26 DUE: Story #1 (good draft) Weekly Reader #2 READ: “The Remains of the Night: Sex, trash and nature in the city” by Elizabeth Royte for Medium Quartz (read a few stories) “Deep Sea Cowboys” by Joshua Davis for Epic Magazine

We’ll have a workshop on your first drafts. The workshop will have a single purpose; can readers infer a

3 central idea from your text. If so, does what they say match what you think you said? You’ll be asked to provide initial feedback on your peers’ work. We’ll also take a look at different platforms for collating, presenting, and distributing writing. To what extent do these platforms augment the reader experience?

Week Four Measure Twice, Cut Once Tues 2/2 DUE: Story #1 (better draft) Weekly Reader #3 READ: “My So-called Stalker” by Anonymous for Washington City Paper “At Flagging Tribune, Talks of a Bankrupt Culture” by David Carr for

A saying in carpentry goes something like this: “Measure twice, cut once.” Literally, it means take two measurements for the wood you are about to cut before you cut just it to make sure you have it exactly right. In our case, it’s about making sure you’ve really honed your story before you send it naked into the world. The web is crawling with trolls eager to denounce your inaccuracies, deride your tired metaphors, and dismantle your inconsistent logic. Today, you’ll select the strongest paragraph of your piece and perform it for the class. We’ll take your strongest paragraph and make it even stronger using Lanham’s “Paramedic Method.” Then, you’ll take what you have learned and revise your whole story again. No “weekly reader” is due for next week. Put the bulk of your energy into completing your final draft!

LAST DAY TO WITHDRAW FROM A COURSE WITHOUT INSTRUCTOR APPROVAL 2/8

Week Five The Storytelling Business Tues 2/9 DUE: Story #1 (best draft and process portfolio) READ: “What journalists Need to Know about Content Marketing” by Shane Snow “Brandscaping” (excerpt) by Andrew Davis “Everybody Writes” (excerpt) by Ann Handley

In the world of traditional consumer media, publications have created content that attracts an audience to its product. Then, they extract revenue from the readers via payments and concurrently through advertisers who want to reach the audience of a publication. This model is under heavy pressure and has caused traditional media outlets to make drastic changes (e.g. firing lots of people). How can you maintain creative and intellectual integrity, build an audience, and earn an income? Web chat with Joe Macaré of Truthout.

Week Six Storytelling Innovations Tues 2/16 DUE: Weekly Reader #4 (from Persons of Note on Medium) READ: “Arcade Fire: Just a Reflektor” by Vincent Morisset (requires webcam and phone) “Greenland is Melting Away” by Coral Davenport, et al. “India’s Toilet Crisis” by Emily Gibson (password is “india”) “In the Zombie Underworld” by Mischa Berlinski for Epic Magazine

While text itself remains a powerful tool, the ever-increasing sophistication of internet publishing has now allowed new forms of storytelling, using data, video, sound, and scrolling to tell remarkable stories. We’ll examine some of these tools today. Then, we’ll turn to your next writing assignment—the profile. Let’s figure out how we’ll organize our collection of profiles.

Week Seven The Art of the Profile

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Tues 2/23 DUE: Profile (good draft) Weekly Reader #5 READ: “Will the Real Bruce Rauner Please Stand Up?” by Carol Felsenthal “Terry Gross” by Susan Burton “Meet the Chicago Millennials Who Started a Donald Trump Super PAC" by Carol Felsenthal

MEET Carol Felsenthal. A mainstay of Chicago political journalism for over 30 years, Felsenthal is a master storyteller with an eye for detail. She has published numerous books, but she is perhaps best known for her work with Chicago magazine. She has also been writing for national publications, most recently Politico. Most important for us, she is a master of the profile form (as the Bruce Rauner opus above illustrates). Be prepared to ask questions and learn all you can from her. Take what you have learned, and work on writing your profile piece.

NO CLASS – SPRING BREAK (2/29 – 3/5)

Week Nine Voice Lessons Tues 3/8 DUE: Profile (better draft) Weekly Reader #6 READ: “Writer’s Voice: What it is and how to develop yours” “Our Sprawling, Supersize Utopia” by David Brooks “Memorial Blockade: A Love Letter to Communities Resisting Police Violence” by Kelly Hayes “For Host Larry Wilmore, A Year Of 'Extraordinary' Highs And 'Humbling' Lows” from NPR (listen to the interview)

Schools, for many reasons, spend years eroding students’ most important gift, their personal voice. Like a broken steed, students eventually relent and lose the originality entirely. They’re left sputtering characterless clusters of prose from rote memory. In this class session, we’ll rediscover your personal voice and teach you how to write in a way that conveys your personality and is appropriate for the situation. We’ll apply this knowledge to the “better draft” of your profile.

Week Ten Resonating with an Audience Tues 3/15 DUE: Profile (best draft and process portfolio) READ: “The Six Things That Make Stories Go Viral Will Amaze and Maybe Infuriate You” by Maria Konikkova “Click Print Gun” by Erin Lee Carr for “Statistics—Measuring the Impact of Your Story” on Medium “Why no one reads your stuff” by Yann Girard on Medium

So you made something wonderful. Now, how do you get anyone besides your boyfriend/mother/teacher to read it? A discussion of social media marketing, the Collections feature on Medium, wooing the trolls of Reddit, and submitting to relevant digital and print publications. Also today, describe your tentative idea for your final story. Web chat with Christine Brandel, columnist at Pop Matters.

Sun 3/20 OPTIONAL FIELD TRIP: Poetry Slam at the Green Mill, Chicago from 7:00-10:00pm with Marc Kelly Smith. Meet at CCSJ at 5:00pm at the rear/main entrance. 21 and over.

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Week Eleven The Economics and Ethics of Textual Power Tues 3/22 DUE: Final Project (brainstorming and notes) Weekly Reader #7 READ: “Websites That Pay Writers 2015: These 79 Sites Offer $50 and Up” “50 Sites That Pay You to Write or Blog” “The Penultimate Guide to Making Money with Paid Content Writing”

By the time you graduate, we hope you will have written enough to have developed what Dr. B. calls, “textual power.” Textual power is the ability to take information, organize it, and deliver it effectively. This ability can earn you money in the marketplace. It also gives you literal power in the world. With great power comes great responsibility. We’ll look at some ways to get paid for your writing and the ethics of textual power. We’ll hear from a guy with some serious textual power: Web chat with Rick Perlstein, New York Times best-selling author of Nixonland and The Invisible Bridge.

Week Twelve Beginning, Middle, and End Tues 3/29 DUE: Final Project (good draft)

After completing seven “weekly readers,” you should have a good sense of story structure. Great stories have a beginning, middle, and an end. We’ll put this knowledge to the test by creating a four panel version of Story #2. The first frame will describe your hero and how you want us to feel about him, her, or it. Then, the remaining three frames will capture the beginning, middle, and end of your story. The beginning is the situation or introduction of the conflict. The middle is the ongoing action. The end wraps the story up and punctuates your point.

Week Thirteen Spreading the Word Tues 4/5 DUE: Final Project (better draft)

Many, many talented people are producing creative works today. Today we’ll look at how you can get your voice to rise above the din—marketing. We’ll develop a marketing plan for our Medium collection and assign tasks to everyone in the class. We’ll get some pointers from a very special guest: Web chat with Michael Golden, author of Unlock Congress

Week Fourteen You Must Submit Tues 4/12 DUE: Final Project (best draft and progress portfolio)

This is it; the day we actually publish our work on Medium. Every piece of writing is really unfinished. Another draft is always there just below the surface for you to scratch and uncover. But at some point, you have to stop, and let it go. But remember, once you hit “submit,” it’s out there, for better or for worse. It’s being replicated on automated content generators, translated into other languages, and sent racing around the world. You’ll present your final projects to class, and we’ll get started on executing our marketing plan.

Week Fifteen The End is the Beginning Tues 4/19 DUE: Parting Words

We’ll look back on the things we’ve made and what we’ve learned. You’ll offer “parting words.” These will be your reflections on the class, your peers, and your work. We’ll view the analytics for our collection and see if it is resonating. You will complete the end-of-semester course evaluation.

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Responsibilities Attending Class You cannot succeed in this class if you do not attend. We believe that intellectual growth and success in higher education occur through interaction in the classroom and laboratories. However, we do not want to penalize students for participating in college- sponsored events. When you miss class because of a college event, you must give notice of your absence in advance, and you are responsible for all missed work. Being absent doesn’t excuse you from doing class work; you have more responsibilities to keep up and meet the objectives of this course.

Ten percent of your final grade will be based on your class attendance. Each absence beyond one, will reduce your attendance grade by 5%. In accordance with the English Department attendance policy, any student missing more than NINE (9) hours of class—three class sessions—will receive an F. These nine hours include both excused and unexcused absences; it also includes all tardies of more than 15 minutes. Please be aware these hours include absences due to birthdays, sport events, illness, work, etc.

Turning In Your You cannot succeed in this class if you do not turn in all your work on the day it is due. Work All assignments are to be turned in at the beginning of class on the due date listed on the course syllabus. All written work must be typed and stapled (unless otherwise instructed). • Late Projects: Projects (e.g. story collection portfolio) will not be accepted late unless you have made formal, written arrangements with me via email prior to the next scheduled class session. In other words, do not show up to class a week later with an overdue project and expect it to be accepted; it will not be. • Missed Work: Except under dire circumstances (e.g. serious bodily injury requiring hospitalization or prolonged illness) in-class activities, journals, worksheets, study guides, quizzes, and exams cannot be made up if you are absent on the day the assignment is due. Completing assignments late is inherently unfair to your classmates who have completed their assignments on time. Using Electronic Electronic devices can only be used in class for course-related purposes. If you text or Devices access the Internet for other purposes, you may be asked to leave, in which case you will be marked absent.

Participating in You will receive a grade for your classroom participation. You must come to class Class prepared, be on time, stay for the duration of the class, engage in a constructive way with your classmates, and demonstrate your knowledge of assigned coursework. If you are unprepared or disengaged, you may be asked to leave, in which case you will be marked absent.

Communicating Social Media: This course requires regular use of websites including, but not limited to, with your Medium, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Blackboard, and CCSJ email. The class will have Professor a private Facebook group that will be used to share texts and extend our classroom discussion. If you are not a regular Facebook user, you can set up an account using an alias. Look for me on Facebook (Mark Cassello) and send a friend request.

Blackboard: Blackboard will be used to distribute readings, handouts, and announcements. Your grades will also be recorded regularly in Blackboard. It is essential that you log into Blackboard daily to ensure that you stay informed about the course. If the campus is closed or class cancelled due to bad weather, alternative assignments will be distributed via Blackboard and must be completed on time.

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Office Hours: Students are encouraged to use office hours for assistance and clarification. Office hours are an excellent forum to discuss individual questions which are not appropriate during class (a question about your particular assignment, a question about the Communications program, your attendance, etc.). Appointments are not necessary, but they help me to prepare for your visit and ensure that I will not be out of the office. My office hours are specified on the first page of the syllabus.

Email: I will use CCSJ’s email to send urgent announcements about class or assignments. You should use CCSJ’s email to communicate about absences and to ask small but important questions (e.g. clarification about an assignment). Don’t use email to request information or materials readily available elsewhere (e.g. due dates " listed on the syllabus, handouts " available on Blackboard). I generally respond to emails within 24-48 hours with the exception of breaks/holidays when I may be unavailable until the next scheduled work day.

Phone Calls: Reserve phone calls for urgent communications. For example, call if you have a flat tire and will be unable to make it to class or if you have been snowed in. My office phone number is (219) 473-4322.

In all instances (Facebook Blackboard, office hours, email, phone), remember that communication with college instructors should always maintain standards of professionalism and formality.

Doing Your Own If you turn in work that is not your own, you are subject to judicial review, and these Work procedures can be found in the College Catalog and the Student Planner. The maximum penalty for any form of academic dishonesty is dismissal from the College.

Using standard citation guidelines, such as MLA or APA format, to document sources avoids plagiarism. The Library has reference copies of each of these manuals, and there are brief checklists in your Student Handbook and Planner.

PLEASE NOTE: All papers may be electronically checked for plagiarism. Withdrawing After the last day established for class changes has passed (see the College calendar), from Class you may withdraw from a course by following the policy outlined in the CCSJ Course Catalog.

Resources Student Success Required: The Student Success Center provides faculty tutors at all levels to Center: help you master specific subjects and develop effective learning skills. It is open to all students at no charge. You can contact the Student Success Center at 219 473-4287 or stop by the Library. Disability Required: Disability Services strives to meet the needs of all students by Services: providing academic services in accordance with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) guidelines. If you believe that you need a “reasonable accommodation” because of a disability, contact the Disability Services Coordinator at 219-473-4349.

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Counseling If you are in need of emotional support, CCSJ has free services available on Services: campus. A mental health professional is on campus in Room 301 at various times throughout the week. Br. Jerry Schweiterman is the head of the campus ministry and can be found in Room 408. Other Services: CCSJ has a food and clothing pantry available for students which is located in the basement. Contact Diane Bailey in the Student Activities Center for more information: [email protected] CCSJ Alerts: Required: Calumet College of St. Joseph’s emergency communications system will tell you about emergencies, weather-related closings, or other incidents via text, email, or voice messages. Please sign up for this important service annually on the College’s website at: http://www.ccsj.edu/alerts/index.html.

In addition, you can check other media for important information, such as school closings:

Internet: http://www.ccsj.edu Radio: WAKE – 1500 AM, WGN – 720 AM, WIJE – 105.5 FM, WLS – 890 AM, WZVN – 107.1 FM, WBBM NEWS RADIO 780 TV Channels: 2, 5, 7, 9, 3

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