Course Syllabus

Name: Dr. Matt Barton (Please call me Matt!)

Office Location: Building 51, Room 158

Email Address: mdbarton@stcloudstate.edu

Office Phone: (320) 308-2204 (please email instead).

Office hours:  

Course Description

Catalog description:  Topics in specialized areas and practices of critical literacy such as cultural rhetorics, new media, and critical pedagogies. May be repeated up to a maximum of six credits.

My description:

This year’s special English 632 takes a critical look at movements in writing pedagogy as “gamification,” “Massively-Online Open Courses,” and “comic book” composition texts like Losh and Alexander’s Understanding Rhetoric. How do these and similar innovations challenge, reinforce, or negotiate hegemonic beliefs about literacy and education? We’ll begin by reading Jacques Rancière's controversial work The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation, which challenges widespread assumptions about what it means to be intelligent and/or educated. From there, we’ll read Yin and Yang in the English Classroom: Teaching with Popular Culture Texts and Critical Digital Literacies as Social Praxis. You will be responding to and discussing these readings with me and your classmates on an online forum, as well as experimenting with and reflecting on pop culture and writing techs, culminating in a 12-15 page seminar paper to be shared and discussed with your peers. 

About Your Professor

Dr. Matt Barton is an English professor at Saint Cloud State University, where he has served on the faculty since 2005 after receiving his PhD in Rhetoric and Composition from the University of South Florida. Matt teaches courses in rhetoric, composition, social media, popular culture, and advanced writing. His published work includes five books, several articles and reviews in top academic journals, and a documentary called Gameplay: The Story of the Videogame Revolution. He’s the host of a weekly YouTube program called Matt Chat, which features in-depth retrospectives and interviews with veterans of the videogame industry. Click here to view his CV.

Required Books

 1. Yin and Yang in the English Classroom: Teaching with Popular Culture Texts ISBN ISBN-13: 978-1475806892
ISBN-10: 1475806892

2. Critical Digital Literacies as Social Praxis: ISBN-13: 978-1433116933
ISBN-10: 1433116936

3. The Ignorant Schoolmaster
ISBN-13: 978-0804719698
ISBN-10: 0804719691

Projects & Grading

• 30% Research essay (12-15 pages, min. 3,000 words, min. 6 peer reviewed sources).
• 10% Rough Drafts (Proposal and Essay)
• 15% Peer Reviews (4 total; 2 for the research essay, and 2 for the proposals)
• 15% Research essay proposal 
• 30% Online Participation and Activities
• 20% Nuggets
• 10% EDPuzzles 

Class Conduct and Policies

This class carries with it the same workload expectation of a traditional face to face class. 

The due dates for the projects are distributed throughout the semester. If you are late with a submission, your grade on that assignment may be docked up to 5 points per day it is late. You can usually submit work earlier than the due date if you anticipate a conflict.

I am not responsible for any technical or computer-related problems you suffer during this semester, and I will not excuse any late or missing assignments blamed solely on problems with your personal computer. If you experience any issues of this nature, you can always call the Husky Help Desk at (320) 308-2077 (or email them at helpdesk@stcloudstate.edu). If your personal computer is unreliable, take advantage of SCSU's computer labs, where tech support is readily available.