Assessing Remix Assignments

an assessment ology For most of human history, the creation of culture was always a shared phenomenon: an activity connected to spiritual sustenance and a mutual confirmation of values between the creators and their community. Only recently has it been found advisable to withhold virtually all such creative activity until it can be paid for. Negativland, "No Business" (2005) Lawrence Lessig, “Who Owns Culture?” (2005) Culture is remix. Knowledge is remix. Politics is remix. Everyone in the life of producing and creating engages in the practice of remix. STIRRED, NOT SHAKEN: Sharing is the NATURE of Creation. Gilberto Gil, Brazilian Minister of Culture, RiP: A Remix Manifesto (2008) MOVIE TRAILER REMIX: Students will create a remix of a movie trailer that disrupts, complicates, or challenges the underlying ideology in the original. Students may incorporate some original content in the composition, but should keep in mind that this is primarily an exercise in rearranging, combining, and transforming pre-existing material. This remixed trailer will be accompanied by a 2-3 page reflective statement. FAIR USE DOCTRINE: Guidelines that outline the limitations imposed on traditional copyright law (basically, the exceptions that allow us to sample, copy, quote, and remix without permission): The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes The nature of the copyrighted work The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work HOW FAIR USE GUIDELINES ARE USED: # Heuristic to help guide brainstorming/concept planning. # Framework for face-to-face feedback during initial composing stages. # A central component of studio critique session. # A component used in the accompanying designer’s reflective statement/rationale. # Central part of grading rubric. QUESTIONS FOR YOU: # Productive ways of extending or refining this assessment model? # Adequately address rhetorical skills we generally try cultivating in our students’ work? # Potential conflicts, complications, or things that give you pause? # Appropriate only for this assignment, or possible to apply to other remix-type assignments? THE WORK: PROOF OF CONCEPT: Copyright is in tremendous flux at the moment; governments all over the world are considering what their copyright systems should look like in the 21st century, and it's probably a good idea to nail down what we want copyright to do. Otherwise the question "Is copyright working?" becomes as meaningless as "How long is a piece of string?" Cory Doctorow, Sci-fi author & copyright activist ACT I: "Fair Use: It's Not Just for Lawyers Anymore" ACT II: "Remixing Academic Genres—Knowledge, Learning, Design" ACT III: "The Evolving Rubric—An Assessment Tool" ACT 1: "Fair Use: It's Not Just for Lawyers Anymore" New media force us to re-conceptualize not only what a text is but also the criteria by which we judge texts. Print-based assessment has been “ported” to digital composing, but print-based criteria favors print-based discourse, not the kind of discourse that is possible with new media. -- Diane Penrod We need to create a new assessment system that values “a writer’s ability to communicate within a particular context and to a specific audience who needs to read this writing as part of a clearly defined communicative event.” -- Brian Huot ACT II: "Remixing Academic Genres—Knowledge, Learning, Design" Goals of Personal Narrative Assignment • To develop a sense of authority as a writer (i.e., feel as though you have something to communicate about a topic you are an expert in) • To learn to use detail and specific language to describe your experience (i.e., “show don’t tell”) • To analyze and reflect upon your experiences with literacy skills: reading and writing in all its forms (traditional and non-traditional, “school” oriented and not) • To analyze and reflect upon the role of instruction (both formal and informal, within and outside of school) and practice in your learning of literacy skills • To understand the choices available to you as a composer and how to make the best choices based upon the context in which you are writing and the audience you are addressing• To understand how revision and peer response contribute to creating successful texts. Goals of Narrative Remix Assignment • To compose with authority and “voice” in the visual realm • To learn to use visual detail and visual language to tell a story or make a point (i.e., literally show don’t tell) • To analyze and reflect on your experiences with literacy skills, while learning a new literacy (composing with images) • To analyze and reflect on the process of creating this text and learning this new literacy or form of composing • To understand the role that medium plays in the context of composing, learning to narrow the scope of your message appropriately, choose the best visual details to present your concept to your audience, and think about audience concerns when composing • To understand how form and medium influence and, at times, constrain your choices regarding the visual design of your texts • To utilize revision and peer response to create successful texts. ACT III: "The Evolving Rubric—An Assessment Tool" DERIVATIVE APPROPRIATION UNCREATIVE ILLEGAL THEFT An appropriation from a source in which there is intervention and transformation of the original intent. Making new stuff from old stuff in a way that has social and cultural benefits. Rubrics are inquiry-based, emerging piecemeal as needed from vigorous discussions of the visual, technical, aesthetic, linguistic, and metacognitive characteristics of rhetorically effective multimedia, and the criteria appropriate for assessing them. Through each stage of production, new categories are added, some fall away, criteria for production and evaluation are refined and elaborated, and the final compilation becomes the agreed-upon rubric for summative assessment and grading.