Pinvention: Updating Commonplace Books for the Digital Age

Abstract

Courses: This semester-length project suits the following courses, although instructors may find it applicable to others as well: Public Speaking, Speechwriting, Introduction to Communication, Rhetorical Criticism, and Communication and Technology.

Objectives: This digital project helps students achieve the following objectives: (1) to organize digitally abundant sources during the research process (for multiple assignments over the course of a semester or for one only); (2) to visualize and spatialize their findings; and (3) to incorporate images and other non-traditional scholarly sources into their presentations or projects, or at least into their preliminary planning stages.

They thank John Gastil, Kate Miffitt, Richard Graff, Jeremy Johnson, and Brad Serber for their support.

They thank John Gastil, Kate Miffitt, Richard Graff, Jeremy Johnson, and Brad Serber for their support.

Notes

[1] Recently, writing instructors have revived the analogue commonplace book; see, e.g., Carbone (2010) on how it can be used to help students develop multiple perspectives on current events.

[2] We recognize, though, that not every student possesses her/his own computer or smart device or has free and reliable Internet access.

[3] A few rhetoricians, however, have recently turned to Pinterest for pedagogical purposes. For instance, Cindy Koenig Richards regularly assembles pertinent images and quotations for her courses at Willamette University, and Cara Finnegan built a Pinterest-based project into her fall 2014 course, “Photography and Public Life,” at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

[4] We have not conducted formal assessments. Our evaluations thus far have been end-of-semester discussions of the project. Student feedback used with permission.