This project emerged from a course I designed for English and communication majors at NCSU. The course focused on providing students with a foundation in rhetorical theory and social movement theory and involved collaborative and individual assignments to scaffold understanding of rhetoric as it happens and circulates. In part of the course, students collected Twitter data using TAGS, then analyzed and remixed this social media data, using it as an inventional resource for intervening in a contemporary social and political problem. Students chose topics related to social media manipulation, hashtag movements like #metoo, and socio-political crises like the Dreamer Movement that emerged from revoking the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Through technological modes of analysis and remediation tools like Tableau, Twine, and Kahoot and through handmade and embodied forms of making and performance, students applied their theoretical knowledge of rhetoric and social movements to engage the local campus community and offer interventions to address social and political problems.

Any part of this syllabus is available for others to use or modify. If you do so, please let me know at desireedighton@gmail.com. The images below represent student projects and were reproduced with their permission.

The first photo is a collaborative protest art piece that remediated #metoo by inviting local participation through circulating this object across campus. The wire globe resided for extended periods in the Caldwell Lounge, the Women’s Center, and the GLBT Center.

The second photo is a screenshot of a project that uses Timeline JS to tell the history of how the #TakeAKnee movement happened.

The third photo depicts part of “a digital maze” students created in NCSU Libraries’ Visualization Studio by combining an anonymous DACA recipient audio interview with a series of immersive videos and visualizations depicting the Twitter conversation around #DACA. Reflecting on the project, these students stated, “We understand that one documentary will not spark the change that we want to see regarding the immigration rights movement, but our voices and ideas are now part of a larger public screen. In this way, we hope to continue to circulate our ideas and knowledge of the DREAMer movement crafted through careful attention to rhetorical strategies and the movement’s needs by sharing our presentation through different platforms and to different audiences into the future.”