Description
English 382 examine archives and archival exhibitions as forms of multimodal composition. We will engage critical debates around archives as repositories of individual and collective memory, as sites of inclusion and exclusion, and as tools for social justice. Moreover, we will investigate questions of preservation, storage, cataloging, exhibition, and access as they help shape our thinking about how we can create archives of our own and encourage audiences to interact with our work. As we explore how archives and archival exhibitions use multiple modes—linguistic, visual, aural, gestural, and spatial—we will craft personal archives, analyze existing archives, and create archival exhibitions that incorporate existing materials. The course design and topic accommodate a broad range of personal interests, disciplinary approaches to archives, and multimodal composition experience.
While students will use selected platforms to complete coursework, technical savvy is not a course prerequisite. Students will receive instruction in selected technical tools, or they will be directed to relevant UW Learning Technologies workshops.
Although 382 has no formal prerequisite, it is an advanced composition course, and instructors expect entering students to know how to formulate claims, integrate evidence, demonstrate awareness of audience, and structure coherent sentences, paragraphs and essays.
Goals and Methodology
Students in the course work toward several goals:
- Analyzing critical literature on archives;
- Critically engaging in rhetorical and design analysis of multimodal archives;
- Applying knowledge and composition strategies gleaned from textual analysis to your own work;
- Producing complex multimodal archives that demonstrate purpose as well as awareness of audience, context, and stakes; engage specific genre conventions; incorporate relevant artifacts; and purposefully combine selected modes;
- Identifying and explaining composition decisions;
- Integrating feedback and self-assessment to revise draft materials;
- Locating, evaluating, and ethically using sources and multimodal assets;
- Drawing connections between coursework and out-of-class interests, life goals, and career plans.
Course activities promote active learning, incorporating a blend of small-group activities, discussion, hands-on technical skills practice, studio time, and mini-lecture. The course design reflects a process approach to composition, with students building large projects via a series of short assignments. My role is to provide the tools and resources you will need to advance your own thinking and composing. I will pose questions, design activities to help you generate ideas, and provide feedback on your work. Your role is to do the hard work. You will analyze texts, produce multimodal projects, critically respond to others’ work, and revise your own work multiple times.
Requirements
Class Participation
English 382 is a workshop-based course that involves extensive group interaction. Consequently, your success relies on consistent, timely attendance and engaged participation in class activities. I expect students to come prepared for each class session, with assigned readings and homework completed. You should plan to ask questions, generate ideas, share short assignments, conduct research, and critically respond to your peers’ work. Like all skills, speaking in class becomes easier with practice. I ask that you try your best to contribute to class conversations. If you typically have difficulty speaking in large groups, increase your participation during small-group work. Conversely, if you typically have a lot to say, encourage others to weigh in before you speak a second time.
Because learning in this class hinges on exchange of ideas and constructive assessment of others’ work, we will establish norms for maintaining a respectful classroom environment early in the quarter. I expect students to engage each other across differences in opinion and responses to texts. However, comments that question someone’s right to exist, make listeners fear for their well-being, or intentionally humiliate others will not be tolerated.
Our wired classroom setting necessitates some basic ground rules:
- Please switch off and stow your cell phone before class begins.
- I assume that you will use devices to actively engage course concepts, materials, and activities. I also understand that students differ in how they use technology to support learning. However, students should not use devices in ways that distract from their learning or that of their peers.
Lack of engagement in class activities, inadequate preparation, and failure to adhere to device and classroom climate guidelines will place you at risk of violating your grading contract.
Projects
You will complete two projects: a personal archives and an archival exhibition that draws on materials stored in existing archives. Because effective composition involves revision, students submit and receive feedback on multiple drafts of each project. Additionally, you may seek feedback from consultants at the Odegaard Writing and Research Center and the CLUE Writing Center. I’m also available to discuss ideas-in-progress during drop-in hours.
Short Assignments
Throughout the term, students will complete short assignments connected to each project. Short assignments require you to respond to readings, identify and analyze examples, develop ideas, propose content, create prototypes, and present work-in-progress.
Peer Feedback
English 382 uses a workshop format—students share ideas and work-in-progress with small groups or the full class. Peer critique allows authors to receive and revise from comments before submitting projects for a grade. Moreover, the process of assessing draft projects encourages critical reflection on one’s own work. Students should expect to give and receive feedback on all project drafts and select short assignments.
Grading
English 382 uses a contract grading system. During week 2, I will distribute a list of obligations required to earn grades in the A, B, C and below-C ranges, and you will indicate the grade you plan to earn. Grade contracts address the degree to which you:
- Consistently and productively participate in class discussion, activities, and peer review.
- Produce work that meets content and length requirements.
- Submit assignments on time.
- Use feedback to substantively revise draft work.
- Seek feedback outside of class.
- Apply comments on past work to future work.
- Track your progress in the course
The contract grading system allows you to focus on your learning—you can experiment with ideas and composition strategies and decide what feedback to incorporate or reject without fearing for your grade. The contract system also makes grading more transparent and gives students agency in a process that seems subjective. While I will provide feedback on individual assignments, I won’t assign a numerical grade.
Note that most UW Colleges and Schools require students to earn a 2.0 or higher to receive “C” credit and a .7 or higher to receive “W” credit.
Connecting with Others
In addition to interacting with others in class and online, you have other opportunities to connect with peers and the instructor:
Community Forum
The Community Forum is an asynchronous space where you can ask general questions about the course, readings, or assignment prompts. Posting questions in the Community Forum helps others with the same question. It also allows students to share answers the instructor might not have.
Drop-in Hours
You need not have a specific question about the class, course texts, an assignment, or work-in-progress to attend my drop-in hours. I’m available every Monday from 9:30-10:30 in Padelford A-305 and via Zoom (https://washington.zoom.us/j/91343874952) and Thursday from 9:30-11:30 a.m. via Zoom. Come visit me to discuss your interests, experiences at UW, or even the class. If you cannot make my scheduled drop-in hours, please contact me to set up an alternative time.
Textbooks and Other Materials
Your work constitutes the primary text for the course. Other required materials include:
Texts
Note that Yamashita designed her book to be read in conjunction with selected materials from the Yamashita Family archives. You may purchase her book in physical or digital format. The digital book links directly to archival documents, while the physical book directs readers to corresponding URLs.
- Yamashita, Karen Tei. Letters to Memory. Coffeehouse Press, 2017. ISBN: 978-1-56689-487-6
- Yamashita Family Archives. University of California, Santa Cruz. Available at https://yamashitaarchives.ucsc.edu/
In addition to Yamashita’s book, we’ll read selections from the following books, available in digital format via our course Canvas site:
- Bastian, Jeannette A. and Ben Alexander (eds.). Community Archives: The Shaping of Memory. Facet, 2009.
- Caswell, Michelle. Urgent Archives: Enacting Liberatory Memory Work. Routledge, 2021. Taylor & Francis Ebooks, https://doi-org.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/10.4324/
9781003001355. - Kumbier, Alana. Ephemeral Material: Queering the Archive. Litwin Books, 2009. ProQuest, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/washington/detail.action?docID=3328242.
- Maron, Rose. Indigenous Archival Activism: Mohican Interventions in Public History and Memory. University of Minnesota Press, 2024. JSTOR, https://www-jstor-org.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/stable/10.5749/jj.7220472.
Additional Materials
- Webcam and microphone or phone camera and microphone if you plan on using Zoom to attend drop-in hours.
- Headphones to access audio content in class
- Materials costs and copying fees for projects that include physical materials
Policies
Lateness Policy
Work considered “on-time” meets two criteria:
- It is submitted to Canvas by the specified date and time.
- It is complete, meeting the content and length requirements described in the assignment prompt.
If illness or other circumstances affect your ability to submit completed work by the posted deadline, contact me. The earlier you contact me, the more time we have to discuss potential extensions for the assignment. Without an approved extension, you may risk violating your grade contract.
Note that technology glitches do not constitute a valid excuse for late or incomplete work. To avoid problems, you should save frequently while working and you should back up work saved to a hard drive on an online archive (Dropbox, iCloud, UW Google Drive, personal files space on Canvas), USB drive, or external hard drive. You are responsible for submitting the correct version of all assignments and using share settings that allow me and your peers access to your work.
Academic Integrity Policy
English 382 adheres to the University of Washington’s policies on academic integrity, which prohibit unacknowledged use of another’s content or ideas. When you draw upon or reproduce sources, make clear to your audience that you are incorporating others’ work by placing quotation marks around exact words; noting the creator’s name whenever you quote, describe, summarize or paraphrase; and captioning audio and visual content with creator and title information. In class, we will discuss fair use and citation conventions appropriate to multimodal archival materials and exhibitions.
A note on generative AI: You may use generative AI to help you develop ideas, create outlines, and provide feedback on work-in-progress. You may not use generative AI to write text for you, nor may you include materials for which you don’t have copyright—for example assignment prompts, readings, and other students’ work—in your prompts. Furthermore, you must document your use of AI tools, providing information on what tool you used and how you used it. The University of Washington offers a version of Microsoft Copilot with commercial data protection, which means that information you submit in your prompt will not become part of Microsoft’s AI training dataset. While the university’s agreement with Microsoft doesn’t address the environmental impact; inaccuracies, hallucinations, and bias; labor issues; and intellectual property concerns that AI brings, it does protect your privacy in ways openly-available generative AI platforms do not. However, you must log on to Microsoft 365 with your UW credentials to use the protected version.
Submitting work authored by another person or AI, failure to credit sources, sharing others’ work outside class may result in a failing grade for the assignment, a failing grade for the course, or other disciplinary action. If I see evidence of academic misconduct, I will make a report to the Community Standards & Student Conduct office.
Accessibility and Accommodations
Accessibility
Disability accommodations grant students with ongoing or temporary disabilities access to educational opportunities. Disability Resource for Students (DRS) works to ensure access for students with disabilities by designing and implementing accommodations. If you experience educational barriers based on disability, please visit Disability Resources for Students online for more information about requesting accommodations. The DRS office in Mary Gates 011 is open Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m. Staff can work with you in person, by phone, TTY, video chat, or email (uwdrs@uw.edu).
If you have already established accommodations with Disability Resources for Students (DRS), please communicate your approved accommodations to me at your earliest convenience so we can discuss your needs in this course.
Your experience in this class is important to me, and you may have accessibility needs not covered under DRS’s umbrella—for example spotty web access, an unreliable computer, etc.—or you may not yet have DRS accommodations in place. Please talk with me as soon as possible so we can brainstorm solutions.
Religious Accommodations
In accordance with state law, UW provides reasonable accommodations for student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The UW’s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at Religious Accommodations Policy (https://registrar.washington.edu/staffandfaculty/religious-accommodations-policy). Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form (https://registrar.washington.edu/students/religious-accommodations-request).