WRT 302 | SPRING 2016

Schedule of Events (subject to change)

Jan. 21

Jan. 26

Jan. 28

Feb. 2

Feb. 4

What is Digital Writing? Introductions, syllabus, de8initions, tech inventories.

Why do we care?
For next class:
Read Derakhshan, The Web We Have to Save and
Rheingold, Why You Need Digital Know-How and post
comments to the course blog.
Brainstorm potential topics for your blog.
Planning and
Come prepared to discuss your thoughts on platform
Launching a Website choices and ideas for publication.
Platforms and Purpose For next class:
Finalize platform decisions
Finalize topic selection
Read Redish, Chapter 2. Write a post discussing your
topic, your purpose statement, and one persona. (Note
that persona is very different from authorial ethos,
which well talk about next time.)
Platform Setup and
Platform setup. Come prepared to peer-review your 8irst
Further Persona
persona. We will also discuss authorial ethos and
Development
scenario development.
For next class:
Post well-considered paragraph describing your
authorial ethos and reasoning for it.
Two additional personas.
Read Redish, 3744 for next session and post
comments.
Scenarios and Content Come prepared to develop scenarios and discuss
Strategy
potential aspects of integrated content strategy. We wont
be studying social media per se in this class, but it may be
part of your overall strategy.
For next class:
Post three use scenarios to the course blog
Read Redish, 45-60 for next session and Designing for
People Who Do Not Read Easily. Post comments.
Design: Getting Started Themes, basic posting, plug-ins, widgets.
For next class:
Draft your 8irst post and publish it by midnight on 2/7
Read Redish, 73-88 for next session and post comments.

Feb. 9

Design: Branding

Feb. 11

SEO, Style and Voice

Feb. 16

Organizing Content

Feb. 18

Working with Images

Feb. 23

Working with Images,

Part Deux

Feb. 25

Site ethos: identi8ication/brand/tone.

For next class:
Draft a basic description of your brand.
Draft your About page
Read Quinn, 13 Ways the W3Cs Accessibility
Guidelines also Help SEO and Redish, 157-187 for next
session and post comments.
Considering writing style in light of brand, ethos,
audience, and search engine optimization.
For next class:
Read Redish, 197-226. Post a consideration of
ways that youll need to revise or alter your style
in the future. What are your individual goals for
your writing over the rest of this semester
Basic information architecture and strategy. Categories,
tagging.
For next class:
Using WriteMaps, develop a basic architecture of
your site. Refer to the requirements we discussed in
class. Post a link to the map and a justi8ication for
your choices on the course blog.
Read Bound By Law for next session and post
comments.
Locating images, image quality, licensing, hosting.
For next class:
Fully draft two static pages for your site.

Taking quality images, basic processing

Create two original images that youre proud of.
Process them appropriately and integrate them in
your blog in a way that you 8ind appropriate. One
of these images can be for your bio page, but the
other should be content or branding of some sort.
Read Redish, 271-289 for next session and post
comments.
Integrating Illustrations Other potential image types; integrating images as
content, genre expectations.
For next class:
Make sure that each of your posts includes a well-
integrated image.
Draft a list of what information types your site
should include
Read Redish, 101-124 for next session and post
comments.