Abstract

This dissertation focuses on the role that College Composition courses can and should play in addressing the digital divide and the literacy divide. For this project, digital divide refers to the space between those students who have opportunity to participate in online discourse communities and to contribute to the collective intelligence described by Henry Jenkins and those who have not had this opportunity even though they do have access to current technology. The literacy divide discussed is created when literacy is defined simply as the ability to read and write. Students need to be visually, digitally, and technologically literate. In response to these gaps, I propose reimagining the first-year writing course as a course in storytelling across disciplines and media. Story, oral storytelling, digital narrative, and transmedia narrative are explained. An analysis of several stories including a canonical comic book, a commercial, and a long-term narrative television show are analyzed using Aristotle, Propp, Saussure, Jenkins, Birkerts, and other theorists important to work in Texts and Technology. The guiding question for this project is How can a focus on storytelling using new and digital media in the first-year English composition course create an authentic and relevant learning experience for contemporary students while bridging the digital divide created by the lack of opportunity to participate in the collective intelligence of the convergence culture? Finally, the dissertation includes a research protocol which describes and justifies future research to test the claims made in this dissertation.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2018

Semester

Fall

Advisor

Janz, Bruce

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

College

College of Arts and Humanities

Degree Program

Texts and Technology

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0007350

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0007350

Language

English

Release Date

December 2018

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Doctoral Dissertation (Open Access)

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