textbook materials: Picturing Texts website
citation
Ball, Cheryl E. (2004). Picturing Texts website. New York: W.W. Norton. Available: http://www.picturingtexts.com.
abstract [from site]
Redefining composition to include conscious attention to images and design, Picturing Texts is a writing textbook that teaches how to compose visual texts as well as how to read them. This Web site is a repository of useful materials for working with the book. It includes online readings, with suggested focus and respond sections [coordinating with the structure of the print book]; guidelines for writing for the Web; links to resources on the Web that will help students do the kind of work invited by Picturing Texts; and more.
purpose: This website accompanies the writing/composition textbook Picturing Texts (Selfe, Cynthia; Faigley, Lester, George, Diana; & Palchik, Anna; W.W. Norton, 2004).
contribution
- content for 7 interactive chapters
- content for 3 sections of ancillary materials
accompanying materials
website
textbook CD: ix tech comm
citation
Ball, Cheryl E. & Arola, Kristin L. (2005). ix tech comm: visual exercises for technical communication. Boston: Bedford–St. Martin’s Press.
abstract [from CD cover]
ix tech comm offers a new way to visualize technical communication—because there are things you just can’t do in a book. Each of the 9 exercises moves through the following three steps: (1) Illustrated definitions help students visualize key concepts: text, purpose, element, context, audeince, color, contrast, emphasis, framing, alignment, proximity, organization, and sequence. (2) Guided analyses of real world texts—such as an X-men plane schematic, a bicycling safety PowerPoint presentation, and an illustrated recipe—model for students how to put theory into practice. (3) Interactive assignments invite students to make their own rhetorical choices—changing colors, determining alignment and typeface, and rearranging the elements of a web site’s navigation—and to write about the impact those choices have.
co-author
Kristin L. Arola is Assistant Professor of English at Washington State University.
contribution
- 90% content authoring based on 50% conceptualization of key terms used
- provided feedback on original Flash design concept
- CD contains nine sections; each section has approximately 20 unique screens of content. Total screen count is approximately 200. (Screen size is 800×600px)
accompanying materials
book, research | Comment (0)textbook CD: ix visual exercises
citation
Ball, Cheryl E. & Arola, Kristin L. (2004). ix: visual exercises. Boston: Bedford–St. Martin’s Press.
purpose
This CD-ROM introduces visual rhetoric theories to students and teachers using rhetorical terms with which they are already familiar. It was produced to accompany all of Bedford-St. Martin’s composition textbooks. It includes visual readings and assignments that students in cultural-studies-focused writing classes are likely to encounter (e.g., advertisements, photographs, comics, illustrations, interactive web movies, etc.).
co-author
Kristin L. Arola is Assistant Professor of English at Washington State University.
contribution
- 50% conceptualization of key terms
- 50% authoring of content
- CD contains nine sections; each section has approximately 20 unique screens of content. Total screen count is approximately 200. (Screen size is 800×600px)
accompanying materials
- link to CD-ROM website
- review of CD from “next/text: what happens when textbooks go digital”, a subdivision of the Institute for the Future of the Book
- review of CD in Computers and Composition
- email from teacher using ix
textbook materials: Picturing Texts instructor’s guide
citation
Ball, Cheryl E. (2004). Picturing Texts instructor’s guide. New York: W.W. Norton.
abstract
The Instructor’s Guide, which accompanies the Picturing Texts composition textbook, suggests starting points for working with the discussion questions, advice to give students about the writing prompts, syllabi for several ways of using the book, and other ideas for working with Picturing Texts.
contribution/page count
114 pages
accompanying materials
- the longest work I’ve done to date and I can’t include it online…lol. If that doesn’t prove the limits of print, I don’t know what does.
- a review in C&C Online, which addresses the instructor’s guide
- a review in Kairos, which addresses the instructor’s guide
- Google search of “Picturing Texts” and “syllabus” reveals impact of textbook (and by extension, possibly, the instructor’s manual)