We live in a world of remix, a world where texts, sounds, images, and ideas are created and recreated, mixed and remixed, so that they can be seen and understood in new forms, new places, and new directions. In writing, the idea of remix is at the heart of the revision process because to remix something is to encourage writers and readers alike to re-see it. In the 2013 Symposium on Student Writing, we want to showcase remix as an important and viable way to understand not only the revision process but also the importance of the rhetorical choices writers need to make when trying to convey any message (in any form) to a target audience. Thus, we are calling for student presentations from writing classes across the university that illustrate the various forms remix can take in student writing and the skills students use and learn when remixing their written work. Through these presentations, we will showcase the important place remix holds in writing courses across the curriculum and the complex rhetorical skills that are exercised through the act of re-envisioning a piece of written work.

 

Presentations for the symposium may take the form of videos, podcasts, posters, PowerPoint and Prezi presentations, songs, or any other format that lends itself to illustrating the art of remix.

 

Examples of projects that meet the symposium theme include presentations that:

§  Highlight and comment upon the changes writers made in moving from their original written piece to a remixed product.  Such presentations could focus on the way that the writer’s growing understanding of genre conventions or audience influenced the remix. 

§  Illustrate how the elements of reasoning or intellectual standards of critical thinking influenced a writer’s remix choices.

§  Make visible the social dimensions of remixing by emphasizing the roles that other individuals—including peer commentators, instructors, other authors the writer has cited, other audiences—have played in shaping the design of the project.

§  Reflect on the design choices that writers made as they “translated” a project from one medium to another or reinterpreted the same content for different audiences.  For instance, a project might highlight the design choices made as a traditional print text was translated into a website or a multimodal composition.