Using storytelling and creative writing for the virtual promotion of arts & culture

O presente relatório de projeto foi elaborado no âmbito do Mestrado em Estudos Interculturais para Negócios do Instituto Superior de Contabilidade e Administração do Porto (ISCAP) do Politécnico do Porto para obtenção do grau de mestre. O objetivo principal deste relatório prende-se com a descrição e análise das tarefas realizadas num projeto multidisciplinar, que teve origem numa parceria entre a plataforma Google Arts & Culture, o Instituto Superior de Contabilidade e Administração do Porto (ISCAP) e o Museu Internacional de Escultura Contemporânea de Santo Tirso (MIEC_ST). As tarefas desenvolvidas neste projeto tiveram como objetivo a criação de textos sobre as esculturas do MIEC_ST, que acompanhariam as suas imagens e videos na segunda história da sua exposição virtual. O conceito de Storytelling esteve na base da criação dos textos que, numa primeira instância, foram elaborados na língua inglesa e posteriormente foram traduzidos para a língua portuguesa envolvendo processos de transcriação e auto-tradução. Foram ainda realizadas análises de algumas amostras de texto selecionadas para o efeito, de uma perspetiva criativa e contrastiva que permitiram identificar as dificuldades encontradas e as soluções escolhidas para conseguir transpô-las ao longo de todo o processo.The present project report was carried out as the final assignment to conclude ISCAP’s Masters in Intercultural Studies for Business (MISB), which is part of the Polytechnic of Porto. This report aims to outline the whole experience in participating in this multidisciplinary project which was the result of a partnership between the Google Arts & Culture platform, Porto Accounting and Business School – Instituto Superior de Contabilidade e Administração do Porto (ISCAP) and the International Museum of Contemporary Sculpture of Santo Tirso (MIEC_ST). The participation in this project involved the creation of texts that would accompany the sculptures of MIEC_ST in the second story of its virtual exhibition. Storytelling was in the core of the entire text creation process. Texts were first written in the English language and then went through a process that encompassed Translation, Transcreation and Self-translation to the Portuguese language. Additionally, samples of text were selected in order to perform a contrastive and creative analysis of the texts, which made it possible to identify the difficulties encountered and the solutions found to overcome them throughout this work

Steps to Success: Crossing the Bridge Between Literacy Research and Practice

Steps to Success: Crossing the Bridge Between Literacy Research and Practice introduces instructional strategies linked to the most current research-supported practices in the field of literacy. The book includes chapters related to scientifically-based literacy research, early literacy development, literacy assessment, digital age influences on children’s literature, literacy development in underserved student groups, secondary literacy instructional strategies, literacy and modern language, and critical discourse analysis. Chapters are written by authors with expertise in both college teaching and the delivery of research-supported literacy practices in schools. The book features detailed explanations of a wide variety of literacy strategies that can be implemented by both beginning and expert practitioners. Readers will gain knowledge about topics frequently covered in college literacy courses, along with guided practice for applying this knowledge in their future or current classrooms. The book’s success-oriented framework helps guide educators toward improving their own practices and is designed to foster the literacy development of students of all ages.https://knightscholar.geneseo.edu/oer-ost/1009/thumbnail.jp

Strategic Error as Style: Finessing the Grammar Checker

Composition studies lacks a comprehensive theory of error, one which successfully defines error in writing and offers a pedagogical response to ostensible errors that neither ignores nor pathologizes them. Electronic text-critiquing technologies offer some promise of helping writers notice and correct errors, but they are under-researched in composition and rarely well-integrated into pedagogical praxis. This research on the grammar and style checker in Microsoft Word considers the program as an electronic checklist for making decisions about what counts as an error in a given rhetorical situation. This study also offers a theory of error grounded in the idea of attention, or cognitive load, some of which an electronic checker can relieve in its areas of its greatest effectiveness, which this research quantifies. The proposed theory of error forms the basis for a pedagogy of register, understood as typified style, and establishes that error itself can be a strategic style move

A framework for the design of usable electronic text

This thesis examines the human issues underlying the design and usability of electronic text systems. In so doing it develops a framework for the conceptualisation of these issues that aims to guide designers of electronic texts in their attempts to produce usable systems. The thesis commences with a review of the traditional human factors literature on electronic text according to three basic themes: its concern with perceptual, manipulatory and structural issues. From this examination it is concluded that shortcomings in translating this work into design result from the adoption of overly narrow uni-disciplinary views of reading taken from cognitive psychology and information science which are inappropriate to serve the needs of electronic text designers. In an attempt to provide a more relevant description of the reading process a series of studies examining readers and their views as well as uses of texts is reported. In the first, a repertory grid based investigation revealed that all texts can be described in reader-relvant terms according to three criteria: why a text is read, what a text contains and how it is read. These criteria then form the basis of two investigations of reader-text interaction using academic journals and user manuals. The results of these studies highlighted the need to consider readers' models of a document's structure in discussing text usability. Subsequent experimental work on readers' models of academic articles demonstrated not only that such models are important aspects of reader-text interaction but that data of this form could usefully be employed in the design of an electronic text system. The proposed framework provides a broad, qualitative model of the important issues for designers to consider when developing a product It consists of four interactive elements that focus attention on aspects of reading that have been identified as central to usability. Simple tests of the utility and validity of the framework are reported and it is shown that the framework both supports reasoned analysis and subsequent prediction of reader behaviour as well as providing a parsimonious account of their verbal utterances while reading. The thesis concludes with an analysis of the likely uses of such a framework and the potential for electronic text systems in an increasingly information-hungry world

English Is It! (ELT Training Series). Vol. 8

Grup de treball ICE-UB: From English Acquisition to English Learning and Teachin

Academic Writing Development Through Dialogues Between Tutors and Second-language Learners

This thesis presents an analysis of dialogues between writing tutors and second-language learners in a writing center setting. The analysis includes a discussion about session appropriation by tutors, the validity of addressing sentence-level mistakes during writing conferences, and strategies that tutors may use to make the sessions beneficial to second-language learners. Among the literature covered throughout the study are studies on Educational Psychology, L1 and L2 Composition, and Cognitive Linguistics (Situated Learning). Collected data include measurements of dialogical patterns in the sessions and qualitative data extracted from session recordings and interviews with interlocutors. Study results suggest that a) sentence-level correction should take place during tutoring sessions involving second-language learners at different stages of the writing process, b) tutors should be explicitly trained in strategies to minimize their session ownership and increase tutee participation time, and c) researchers must look beyond interlocutors\u27 talk time when addressing issues of tutor appropriation

Hearing the Voices of the Deserters: Activist Critical Making in Electronic Literature

Critical making is an approach to scholarship which combines discursive methods with creative practices. The concept has recently gained traction in the digital humanities, where scholars are looking for ways of integrating making into their research in ways that are inclusive and empowering to marginalized populations. This dissertation explores how digital humanists can engage critical making as a form of activism in electronic literature, specifically in the interactive fiction platform Twine. The author analyzes the making process of her own activist Twine game The Deserters and embeds the project within digital humanities discourses on activism and social justice, hypertext, electronic literature, critical making, and hacker culture. The Deserters is a text-based digital game based on the experiences of the author\u27s family as refugees from East Germany. The player\u27s objective in the game is to research a family\u27s history by searching the game-world for authentic documents, including biographical writings, journal entries, photographs, and records, thereby retracing historical events through personal experience. The Deserters aims at inspiring a compassionate and empathetic stance towards immigrants and refugees today. The author reflects on the ethical, narrative, aesthetic, and technical choices she made throughout the creation process of The Deserters to create a critical activist game. The results of the analysis demonstrate that Twine offers a unique environment for composing politically impactful personal narratives. From the project, the author derives best practices for activist critical making, which emphasize the importance for makers to imagine the needs and perspectives of their audience. The work expands digital humanities\u27 theoretical and practical toolkit for critical making

Written retellings of narrative and expository texts: A case study of elementary primary grade delayed male readers

This study examined how four second grade delayed readers, who were delayed in various stages of reading and writing, read and wrote about narrative and expository paired-topic texts. This study was based on the assumption that: (a) elementary primary grade children could read and write about narrative and expository texts; (b) delayed readers are children who can learn to read, even though they are below grade level, if they are given the opportunity; and, (c) written retellings could be used to assess students\u27 understanding of texts and are one method of bringing the reading-writing relationship together; A case study research approach was used to examine and describe the experience of the four delayed readers, and the phenomenon of their selections and readings and written retellings of narrative and expository texts. The participants\u27 written retellings of the paired-topic narrative and expository texts were analyzed for textual patterns and assigned a richness score. The examination of the written retellings of the paired-topic texts was used to determine the quality of their writing and their stylistic features as compared to the original texts they read and wrote about. It also determined whether elementary primary grade delayed readers could write about narrative and expository texts demonstrating their comprehension of the text; Conclusions drawn from the study, and discussed in the final chapter, suggest that: (a) the four elementary primary grade delayed readers were capable of demonstrating preference for narrative or expository text and supplying relatively high-quality explanations for why they chose one over the other; (b) the four elementary primary grade delayed readers were successful in reconstructing the linguistic structural patterns of the original narrative and expository reading texts in their own writing, therefore confirming that the text they read does have an affect on their writing; (c) the written reconstructions of the original narrative and expository texts reflect the comprehension of the elementary primary grade delayed readers and their ability to read and write about narrative and expository texts; and, (d) the four elementary primary grade delayed readers each were able to compare and contrast similarities and dissimilarities between the narrative and expository original reading texts

Technical Communication: Perspectives for the Eighties, Part 1. Proceedings of the Technical Communications Sessions at the 32Nd Annual Meeting of the Conference on College Composition and Communication

Proceeding of the technical communication sessions at the 32nd annual meeting of the Conference on College Composition and Communication held in Dallas, Texas, March 26-28, 1981 are summarized. The proceeding suggest that technical communication has become an important subfield and is becoming an intrinsic part of many undergraduate curricula. Technical communication as a separate discipline, however, is relatively new. For that reason, proceedings that can make current research available as quickly as possible are suggested for preparation. The following topics were addressed: (1) a history and definition of technical writing, (2) the case method is technical communication (3) teaching technical writing (4) oral communication and rhetorical theory, and (5) new approaches in and practical applications of technical writing