Teaching with the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives

The Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives collects stories of literacy and makes them available online to scholars, students, and anyone else who wants to listen in.

To learn more about the DALN, we'll hear in this episode from Cynthia Selfe, one of the DALN's founders; Scott Lloyd DeWitt and Kate Comer, two of its earliest supporters and users; and Michael Harker and Ben McCorkle, its current co-directors.

They cover the history of the DALN, discuss scholarly publications that rely on the archive and study its use, and share ideas for using it in composition classrooms of your own.

What is the DALN? And how can I use it in my classes?
Plugs, Play, Pedagogy

Episode 7: Teaching with the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives

Produced and recorded by Kyle Stedman ([email protected]; @kstedman), assistant professor of English at Rockford University, in cooperation with KairosCast and Writing Commons. If you have ideas for future episodes, please contact me!

Introduction

This episode is produced in cooperation with the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives, "a publicly available archive of personal literacy narratives in a variety of formats (text, video, audio) that together provide a historical record of the literacy practices and values of contributors, as those practices and values change."

Learn more about the DALN at its website, and if you see their booth set up at a conference (cough, CCCC, cough), drop by to learn more and to submit your own narrative!

The episode begins with the narrative of Charles Weinberg; you can watch his video or learn more about his piece at his record page in the DALN.

Part 1: Stories that Speak to Us

First we hear from Cynthia L. Selfe, Humanities Distinguished Professor in the Department of English at Ohio State University and one of the founders of the DALN, and Scott Lloyd DeWitt (@ScottLloydDW), Associate Professor of English at The Ohio State University and one of the DALN's earliest supporters.

They discuss the origin story of the DALN, the skills they learned when collecting narratives to store there, and the process of editing Stories that Speak to Us: Exhibits from the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives, a free, born-digital book edited by Selfe, DeWitt, and H. Lewis Ulman as part of the Computers and Composition Digital Press.

Part 2: One Way to Use the DALN in Your Classroom

Next we hear from Ben McCorkle (@illiac), associate professor of English at OSU Marion and one of the current co-directors of the DALN. He shares the story of how he worked the DALN into the syllabus for an upcoming class.

Part 3: The DALN in Practice

Finally, we hear from Kate Comer, assistant professor of English at Barry University and editor of the online journal Harlot, and Michael Harker, Assistant Professor of English at Georgia State University and another current co-director of the DALN.

They discuss their article "The Pedagogy of the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives: A Survey" from the March 2015 issue of Computers and Composition, which "briefly reviews the historical uses of literacy narratives in composition courses before turning to current experiments incorporating the DALN."

End Matter

The theme music at the beginning of the episode is by Cactus May, graduate student in rhetoric and composition.

You also heard two pieces from OverClocked ReMix: PxFury, "Dragons of Paradise" and Disco Dan, "Blue Lightning." Both are free and part of a massive collection of videogame music remixes.