In 2007, Rebecca Burnett led the Writing and Communication Program (WCP) in adopting a multimodal approach to teaching and learning (WOVEN = written, oral, visual, electronic, and nonverbal communication). Faculty create and assign WOVEN projects for writing and communication courses in which the modes work synergistically in a variety of media. Regardless of the course, writing is part of every project — sometimes in planning and research, sometimes as part of project development, sometimes during the revision process, and sometimes in the artifact itself.
WOVENText
In 2007, Rebecca Burnett established a relationship with a major higher education publisher, Macmillan/Bedford/St. Martin’s, to create a program-specific textbook for Georgia Tech’s Writing and Communication Program. WCP has just completed its fourth edition of WOVENText, designed specifically for our English 1101 and English 1102 courses. As with our previous editions of WOVENText, this new print edition continues to address the WCP’s WOVEN approach, emphasizing written, oral, visual, electronic, and nonverbal communication in a variety of genre and media. In addition, the book links to a number of supplementary online resources. Approximately half of the sections in WOVENText have been written by Writing and Communication faculty, using examples from Georgia Tech students.
Common First Week
In 2014, Rebecca Burnett and Andy Frazee (WCP Associate Director) initiated a Common First Week (to be phased in over three years). During the initial week of each semester, all English 1101 and English 1102 classes follow the same general content (introducing the WOVEN approach to communication) and assignment (reading and video response to the current year’s Project One reading, Georgia Tech’s common book for all first-year students). Recent Project One books have included Skloot’s Henrietta Lacks and Norman’s Living with Complexity. The 2015-2016 Project One book is Humes’s Garbology, which was chosen to support Georgia Tech’s new QEP, Serve-Learn-Sustain.
Support for Student-Athletes
The Writing and Communication Program (WCP) collaborates with the Athletic Association and the Office of the Provost to provide support for underprepared student-athletes. Rebecca Burnett works with the Athletic Association and the Office of the Provost to offer four kinds of WCP support: (1) Underprepared students enroll in an intensive preparatory course the summer prior to taking English 1101. (2) They take a co-taught co-requisite when they’re enrolled in English 1101. (3) English 1101 and English 1102 faculty provide monthly progress reports about the performance of underprepared student-athletes. (4) Faculty teaching these special learning support courses receive professional development support (e.g., services of a learning support consultant; additional conference funding). The photo shows student-athlete Ty Marshall (women’s basketball; drafted by the WNBA in Spring 2014; 9 hours away from earning her BS in Business Administration) displaying her poster promoting Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move project during a summer preparatory course.
MOOC
Rebecca Burnett, Andy Frazee (Associate Director of Writing and Communication), and Karen Head (Director of the Communication Center) collaborated on a proposal to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to create and offer a first-year multimodal composition MOOC (massive open online course). The proposal, combined into a larger Georgia Tech proposal, was funded by the Gates Foundation. For a semester prior to the launch of the MOOC, Rebecca, Andy, and Karen’s 19-person team designed and developed the curriculum and then implemented the eight-week course. The photo shows Karen Head (the on-camera instructor for the MOOC), Andy Frazee (the project manager for the MOOC), and, in the reflection taking the picture, Rebecca Burnett (the project developer).