{"id":174,"date":"2021-09-25T12:33:31","date_gmt":"2021-09-25T16:33:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/publicdiscourse\/?p=174"},"modified":"2021-09-30T09:53:54","modified_gmt":"2021-09-30T13:53:54","slug":"critical-essays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/publicdiscourse\/critical-essays\/","title":{"rendered":"CRITICAL ESSAYS ON DIGITAL PLATFORMS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The internet should reward quality thinking, not clickbait. That\u2019s why we\u2019ve created a better home for writers, journalists and experts. It\u2019s simple to use, free from ads, and connects you to curious, avid readers, so you can focus on what matters: putting your best work out there.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">&#8211;<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/creators\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Medium<\/span><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this assignment, students write a critical essay for presentation on a platform such as <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Medium<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u00a0 At present, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Medium<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is the most useful and open marketplace for online essays: authors range from high schoolers to public intellectuals such as Baratunde Thurston and Lawrence Lessig.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This assignment could be used in nearly any discipline, since <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Medium<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> creates a platform for essays in a <a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/topics\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">vast array<\/a> of fields and areas of interest <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">and provides linking between related articles.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Examples<\/b><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">ASSIGNMENT: Read Matthew Biggins\u2019 <\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@matthewbiggins\/welcome-to-the-influencer-economy-5a69be520a10\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cWelcome to the Influencer Economy,\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and write a critical response for posting on <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Medium<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u00a0 Use the May 18th, 2018 episode of Shankar Vedantam\u2019s \u201cHidden Brain\u201d podcast entitled <\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2018\/05\/18\/612037491\/radio-replay-this-is-your-brain-on-ads\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cThis is Your Brain on Ads\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to support your argument.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Faculty example (op-ed style Medium essay):\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Alex Barron, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@abarron\/why-your-smartphone-and-acid-rain-should-give-you-hope-about-climate-change-6c45eb01d9ef\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Why your smartphone and acid rain should give you hope about climate change<\/a>\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Learning Goals\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Practice in deep reading comprehension, critical response.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Development of skills in the use of primary and secondary sources.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Opportunity to establish an authoritative and engaging \u201cpublic\u201d voice.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The internet should reward quality thinking, not clickbait. That\u2019s why we\u2019ve created a better home [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3782,"featured_media":58,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-modules","entry","tgrid"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/publicdiscourse\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/712\/2021\/09\/ux-indonesia-4FCkpfGIIJg-unsplash.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/publicdiscourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/publicdiscourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/publicdiscourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/publicdiscourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3782"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/publicdiscourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/publicdiscourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":245,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/publicdiscourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions\/245"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/publicdiscourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/publicdiscourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/publicdiscourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/publicdiscourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}