MEMES AND REWRITING

A Pedagogical Approach to

If you don’t know this book yet….

“Like all writers, intellectuals need to say something new and say it well. But unlike many other writers, what intellectuals have to say is bound up inextricably with the books we are reading, the movies we are watching, the music we are listening to, and the ideas of the people we are talking with. Our creativity thus has its roots in the work of others—in response, reuse, and rewriting” (Harris 2)

Moves of rewriting

Coming to terms Forwarding Countering Taking an approach Revising

Forwarding = great for memes

“a writer forwards the views of another when he or she takes terms

and concepts from one text and applies them to a reading of other texts or

situations” (6) Example: Rewriting is a textbook

to help students see the social processes behind academic writing; I’m applying it to a pedagogical approach to image macros

Memes and sources?

KnowYourMeme researches the history of a meme

Let’sAPPLY!

Philosoraptor

The artwork for the image macro came from a guy who wanted to print the Philosoraptor onto a T-shirt; he photoshopped pictures he found online to create this copyrighted work in 2008

According to KnowYourMeme.com: This is the original Philosoraptor

from 2007; it is a velicoraptor from The Jurassic Park, photoshopped to hold Plato

Forwarded even more…

Current concept

Inspired by one of our classes

So, how to teach it as a project James Gleick’s “What Defines a Meme?” (or

something that explains a true meme, not just image macros)

Joseph Harris’s Rewriting: How to Do Things with Texts (or sections like the Introduction and “Forwarding,” if you aren’t assigning the book)

Project: find a “confirmed” meme on KnowYourMeme.com; examine the original source and its evolution to the current meaning; identify instances of forwarding and how these new contexts pull on the original meaning to create new meaning

Creation

Have them create image macros about class or their projects

MemeGenerator.net go!

References

 Harris, Joseph. Rewriting: How to Do Things with

Texts. Logan: Utah State University Press, 2006.

 Gleick, James. "What Defines a Meme?" Smithsonian

Magazine. Smithsonian Media, May 2011. Web.

31 Dec. 2012.

<http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/W

hat-Defines-a-Meme.html>.

Know Your Meme. Cheezburger, Inc. Web. 17 Feb.

2013.