SOCIAL WRITING/SOCIAL MEDIA: PUBLICS, PRESENTATIONS, AND PEDAGOGIES, EDITED BY DOUGLAS M. WALLS AND STEPHANIE VIE

University Press of Colorado, Louisville, Colorado (2017). 334 pp. Book Review by Kyle Adams, The University of Findlay

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Pedagogy

Chapters in the final section provide insight into how rhetoric and composition specialists and writing teachers imagine making stronger connections with their classrooms using different social media practices. Specifically, classrooms like the First Year Composition (FYC) classroom provide rich opportunities to introduce social media. In her chapter, “Social Media in the FYC Class: The New Digital Divide,” Lillian Mina challenges instructors to stay abreast of student’s social media practices by integrating writing from non-academic sources like social media because more of use of technology often coincides with higher student engagement. Such practices also provide students with the knowledge that “writing” encompasses more than academic prose, a sentiment widely accepted across the field in areas such as digital rhetoric, computers and writing, and in scholarship about students’ rights to their own language. Chapters in this section specifically advise readers about how to turn digital distractions into teachable content, how to keep up with the ever-evolving platforms and the rhetoric of social media, and how to support students in analyzing personal media ideologies and practices.