Digital Literacy summer Symposium AN SJSU FIRST-YEAR WRITING PROGRAM & ADOBE SYSTEMS PARTNERSHIP

With support from Adobe Systems and the Provost's Office, SJSU's First-Year Writing Program will host a multi-day Digital Literacy Symposium in August 2024, open to all instructors—new and experienced—in First-Year Writing who register to attend. It will include digital literacy pedagogy sessions, mentorship from experienced instructors, guest speakers, Adobe instruction for incorporating software into writing classes, and a series of community building and workshop activities. The minimum goal is for every participant to walk away with at least one digital literacy assignment to teach in their classes in Fall 2024 and enough facility with Adobe Express to get students started.

FYW's Digital Literacy Initiative

Digital literacy comprises a series of reading and composing skills, habits, and knowledges that are at the heart of first-year writing. These include critical modes of consumption and production, such as critical media literacy, multimodal composing, and digital writing and rhetoric. Many faculty who teach in SJSU's First-Year Writing Program already incorporate digital literacy into their courses, including critical, digital, and multimodal assignments and activities. We want to support those practices among faculty who already use them, and we want to expand the number of faculty who incorporate digital literacy in their courses by building on SJSU’s strategic partnership with Adobe Systems.

SJSU’s identity as Silicon Valley’s Public University demands that we be at the forefront of supporting students’ digital literacy. But our digital literacy initiative will also work in concert with First-Year Writing's other initiatives to support students’ development as writers in the 21st century, close equity gaps and reduce DFW rates, develop and incorporate asset-based pedagogies, and strengthen community within the first-year writing program.

Benefits of Attending

Symposium participants will attend the Summer Symposium in August 2024, during which time they will learn about, plan, and prepare to implement digital literacy elements (activities, assignments, etc.) into their Fall 2024 writing courses. Participants who attend the whole Symposium will earn a $500 stipend.

There will also be meals and refreshments provided throughout the week, as well as community-building activities.

In the Fall, we will invite proposals from Symposium participants to participate in a year-long series of training and planning sessions to develop digital literacy writing courses that they will be eligible to teach in subsequent years. The trainings would include expanding Symposium materials and working with mentors. We hope to continue this initiative in future years for instructors interested in digital literacy.