The Selfie in American Life

A Selfie Symposium invitation created by two WRIT 155 students, Darlene Harsono and Janjan Sun

In Heather Bryant’s course The Selfie in American Life (Writing 155), students examine how the rapid-fire pace of technology is changing the way we see ourselves, the way we present ourselves to the world, and our fundamental understanding of our relation to the world around us. During the blended course, students in one section completed writing assignments online while students in the other section wrote their assignments by hand. Prof. Veronica Darer, who has conducted assessments of multiple BLI projects, then evaluated the two sections’ work. She analyzed factors ranging from the word count of written assignments to students’ improvement in topic development over the course of the semester.

Students in the course were excited about the idea of studying the roles of the selfie(s) in their lives and all around us. They put together a Ruhlman presentation for the course and also hosted a “Selfie Symposium.”

Professor Bryant reflected: “It was interesting to see how students wrote differently by hand and online outside of class every week. The most significant difference I noticed was that the students who wrote in notebooks wrote more in their final assessment. . . [In the future] I will incorporate having students write outside of class both by hand and online so that they can increase their fluidity with writing.”