I thought I'd open the window and let people peer in while I try to figure out how to construct an assignment for a summer school class that just got up and running. The task is to figure out how to translate some of the ideas behind actor-network theory into an assignment for a first year writing class. I'm working very much without a net here, and the pace of summer school means I've rolled out the assignment before knowing exactly how it will play out or before having everything about it conceptualized.

If you look at the assignment so far, you'll see that I've tried to adapt a playlist assignment into something a bit more social and networky. The playlist assignments work well, but generally I try to make a direct substitute with a familiar form--instead of a profile essay, give me a playlist about the same figure. I've decided to use the same paradigm, select and contextualize songs instead of writing a paper. I don't see any reason why it shouldn't translate, but there are some challenges:

Challenge one: I just don't know what these actor-network accounts are supposed to look like. Having never created such an account or taught the process of making one. To get a better idea of what is involved, I made a map of what such an account might touch on in terms of concepts under study. This is taken from my partial understanding of ANT gleaned from Bruno Latour's Reassembling the Social. I've started with the assignment, compose an account of something social, and then tried to offer some strategies that might translate into methodologies for the write a social account assignment. Some of them are reasonably straightforward and, I think, can be translated into specifics through the assignment--something like take a group, and then look at controversies, how boundaries relate to the group, what anti-groups say about the group. It seems like with things/objects or matters of concerns/ideas the process can work as well. One bit of confusion I have, though, relates to the use of the term actor to designate individuals. I sometimes sense that Latour applies the label, actor, to all kinds of entitites--a microscope, a pamphlet, a concept could all be actors. At other times, though, it seems as if the term agent really applies more to these entities that participate in the actor-network. I don't think this confusion will cause huge problems for the assignment, but I note it to help think through the concepts.

Challenge two: The mediators/links. My understanding is that what an account would really trace is not the landscape of groups, actors, things, or ideas, but the connections between all of these entities. I added these mediating links to the map and you can see it is getting pretty messy. Not really a problem, but it makes me realize that the account assignment needs another layer that will take it beyond the typical comfort level of first year writing assignments. Instead of asking writers to describe a group or a set of objects that help define a group, the assignment needs to ask them to trace the relationships between the group and its objects. The question becomes what makes up these links and how can one write about them. Here's where the assignment is likely to either take off or crash. I've asked writers to use the song selections of the playlist to represent these links. The idea is to identify a song that performs the function of the link between the two entities. In this space between the entities we'll see how possible it is for music to play a descriptive role, to create an account.

I have some concerns with the assignment. The actor-network conceptualizations may be so messy that it just makes it hard to figure out what one is supposed to do in the assignment. The logistics of identifying the entities may be hard to sort out. I've tried to borrow some ethnography starting points--go to a place, look at a group, examine an artifact--hopefully these will get students up and running with observations that can help them identify entities and connections. I'm also unsure about identifying songs that fill in the gaps between the entities. It's hard enough to make a good playlist when trying to find songs to represent a person, asking the songs to capture a process of translation between entities may be too much.

I'm eager for suggestions for tweaks to the assignment and will post updates with adjustments and when the first playlists come in.

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