A working white paper of the topics, ideas, and challenges of working in a digital economy. This document was created from the notes taken during the CRR Un-Conference at The Ohio State University.

1. Compose, Read, and Research (CRR): Shared
Responsibilities in a Digital Economy
(an unconference white paper)
Action Items for CRR Colleagues
1. Review the session descriptions and please make suggestions and corrections if
any occur to you. Suggested edits are always welcome.
2. Respond to the Broad Synthesis and Future Project Directions section (p. 10):
• What corrections or other synthesis statements would you include in this
document?
• If you'd like to stay connected to this project, answer the questions on the last
page of this white paper in an email to Dickie Selfe <selfe.3@osu.edu>.
Table of Contents
What is an unconference? Consider the CRR Unconference.--------------- 2
Participants----------------------------------------------------------------------- 3-4
Goals, Theory, and Practice ---------------------------------------------------- 4
A CRR Trend Analysis----------------------------------------------------------- 4
CRR Unconference Sessions ------------------------------------------------ 5-11
Broad Synthesis and Future Project Direction--------------------------- 11-13
What's Next?---------------------------------------------------------------------- 14

2. 3/2/11 CRR Unconference White Paper—2
What is an unconference? Consider the CRR Unconference.
Typically organizers of unconferences begin by describing a broad issue area for their
event. They then contact likely interest groups with the goal of attracting engaged
individuals. They set a day, time, and place to gather and then create a set of break-out
discussion sessions in real time during the initial mass meeting. Individuals then choose
sessions to attend based on their interests and expertise. Another distinguishing feature of
each session is that, though they often have leaders or convieners, those people are not
presenters. Their job is to initiate discussion and encourage an exchange of ideas, a rich
sharing / brainstorming session.
The CRR unconference differed only slightly in form and function. About a month before
the event, our Wordpress web/blog site was launched and potential attendees were asked
to post on topics of interest that surround the following questions:
• How are professional & civic composing, reading, research, and communication
skills changing?
• What are the literacy skills necessary for new flextime and flex-place working
conditions?
• Is the teaching & learning—going on in schools, communities, organizations, and
corporations—mindful of these conditions? If so, how are they mindful; if not,
how should they be?
• What are some models of the very best 21st century literacy education in each of
these venues?
While those posted topics were considered during our initial, real-time conference
building meeting, most were modified or ignored in favor of more immediate concerns
expressed by the audience on the morning of March 26, 2010.
During the sessions, student participants who were paid to attend, posted notes via email,
Twitter, or Wordpress blog entries about what issues and questions arose and what useful
ideas or resources were proposed. Attendees were also asked to do the same. What
resulted was a rich collection of information and reflections on each session topic. Those
materials (data) are still posted in the blog section of our Wordpress site
<http://www.cstw.org/crr>.
What follows is another rather unique effort in terms of unconference practices. As the
conviener of the unconference, I went through each session and attempted to summarize
key issues, questions, and the ideas and resources that surfaced. In addition to session
summaries, I attempted an even broader synthesis of the over-arching trends from all
sessions. The goal of this white paper, then, is to provide a diverse group of literacy
professionals with some direction as they collaborate on potential community projects
and funding proposals. My current assumption is that such projects and proposals will
address two needs:
1. Supporting Ohio communities' changing literacy needs and interests
2. Setting up an Ohio-wide researh project that will address some of our questions
about changing literacies.

3. 3/2/11 CRR Unconference White Paper—3
At two points (summer and fall of 2010) the soft release of this white paper (to
unconference participants) was intended to ellicite comments and clarifications. This is
the second such release.
Dickie Selfe <selfe.3@osu.edu>
Participants
These are the participants who gave permission to use their names and
titles/associations for the CRR Unconference white paper. Please understand
that there were ~ 50 participants, all of whom were important to the event.
They included representatives from local city and school libraries, the OSU
Extension office, communication professionals from a range of businesses,
technology specialists, and of course teachers from many public schools, two-
year colleges and universities. The diversity of this list speaks to the
compelling nature of the issues discussed below. Again, many thanks to all
those who continue to be willing participants.
First Name Last Name Email Address Corporate, Organizational, or
Educational affiliation
Kristine Blair kblair@bgsu.edu Bowling Green State University
Professor School of Teaching and
David Bloome bloome.1@osu.edu Learning, Ohio State University
Digital Humanities Specialist @
James Calder jamesdcalder@gmail.com Ohio Humanities Council
Jeff Dollard jeff.dollard@gmail.com OSU--recent graduate
Jessica Heffner jheffner@kent.edu Kent State University
Charlene Henkaline henkaline.9@buckeyemail.osu.edu OSU Student
Digital Media Curator, Knowlton
Lorrie McAllister mcallister.50@osu.edu School of Architecture, OSU
Ben McCorkle mccorkle.12@osu.edu OSU Marion Dept. of English
English Department, Miami
Heidi McKee mckeeha@muohio.edu University
OU Doc Student/Former Band
Director and Secondary Math
Kristofer Olsen ko148009@ohio.edu teacher
Interactive Media Studies, English
Jason Palmeri jason.palmeri@gmail.com Dept. Miami University
Boise State EDTECH Graduate
Steven Poast spoast@yahoo.com Program
The University of Akron Wayne
Paulette Popovich popovic@uakron.edu College
Dickie Selfe selfe.3@osu.edu OSU, Director, Center for the
Study and Teaching of Writing

4. 3/2/11 CRR Unconference White Paper—4
(CSTW)
Pamela Takayoshi ptakayos@kent.edu Kent State University
Innovation & Change @ the OSU
Extension Leadership Center/
Department of Human &
Community Resource
Jerold Thomas thomas.69@osu.edu Development
Teaching Fellow Kent State
Elizabeth Tomlinson etomlins@kent.edu University
Associate Professor of English,
Lewis Ulman ulman.1@osu.edu The Ohio State University
Co-director, Columbus Area
Melissa Wilson wilson.370@osu.edu Writing Project, OSU
Ph.D. Student, The Ohio State
Erica Womack womack.32@osu.edu University
OSU, Assistant Provost,
Undergraduate Education/Office
Mindy Wright wright.7@osu.edu of Academic Affairs
Goals, Theory, and Practice
The CRR provided a group of state-wide stakeholders from educational, community, and
professional institutions an opportunity to discuss the changing nature of academic,
workplace, civic, and personal literacy practices (composing, reading, and research).
During the unconference, we identified critical issues and opportunities as we re-
imagined how to promote 21st century multimodal literacy practices that would benefit
Ohioans of all ages.
The Center for the Study and Teaching of Writing (CSTW) at OSU is now in the process
of coordinating the formation of a statewide research collective that will address the most
pressing issues and opportunities developed during the Spring 2010 event.
A CRR Trend Analysis
The underlying assumption for most of our conversations during the March, 26-7, 2010
unconference sessions seemed to be that literacy practices (how and what we compose,
read, and research) are changing and will continue to change. Traditional practices (for
instance, a command of traditional genres, standards, and rhetorical approaches) are not
likely to diminish in importance. But in each case, emerging literacy practices (for
instance, new online genre that incorporate media assets, shifting standards and etiquette
for each genre, and additional rhetorics of persuasion in new online environments) will
change the nature and complexity of professional, academic, civic, and personal
communication.
CRR discussion strands seemed to address the following questions (Session titles are in
bold italics.):

5. 3/2/11 CRR Unconference White Paper—5
Where and in what venues can/should traditional and new literacy practices be
developed?
• Community Knowledges and Literacies
• What is the role of literacy in a recession economy?
• Mobile Technologies
• Creativity and social action?
• Creating a culture of learning in corporate environments & non-student
situations
• Leveraging state Extension services & Libraries for the 21st century learning
• Academia vs. community: developing strategies & bridge building (reciprocity)
• Facilitating community media centers and libraries
Under what conditions can/should traditional and new literacy practices be developed?
• Learning to Learn
• The relationship between teachers and learners re: literacy
• Assessment
• Turning passive training into active training
• Creativity and social action?
• Moving to a project-based curriculum
• Using public access media?
What characterizes an excellent 21st century communicator?
• What it means to be a 21st century citizen-learner?
• Written Language in Structuring Social Relationships
How can the CRR project move forward?
• Methodologies rich enough to incite progress
• Hijacking technologies for “good” purposes (grrilla techniques)
• Using public access media?
CRR Unconference Sessions
The email notes, tweets, and blog comments generated during each session are
summarized for the benefit of white-paper readers. Other interpretations and summaries
are encouraged. The raw data can be found at <http://www.cstw.org/crr>.
Community Knowledges and Literacies
Summary:
New motivational structures seem to be necessary to encourage literacy learning in
communities. Academics trying to engage communities in this work, should
consider
• the unique nature of that local community and how they "get along."
• place community members in the role of expert, director, production
coordinator, and media and event organizers.

6. 3/2/11 CRR Unconference White Paper—6
• make the object of the exploration more than knowledge creation … make the
end result something useful to the community or the work force or make it
political in nature.
What it means to be a 21st century citizen-learner?
Summary:
While comfort levels vary, a 21st century citizen-learner continues to be a
productive involved citizen. An understanding and valuing of new literacy systems
seems to be more and more important. We certainly need to become sophisticated
producers of media (video, audio, online materials, in addition to traditional paper
forms). But we need to encourage belief systems: believing that productive change
is possible, that collaboration is essential, and that f2f and digital events are central
to social changes and citizen action.
Learning to Learn
Summary:
New systems and global challenges will generate new literacy practices for the
foreseeable future. What we teach will not, by itself, help our students in the future.
Rather, it is how they learn and how quickly they adapt that will make the most
difference. Each of our classes offers us opportunities to share learning strategies
and approaches that will continue to serve our students well in occupations that
may not even exist today. Students and teachers both bring important skills and
knowledge to the table.
The relationship between teachers and learners re: literacy
Summary:
Schools need library media specialists and teachers who are immersed in the best
teaching/learning practices during their 3 days of professional development (PD)
each year. More importantly, teachers need to make the literacy work important
and meaningful to students. Attend to their learning styles, intelligences, and
personalities.
Methodologies rich enough to incite progress
Summary:
Let's find a compelling action research agenda in which literacy professionals
across Ohio will want to engage. We will use that agenda to form a research
consortium. While the action research will go on across the state, this meeting
should move to other locations. Kent State has tentatively volunteered to hold the
next unconference. We need to go into communities, find champions, write grants,
provide leaders with information and resources they do not currently have, and
connect with extension centers and libraries.
Several action research approaches were suggested: collect literacy narratives;
storymap digital histories, apply feminist and queer perspectives on digital
literacies, use social media to maintain connections between academic, business,
and community partners.

7. 3/2/11 CRR Unconference White Paper—7
Written Language in Structuring Social Relationships
Summary:
Written language (and now multimodal expressions) structure social reality outside
the classroom (businesses, communities, and families). Studying how these
processes work will provide literacy professionals with powerful tools inside and
outside of classrooms. Twitter, Facebook, cell phones, and Skype were used as
examples of how language structures identities, communities and knowledge
creation these days.
What is the role of literacy in a recession economy?
Summary:
We need to understand the literacy challenges of struggling workers and
employers. Students in college and graduating are very concerned and looking for
additional literacy instruction. They also struggle to find summer jobs as those get
filled by layed-off workers. Service learning and internship programs will continue
to be popular. We need to prepare traditional and returning students for jobs that
don't currently exist by being open to new literacy systems but maintaining our
traditional literacy expectations. People need to graduate with area expertise and an
ability to be literacy brokers (managing complex information in new literacy
environments).
Assessment [Got down to here]
Summary:
Students have methods of learning that are new to us. We should be in the business
of understanding their learning strategies and sharing our own. Students need to
learn to assess writing as write and to do this in online evironments. Engage
students in assessment regimes, don't just impose regimes on them. Crowdsourcing
(for instance, user ratings) can be applied to most media and messages.
Mobile Technologies
Summary:
We can use locative technologies as multimodal storytelling tools that incorporate
interactivity into the process. We need to incorporate popular mobile technologies
that we carry with us into our literacy activities. Try to be inclusive and ask major
corporations to support our work. These technologies are part of our collective
consciousness. Quality of production issues will be determined by audiences,
clients, & venacular practices.
Turning passive training into active training
Summary:
Designing literacy opportunities for professionals is a lot like creating them for
students K - college. Make them active and have people apply them in safe
situations before taking them our into to the field. Assuming students and
professionals are working towards a career path, make sure they leave training able

8. 3/2/11 CRR Unconference White Paper—8
to answer these questions: what sort of professional are you? what can you do?
how do you learn? Resource: instructional design training, http://bit.ly/cdOnqJ
Creativity and social action
Summary:
Art is a form of social action and should be integrated into literacy learning
situations on a regular basis (e.g., the Metro School). STEM curriculum in this case
can become STEAM and in line with Root Berstein's study on Nobel scientists.
Architecture (Knowlton) has students engaged in creative activist projects around
town. They compete and are judged by outside specialists and presented to city
officials. Columbus neighborhoods are becoming the focus of creative, activist
(CA) art projects too (Weinland Park and Hilltop). We need high-level
collaborative interdisciplinary efforts to address a CA agenda. Project-based CA
activities need to be tailored to teachers' abilities and students' needs.
Hijacking technologies for “good” purposes (grrilla techniques)
Summary:
Infrastructure representatives can be "pleasantly" or surprisingly on board with
compelling projects. It's hijacking but not. The bandwidth of university enterprise
systems (particularly digital systems) are often over engineered and may welcome
alternative uses for important literacy projects. Write your 'dream projects' up and
be attuned to system upgrades and large purchases, good moments to bring your
projects forward for funding. The Digital Archive of Literacy Naratives
(DALN.osu.edu) is an example of a growing resource built on the back of state
systems with small grants. The DALN and other projects should consider allowing
"Web 2.0" access to submitting and use of materials: queer theory suggests this as a
queering of research method, expectations, and even things like attention.
Grrilla techniques around literacy technologies also engage feminist perspectives
that emphasize inclusion, consumption and production, purposeful action that is
mutually beneficial to students, teachers, clients, etc. in safe, experimental spaces.
Creating a culture of learning in corporate environments & non-student
situations
Summary:
For those who aren’t students and work in institutions focussed on the "bottom
line," how does one make learning a desirable thing? A medical business in
Columbus is using an online system that tracks where sales people are in the
process of closing a deal. It’s like bio-feedback for the sales process. A culture of
learning requires that you tap into the motivational structures of the corporate
players: the workers and management. It's not all that different from schooling
when students are required to be in classes that they don't intrinsically value. Our
job is to convince them that they will meet their life goals they have to become
constant learners.
Moving to a project-based curriculum
Summary:

9. 3/2/11 CRR Unconference White Paper—9
Project-based learning involves a focus on something “real,” whether it is a
community-based project, something with a real, intended audience or a
hypothetical one/case study. Service learning seems to fit the bill whether students
all have the same experience, in similar places, or in individual self-chosen
projects. Instructors need to be able to help/assist/navigate and give up total
control. The DALN project allows people to study literacy and produce multimodal
literacy materials. In a nutshell
• Let students know who their audience is
• Keep the audience real to the students
• Give students flexibility, but some structure as well—constraining
and openning.
• Provide examples and samples
• Keep explaining the process of the class
• Allow them to showcase their work
Field Work: Ethnography for Students by Chiseri-Strater & Sunstein
Living Folklore by Martha Sims
Leveraging Ohio Extension services & Libraries for the 21st century
learning
Summary:
Library funding is dependent on local and state governments. They have a direct
literacy commitment. Extension does as well but in service to many things,
including youth development: helping students foster positive habits and values.
We are watching libraries and extension services re-invent themselves for the 21st
century. It's a good time to collaborate with them. If you do initiate projects, also
consider how to sustainably withdraw. Do more engagement work (mutually
beneficial) and less outreach. Make use of retired boomers, young people for
digital producers, & community centers. If you are going to do research, use
participatory action research methodology. The relations between educational
institutions and the public are bad. We need to work hard to repair relations by
valuing local publics.
Using public access media
Summary:
The CSTW’s Digital Media & Writing project produces a series of video and audio
interviews for radio and PBS and educational channels as well as WOSU & OSU's
iTunes channel. The School of Architecture is repurposing educational media from
within the school and making it available on the web. Sharing the materials with
the public allows teachers and students to interact with real audiences around their
work. This is much easier said than done. There are intellectual property (IP)

10. 3/2/11 CRR Unconference White Paper—
10
issues. An activist rhetoric requires an expansive concept of Fair Use. Quality
issues come into play here. Strangely there can be too much quality.
Academia vs. community: developing strategies & bridge building
(reciprocity)
Summary:
Certain tensions between academics and the community are inevitable:
• Academic work is linear, but community work is not.
• Community members should speak for themselves and not be asked
to rely (entirely) on an academic spokesperson.
• We need to have a dialogue between the two, one that is open and
flexible.
The DALN responds to these tensions by making public contribution to the
archive as easy and possible. They value their voices and work. It's scholarship 2.0
with a long tail. Business communities and sales groups end up learning from each
other about their customer base. K-college isn't focussed in this way. Funding and
grants for community work should always come with expectations that should be
negotiated with the "public." It is NOT a romanticized relationship. There is a
huge gap between academics and the general public.
Facilitating community media centers and libraries
Summary:
Community media centers need to be in trusted, safe, accessible places with lots of
technology training and support. A face-to-face relationship with the community is
important. Community extension offices and libraries, churches and other places
have great potential. "Center" is deceptive. What does a rhizomatic "center" look
like? State-wide broadband funding might help develop such places. Find
important projects that community members will want / need to work on and make
that part of the "center." Perhaps use the "unconference" meeting model to get local
publics involved in a media center's development. Media Bridges in Cincinatti is an
excellent model: <http://www.mediabridges.org/>. The Fuse Factory in Columbus
is another <http://thefusefactory.org/>.
Resources:
• Power 3 is a proposal that a central Ohio group has proposed. The lead
institution is OSU, and the lead researcher is Jay Ramanathan.
• Linden Revitalization project beginning conversations with Greater
Linden Development Corporation–Exec Director, Donna Hicho.
Broad Synthesis and Future Project Directions
As a review, the Spring 2010 CRR unconference sessions seemed to dwell on these
overarching questions:

11. 3/2/11 CRR Unconference White Paper—
11
• Where and in what venues can/should traditional and new literacy practices be
developed?
• Under what conditions can/should traditional and new literacy practices be
developed?
• What characterizes an excellent 21st century communicator?
• How can the CRR project move forward?
The following came out of the Community Knowledges and Literacies session and seems
like an excellent set of guidelines for engaging with communities across Ohio.
New motivational structures seem to be necessary to encourage literacy learning in
communities. When academics (on a mission) consider setting up literacy projects,
they would do well to
• address the unique nature of that local community and how they "get along."
• place community members in the role of expert, director, production
coordinator, and media and event organizers.
• make the object of the exploration more than knowledge creation … make the
end result something useful to the community or to a company, or political in
nature.
If indeed we hope to make the end result something useful, then project-based activities
might want to follow these general guidelines:
• Let those engaged in the activies know who their audience is.
• Make the audiences real to them.
• Give them flexibility, but some structure as well.
• Provide examples and samples.
• Keep explaining the process to those involved.
• Allow them to showcase their work to these real audiences and receive feedback
or ideas for elaborating on the materials produced from real audiences.
Keep in mind that there are many public and private media outlets for the community
work our projects might inspire.
Several sessions dealt with what it means to be a literate 21st century citizen-learner.
Ideally these are people who have robust learning strategies, who value traditional and
emerging literate practices and belive, as well, that productive change is possible, that
collaboration is essential, and that face-to-face and online communication are central to
social change and citizen action.
In order to encourage these approaches, literacy professionals (in schools, civic venues,
professional venues, and community centers) need to make the literacy work important
and meaningful to students of all ages and attend to their learning styles, intelligences,
and personalities. Following this line of thought, we need to continue to recognize that art
is a form of social action. STEM activities themselves are not enough. STEAM (Science,
Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) projects will get us farther along the road to
encouraging literate 21st century citizen-learners. This will require us, however, to
engage in intense, high-level, collaborative interdisciplinary efforts.

12. 3/2/11 CRR Unconference White Paper—
12
Where does this all lead us? If we wish to both conduct research and generate useful
community projects, let's find a compelling action research agenda in which literacy
professionals and citizens across Ohio will want to engage. We need to go into
communities (by connecting with community programs, professional venues, extension
centers and libraries), find champions, write grants, provide leaders with funding and
information they do not currently have. Besides new grant funding, we can also offer
these communities access to the residual bandwidth of university and professional
enterprise systems.
The goals for our research should be two-pronged. For teachers and academics, we need
to better understand how written language and multimodal expressions structure social
reality outside the classroom (in businesses, communities, schools and families).
Studying how these processes work will provide literacy professionals with powerful
tools to use inside and outside of classrooms. For community members, we need to better
understand how literate activities can help the young and experienced community
members who are trying to perpare themselves for a very difficult work environment.
How do we assess either the community engagement or research component of future
CRR work? A team of assessment experts led by Brian Huot (assuming we can find some
basic funding) has agreed to put together a student-involved, stakeholder-involved
assessment regime for whatever project / grant activity we come up with. Because we are
working in communities, crowd-sourcing assessment possibilities might be integrated
into this regime.
There are many fine examples of community, academic, and professional organizations
and programs that have strong commitments to literacy development in the state of Ohio.
We need now to begin the process of joining with like minded folks, making contacts and
building relationships. The CSTW and the research collective that we hope will develop
out of the initial CRR Unconference, are willing to provide energy and resources for the
ill-defined but immensely important tasks we will be setting for ourselves.

13. 3/2/11 CRR Unconference White Paper—
13
What's next?
Please answer these questions in an email to Dickie Selfe <selfe.3@osu.edu>.
Are you interested in
___ participating in and receiving updates on CRR events?
___ being a part of the research collective and planning group?
The CRR research collective and planning group will try to address the following
questions. If you have suggestions for any or all of them at this point, please include them
in your email.
When & where should we gather?
What type of community and professional literacy activities do we want to
encourage?
What research questions do we want to investigate?
What grant opportunities are available?