1. Audio Interview Assignment
Ryan Trauman
Columbia College Chicago
April 18, 2014

2. “Composition classrooms can
provide a context not only for
talking about different literacies, but
also for practicing different
literacies, learning to create texts
that combine a range of modalities
as communicative resources:
exploring their affordances, the
special capabilities they offer to
authors; identifying what audiences
expect of texts that deploy different
modalities and how they respond to
such texts.”
(Selfe, “The Movement of Air, the
Breath of Meaning,” 643)

3. Examples
• Andrew Interviewing Celeste
• Jake Interviewing Marion
• Gionna interviewing Mylah
• Devonte interviewing Marcus
• Eninna interviewing Sam

4. Rationale
 respond to disciplinary calls for a more capacious
definition of writing
 cultivate students’ awareness, comfort, dexterity,
and critical understanding of social online writing
tools

5. Rationale
 encourage students to understand audio recording,
editing, and circulation as invention and revision
strategies, rather than merely as the “audio version”
of a written text.
 foster a collaborative writing environment

6. -Equip
-Prepare
-Record
-Edit
-Publish
-Reflect

7. Equip

8. Equip
• Computer lab
• Audacity
• Microphone
• Internet Connection

9. Prepare

10. Prepare
• Touchstone Texts
• Assignment Sequence
• Collaborative Invention (Q’s & A’s)
• Practice

11. Record

12. Record
• One microphone per pair
• One long take
• Steve responsible for Jessica’s
interview responses

13. Edit

14. Edit
• Write & record intro, transitions
• Audacity; multi-track; visual-
spatial interface
• Arrangement, Transition, Revision

15. Publish

16. Publish
• Publish to SoundCloud
• Share from SoundCloud
• Embed with commentary on their
individual WordPress site.

17. Reflect

18. Reflect
• What did you find most satisfying about
creating an audio text?
• What did you find most challenging about
creating and audio text?
• If you could change anything from start to
finish about the way you handled this
process, what would it be?

19. Stuff to get
you started…

20. Ryan Trauman
• 502-759-4083
• rtrauman@colum.edu
• @trauman (twitter)
• ryantrauman (skype)

21. Resources
• Audacity Download
• Creative Commons Search
• Soundjay
• Internet Archive

22. Touchstones
• This American Life
• Radio Lab
• Love + Radio
• How Sound
• Transom
• PRX
• RadioTopia
• 99% Invisible
• Bill Moyers
• Studs Terkel

23. Thank you.

24. Questions?