ENG 100: Franco-American Snowshoeing Unit 4

Unit 4 Introduction

Re-Writing the Conversation asks you to take your Unit 3 essay and remediate it using more than one mode of communication (e.g., digital video; infographic; story map) for a general public audience.

Modes of Communication

As you may have noticed as you’ve looked at articles, books and popular sources for your research, how we argue our points, and the evidence we use, effects the way people interpret it. The mode of communication (article, video, images) we use to convey our points and evidence ALSO effects how people interpret it.

Using the same information, change your paper into...

Each mode of communication has different boundaries, opportunities, and expectations attached to it. Building a brick house is different from building a brick bridge, or a brick walkway, even though the materials may be the same.

In order to use a mode effectively we need to reorder, and maybe add to, our information.

Let’s look at some ways we could rework a scholarly article we wrote on why there were Franco-Americans snowshoe clubs, to communicate with a more general audience.

The outline for that paper looked like this:

Snowshoeing Clubs as social status in Canada

Upper middle class, male, activity in Canada 1840-1895

(Morrow, Don. “The Knights of the Snowshoe: A Study of the Evolution of Sport in Nineteenth Century Montreal.” Journal of Sport History, vol. 15, no. 1, 1988, pp. 5–40. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43609339. Accessed 13 July 2020.)

(Dauphinais, Paul R. “A class act: French‐Canadians in organized sport, 1840–1910.” The International Journal of the History of Sport, vol.7, no.3, 1990, pp.432-442. DOI: 10.1080/09523369008713739. Accessed 13 July 2020)

French Canadians immigrated to American centers peak 1870-1890s

(Allen, James P. “Franco-Americans in Maine: A Geographical Perspective.” Acadiensis, vol. 4, no. 1, 1974, pp. 32–66. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/30302472. Accessed 13 July 2020.)

Franco Americans using Snowshoeing as a connection to home

Snowshoes clubs pop up in American in the 1920s

(Speech given by Louis-Philippe Gagné on the topic of an upcoming International Snowshoers' Convention. Louis-Philippe Gagné Papers, Franco-American Collection, University of Southern Maine Libraries.)

"1949 Snowshoeing Speech" by Louis-Philippe Gagné

Part of a larger movement to protect cultural heritage between World Wars.

(Brault, G.. The French - Canadian Heritage in New England, McGill-Queen's University Press, 1986. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.wv-o-ursus-proxy01.ursus.maine.edu/lib/usmmaine-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3331756.)

Occur in the places with the largest Franco American populations.

(Allen, James P. “Franco-Americans in Maine: A Geographical Perspective.” Acadiensis, vol. 4, no. 1, 1974, pp. 32–66. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/30302472. Accessed 13 July 2020.)

Snowshoe Badges : Lowell, MA, Lewiston, ME, Biddeford, Me, Berlin, New Hampshire.

(Louis-Philippe Gagné Papers, Franco-American Collection, University of Southern Maine Libraries.)

Clubs activities mirror those of Canadian clubs at their height

(Morrow, Don. “The Knights of the Snowshoe: A Study of the Evolution of Sport in Nineteenth Century Montreal.” Journal of Sport History, vol. 15, no. 1, 1988, pp. 5–40. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43609339. Accessed 13 July 2020.)

Snowshoe clubs as status symbols in New England

Franco Americans had achieved middle or upper class status by this time.

(Brault, G.. The French - Canadian Heritage in New England, McGill-Queen's University Press, 1986. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.wv-o-ursus-proxy01.ursus.maine.edu/lib/usmmaine-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3331756.)

(Dauphinais, Paul R. “A class act: French‐Canadians in organized sport, 1840–1910.” The International Journal of the History of Sport, vol.7, no.3, 1990, pp.432-442. DOI: 10.1080/09523369008713739. Accessed 13 July 2020)

Some of the ways we could repackage that research could be (these are really quick examples. Whatever you produce will be a lot more professional):

Website: https://spark.adobe.com/page/ByBJ8aJLDyrfj/

On this website we refocus our topic around gender, by looking at the manliness of snowshoeing clubs

Video: https://spark.adobe.com/video/nIPj92MY0iZfd

In the video we took on the narrative of immigration by showing the immigration process Franco-Americans went through and how their culture evolved in America.

While all of these modes of communication roughly use the same facts and sources about snowshoeing, we use them in different ways depending on what aspect of snowshoeing and its participants we are talking about and how we want to talk about them.

For some of these projects, we were able to use the research we already did (snowshoeing as a recreational winter sport around the two world wars in Maine), but for others we did have to go back to the library and do some more research on another branch of a topic (Men and sports for the website, for example.)

Just like when you wrote a scholarly paper and used something created by someone else, you need to remember to cite it. When you enter the visual landscape citation also applies to the music or images you use.

Practice

Look the examples of the way we reworked our paper:

Website: https://spark.adobe.com/page/ByBJ8aJLDyrfj/

On this website we refocus our topic around gender, by looking at the manliness of snowshoeing clubs.

Video: https://spark.adobe.com/video/nIPj92MY0iZfd

In the video we took on the narrative of immigration by showing the immigration process Franco-Americans went through and how their culture evolved in it.

Choose two of them and answer the following questions for each.

Look at the first example:

What elements is it made of? Is there text? Images? Music? Moving images/video? Quotes?

Did you feel anything emotionally when you interacted with it?

If you were to make something similar what would you have to make sure you cited?

Look at the second example: