Welcome! About the Author and this Webtext
Click “play” to access an auditory transcription of the following webtext (Navigation), as written and read by Rachel Rubino.
When I began this project, I jotted down the following note during one of my initial brainstorming sessions:
Webtext author Rachel Rubino’s project brainstorming note features the following text, written in black font: “What is a concept map? A concept map is a process. A concept map depicts a process. A concept map is a product.” The words “process” and “product” are underlined, while the word “depicts” is emphasized as the only red font in the depiction. IMAGE REFERENCE: Rachel Rubino. (2023). Brainstorming Note [graphic].
The entry is simple, and concept maps are arguably more nuanced than my statements convey. Still, I continuously returned to this note throughout each step I took to complete this project. The energy between “process” and “product” felt palpable to me. Consideration toward this dynamic interplay carried throughout my research and endeavor to create this webtext.
As I construct a concept map, I am called to think about the infrastructure of ideas. And as I contemplate the interface between concept maps and their given audiences, I am encouraged to think about the qualities of optimal designs that help users access knowledge. Within my brainstorming note, I use red font to emphasize the word “depicts,” as in, “a concept map depicts a process.” Much of this project concerns itself with how concept maps are commonly arranged and displayed. I interrogate our common understanding of concept maps as visual tools, and regard possibilities for alternative mapping methods.
While I explore numerous themes throughout this webtext, I primarily focus on concept maps because they appear so frequently at every level of scholarship that I engage. Concept maps are routinely featured across the pedagogical, technical, digital and literacy-based scholarship to which I am drawn. I initially became interested in concept maps when I noticed how frequently their presence resonates across these academic fields.
A decorative graphic of a concept map features bright colors, shapes, and arrows that point to a white explanation point enclosed in a blue square. IMAGE REFERENCE: Lucid Content Team. (2019). How to Make a Concept Map [graphic]. Lucidchart.https://www.lucidchart.com/blog/how-to-make-a-concept-map.
To this end, concept maps have facilitated my emergent understandings of graduate-level research: what it means, how it is synthesized, and why it is contrived. I create concept maps not only for research, but also for the lessons that I teach to students. Since concept maps call for different types of multimodal composing processes, I seek to center their affordances in discussions I have with students about their writing and research.
The heart of this webtext determines my aim to use digital media as a means for establishing my groundwork research on concept maps. I set out to complete this project for the Digital Media and Composition Institute (DMAC)[1] at the Ohio State University (OSU). As an MA/PhD student in English for the Writing, Rhetoric, and Literacy program at OSU, my academic interests are energized by the potentialities of digital composing. I was therefore thrilled for the opportunity I had to expand my digital literacy as a DMAC participant.
Prior to my enrollment in DMAC, I expressed specific interest in facilitating innovative approaches that support the critical faculties of my students as they write across digital platforms. And as I entered DMAC, I sought further connection to this engagement by grounding questions that broadly accounted for writing across technological modes. My participation within the week-long institute fostered my connections between practice and theory. It is from my epistemological concern toward writing and technology that I developed the concept map as a definitive site for my research.
I used WordPress to create this webtext since the platform facilitated my capacity to capture the various modalities that this multi-part project engages. Each section of this webtext opens with a captioned image and quote related to the content contained therewithin. I wanted to introduce readers to new topics by providing accessible definitions for key terms, so I also began each section with a graphic of “threshold concepts” and “supporting concepts.” I used Audacity to record direct audio transcriptions for the bulk of the text that proceeds to follow. Users can click the arrow featured at the top of each section to return to the webtext landing page, where they can navigate between each section by clicking upon its associated hyperlink.
[1] To learn more about DMAC, please see “References” to access a link to its “About” page on the Ohio State University English Department website.
Charting the Crossroads of Knowledge and Making: Concept Maps as Rhetorical Sites of Transformative Access 