MAPPING CIRCULATION PROJECT TWO

In project one, you formed a knowledge of key terms in the discipline of rhetoric and composition, and you
formulated a plan to present that knowledge to a specific audience taking content, meaning, and design into account
to most successfully deliver those concepts to your audience. In addition, you reflected on the nature of that
composition in the rhetorical rationale. Similar to project one, project two will also involve you composing and
reflecting on the process. This project will center on the concepts of circulation, delivery, network, and distribution.
How do texts move? Can we control that movement? What choices promote or limit the circulation of texts?
In his article, Recovering Delivery for Digital Rhetoric and Human-Computer Interaction, James Porter states
that Distribution refers then to the initial decision about how you package a message in order to send it to its
intended audience. Circulation refers to the potential for that message to have a document life of its own and be redistributed without your direct intervention (11). Digital or not, the life of a text is not static.
Your task for this project will be to map the circulation of a text. You may choose to make your map analog or
digital. The medium you use is up to you. Also the text that you map is up to you and please interpret the term
text as you see fit. What I hope to see in this project is a case study or analysis, a snap-shot, if you will, of a text in
action. This map will be as Dr. Kathleen Yancey states, a representation how a given term or image has circulated
across time and space and the connections central to that circulation. Please note that this circulation map is not
limited to the movement of texts across digital spaces, physical spaces may be involved as well.
In addition to your circulation map, I would also like for you to complete a minimum 1-2 pg single spaced (2-4
pages if double spaced) reflection (in 12 pt. Times New Roman font with 1 margins) on both the composition of
your circulation map and the significance of what you have documented in the confines of your map.
In your reflection, please cover the following:

What is it?
What did you map and why? How did you create your map?
What were your goals and what choices did you make to achieve those goals?
What is significant or interesting in your map? Why should a viewer take the time to experience it?
How is circulation demonstrated in your map? What about distribution, or rather, what was done to
promote circulation or to limit it?
How does Porters concept of techn apply to what you have documented here?
Did you gain any insights about the nature of texts, composing, or circulation while composing this map?

Both your circulation map and the reflection will be due on Monday, June 6th. Please upload the reflection to
Blackboard before the beginning of class, and bring a printed copy of the rationale to class along with any physical
materials if they constitute your map. If your map is digital, please upload those files to blackboard or include a link
to the map within your reflection.