Remix

Throughout your CPN 101 course, you will be encouraged to think critically and write about texts in a variety of ways—to consider how these texts come together and create meaning for different purposes and audiences. With the Remix assignment, you will have the opportunity to create your own text by “remixing” an assignment you have previously done, but now for a new purpose, context, and/or audience. The specific approach to the remix assignment will vary depending on how your instructor envisions it within the context of your course. You may be asked to transform a research essay into a letter, create a website or video out of an argument you wrote for a previous assignment, or take your work to social media for a new specific purpose. Ultimately, regardless of the genre, medium, or purpose, the Remix assignment grants you the opportunity to consider how the various rhetorical elements involved in the creation of a text (content, purpose, audience, context, medium, etc.) influence and shape one another.

In CPN 101, students compose a “remix,” transforming a text they have made into a new form or genre. The remix fulfills a new purpose, fits a new context, and/or addresses the needs of a new audience.

Through the remix assignment, students will:

Understand and use a variety of technologies to address a range of audiences
Develop facility in responding to a variety of situations and contexts calling for purposeful shifts in voice, tone, level of formality, design, medium, and/or structure
Gain experience negotiating variations in genre conventions

Things to keep in mind about remix

If an assignment calls for the remix of an academic essay, one possible method of remixing an academic essay would be to present the ideas in the essay in a way that academic writing would normally not encourage.   A remix could use a different genre (poetry, a combination of pictures and words, fiction) or medium (video, podcast, website, blog) to address a different audience (professional, personal, general) in a different tone (humorous, sarcastic, intimate) to achieve a different purpose (to mock, to entertain, to sympathize).

Knowing what a remix's purpose is can help focus the composition process.   A remix's purpose can be to inform, to entertain, to argue, or any other purpose.   This purpose can also be largely defined by the intended audience for your remix.   A good remix assignment composition will reflect a consideration of its audience: what does the audience know? What would the audience find funny? How does the audience feel about the subject of the remix?   Anticipating an audience's reception of the remix's message can help a writer decide how to best appeal to the audience and thus compose an effective text.

Copyright and Fair Use: While a remix assignment might not need to provide a traditionally formatted works cited or references page, thoughtful and effective writers always clearly credit the source of any words, images, sounds, or ideas they borrow from other sources.   Additionally, there are certain “assets” that are proprietary and certain companies that look for unlawful use of their material.   (Example: think about how Disney treats all its visual material and pursues litigation against “borrowing.”)   Some good questions include the following: how much of the original asset (song, image, etc.) am I using? Am I sure that the program I used to remix does not monetize (or offer the option to purchase) or publically publish my remix? Will my use of this asset decrease or threaten the value of the original?   These questions are not applicable if the material you are remixing is all of your own original work (e.g. your research inquiry paper, your photographs, and so forth.)

Additionally, different genres have different methods for crediting outside sources, so looking to examples of other texts in the same genre can help provide a model for how to credit outside material.   Public service announcements, PowerPoint presentations, and social media posts can all provide models for remixing academic essays, but remixes can also look to unexpected genres to provide models for recontextualization.

There are no universal guidelines to adhere to when remixing, and we want you to explore remixes that both address your instructor’s goals and allow you to experiment with composing in new genres, contexts, and for new purposes. Just be sure to follow up with your instructor to find out more about their expectations, the guidelines for Fair Use, and how to attribute your sources and audio or visual assets.

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A Film About Tragedy Remix Letter to the Editor (2024-2025)

Rhiannon O’Boyle

In this example of a remix letter to the editor, we decided to include a pairing of both the remix and the original research inquiry (published here after the remix.) In her remix, Rhiannon O’Boyle takes a research inquiry about the role of historical fiction, the love story of Jack and Rose, and the true events of the sinking of the Titanic in James Cameron’s 1997 film, Titanic, and remixes them into the genre of a letter to the editor. In her remix letter to the editor, she expresses an opinion about the necessity of the love story.
Lesson Plan (2024-2025)

Tara Panzer

In this remix assignment, Tara Panzer takes research on The Flower Man and “The Key Game” and creates a two-day lesson plan sequence with rationales for activities and assignments in order to teach third graders about the Holocaust. The standards she identifies for this lesson plan are students taking perspectives of and empathizing with others, including those from diverse backgrounds and cultures.
A Country that Hates the Skin You Wear (2023-2024)

Gianna McGowan

This remix example uses poetry to convey information on civil rights activist, Fred Korematsu, who challenged the forced relocation and internment of Japanese Americans in internment camps in WWII. Alongside the poem is a brief summary statement on Korematsu’s history to contextualize the poem and offer the reader an additional way to engage with the remix.
Stand By Me as My Words Write the Way (2020-2021)

Gianna Wheeler

In this example of a remix assignment, Wheeler uses poetry as a means to translate her research inquiry project into a new form for a new audience and purpose. She remixes aspects of her film analysis of Stand By Me with a reimagined focus on her research process. Wheeler considers aspects such as source selection, revision, and incorporating feedback into the final research inquiry paper. Throughout the poem, “Stand By Me” is both the title of the film on which Wheeler is conducting research and also a repeated phrase marking the progress that she makes through various stages in the process of finding, reading, and managing multiple sources in her eventual academic argument.
Perception and Entropy (2019-2020)

Matt Gustafson

In this remix as a “reframe” or reframing, the student annotated his own essay as if he was completing an analysis anchor assignment on someone else’s essay. This remixes shows how the student’s thought process changes through creating a layer of self or meta-analysis for what was once considered a “finished” essay on perception and entropy.
Wallace and Cole: Perception (2019-2020)

Jodi Lang

In this remix as a “reframe” or reframing, the student annotated her own essay as if she was completing an analysis anchor assignment on someone else’s essay. This remixes shows how the student’s thought process changes through creating a layer of self or meta-analysis for what was once considered a “finished” essay on the topic of perception.