This is a snapshot of project information archived on 2 September 2022. Please contact the project team for most recent updates.
Showing Theory to Know Theory
Subject: Other Social Sciences
Book Language: English
Audience: undergraduate university students
Book Cover: https://showingtheory.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/STKT-cover-shadow.jpg
Created date: May 4, 2021
Updated date: March 4, 2022
Target Release Date: 2022-03-31
License:
• Attribution
• Non-Commercial
• Share Alike
Needs:
• Authors
• Classroom Reviewers
• Adopters
Description:
DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: June 30, 2021
Funded by e-Campus Ontario
, this collaborative open educational resource (OER) will bring together a collection of 100+ short pedagogical pieces (500-1000 words) to help students understand complex theoretical concepts and disciplinary jargon from the critical social sciences. Following a set of defined guidelines (see the Author Guide below), OER contributors will create “
vignettes”—short, evocative stories, illustrations or infographics, poems, described photographs, or other audio-visual material.
This OER will be of use across disciplines and community contexts, democratizing theory while linking it to practical, grounded experience. In
The Elements of Style
, Strunk and White famously implore us to
show
rather than
tell
what we want to express
.
In contrast, theoretical work seems perpetually prone to the latter. Nonetheless, abstraction and disciplinary jargon remain useful, synthesizing and communicating complex ideas—at least, to those who are already familiar with the terminology. This OER will demystify theoretical concepts, making abstract-yet-valuable ideas more accessible by “showing” (rather than “telling”) how they are meaningful and usable in day-to-day situations. Concepts such as
performativity, neoliberalism, intersectionality,
and
social nature
, among others, will become accessible without being diluted or “dumbed-down.” Instead, learners in both university and community contexts will be able to make the all-important connections between theory and practice, abstract and concrete, developing the critical reading skills and innovative forms of expression that are so urgently needed in today’s complex, entangled, and fraught social and political ecologies.
Vignettes can fall into several possible categories, including (but not limited to): - Concrete, illustrative texts - Short, evocative stories/narratives - Illustrations - Infographics - Poems - Described photographs - Other audio-visual material To contribute,
please consult our initial spreadsheet of terms and concepts
, and either select one (following the Notes to Contributors in the spreadsheet) or come up with another that isn’t listed. Then email your Expression of Interest to the editors (contact below), confirming the term/concept you would like to illustrate and the illustrative example that you would like to use.
Final submissions are due
August 23
, although we would be happy to receive yours before that date. Some additional details:
Sample Vignettes
See the two sample vignettes included in our CFP
, which offer examples of two of the many possible formats: -
social nature
, as illustrated by “The American Bullfrog: Economic savior to monster to miracle cure” -
positionality
, as illustrated by “What if we could look at the Big Dipper from Alpha Centauri?”
Learning Outcomes
After reading and discussing an individual vignette, our intention is that students will be able to: - Articulate, in their own words, the meaning of the theoretical concept/term at hand. - Form and describe connections between the theoretical concept/term and examples of how the concept/term is meaningful to lived experience. - Identify or create their own vignette, based on an existing understanding of a theoretical concept or term, and draw connections to lived experience and concrete examples.
FAQs
Will these vignettes be peer reviewed?
Yes, each vignette will be reviewed by one or more reviewers, plus the two editors. In keeping with the ethos of open publishing, reviewers will be credited for their contributions to the book. -
Will these vignettes be published?
Yes, we will publish this volume through the open-access publishing network, Rebus Community. It will then be available for free, open-access download in a number of file formats and through a variety of open-access digital repositories. -
How will these vignettes be used?
The OER as a whole will be beta-tested in classrooms by a select number of instructors, after which it will be made broadly available. We anticipate that instructors will use the vignettes in a variety of learning contexts and that students will use the OER independently as a reference tool. Because the book is being published under a CC-BY-NC licence (see below), we anticipate that it may be revised, updated, and republished in a number of different editions over the coming years. -
Will I retain copyright over my vignette?
The OER will be published under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC licence, which means that it will be useable, remixable, and re-publishable by anyone, provided that they publish under the same license, give attribution to the original author, and do not benefit from any form of commercialization through their use of the work. (For more about OA and CC licenses, go to
.)
Short Description:
This collaborative OER brings together a collection of 100+ “pedagogical vignettes” that will help students understand complex theoretical concepts and disciplinary jargon from the critical social sciences. Following a set of defined guidelines, OER contributors will create vignettes—short, evocative stories, illustrations and infographics, poems, described photographs, or other audio-visual material. Vignettes will make abstract-yet-valuable ideas more accessible by “showing” (rather than “telling”) how they are meaningful in day-to-day situations. Designed with a modular structure that enables users to pick and choose vignettes, the OER will be of use across disciplines and community contexts, democratizing theory while linking it to practical, grounded experience. Keyword indexing and a filtering application will enable teachers and learners to “curate” smaller collections of vignettes to focus on a relevant subject.
Resources
• Revised call for proposals
Participants
• @david.szanto
• @amanda.m.dibattista
• @alice
• @jonathan.wald
• @rotzs
• @Sarah_Rotz
• @sophia.hagolani-albo
• @katefedchun
• @beckbanks
• @salamonm
• @rebecca.heimel
• @uchenna.emenaha
• @smb009
• @soniadlc
• @tyler.anderson
• @ann.delbianco