Contextualized design: Teaching critical approaches to web authoring through redesign projects

Web-based curricula should encourage students to make situated design choices. Rather than simply privileging technological imperatives, instruction should integrate technical proficiencies with rhetorical analysis, medium-specific concerns, and consideration of larger cultural contexts. Redesign projects offer rich opportunities for pursuing these pedagogical principles. Reflecting on student examples, this article explores redesign as a method for teaching critical engagement with technology and contextualized web authoring. Through research and revision of an existing web site, students employ rhetorical approaches and gain more complex understandings of web development. Redesign projects also slow the pace of web instruction and provide students opportunities to develop situated strategies and reflect critically on their authoring choices.