Thick and Thin Tweets

This tweet from literature professor Mark Sample offers four layers of information:

1. it begins by targeting those who use (or are thinking of using) Twitter in the classroom,
2. it references and directs followers to a Twitter account called @profhacker,
3. it summarizes @profhacker’s article (i.e., “6 things to consider…”), and
4. it provides a link to the article.

Similarly, the tweet below — a response from one of my Critical Approaches students to a question I posed about the mise-en-scene (M-E-S) in Buster Keaton’s Our Hospitality – offers layers of “thick” or “meaty” information:

1. it references the film (OUR H) and the subject matter at hand (i.e., mise-en-scene),
2. it cites Keaton’s character by name,
3. it describes a specific scene in the film (“Willie got stuck on the waterfall”),
4. it offers specific examples for support (“rope/branch created conflict”), and
5. it includes the course hashtag #critapp.

So please remember to post “thick” tweets when you’re tweeting for class participation. After all, our goals, like Professor’s Silver’s are the same: learning how “to craft creative, meaty, and to-the-point messages that attract other people’s attention.”