Friday, April 06, 2007
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Monday, April 02, 2007
Video Blog 2: The curling episode
Video blogging, when not a 5 minute one-take, is much more time consuming than text-blogging. Duh.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Missing out on the carnival
I haven't blogged or even read blogs for a few weeks, only to find out today that I have been missing out on a Trimbur Carnival, a discussion of John Trimbur's article in Composition Studies. Because my blog really is a ten-a-day sort of activity, I haven't bothered to go re-read that piece. Instead, I am going to use this prompt to think aloud about Call to Write, Trimbur's textbook, the one he more or less "defends" in that article.
Our first-year writing program has used that text for three years now, but it has never sat well with our long-term lecturers, and our grad students are always slow to appreciate it, if they ever get to the stage of appreciation. Those of us with PhDs in writing studies generally like it; it speaks our language, we aren't bothered by the lack of literary content, and the organization of the text makes sense to us. Some people seem to think the text speaks down to students (Trimbur deals with "composing a shopping list" problem in his article); others think the text is too complex.
Here is what I really want to think aloud about, though. We surveyed students in our first-semester writing course; we got just over 100 returns from those who used Call to Write plus a supplement of the instructor's choice, and just over 100 returns from those students who used texts that are definitely NOT rhetorics, Thinking for YOurself and The Sundance Reader. Students were luke warm about CTW, although they acknowledged that it helped them in various ways. Students generally liked the other two texts, although one students said the he / she thought CTW would be more informational, but these two texts (TFY and SR) were fun and easy to read.
If CTW exemplifies a "meta" approach to writing courses, an approach that wants students to understand writing, and not just produce writing, the students generally seem to find this goal a bit baffling. One student even said that CTW might be a good book for graduate students, but not first-year students. If TFY and SR represent a more familiar and transparent approach to teaching critical thinking and writing, students seem to enjoy the familiarity, ease, and humor. (Maybe one of the problems with CTW is that it is humorless?). As WPA, do I want to administer a popular and fun program, a rigorous and meta-program, some combination of the above, something all together. Or does this little survey--small and flawed as it is--just exemplify a problem that the philosophical / theoretical issues simply doesn't address--writing courses are still taught by those who received or would like to receive graduate degrees in literary studies; those instructors are most comfortable assigning readings and talking about themes, those instructors do not think writing courses should be about writing, because they often think that the writing should be transparent, and the transcendental themes illuminated.
Okay, my tone is slipping here, but that seems to be the heart of the issue for me: Trimbur can convince me and many of us in our discipline that writing courses should be about writing, not just do writing, but he and I cannot convince the many instructors of first-year writing, nor the many students of first-year writing, that it should be about writing.
As one students said, the course should be about poetry.
Our first-year writing program has used that text for three years now, but it has never sat well with our long-term lecturers, and our grad students are always slow to appreciate it, if they ever get to the stage of appreciation. Those of us with PhDs in writing studies generally like it; it speaks our language, we aren't bothered by the lack of literary content, and the organization of the text makes sense to us. Some people seem to think the text speaks down to students (Trimbur deals with "composing a shopping list" problem in his article); others think the text is too complex.
Here is what I really want to think aloud about, though. We surveyed students in our first-semester writing course; we got just over 100 returns from those who used Call to Write plus a supplement of the instructor's choice, and just over 100 returns from those students who used texts that are definitely NOT rhetorics, Thinking for YOurself and The Sundance Reader. Students were luke warm about CTW, although they acknowledged that it helped them in various ways. Students generally liked the other two texts, although one students said the he / she thought CTW would be more informational, but these two texts (TFY and SR) were fun and easy to read.
If CTW exemplifies a "meta" approach to writing courses, an approach that wants students to understand writing, and not just produce writing, the students generally seem to find this goal a bit baffling. One student even said that CTW might be a good book for graduate students, but not first-year students. If TFY and SR represent a more familiar and transparent approach to teaching critical thinking and writing, students seem to enjoy the familiarity, ease, and humor. (Maybe one of the problems with CTW is that it is humorless?). As WPA, do I want to administer a popular and fun program, a rigorous and meta-program, some combination of the above, something all together. Or does this little survey--small and flawed as it is--just exemplify a problem that the philosophical / theoretical issues simply doesn't address--writing courses are still taught by those who received or would like to receive graduate degrees in literary studies; those instructors are most comfortable assigning readings and talking about themes, those instructors do not think writing courses should be about writing, because they often think that the writing should be transparent, and the transcendental themes illuminated.
Okay, my tone is slipping here, but that seems to be the heart of the issue for me: Trimbur can convince me and many of us in our discipline that writing courses should be about writing, not just do writing, but he and I cannot convince the many instructors of first-year writing, nor the many students of first-year writing, that it should be about writing.
As one students said, the course should be about poetry.
Friday, February 09, 2007
The philosopher's (curling) stone
My best friend from high school, Graham Freeman, is one of the best curlers in Manitoba. He is currently playing in the Safeway Selectplaydowns (do bloggers get paid for produce placement?), although he lost to former World Champion Jeff Stoughton this morning.
For a couple of years now, I have been planning a documentary about Graham, and, well, me--a MyStory of sorts, a buddy story (ironically, to be sure), but also a piece of cultural analysis, and, uh, maybe some philosophizing. Hence, the philosopher's (curling) stone. The way I see it, we were best friends who left high school and took very different paths. Graham stayed in Virden, works in the grocery store by day, is a Super Curler for about 5 months of the year, got married to one of the two young women we mixed curled with while in Grade 12, has a couple of kids (one named Brooks!), and although also an excellent golfer, he plays the grand old game more recreationally because of the high demands of being a Super Curler in winter.
I left high school, got a degree, got married, got another degree, got divorced, got another degree, got married again, moved around, had a kid, more or less gave up curling, golf, and every other sport I played and loved as a kid and young adult, got a job just across the border from Manitoba, got tenure, get to meet a lot of really smart and interesting people, started curling again (but not Super Curling), and now I find myself asking not, "who has the better life," but, "how does one evaluate "quality of life?" There was no way I could have stayed in my home town and done what Graham has done, in part because I was never that good of a curler, but in part, some weird life trajectory had already made that impossible by about the time I was 12.
I'm getting a little too discursive here, so let me just throw out some ideas, and if anybody who reads this has comments and suggestions, let me know. I think I will need a good push or two to actually follow through with this film project, but next year is probably the right year to do it.
1. Curling is a strangely gripping sport, and I am interested in trying to figure out how it grips people. The movie "Men With Brooms" provides some "Bull Durham" like philosophizing on this topic, but I would want to hear what Graham has to say, and I would like to figure out what I think about this topic.
2. Curling is a strangely Canadian sport--albeit brought to Canada but Scottish settlers. Curling culture in Canada is pretty well documented, so the question becomes: why isn't it apart of North Dakota culture? All of the natural conditions that make curling viable in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, where the sport has the greatest grassroots support, are also found in North Dakota. ND was not settled by the Scottish, which will be part of the explanation, but the modern Scandanavians are great curlers--why not their ND cousins? What can be learned about the mysterious effect of the 49th parallel by studying curling in ND in MB, by comparing Graham's life on the Manitoba Curling Tour (2005 champ, 2006 runner up) and my life in Monday night men's league play?
3. What does it mean to "stay competitive" much of one's life? What does it mean to one's life to interact with the world's best in something / anything? Graham gets to curl against world class competition regularly, in a really black-and-white kind of way (win or lose). I have had the good fortune to meet a number of people who are among the most knowledgeable in the world in their various academic fields or sub-fields. I always claim to know more about the history of writing instruction in western canadian universities than any other person in the world, but then, there ain't much competition for that title. I figure I might be a top 100 McLuhan scholar by now--slightly stiffer competition, but still pretty small field.
Those are 3 "stones" to philosophize about--I suppose I could think of the project in eight parts (eight stones). Graham's thoughts, my thoughts, two teams, head to head, but in a totally sportsmanlike, male bonding, kinda way. I also see next year as the year because the World Curling Championship will be in Grand Forks, ND. While neither one of us are likely to be competing in that event, we could meet there. The narrative arch of the documentary could follow both of us through a season, him on his MCT, me in the Monday league. I have considered "getting competitive" for that year, but I am not sure that would make for a better film or not. Maybe I could do both, and see what makes for the better storyline.
Thoughts?
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Readings for FYC
My students are wrapping up the first unit in English 120, and it dawned on me that the unit could benefit from stronger readings. I did ask students to read "Students Have the Power to Lead," but as a piece of non-fiction and high-density information, that chapter never starts any fires. I probably need to do a better job of selling and teaching that chapter if I continue to use it. I have also been thinking about adding a good reading or two about money and the meaning of life. I am trying to get students to profile each other, and I think some stronger readings on money and the meaning of life might help them ask better questions and work on incorporting secondary sources. I bought a collection of essays that I should definitely consult, and maybe compile a casebook / course pack.
As we move into unit 2, I am realizing that using White Like Me might not be the best way to go. I should probably have students read a few of Tim Wise's commentaries, read excerpts from a few of the other books I have started to assemble, and show a few of the short films I have started to collect. Working with this kind of casebook approach, students would have more context for rhetorically analyzing Wise or other authors, and they might see that there is a context for thinking about "whiteness." Assembling these two sets of readings into casebooks might be a good model for students as we move into more independent reading and research projects for the remaining assignments.
On a completely different note, I have more or less wrapped up and sent out two articles in the last 5 days--feels good!!! Of course the reader-reports might hurt.... I'll be sure to blog about my next project--the encouragement I have received from the 4 people who read this thing was surprisingly, well, encouraging.
As we move into unit 2, I am realizing that using White Like Me might not be the best way to go. I should probably have students read a few of Tim Wise's commentaries, read excerpts from a few of the other books I have started to assemble, and show a few of the short films I have started to collect. Working with this kind of casebook approach, students would have more context for rhetorically analyzing Wise or other authors, and they might see that there is a context for thinking about "whiteness." Assembling these two sets of readings into casebooks might be a good model for students as we move into more independent reading and research projects for the remaining assignments.
On a completely different note, I have more or less wrapped up and sent out two articles in the last 5 days--feels good!!! Of course the reader-reports might hurt.... I'll be sure to blog about my next project--the encouragement I have received from the 4 people who read this thing was surprisingly, well, encouraging.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
de.li.cious
I've been using de.li.cious for a while, mainly because my bookmark folders were getting unmanageable, and I had a vague notion that sharing some bookmarks with students or colleagues might be a good idea at some point. Right now I am working with an outstanding graduate student in our department (are you reading this!) who is shadowing Visual Culture and Language. She is an experienced blogger, great with LMS, Facebook, etc., but she hadn't used de.li.cious. We decided to do some "team-tagging" (or tag-teaming?), and see what we could both learn about the service and its potential.
Right away, I looked at de.li.cious in a whole new light. My VCL tag (for Visual Culture and Language) is helpful to me, but nobody else! I did not take a social or rhetorical approach to tagging. It looks like I could rename that tag, but for now, I think we will keep it, which, when looked at from a different light, could be particularly relevant to students (this semester or in the future). I have asked Melissa to use this tag, and we talked about what we should use as tag for hybrid classrooms. I think "blended learning" is the preferred term, and sure enough, when I did a de.li.cious search for blended learning, I got some good and relevant hits. When I did a search for hybrid, I got a lot of cars.
Both tags need additional tags, like "photography" and "film" to go with VCL, and "blogging" or "LMS" to go with "blended learning," but even as I was realizing that, my approach to tagging started to seem logical, rather than random. There might be something to this folksonomy stuff, besides a new buzz word.
Don't get lost in my cloud!
Right away, I looked at de.li.cious in a whole new light. My VCL tag (for Visual Culture and Language) is helpful to me, but nobody else! I did not take a social or rhetorical approach to tagging. It looks like I could rename that tag, but for now, I think we will keep it, which, when looked at from a different light, could be particularly relevant to students (this semester or in the future). I have asked Melissa to use this tag, and we talked about what we should use as tag for hybrid classrooms. I think "blended learning" is the preferred term, and sure enough, when I did a de.li.cious search for blended learning, I got some good and relevant hits. When I did a search for hybrid, I got a lot of cars.
Both tags need additional tags, like "photography" and "film" to go with VCL, and "blogging" or "LMS" to go with "blended learning," but even as I was realizing that, my approach to tagging started to seem logical, rather than random. There might be something to this folksonomy stuff, besides a new buzz word.
Don't get lost in my cloud!
Friday, January 19, 2007
McLuhan and Rachel Carson
I really like this analogy between McLuhan (as technological environmentalist) and Rachel Carson, the environmentalist:
"McLuhan would have considered himself a media ecologist in this sense: he was trying to create an awareness about the hidden effects of electronic technologies, in much the same fashion that Rachel Carson, in Silent Spring, exposed the unintended consequences of pesticides (Morrison 5-6, 23n3). James Morrison argues that if we see McLuhan in his true light as a "technological environmentalist," it will expose the blindness of his misperceiving critics who see him as a booster of technology; "in truth, he was no more so than Rachel Carson was a promoter of DDT" (Morrison 6). From this ecological framework, we can see that people today do not merely live in a world of the physical. The world is symbolic. We live in a reality filtered by various media; call it what you will: Plato's cave wall, the world outside and the pictures in our heads, mediated reality, second-hand world, the media environment, the media torrent. As argued above, when a new technology or new symbol system enters a culture, the entire system will change. The examination of this phenomenon is the work of the media ecologist/medium theorist." Marc Leverette, "Towards an Ecology of Understanding."
"McLuhan would have considered himself a media ecologist in this sense: he was trying to create an awareness about the hidden effects of electronic technologies, in much the same fashion that Rachel Carson, in Silent Spring, exposed the unintended consequences of pesticides (Morrison 5-6, 23n3). James Morrison argues that if we see McLuhan in his true light as a "technological environmentalist," it will expose the blindness of his misperceiving critics who see him as a booster of technology; "in truth, he was no more so than Rachel Carson was a promoter of DDT" (Morrison 6). From this ecological framework, we can see that people today do not merely live in a world of the physical. The world is symbolic. We live in a reality filtered by various media; call it what you will: Plato's cave wall, the world outside and the pictures in our heads, mediated reality, second-hand world, the media environment, the media torrent. As argued above, when a new technology or new symbol system enters a culture, the entire system will change. The examination of this phenomenon is the work of the media ecologist/medium theorist." Marc Leverette, "Towards an Ecology of Understanding."
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Saving the ruined essay
Ever since I messed up the essay that I blogged about just before Christmas (or, technically, ever since I finished messing up that essay in and around January 1), I have been thinking about how to save it and strengthen it. This time, I think I have the right things figured out.
I know I need to do some cutting and trimming, but I was also feeling like the essay was not fully engaged in the right kinds of conversation, not fully engaged in an the ongoing conversation about reading generally, and reading new media specifically. I just read Patricia Harkin's CCC essay on the history of reader-response theory; I think that is the conversation I need to hook up with. She points out near the end that compositionists excluded reading from composition courses as they asserted rhetoric and writing as subjects worthy of study (and professionalization), but in the early part of the 21st century, considerable cultural anxiety about students' poor reading abilities, and anxiety about students' inability to read the changing communicative environment (the visual, the remixed, the fragmentary), gives me an entree into "seriously visible" reading (that phrase being part of the title).
Guess I should just go work on the paper, not blog about it.
I know I need to do some cutting and trimming, but I was also feeling like the essay was not fully engaged in the right kinds of conversation, not fully engaged in an the ongoing conversation about reading generally, and reading new media specifically. I just read Patricia Harkin's CCC essay on the history of reader-response theory; I think that is the conversation I need to hook up with. She points out near the end that compositionists excluded reading from composition courses as they asserted rhetoric and writing as subjects worthy of study (and professionalization), but in the early part of the 21st century, considerable cultural anxiety about students' poor reading abilities, and anxiety about students' inability to read the changing communicative environment (the visual, the remixed, the fragmentary), gives me an entree into "seriously visible" reading (that phrase being part of the title).
Guess I should just go work on the paper, not blog about it.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Back on the horse
I scared myself off the blog because my last entry--a reflection on a paper I am working on--lead me to mess up the paper, rather than clarify and finish the paper. Darn blog--it is supposed to be infallible!
That said, I am here to try again, reflecing on some reader comments for the trivium project I have written about a few times. Let me start by saying that I really like the way people in the field of rhetoric and composition respond to other people's scholarship. The reviewers of the trivium project were quick to respond, supportive, but also very careful and smart critics of our project. I didn't get the sense that any of them wanted to force their agenda on our work. When I occasionally submit to other fields / subdisciplines, the readers are often very slow, very dogmatic, and not particularly supportive (even if they accept the piece!).
Okay, the point that got me here was a observation that our trivium project was a traditional, locked down essay with open wikipieces building off that essay structure. One reviewer pointed out that our wiki projects have a grammatical bias: the collecting and sorting of information. We were aware of this bias, and I think we even discussed, then dismissed other options. But as I read this comment, I began to think--how does the web massage rhetoric, dialectic, and grammar? Or where do these categories show up. Wiki building (wikipedia most obviously), retrieves the grammatical impulse to collect, sort, organize knowledge. I would even be willing to say the web as medium supports this function better than the other two functions. Dialectic, as philosophy, as critique, as questioning shows up in filter-blogging and discussion boards. K-logging might combine the grammatical and the dialectical, as bloggers gather and sort relevant information, but also offer commentary and critique of that information. Rhetoric, as the application of grammatical knowledge to practical political problems, might be most fully embodied in activist or political websites that show a broad understanding of an issue / issues (the grammatical function), while employing the crafts and strategies of persuasive new media discourse to prompt action and production, not just consumption.
Suppose I should just go work on the project, not blog it.
That said, I am here to try again, reflecing on some reader comments for the trivium project I have written about a few times. Let me start by saying that I really like the way people in the field of rhetoric and composition respond to other people's scholarship. The reviewers of the trivium project were quick to respond, supportive, but also very careful and smart critics of our project. I didn't get the sense that any of them wanted to force their agenda on our work. When I occasionally submit to other fields / subdisciplines, the readers are often very slow, very dogmatic, and not particularly supportive (even if they accept the piece!).
Okay, the point that got me here was a observation that our trivium project was a traditional, locked down essay with open wikipieces building off that essay structure. One reviewer pointed out that our wiki projects have a grammatical bias: the collecting and sorting of information. We were aware of this bias, and I think we even discussed, then dismissed other options. But as I read this comment, I began to think--how does the web massage rhetoric, dialectic, and grammar? Or where do these categories show up. Wiki building (wikipedia most obviously), retrieves the grammatical impulse to collect, sort, organize knowledge. I would even be willing to say the web as medium supports this function better than the other two functions. Dialectic, as philosophy, as critique, as questioning shows up in filter-blogging and discussion boards. K-logging might combine the grammatical and the dialectical, as bloggers gather and sort relevant information, but also offer commentary and critique of that information. Rhetoric, as the application of grammatical knowledge to practical political problems, might be most fully embodied in activist or political websites that show a broad understanding of an issue / issues (the grammatical function), while employing the crafts and strategies of persuasive new media discourse to prompt action and production, not just consumption.
Suppose I should just go work on the project, not blog it.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Finishing a paper
I've spent the last two days revising and cutting a paper that I plan to send out to an unnamed journal (I just realized that the blogosphere could be corrupting blind review!). I've been having a lot of success blogging my way through tough spots in papers over the last year or so, but this paper was moving along pretty nicely. I thought I was close to sending it out today, but I ran out of time, and realized that the conclusion is pretty weak.
I am applying a couple of Scott McCloud's set of concepts to Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore's The Medium is the Massage, but my ending just fizzles. I have two main sections in the paper--each one applying McCloud--so what I probably need to do is make the final section much more of a synthesis section: show how closure and word-picture relations work in the last 10 pages of the MM rather than keep the two concepts separate. I think I was stumbling towards that kind of synthesis, but I think if I really foreground what I am doing in the conclusion, that will strengthen the final section. The final 10 pages seems very much subject to subject or aspect to aspect--a distinction, I am also realizing, that could probably be strengthened in the paper. I think the final 10 pages is about subject positions and identity--that's what I am calling the scene--so the question becomes, are the transitions following any sense of chronology or inter-relatedness (subject to subject, this than that), or are they just aspects of identity: observer of the maelstrom, additional identity (who are you), get it or dont' get it? Hip or square? Probably aspect to aspect. As for word-picture relations, one of the two-page spreads has the Poe "Descent into the Maelstrom" that McLuhan loved, with an additive image--business man surfing. The image is jokey and silly, and doesn't precisely illustrate the saying, but it does invoke a later book title for McLuhan: culture is our business. The Alice in Wonderland sequence has both additive, perhaps duo-specific, although the numbered silouttes is interdependent; readers could figure out the game without the Alice quotation, but the Alice quotation brings a lot to the panels. The setting of the New Yorker cartoon adds a lot to the message of the text, making it vital to the overall message--interdependent? Very much self-contained; ending with a comic might be a strong clue to read this book as a comic.
Okay, I think I have this worked out, and am seeing other possibilities for strengthening the essay--10 a day is an amazing process.
I am applying a couple of Scott McCloud's set of concepts to Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore's The Medium is the Massage, but my ending just fizzles. I have two main sections in the paper--each one applying McCloud--so what I probably need to do is make the final section much more of a synthesis section: show how closure and word-picture relations work in the last 10 pages of the MM rather than keep the two concepts separate. I think I was stumbling towards that kind of synthesis, but I think if I really foreground what I am doing in the conclusion, that will strengthen the final section. The final 10 pages seems very much subject to subject or aspect to aspect--a distinction, I am also realizing, that could probably be strengthened in the paper. I think the final 10 pages is about subject positions and identity--that's what I am calling the scene--so the question becomes, are the transitions following any sense of chronology or inter-relatedness (subject to subject, this than that), or are they just aspects of identity: observer of the maelstrom, additional identity (who are you), get it or dont' get it? Hip or square? Probably aspect to aspect. As for word-picture relations, one of the two-page spreads has the Poe "Descent into the Maelstrom" that McLuhan loved, with an additive image--business man surfing. The image is jokey and silly, and doesn't precisely illustrate the saying, but it does invoke a later book title for McLuhan: culture is our business. The Alice in Wonderland sequence has both additive, perhaps duo-specific, although the numbered silouttes is interdependent; readers could figure out the game without the Alice quotation, but the Alice quotation brings a lot to the panels. The setting of the New Yorker cartoon adds a lot to the message of the text, making it vital to the overall message--interdependent? Very much self-contained; ending with a comic might be a strong clue to read this book as a comic.
Okay, I think I have this worked out, and am seeing other possibilities for strengthening the essay--10 a day is an amazing process.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Life list
1. Write two books: McLuhan for Compositionists: Working the Interface and Understanding Games, subtitle to be developed. Start with "Fathers playing Yu-Gi-Oh with Sons."
2. Go to Africa: try to do good work there. Follow through on Darfur E-Monument as a starting point for action.
3. Make a film about curling, quality of life, national identity, and buddies.
4. Let Griffin find his path; avoid conflict; follow zen parenting.
5. Achieve greater inner peace and happiness: live in the moment(s).
I drafted this list during the summer. Sunday November 18, 2007, I committed myself to going to Africa: Kenya then Sudan. I hope I can do some good there; just seeing how excited my Sudanese friend Joseph is about the trip helps me believe that good is already being done.
2. Go to Africa: try to do good work there. Follow through on Darfur E-Monument as a starting point for action.
3. Make a film about curling, quality of life, national identity, and buddies.
4. Let Griffin find his path; avoid conflict; follow zen parenting.
5. Achieve greater inner peace and happiness: live in the moment(s).
I drafted this list during the summer. Sunday November 18, 2007, I committed myself to going to Africa: Kenya then Sudan. I hope I can do some good there; just seeing how excited my Sudanese friend Joseph is about the trip helps me believe that good is already being done.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
CW proposal
Gotta find some time to write a CW proposal. Been reading Ulmer's Electronic Monuments, been wanting to do something with McLuhan's War and Peace in the Global Village, been inspired by a students' project on the forgotten war in Afghanistan, so I am trying to think through a MEmorial for the Darfur region of the Sudan and the Sudanese Lost Boys.
Been watching some videos tonight, and the narrations tend to make the same claim that Ulmer is making in EM: that issues and events get lost in the society of the spectacle. What puzzles commentators on Darfur is that this spectactle is among the most attrocious, the most violent of the late 20th early 21st century, yet it garners so little attention.
Thinking about something like "Link Farm to EM: MeMorials for the Global Village." Wondering what it is that an EM or MeMorial will do that the PBS reports and videos, websites, newspaper articles, etc., haven't been able to do. Wondering about the policy component; wondering what the state of ND can do that the world has not been able to do, because we have these boys in FM, and they are having a more comfortable life, but a very difficult life full of memories, longings, and a sense of helplessness. Seems like I need to ask this question in the presentation: what can these MeMorials do?
Been watching some videos tonight, and the narrations tend to make the same claim that Ulmer is making in EM: that issues and events get lost in the society of the spectacle. What puzzles commentators on Darfur is that this spectactle is among the most attrocious, the most violent of the late 20th early 21st century, yet it garners so little attention.
Thinking about something like "Link Farm to EM: MeMorials for the Global Village." Wondering what it is that an EM or MeMorial will do that the PBS reports and videos, websites, newspaper articles, etc., haven't been able to do. Wondering about the policy component; wondering what the state of ND can do that the world has not been able to do, because we have these boys in FM, and they are having a more comfortable life, but a very difficult life full of memories, longings, and a sense of helplessness. Seems like I need to ask this question in the presentation: what can these MeMorials do?
Thursday, November 30, 2006
collective wisdom
I asked the TAs to tell me what they needed the rest of the semester, and some complied. Others took a broader approach, and gave me some great suggestions for what would have been useful throughout the semester. I am going to try and collect some of that collective wisdom.
Demonstrate my own grading more, and earlier. I don't know why I haven't thought of doing this, or maybe I have and simply haven't been organized enough. I think I will need to make sure that I do a lot of electronic grading next semester, and save a range of papers for each assignment. I actually did this way back in 1998, but haven't done so since. I also think that even if I do this grading electronically, I need to print those documents off. I need to distribute a much more substantial "guide to the program" not just for TAs but for adjuncts, too.
Spend more time on Blackboard and the Multimedia cart. I have mixed feelings about these suggestions, but will try to come up with some better plans. My students last year said "spend less time on BB," so let's hope there is a happy medium out there. The MM cart hasn't really come up as a problem before, so either this year's TAs were more adventerous in their use of the carts, or the carts are breaking down and becoming more and more difficult to work with.
I have also been wondering if I simply should ask students to do more "practice teaching" in TA strategies. The environment, however, is so different. There is nothing quite like teaching to 22 students who may or may not want to be in class, who may or may not want to do your assignments, and who may or may not respect your authority. A bunch of really intangible things seem to be pretty important to teaching: being able to "sell an assignment," something that usually takes a few years of teaching an assignment; simply being able to explain material clearly, which is virtually impossible the first time through; being confident, which seems to either be a personality trait, or something that comes slowly with experience. I have been wondering, "should I just tell new TAs that they are about to experience one of the worst, if not the worst, semester of their lives, but I hope they survive, recover, and grow with the experience." I almost quit my MA and PhD during the first semester of both, and I don't know what anybody could have done to make them better.
Demonstrate my own grading more, and earlier. I don't know why I haven't thought of doing this, or maybe I have and simply haven't been organized enough. I think I will need to make sure that I do a lot of electronic grading next semester, and save a range of papers for each assignment. I actually did this way back in 1998, but haven't done so since. I also think that even if I do this grading electronically, I need to print those documents off. I need to distribute a much more substantial "guide to the program" not just for TAs but for adjuncts, too.
Spend more time on Blackboard and the Multimedia cart. I have mixed feelings about these suggestions, but will try to come up with some better plans. My students last year said "spend less time on BB," so let's hope there is a happy medium out there. The MM cart hasn't really come up as a problem before, so either this year's TAs were more adventerous in their use of the carts, or the carts are breaking down and becoming more and more difficult to work with.
I have also been wondering if I simply should ask students to do more "practice teaching" in TA strategies. The environment, however, is so different. There is nothing quite like teaching to 22 students who may or may not want to be in class, who may or may not want to do your assignments, and who may or may not respect your authority. A bunch of really intangible things seem to be pretty important to teaching: being able to "sell an assignment," something that usually takes a few years of teaching an assignment; simply being able to explain material clearly, which is virtually impossible the first time through; being confident, which seems to either be a personality trait, or something that comes slowly with experience. I have been wondering, "should I just tell new TAs that they are about to experience one of the worst, if not the worst, semester of their lives, but I hope they survive, recover, and grow with the experience." I almost quit my MA and PhD during the first semester of both, and I don't know what anybody could have done to make them better.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
answering my own question
after I posed the question to the TAs, "what do you want? what did we miss?" etc., I of course started thinking about my own possible answers even more. I have been thinking about this in terms of "how do I know if I am on the right track?" and that has lead me to think about some key questions to ask myself. These are questions all teachers might need to ask themselves regularly.
1. Am I teaching X (reading, writing, research, whatever) or am I just assigning it? If X is important--and complex, which all these things are-- I should be teaching it?
2. Okay, so I decided I am teaching X, but are my students learning X? And what is reasonable in terms of learning expectations? I hear a lot of teachers, not just TAs, express frustration that they feel like they have covered X really well, but students just don't show any improvement or comprehension. Assessment and grading are good ways to check on learning, but this learning thing also takes time on the part of students, so it takes time on the part of teachers. Sometimes we just have to wait and see that portfolio to see if what we have been teaching translates into any significant learning. And as for expectations--only a few As, a handful or more of Bs, some Cs, and maybe a D or two is reasonable. This seems like a simple and traditional bell curve, but I have noticed during 15 years of teaching that most teachers seem to expect better from their students.
3. Am I trying to do too much? I have been guilty of this many times, and experience may be the only teacher here. Definitely a question we have to ask ourselves.
4. Am I doing too little? You saw that one coming. I worry about not intervening enough. I think I have the workload more of less figured out (see above), but I am not sure I always intervene sufficiently. I don't collect work every day, I don't have a lot of students stopping by for additional support. Can I do some additional interventions that might help? Gotta keep asking myself this.
Oh, and just to go a different direction, I was thinking of a schema that would look something like this:
1. Am I addressing the textual elements of this assignment?
2. Am I addressing the cognitive elements of this assignment?
3. Am I addressing the social elements of this assignment?
4. Am I addressing the affective elements of this assignment?
Jennie wrote in her blog that she was looking for some concrete answers, not more fuzziness--ooops.
1. Am I teaching X (reading, writing, research, whatever) or am I just assigning it? If X is important--and complex, which all these things are-- I should be teaching it?
2. Okay, so I decided I am teaching X, but are my students learning X? And what is reasonable in terms of learning expectations? I hear a lot of teachers, not just TAs, express frustration that they feel like they have covered X really well, but students just don't show any improvement or comprehension. Assessment and grading are good ways to check on learning, but this learning thing also takes time on the part of students, so it takes time on the part of teachers. Sometimes we just have to wait and see that portfolio to see if what we have been teaching translates into any significant learning. And as for expectations--only a few As, a handful or more of Bs, some Cs, and maybe a D or two is reasonable. This seems like a simple and traditional bell curve, but I have noticed during 15 years of teaching that most teachers seem to expect better from their students.
3. Am I trying to do too much? I have been guilty of this many times, and experience may be the only teacher here. Definitely a question we have to ask ourselves.
4. Am I doing too little? You saw that one coming. I worry about not intervening enough. I think I have the workload more of less figured out (see above), but I am not sure I always intervene sufficiently. I don't collect work every day, I don't have a lot of students stopping by for additional support. Can I do some additional interventions that might help? Gotta keep asking myself this.
Oh, and just to go a different direction, I was thinking of a schema that would look something like this:
1. Am I addressing the textual elements of this assignment?
2. Am I addressing the cognitive elements of this assignment?
3. Am I addressing the social elements of this assignment?
4. Am I addressing the affective elements of this assignment?
Jennie wrote in her blog that she was looking for some concrete answers, not more fuzziness--ooops.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
What have I missed?
We are at the point in the semester where I am wondering, "what have I missed?" "what didn't I cover?" "what do new TAs need that I haven't provided?" I can take a couple of guesses, but I hope they just tell me ; )
1. More direct discussion of teaching writing, teaching rhetoric, teaching genre. I worry that I assume too much--I assume that a rhetorical approach to writing is familiar to TAs, when it probably isn't.
2. I worry that we don't do enough in class. We discuss and talk, but I am not sure what everyone / anyone takes away from class.
3. I also worry that there are just so many things about teaching that can't exactly be taught. My 110 class last Thursday was a talk-around on zero drafts. My students were a bit sluggish, and not precisely responding to each other, so I filled a lot of silence with questions and ideas for their papers. I have been teaching "new literacy" for quite a while, and this is my research area, so that was easy for me to do. Probably not the case for others, which is why TAs and other teachers want to teach material they are familiar with. The class was more or less successful, and the general principal of circling up and talking is easy enough to teach, but a whole bunch of other things had to happen to make things work.
Okay, that point has got me thinking about the need to get material into the hands of TAs so much earlier than I currently do. I was jotting notes on this yesterday--I should probably prepare a welcome letter / package as soon as somebody is accepted, I should probably have CTW and any supplemental texts ready, I should probably have some technology suggestions ready. Don't know if anyone could feasibly start to prepare themselves in May, June, or July before teaching, but it might be worth a try.
Getting the materials into hands sooner does not, of course, entirely answer the question, "what have I missed?" I will need to get the TAs to tell me.
1. More direct discussion of teaching writing, teaching rhetoric, teaching genre. I worry that I assume too much--I assume that a rhetorical approach to writing is familiar to TAs, when it probably isn't.
2. I worry that we don't do enough in class. We discuss and talk, but I am not sure what everyone / anyone takes away from class.
3. I also worry that there are just so many things about teaching that can't exactly be taught. My 110 class last Thursday was a talk-around on zero drafts. My students were a bit sluggish, and not precisely responding to each other, so I filled a lot of silence with questions and ideas for their papers. I have been teaching "new literacy" for quite a while, and this is my research area, so that was easy for me to do. Probably not the case for others, which is why TAs and other teachers want to teach material they are familiar with. The class was more or less successful, and the general principal of circling up and talking is easy enough to teach, but a whole bunch of other things had to happen to make things work.
Okay, that point has got me thinking about the need to get material into the hands of TAs so much earlier than I currently do. I was jotting notes on this yesterday--I should probably prepare a welcome letter / package as soon as somebody is accepted, I should probably have CTW and any supplemental texts ready, I should probably have some technology suggestions ready. Don't know if anyone could feasibly start to prepare themselves in May, June, or July before teaching, but it might be worth a try.
Getting the materials into hands sooner does not, of course, entirely answer the question, "what have I missed?" I will need to get the TAs to tell me.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Thinking tetrads
Thinking about the paper we are working on, and the value of the tetrad. Also how to represent it. The list of blogging characteristics at the start of Bonnie Nardie et al's paper is good--keep in touch with others, thinking through writing, express ideas, follow issues--but if we think about a tetrad as the electrate version of the list, it provides us with four lists occupying roughly the same space, with items on the list interacting.
I have been thinking about our paper sections, and toying with the idea that we tell our stories chronologically, but we highlight, or do something interesting, with our key ideas--bold, different font, etc.--and then end the section with our personal tetrads, finishing the paper ultimately with a really complex tetrad. We would need to include in that final tetrad the possibility that some items might be both obsolesced (serious academic work--obsolesced by extensive and intensive blogging), yet retrieved by strategic, ten-minutes-a-day bloggin.
This final image might seem and feel a bit like a data cloud.
I have been thinking about our paper sections, and toying with the idea that we tell our stories chronologically, but we highlight, or do something interesting, with our key ideas--bold, different font, etc.--and then end the section with our personal tetrads, finishing the paper ultimately with a really complex tetrad. We would need to include in that final tetrad the possibility that some items might be both obsolesced (serious academic work--obsolesced by extensive and intensive blogging), yet retrieved by strategic, ten-minutes-a-day bloggin.
This final image might seem and feel a bit like a data cloud.
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