On Writing New Media ...

I actually read this book last spring, and decided I should probably reread it or else Jeff would probably call on me to recall something that I didn't/couldn't ;). It's a little eerie, to be honest, since I've done a lot of these assignments before, but I'm going to try and mostly not respond from that place and talk about something else instead.

I remember reading a review somewhere that claims that Anne's opening chapter is weak, and that she seems to be writing from somewhere else than the rest of the book. I think I felt that when I read it through the first time--the assignments are good, her second chapter is rooted in an example, etc. But after doing all the reading we've done this term, and having also read the Castells, the Feenberg, the Haraway that she cites, I can't really agree with that pronouncement. It fits in perfectly with all the theory we've been reading and situates the book well. I don't want to say the reviewer was wrong, per se, but is it really fair to review something without also having a good knowledge of just where the book is coming from to begin with? Without having done the background reading so that this "fits?" Hrm... I dunno, but it gives me something to think about if I ever do get around to writing a review....

That said, I'm going to agree with Mike that I like A. Wysocki's idea of new media better than C. Selfe's. I can say that from a couple different angles. I first like that Anne moves away from an interactivity model of new media and pushes this idea that new media is all about material texts. Sweet--we've actually studied that elsewhere this term. Selfe's defintion seems more ordinary, more Computers and Composition and less "New Media" and composition (and given that she edits Computers and Composition it's not really fair to fault her there.)

However, at some point in her chapters she mentions it being "okay" to let a student teach the class how to use a web editor, and that's one point I really disagree with her on and always have. I was that student in more than one class (not hers, but people she taught...) and it annoyed me to no end. As a graduate student, I'm a person always really willing to help anybody who asks. I'd be happy to run somebody through using Dreamweaver, or point them to good resources to learn. But if an instructor says something to the effect of "Well I don't really know how to do this and don't know how to support it but I'm going to let you support each other" I just get angry. It's a left over from my days as an undergrad that I can't shake. In my classroom I teach what I can support (which is actually a generous amount of stuff) because I think it's *my* job to answer student questions. I don't ever suggest that one or two students help all the other ones and then also have to do the project too--that isn't fair to them or to their in class work time. As grad students, we were also sometimes expected to learn lots of new software fast, and although I don't regret that at all (I teach some of that software now, and I also contract whenever I can so it's definitely come in handy) I still really wanted a go to person for support. Her model WORKS, don't get me wrong, those students do what they have to and like me, they probably sort of enjoy it. But sometimes I think it's a mistake to put that kind of pressure on people that are paying YOU to teach THEM.

Anyway, lastly I'd like to respond to Sirc's "Box Logic." I like this idea of collecting things and interrelating them, writing about them, making sense out of them. On the simplest level, I think I'd like to eventually write an assignment (maybe not this term, but definitely by next fall) that asks students to collect things. For now maybe there's something else I can draw upon.

Several times in the piece he mentions "Found Objects" which happens to also be the name of a community I read (but don't participate in) on Livejournal (http://community.livejournal.com/found_objects/). Now, I think it was Ellen who suggested that participating in such things (Myspace, livejournal, facebook) whatever is kinda creepy when you're an adult, and to one extent or another I'd agree, but I've found some really sort of neat communities on Livejournal. Despite the fact I don't have an account, I've got these "Collection" communities bookmarked and like to look at them.

In the case of Found_objects, people post pictures of strange things they've found outside on the street. Some of the objects are a lot "better" than others, but I think I might be able to direct students to look at these objects and think about how they make the normal strange, as Sirc implies we should be doing. Eventually I'd like to write an assignment that asks students to do the same--look for the strange and take pictures of it--but I'll see how writing up an assignment using the community works first. "Find a favorite example and discuss it in a blog entry" maybe. Something like that. I've been flirting with the idea of *some* mandatory blog prompts, this could be one of them.

In any case, Writing New Media feels like it's in familiar territory for me. I should get going and finish reading that last chapter about databases. *waves*

confession time

I've a confession to make...
I rather enjoy giving tests sometimes, in classes that warrant them (computer courses that are meant to be preparation for certification exams are a pretty good example, I think). Writing multiple choice tests, or just rearranging the answers to pre-written ones, is just something I take great joy in.

Why?

Because you can make them spell things. Like the last four answers on the test spell "DEAD." I'm endlessly amused and can memorize the answer key easily. The students never seem to notice because the questions aren't *right* next to each other.

But still....

histories....

One thing I have inadvertantly learned this term is that history, and one's position in it, is really bloody important. During my MS, I learned that I had to "define terms," and that I couldn't just toss out *easy* words like rhetoric without explaining exactly what I meant. These days I define everything that I personally feel I need to, and that not only adds to page length and makes those 10-20 page papers seem a lot less daunting, but it also gives any argument I make a stronger theoretical background because, of course, I have to usually call upon other people to define any term I choose.

I was reading Berlin, and reading yet another version of composition history, and realized that nearly every text I've read gives, at some point, a historical standpoint on its topic. On one hand, this was an "oh shit" moment, as I also realized that this was something I was going to have to do relatively soon and I don't feel particularly prepared. But I also began to realize that that stating what is really important to you from a field's history, or what arguments you think are still valid, or arguing about what has shaped a field or position is just as important as going ahead and stating why you think those things should change. History is necessary, and even when I'm beginning to wonder exactly how many more histories of composition and rhetoric there could possibly be, I'm beginning to think that the answer is infinite.

So yeah, historically grounding my approach to my dissertation is something that I will potentionally have to do. Nifty. I couldn't do that now, so that could give me a place to go to when I need to start thinking qualifying exams--niftier. Having any sort of direction is a down home martha stewart style good thing.

Lots of random stuff

Yesterday was potentionally my weirdest day teaching ever. I first had a girl into the writing center whose teacher was clearly marking her down because she isn't a native speaker of english. I put a note in her file that proofreading her is okay--most of her ideas are well developed as it is, but she's naturally very frustrated. I, too, was frustrated because her teacher is suggesting that she "listen to real Americans speak more" and to "memorize grammar rules" rather than have somebody proofread her damn papers (and those are highly edited comments, the real ones were quite a bit worse). He wants her to be able to write perfect the first time, and I don't think that's going to happen even in a native speaker. *sigh*

Anyway, then I go to work, where one of my students gives her paper on Gonorrhea, because she's a nurse and she's surprised at how many people come in with it. Fine. Then one of my over achievers all but admits that she has it by asking extensive questions about symptoms and testing, and wouldn't let me cut her off. Just EW. There's some things I don't need to know people!

And then another student failed to turn in a paper or a presentation, just outright refused to do it. Okay, fine. I'm not going to make a big deal out of it. This is a potentionally pre-comp class though, and I grade as such. This is EASY POINTS. So why not do it, even if it's crap, to earn at least some of those easy points?

Lastly, I've finally perhaps decided what I want to do with blogging/wikis/so on next term. I'm thinking of having a class blog with all students as potential posters. It'll be half blog/half discussion board, and I suspect if all the info is in one place they might be more likely to read each other, leave comments, and try to write something somewhat unique. At least, that's the idea.

I'm still sorely tempted to try to use the message board and picture system in Facebook in order to discuss things with my class. However, I used a "question" community of college students on Livejournal to trial run that idea, and most of them were against it because they want their public profiles to remain private, away from their teachers. I've had an account on there since the month the site opened, and so have other youngish instructors I know, so privacy? Good luck with that. I understand their position though.

I think that there is a great deal of technology out there that students are already using that COULD be used in the classroom, potentionally very well. But if students are dead set against it being used that way, and I only want to do it to get that publication credit, then I know I really shouldn't. I've known far too many graduate students and faculty that use technology in the classroom as an easy way to get published, and I don't really want to be one of them (mostly because I thought they were batshit crazy when *I* was an undergrad). Still, I think that social networking systems might be the wikis and blogs of tomorrow, it just isn't something that I can do right now.

on doing reading for other courses at the very last minute...

I just started reading Agrippa for my history of rhetoric class...

and was nearly immediately reading a passage about magical necklaces and such that perform various things like making people well...

One of them involves hanging the finger of an aborted (miscarried, assumbably) child from one's neck in order to prevent conception as long as it's there.

I can't help but imagine how THAT would work:

Man from that time period: Hey baby, wanna go back to my place and make sweet sweet love?
Woman from that time period: Sure! Let me just get my cloak...
Man from that time period (leaning in for the kiss): You're such a insatiable little...
*and then he notices the finger*
Man from that time period: What the fuck? Is that a finger?
Woman from that time period: Yes, it's so you can't get me with child. *She tries to stroke his cheek with it and it leaves a little smear of rot*
Man from that time period: Gah! You crazy bitch! (runs away, sex does not happen, charm works! Write that one down...)

hybrids

Next semester I'm teaching a new kind of course, and I'm excited about it for all sorts of reasons (this would be my one "outside Wayne" course, not that I'm not excited about Comp... but this is special). Anyway, it's what's called a "hybrid" class which is really good for me for a few reasons.

Hybrid courses meet half time in person and half time online (sometimes they are called blended courses). That means that they meet half as often, and even though I'll be at that school every week anyway for meetings and sometimes even up in Flint for curriculum junk, I won't be actively lecturing every week which is good.

But what I think is really cool about this particular class is that it is about Grammar--the style guide appropriate to the office, in this case--and that usually it's just a memorization class. Students memorize a bunch of off the wall homonyms and learn comma rules and abbreviation rules for the office. That's it. Memorization. Most boring lectures EVER.

But for the hybrid I'm required to give them lots of extra reading and work for the days we don't meet, and they are required to participate in discussion online or they fail. To me this means that I can bring in lots of issues and have them talk about things like Standard English and why we learn grammar and other such things which I could TRY to do in the classroom, and HAVE tried to do in the classroom, but without mandatory participation most people just don't try. I see the hybrid as being a way of getting at that information and including a lot of things in the course that wouldn't ever come up in the classroom and that's really cool.

And well, maybe there's a paper in there somewhere...

other people's kids.....I'll tell you...

student: I'm missing assignments.
me: yep. *grades other people's stuff*
student: Why?
me: 'Cause you didn't turn them in, or if you did, your name wasn't on them.
student: I had to turn those in?
me: *stops grading other people's stuff, gives him a look... very very slowly...* Yes, you have to turn the homework in.
student: Oh, I didn't know that.
me: *thinks, "how the heck would I give you points for it otherwise?"* Yeah, you have to turn it in.
student: But I did it.
me: So bring it in next time.
student: Oh, you can't tell I did it?
me: *the homework is printed out and then filled out by hand, so uh... no* No, you need to turn it in for credit.
student: Oh, okay.

*head desk*

underlife indeed

Clearly I'm a horrible person for finding out that a new tool has been installed on a lot of instructor computers that allows you to project from them more easily. Since some projectors are installed upside down/sideways, this tool allows you to turn the image on the monitor 90, 180, or 270 degrees.

However, I'm greatly amused that this ALSO means that I can walk up to any instuctor computer and press cntrl+alt+up and it flips the screen 180 and the mouse works opposite too. What a wonderful prank that could be. :)

Of course, I have to be all responsible and not tell the students... bah.

stripper papers and other stories

One of my old students e-mailed me recently about something er other, doesn't really matter what, the conversation eventually ground down to "I can't believe you let me write a paper about strippers."

Hrm, what to say? He wrote one of the best essays in the course which managed to circumvent most of the problems such a paper could have. He interviewed people, he didn't write in a boring format, and his presentation was entertaining. He wasn't even demeaning to women, and approached the whole "this is our power over men girlfriend!" thing with a sort of skepticle aplomb.

So, given that he was able to engage with the subject and write a non traditional really GOOD essay for a course, why should he still be surprised that I said okay?

Yeah, it was a risk. But I'm not particularly afraid to take risks. I thought his paper was far less a risk than "I hate this fucking class" girl of a term earlier who insisted writing about how much she hated affirmative action because it *sniff* kept her out of U of M, which quoted racist sites (and she wouldn't take no for an answer on that either). Honestly, writing about a profession that we either joke about or look down on or are suspicious of--yeah it could have gone badly, but things have gone worse.

And so my response fell into the lines of "you wrote a good paper." Would it have been a mistake if he hadn't? I dunno. It's too difficult to tell ahead of time sometimes what will be "good" or not.

book reviews

Faigley, Lester, Diana George, Anna Palchik, and Cynthia Selfe. Picturing Texts. New York: W.W. Norton, 2004. 640 pp. $47.00

Wysocki, Anne Frances, and Dennis Lynch. Compose Design Advocate. New York: Longman Publishing Group, 2005. 456 pp. $56.00.

Position of Both Texts:
Both Picturing Texts and Compose Design Advocate were written partly in response to a perceived institutional and cultural need. Specifically, a new course designed at Michigan Technological University in 2000 had turned three composition courses into one communication and rhetoric course (the University switched from quarters to semesters in that year). This course took composition and combined it with other information like technical writing, graphic design, and rhetoric, and was part of a new University Wide courses program. At about the same time, the New London Group had published their text Multiliteracies, which encouraged instructors to approach teaching composition as an amalgamation of “literacies” that students already have use of in their daily lives—more about this later. Other American Universities were also resituating their courses in this way—creating new courses that help students communicate in more ways than simply writing, as well as learn about their world, discover advocacy, and so on. It was clear to many instructors that this sort of course could use a new kind of textbook, and not the reader that was thrown together for the first few years of the course.

This particular course covered written, oral, and visual rhetoric. Teachers were strongly encouraged to use “advocacy” as a way of getting at rhetoric of all forms, though it was not required. Many decided to use technology and new media instead—since some sections of the course could be taught “computer intensive” and have access to a department ran computer lab. Every teacher had to give a research paper assignment and one oral presentation—otherwise the course varied a great deal from one teacher to the next.

The existing text for the book was a reader without exposition which students were extremely prejudiced against. The reader was expensive, printed in black and white, and poorly constructed which meant that students could rarely resell it. This was extremely unfair to the text, which offered a decent selection of readings, but students’ preconceptions of the text made it difficult to use in the classroom. Because the class would have a graphic design component, the fact that this text was thrown together essentially as a course pack—no formatting changes made to articles contained within—teachers knew that they needed something new, something colorful, and something that would give them examples of good design, photography, and a variety of “texts” (and not just writing) to rhetorically analyze in class.

Out of this need, at least three textbooks have been published. Of course, these books are useful outside of their immediate discourse community, and outside of the University they were published in. They are all colorful, well designed, and contain information about rhetoric, advocacy, and image. However, the two texts I review here take a very different approach to confronting the issues of multiliteracy, advocacy, visual design, and composition, which makes them useful in different sorts of classrooms even though they were essentially designed for the same course.

Picturing Texts, Specifically:
According to its authors, Picturing Texts is a book written for students that are growing up, communicating, and living in an information saturated society, which teaches composition and rhetoric via rich visuals (3). These authors seem to believe strongly in multiliteracies: literacy has changed, people are learning and communicating in new ways, and even composition texts can be highly visual in nature. Because texts that students will encounter in their daily lives will likely be visual, the aim of this book is to expand a composition course to encompass visual and written texts—to “picture” texts, if you will.

The chapters of this text follow an understandable sequence: introducing visual and verbal composition, analyzing visual and written arguments, three chapters about social and cultural representation (again, written and visually), and lastly some instruction on creating visual texts. All information about visual design is contextualized with composition, although this is not a text for anyone looking for explicit instruction in grammar or composition forms, or a text for anyone looking for explicit graphic design instruction. The only information about graphic design (contrast, repetition, etc.) seems to be taken from Robin William’s text, The Non-Designers’ Design Book, but is greatly abbreviated.

Each chapter, no matter its intention, contains about four to six readings that are framed by exposition. This exposition tends to introduce very basic information: “In both writing and design, we regularly use comparison to explain or demonstrate an idea” (30). However, the accompanying visuals (two signs that use toilets with the seat up or down to signify men’s or women’s bathrooms) are clever and make a better argument in many cases than the text does. This really isn’t out of place in a text about the power of visual argument, but the framing might be written on too basic a level to engage all students.

Fortunately, the readings themselves are well chosen and can lead to discussions in class about nearly anything—social justice, cultural anthropology, visual composition, race, class, and so on. The “Focus” and “Respond” questions available in the text after each reading may sometimes seem to be easy for a college level text, however, the Instructor’s Guide, written by Cheryl Ball, provides more assignments and exercises that can be directly applied to engage students more fully. Each chapter also calls for students to write about pieces—whether visual or written—and in some cases, to create visuals of their own. These projects could easily be incorporated into a course that has students journal or blog—many of these writings could be interesting if shared. The book’s website, www.picturingtexts.com, also has additional assignments, readings, and writing that ask students to do things like analyze websites, use of visuals online, and even use of text online. This fills a gap in the text, since the text itself does not deal with visual rhetoric online itself (which makes sense in a way, since reproducing a webpage on one or more physical pages would change the experience of looking at the page entirely, links create a sort of rhetoric on their own that is not reproducible in a text. However, it is a shame that students or classrooms without internet connections will be missing the richness of the online materials.) Other supporting materials—a brief glossary, an easy to use index, and a well situated preface, complete the text and offer support to students who are wondering why this isn’t “just another composition book.”

Diana George previously published a textbook with John Trimbur called Reading Culture. Trimbur writes briefly about that textbook in his article “Composition and the Circulation of Writing,” published in CCC in 2000. He states in that article that one of the concerns of Reading Culture was keeping students from experiencing semiosis—accepting mass culture, simply being readers and consumers of it, without being critical of it (12). For this reason, Reading Culture is primarily a text about looking at cultural artifacts and analyzing them critically, as well as learning to be immune to their rhetoric. Trimbur suggests in this article a break from that idea, that “texts” don’t need to be read as such, and that students aren’t as susceptible to the mass media as we might assume. However, Picturing Texts, ironically enough, seems to be exactly the sort of text that could be used in this manner—to produce students aware of the rhetoric around them and to make them somewhat immune to the pressures of a mass media society. It would be interesting to find out what Trimbur might have to say about this newest text of his old partner—would he be as critical of it as he is of his own stance from six years ago?

This textbook fills a gap in undergraduate textbooks created by composition and rhetoric’s focus on multiliteracies and visual rhetoric. Any number of articles have pointed out that instructors must expand their focus of composition courses, and some books have been written to fill in a theory gap (see Wysocki and Selfe’s Writing New Media, Kress’s Literacy in the New Media Age), but very few textbooks have been created that begin to address how exactly visual and new media rhetoric can actually be included in a undergraduate textbook. This text is even further set apart from other texts being published about visual rhetoric because visuals are presented as texts themselves that can be read and analyzed separately from text. This is exactly the sort of reading that visuals often receive in the “real world” and are invaluable skills for students to have.

However, despite the fact that the text is attempting to fill a gap, it does not do much to actually give students any instruction in how to produce visual texts. What software can be used? What materials are necessary to do so by hand? Some students, if simply asked by their instructors to “create,” may feel lost without some basic instruction in these areas.

The visual design of this book is highly professional, and each page will help students learn new things about layout and visual argument. This is not surprising considering that Diana George, one of the authors, has published repeatedly about visual argument and using it in the classroom. The layout is inviting, and pages that are black and white often are given a color background instead to remain visually interesting. There is not a single page in the book that does not have a visual element to it, here, form meets content and creates a strong visual whole.

There are many different ways of using this text, and it could be used in a number of different classrooms. For this reason, it is probably best for an instructor interested in it to read the entire text and decide which pieces would be most useful for the classroom in question. For example, the expository information that bookends each chapter might be left out to deal with the readings as cultural artifacts.

Students that are interested in design or even just the internet, movies, or magazines are going to find this text more engaging than one that is “simply” about the composing process on its own. The idea that writing and visual composition might have a lot in common, and that students could probably learn to combine their composing process of one with the other, is relatively unique in an undergraduate text. This beautifully designed textbook will probably reach any number of students that believe they are enrolled in yet another boring composition course and help them to engage with classroom material.


Compose Design Advocate: A rhetoric for integrating written, visual, and oral communication:
According to the back cover of Compose Design Advocate, the text’s goal is to make students “fluent in multiple modes of communication: written, visual, and oral.” In addition to helping students to read these sort of texts, the book also provides instruction in creating them—and not just standard five paragraph essays either. Compose Design Advocate (hereafter CDA) treats these as separate entities only passingly—there is a clear connection between the rhetoric used in designing each type of communication. The text also makes it clear that students can and should be creating texts in all of these modes, and should also be thinking about choosing the best mode for any given communication. This purpose—empowering students to write more than the standard essay, and to start composing in more than just written form—could be achieved through the text alone, though how much this happens in each classroom will probably depend on the instructor’s focus.

This book is both one that could be used easily in a traditional composition classroom and also classrooms of many different types (graphic design, creative writing, etc), and due to its aims we are lead to thinking that this is not a bad thing—if we don’t already. CDA is divided into three sections: designing compositions rhetorically, producing compositions, and analyzing the arguments of others—an emphasis on production makes this book potentially stand out as a composition text and a reader. Instead of focusing on traditional academic writing for undergrads (5 paragraph essays and their ilk), Wysocki and Lynch (referred to in text as Anne and Dennis, which gives the text a familiar feel) start with giving students tools that can be used for any composition project. Students are lead to create a “design plan” that can be used for posters, academic essays, speeches, or even books—any time communication is necessary. Two design plans are created (one simple, the other more complex) as examples, and the final communication is also included. This approach gives students tools that might be useful after they escape the institution, instead of just giving them tools that will be useful in future courses but potentially fail them in the workplace.

The majority of the text is exposition about various forms of communication, rhetoric, and designing all of the aforementioned. Each form of communication (oral, written, visual) is discussed in rhetorical terms. In the last section of the text, students are also given tools and language that can be used to analyze photographs, posters, instruction sets, and even comics. Many different assignments could be written out of these sections—a teacher could use the instruction set section to run a technical communication unit, or use the comics section to introduce students to combining written/visual communication in new ways in other projects.

One of the strongest elements in CDA is that it gives students real language to discuss difficult subjects. For example, in a section about making an argument the text uses syllogism (and gives a definition) rather than avoiding the term as many other “basic” texts might do. Real rhetorical, photography, and communication language is contained here—the book assumes that students have a basic level of understanding and intelligence which students in turn can work up to. Unlike a lot of other texts, this one doesn’t speak down to them at all and leaves a place for the instructor to define any terms that they are having problems with. Armed with language, students can start developing discourse of their own.

Each section of the text not only discusses existing work, but also suggests that students can create any of the documents included. Student examples are also used to give students in doubt more confidence. The tone of the book is calming (mirroring its writers) which could go a long way toward giving students the confidence they need to begin writing. Additionally, the essays included exemplify what the authors want students to begin creating—documents that develop from narrative form, that use sources as more than guiding points for body paragraphs, and that are planned and developed well. The text itself is well written and well designed and stands as a good example of the sort of rhetorical design Lynch and Wysocki are proposing.

The weaknesses of CDA will vary amongst student bodies. Most of the readings chosen have something to do with civic advocacy, which might work well for some students but might make other students less likely to pay attention to any point the book is making. Although the given definition of advocacy is low level and unfrightening (they’re not suggesting students go out and protest anything) the very word advocacy could make some students likely to think that anyway. Instructors might also feel threatened by the word if they aren’t very politically active, so although the writers suggest that argument and advocacy are everywhere—present whenever you discuss something you are passionate about—the chosen readings and title of the text might prove difficult to overcome in some student bodies.

This text is beautifully designed. Every page is full color and should help to engage students in the material thereon. The chosen readings (although there are very few of them) support the exposition wonderfully. However, at $56 new (amazon.com) this text will probably be the only one used in any given composition classroom, and it almost seems like it would work better in support of a reader, or maybe with more readings. There are additional new media, videos, and images available on the website—and the book suggests using the web as an additional resource—but if these materials are not available in a classroom the instructor will be left on his or her own to locate additional readings.

Overall, CDA performs well and can be used in a number of different ways. It is malleable enough to be useful in many contexts, and allows for instructors to run a variety of different units throughout the term. Since examples of posters, comics, websites, essays, and so on are included, it also includes information on students creating these materials. It does this in a very professional way, and gives students some language in each section to talk about communication academically. Where other texts might fail at giving students only the technical tools to create images and writing, this one succeeds in giving them rhetorical and design processes that they can use into the future.



Other Sources:
George, Diana, and John Trimbur. Reading Culture: Contexts for Critical Reading and Writing. New York: Longman, 1999.

Rogers, Paul Michael. “Teaching Literacy in a Rhetorical Age: A Review of Picturing Texts.” Kairos. 9.1. Fall 2004.

Trimbur, John. “Composition and the Circulation of Writing.” CCC. 52:2. (Dec 2000). Pp. 188-219.

The Internet is for Porn

Driving here today a song from Avenue Q, a musical and Tony winner, came on. It's called the "Internet is for Porn" and hearing it took me right back to the last summer I spent teaching at Tech.

I call myself a technology studies/computers and writing/whatever scholar, but in reality, every time I hearing somebody pontificating about how great the internet could make classrooms I hear this song in my head. I can't help it. An adult teacher approaching the internet for the first time is going to do so differently than a student. Students who have "grown up" with internet access see the internet as a place for fun--chatting, watching videos, downloading music, and yes, porn--not as a place for higher learning. And so the computers and writing teacher's first job should be to recognize that theory is just that--theory--and that the reality is murkier and has pert nipples.

It's hard for that sort of opinion to come across right in class--I think--because I basically support using various forms of technology to get students engaged and interested. Students that see computers and the internet as fun are probably going to enjoy a class more that employs them WELL more than one that doesn't use them at all--or at least, that's the idea. What does using them well mean though?

Well, I can't really answer that question--but neither can anybody else. It's a little like trying to define what good writing is, you have an idea of what it feels like (or makes you feel like) but describing it in succinct terms is harder. So, the following list isn't realy conclusive or new or anything, but it is a list of concrete things I can hold onto and describe instead of vague feelings.

So, using technology well means:

1. Using technology you KNOW and are comfortable with. No matter what you've been told, students don't appreciate having to teach their teacher technology. It is not okay to walk into a class and say "We're going to learn how to create webpages together!' because even though it seems like it works, and students are engaged, they'd be just as engaged if you knew what the heck you were doing.

2. You shouldn't just use technology to be doing it. I teach in a computer lab a lot, because my "other job" is teaching technology courses ABOUT the technology, and there isn't a better way to demonstrate and teach it--I know, I've tried. But that might not be the best way to teach composition, or for any given teacher to teach any given course, so I feel like there needs to be some good rhetorical reason to CHOOSE technology instead of whatever else is available.

3. Lastly, and this ties into this week's readings of renegades and underlife, when students use technologies in ways that you didn't intend--you just sort of have to deal with it, let it go, and figure out ways to either incorporate their uses or circumvent them for next time. I'm one of those people that will do everything with the technology except what I'm supposed to be (or well, sometimes in addition to what I'm supposed to be). I'm the person in the MOO making new rooms and using them to hold sub conversations. I'm the person designing a bat to fly around and poo. I'm the person figuring out how to embed movies in my discussion board questions--and these things, and others like them, drive some instructors crazy. If you are one of those instructors--what're you going to do about it? And, if you're the kinda person this stuff makes want to shoot flames out of your eyes and watch 'em dance--how are you going to approach technology so that it doesn't end with you angry?

And finally, students think the internet is for porn. Standing up in front of a class proclaiming that the internet is "really really great" most likely will make them think the teacher is "really really crazy." Heck, some of them might even fill in the "for porn" at the end of that sentence for you....

planning a presentation

So I'm not asking people to tell me what to do, but I am asking what would be most helpful as a class (and to Jeff, in that "I wanna see what this girl is actually understanding" sort of way).

I'm presenting Monday and I'm curious as to what people want/need out of these. I plan on summarizing and identifying some key words from these articles, but after that I could:

a. provide other resources that go along with these readings
b. introduce new concepts mentioned in the readings that would help tie them together for anybody not familiar (we've read some stuff in 7080 that directly ties to these which was tremendously helpful)
c. provide stories, experiences, etc. that relate directly from the readings to "real world" stuff
d. lead direction away from the articles into "and this has to do with teaching composition because" territory

Or you know, some combination thereof. If I were teaching this stuff that's what I'd be doing, of course, I'm used to teaching on an undergraduate level too (bugger). I guess I just don't feel adequate at standing up and saying "this is what these articles were about" and having that lead into some discussion because any time I've ever done that it just flat out doesn't work.

Whatcha all think?

alright...

I've promised another grammar entry, and you'll get one, but the article I want to write in is in my desk so I think you'll be getting that Thursday.

Anyway.

In the meantime, I've been thinking about how graphic design affects the way a person views a document. I know that it does, and I know that it does in really bizarre ways. When we were discussing texts briefly on the listserv, I was reminded that I chose my text for the other comp 1 course I taught partially because it had a lot of color pictures and yet was still cheap--and students really liked it for that and engaged with the material better than some of the SAME articles presented in a text in black and white that was significantly more expensive. I'd say what was up with that, except these same students reported the color text being easier to read, more fun, and they didn't feel like they were reading a textbook--more like a magazine or a website.

Both the books I'm reviewing seem to be written with this audience in mind--they're colorful and bright, well laid out, and I don't suspect that I'd have that old problem (dully designed book, still expensive) any time here, which is sort of nice. But it's a little disheartening to think that whatever text I pick isn't likely to be judged by undergrads in the same ways I'm thinking about it to review or pick one. Hrm...

On a different but related note, do you think that how we watch a tv show or our experience of TV can be directly changed by the commercials shown?

I'm a fan of Veronica Mars and tonight was the season premiere. Quite honestly I think the show is becomming weak. Sure, the characters were in high school before, but they didn't act like it. Now that they're in college they ARE acting like college students, and it's annoying as heck. Meet Veronica Mars Lite--neutered for the new CW.

But I think I might rewatch the show without the annoying commercials. The entire hour was packed with what are best referred to as "commercials for girly crap." They had scenes analyzed by these "Aeire" chicks from American Eagle--and I have no idea why. Just girls sitting around squealing about crap. Then there were the commercials for sports tampons (and how are they different? honestly? Other than probably costing more?) and tons of commercials for the emaciated stars of America's Next Top Model.

This WAS an intelligent show, once upon a time, but if they're going to "girly-fy" it, then I'm quite honestly not interested. You can be girly and smart all at the same time, but the new CW doesn't seem to think so, and that's a shame. (Or is it just the commercials? Or am I reading too much into it, thinking that the commercials changing this drastically mean that the show is now being aimed at a new more specific target audience that I'm just flat out not part of?)