mapping my way

I just spent a great deal of time writing out my philosophy map only to have it disappear when I posted it. -sigh- I will be typing this one in word.

So, in short I discussed how my teaching philosophy has not necessarily changed but rather been adapted for my technical writing course. I think I’m still an expressivist at heart and a strong believer in process (actually maybe even more in tech. writing). It’s just not as easy to teach Dreamweaver on the quad or in the art museum, get students to connect with readings with personal narratives and lively discussions. I love teaching 3410 as much as 1010 but it’s a very different experience. .. partly because these students know where they’re going (have chosen a major) and partly because there are certain things I have to get through to them (heavy on the technology here). And if you actually read my 6820 philosophy you’ll find I’m a firm believer in Socratic dialectic as well which is a little harder to do in 3410, where students don’t talk unless they get an error message. They certainly don’t do alot of self-discovering freewriting. I also believe that a strong self-depricating sense of humor helps me relate to my students (mind you, I could be really off on this one)… 3410 students just seem more serious sometimes… maybe they’re jaded third year students or maybe the computer lab has some strange effect on them… or maybe freshman are just more impressionable… and, you know, maybe I’m just not that funny… but I sometimes think there should be a humor pedagogy theory.

I felt a little guilty last week actually reading the article about “teaching” software… hey, that’s me. And while I “try” to integrate visual rhetoric, multimodal stuff, AND still creativity, I find there’s not alot of time and I DO end up “facillitating” software use. specific software at that… -sigh-

I think with the same foundation, my current teaching style incorporates process, expressive, visual, multimodal, rhetorical, and cultural pedagogies. Just teaching with technology is working within cultural issues I think. And my students are learning to express themselves clearly, for multiple audiences, with rhetorical considerations, reflective analysis of their work, and, oh yes, collaborative work. When I write this stuff I really see my ideals are not so much different as they were for 1010. I was quasi-multimodal back then–I used music and visuals and computers occasionally. So while I’ve adapted and I think really I would be happiest teaching a variety of things, fundamentally I believe in connecting with my students, valuing them as individuals, encouraging creative expression… and, damn it, I really do still want to be Socrates.

http://sneezy.usu.edu/~mmw/philosophy/

keep in mind I did NOT edit this as I had planned and the actual philosophy was just dumped into html very quickly (I feel as an instructor of web design I really need to clarify though that does not excuse the forever-scrolling mess but I won’t EVER do it again). 

actually, this one’s better and not scrolly… forgot I had this: http://barney.usu.edu/~mmw/synthesis/

final paper/project brainstorming

well, my selfish goal is to get as much of my thesis done by the end of the semester as possible. but then again, my thesis topic is also what I am interested in and where I am headed so would be the paper/project even if I weren’t writing a thesis on it. does that make sense?

so what I have in mind is a final new media fiction project, which would be as many micro-fictions as I can complete by that time. these would be done using flash and dreamweaver and explore ideas we’ve been discussing such as multimodality and visual expression, but within the genre of fiction and more specifically micro-fiction.

the paper portion would look at these multimodal fiction works historically, where they fit into new media composition and also with regards to new media precursers, including postmodern print literature and film. what I want to show is how new media can expand on the idea of composition with multimodal elements without the constraints of alphabetic expression–how postmodern structures and ideas can translate into a form which includes music, images, voice overs, movement, and reader interaction. I will draw on readings from the class as well as others to analyze the influences, the creative reasoning behind multimodal creative expression, and where my own new media fiction fits within the context of these theories and movements.

groovy happenings man

picture yourself entering a darkened room where the only light comes from reading lamps spaced intermittently across the floor and continuosly changing projected images of varoius objects and colors  on all of the walls, producing an eerie glow. you are handed a masquerade mask (to presumably protect your identity) and escorted to oversized cushions on the floor (next to the floorlamps). strung about you are various books, from the Bhagavad Gita to Thoreau’s Walden and dozens  you have never heard of before. There are also small buckets of paint, glue, markers of all colors, brushes, and all kinds of photographs, prints, and pictures cut from magazines covering the floor. Music is playing in the background, with very strange notes and lyrics (Stephen Merritt perhaps). There are also bowls of popcorn, cheetos, and plates and plates of oreo cookies and oversized cups of coffee randomly placed throughout the room.

You and the other occupants are instructed by words projected onto all four walls and the ceiling simultaneously to “compose what and where you will.” YOu pick up a copy of Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet and a paintbrush, inscribing your favorite passages in indigo across a wall while an image of a cow is projected onto it… then Van Gogh’s Starry Night…. then various kitchen appliances.

After quoting Rilke, you feel inspired and continue to write your own message down the wall and onto the floor (as well as an experimental swirly echoe of the Van Gogh sky). You notice others cutting and pasting pictures onto the walls and floor, scrawling poetry (their own or others’) all over the space, consuming hot beverages and cheetos. The music changes to something serene (Enya maybe) and the images are peaceful oceans, meadows, skies, trees… time for a coffee and oreo break perhaps…

online journal article

thought this was interesting.

http://home.peoplepc.com/psp/newsstory.asp?cat=news&referrer=welcome&id=20061001/451f3d40_3ca6_15526200610011838496127

Passionate for Pedagogies and Multiliteracies (and the combination of the two!)

None of these terms exhausts new possibilities for “literacy,” but only suggest productive ways of questioning our current positions, of unpacking old bundles and remaking new ones. Unpack ours and make your own. (Wysocki and Johnson-Eilola 368) 

I really enjoyed Chapter nineteen of Passions, “Blinded by the Letter” and thought it an eloquent transitional piece to Multiliteracies.  From here on out it is less about how we can “access” technology and integrate it into already existing structured concepts of literacy, but how literacy itself is fluidly changing not merely because of advancements in technology, but cultural change. The articles in Multiliteracies focus on the need to change our concept and definitions of literacy to fit a society embedded with visual, commercial, technological ideas. If we move from the idea of literacy as writing and reading words (because ultimately the idea of what is text must also be addressed), to something more broad, encompassing and integrating ways of learning and interpreting the world, the definition of literacy can coincide with meaning. And Yay! for Gunther Kress, who (I think) really more than anyone has stressed this need for a NEW theory for multimodal texts that “deals adequately with the processes of integration/composition of the various modes in these texts: both in production/making and in consumption/reading. This in turn presupposes adequate understandings of the semiotic characteristics of the various modes which are brought together in multimodal compositions” (153).

 

In chapter 11 we see how evolving multiliteracy can be incorporated into the classroom and find what we ultimately need is to expand the pedagogies to necessarily include multimodal forms of communication and meaning. Unfortunately, I have not yet had the chance to consciously incorporate multimodal concepts into my composition classrooms (excluding 3410 of course) the way it is described in this chapter. I have, however, brought in music, film, media, and episodes of friends to relate concepts to the lives of my students and found the integration of other media with texts really brings concepts home for them, helping them connect ideas and add layers of meaning. I really enjoy the concept of “hybridization”—“multifarious combinations of modes of meaning cutting across boundaries of convention and creating new conventions” (30).

compose design advocate

At first glance, I expected technological pedagogy from the book, which I realize is my own sad prejudice of anything consisting of visual information. Although the book does discuss images and fonts and electronic literacy… composition elements that do have to do with technology, it begins and ends with RHETORIC. Rhetorical pedagogy is integrated throughout the book, from the subheading, “a rhetoric for integrating written, visual, and oral communication” to the in-depth exploration of logos, pathos, and ethos. The technology is so subtle and integrated, the author’s seem to be sending the message that of course composition, analysis, and rhetoric should extend to design. YAY!

The book also seems to focus on process pedagogy, with emphasis on audience, analysis, argument, and REVISION. It also includes critical (lots of critical analysis) and cultural studies (education and other social issues). I would also venture to say that the authors include feminist pedagogy–not because Wysocki is a woman and not in a “feminist” way, but the advocate part of the book and as far as I can tell in the last sections, bring in political issues, education, race–the “other” that feminist pedagogy deals with. All, of course, while continuing to integrate rhetorical analysis. I would use this in a rhetoric and argument based composition class; I was really impressed at how “old school” theories are applied to visual elements–so integral in today’s culture and classrooms.

CRAP! WAC!

I just read other blogs and realized I forgot to post my definition!!! well, here it is (although it sounded better in class or looked better on a notecard… something…):

Writing Across the Curriculum Pedagogy supports literacy, writing skills, critical thinking, and problem solving in EVERY discipline FOR that discipline as a tool for learning and communication!

Passions Pedagogies and 21st Century Technologies

Just from the Introduction, I was happy to finally hear discussion about technology. The first chapter sort of covered (for me) the idea that technology is inevitable and although I’m not sure the computer is the same thing as the pencil, I do agree that it is a tool for composition, and even further, creativity—just as the pencil is. Chapter two, while mostly about essay form, did bring in structural issues and postmodern theory, which I found relevant.

On to Chapter 5, “Petals on a Wet Black Bough.” While I find the pseudonym clever and the hypertextual effect of the essay interesting, I had mixed feelings about this one. First of all, I’m not sure the hypertext form fits with the print medium (here) and may have even added to the point that collaboration can be confusing and messy (and inevitably lead to this loss of authorship). I, for one, did not know who was speaking when (which may have been their point) and sometimes the text was all-over-the-place-hard-to-follow. What I did find interesting was how they went into postmodern theory as the dismantling of “self” and that point of multi-authorship is what I find intriguing, that by joining knowledge with someone else or society as a whole, we are making more of a difference, exploring and even approaching the platonic dialectic of knowledge. As was mentioned in one of the articles I read last week, we never write “alone” even when we think we do, all the people, experiences, and conversations we have ever met/had influence us, so we are socially constructing ideas. I also liked the point about “print uploaded” (102), since the point of multimodal is to compose texts in a different way—take advantage of the technology, visuals, etc. to make “text” more than words. Also Turkle’s encouragement to “experience the computer as an expressive medium” and calling it a “romantic postmodern vision of computer intelligence.” (105) Well, and of course the mention of Bush’s memex and hypertexts linear/non-linear/multi-linear uses and possibilities and the comparisons to cinematography with regards to exploiting technology (112). Oh yeah, and the poem. And terms like “compositionists” (113) and “multiple textualities” (113). Not to mention, clever ending.

Chapter six began with a clever title, a quote from Gunther Kress and bel hooks’ emphasis on the visual as an integral part of our culture, and therefore literacy, and Trainspotting posters… how could Diane and Diana go wrong? I was hooked. “Critical literacy in a postmnodern age demands that we acknowledge our role in and take responsibility for language and form and image and communication systems in a way that not only critiques but envisions new possibilities.” (126) And I liked the concluding idea of a compass that points in all different directions at once.

I realize now (a bit late) that I should have structured these by topic. Oh well, next up is section two, teaching and access. My favorite here was the Sosnoski essay. While I think access is an important issue, I just felt it was continually being pointed out that poor people have less than wealthy people—not exactly a new concept—with no real solutions offered. We know budgets are often lacking for technology that could enhance our classrooms, not to mention k-12 classrooms. I know I can’t afford a mac or a laptop, but I can’t complain because I do have internet access (although it is dial-up), software I need, and access to a lab equipped with what I need to do my job.

“Hyper-readers” though I found interesting because I am one of those people who would rather not read on screen and have always felt I was “cheating” if I skimmed or pecked my way through books or articles. This article got me thinking, though, about how graduate school has changed this attitude for me. The New Media Reader, for example, was meant to be “hyper-read,” offering “links” to other chapters or sections of information, as well as some articles with multiple levels of engagement, so you could “skim” without really skimming. More like researching on the web, where you peruse for valuable information before engaging in in-depth reading, I find I now skim titles, subtitles, key words, authors, and book jackets to see if the information being offered is worth my time (and relevant to my thesis). For example, I was drawn to Cooper’s article because of postmodern in the title. And I did find the discussion interesting; it just wasn’t valuable for my current purpose (although a colleague is doing asynchronous discussion in her thesis). I also related to Sosnoski’s filming section (169) and found the comparison to “hyper(media)texts” and the meaning found in graphics and video. Sosnoski also talks about fragmenting, specifically the creators of Storyspace claim that association of fragments, or bits and pieces, are the way we make sense of information, which I think is true. When we read something in-depth that has no connection to previous knowledge, we (or I) don’t remember it. When bits are connected to each other (tied together say with string from one pedagogical theory to another) it makes sense. Realistically, he adds a section about rain clouds on the horizon, accurately pointing out that hyper-reading (and, thus, hypertexts) will be seen as not serious and lacking depth. This connects to an ongoing discussion about scholarly texts online not being taken seriously, as well as online journals, and BACK (and FORWARD) to the articles about access. Just because information is free doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable. I did like the Bruce article though because it comments on the others and asked some important questions. All in all, I do think technology should influence the way we teach and learn.

I found connections to collaborative pedagogy (in the Myka Vielstimmig), technological (in most of them), process and expressive (even references to Peter Elbow), Feminist (in the access ones… not in a feminism sense), and WAC (more subtle), and Basic (again mostly in the access themed articles but also the essayist one).

Taking stock: hmmm. I agree that there is alot of reading but these ten articles went down alot easier than the composition pedagogy ones (or perhaps I’m just becoming more of a hyper-reader… kidding). And I seem to be making alot of margin notes concerning my thesis, so all in all I’m finding most of the reading helpful. I’m also seeing connections between theories and theorists with the additional aspect of technology which I’m anxious to get to even more (ok, the pencil article was slow for me…). I like the hyper-map we have going and see how the connections will assist me with my own teaching as well as my writing and developing my ideas about electronic composition which I hope to study/write/teach more in the future. The journal assignment sounds good and I have looked at one issue of mine, read part of it, and am curious to read more. I have mostly been interested in the creative aspects of new media writing, and so the more academic side is good for me (my journal is online). I must admit I’m a bit nervous about presenting my findings to the class (you’d think I’d get over this public speaking thing what with teaching and all…) but I look forward to hearing the others. And this is by far my favorite class this semester!!! oh, wait… it’s my only class… well, it would be my favorite anyway!

Writing Center

North, Stephen F. “The Idea of a Writing Center.” College English (1984): 433-46.

What I like about this article is that it’s part rant. North begins with several misinterpretations of writing centers–not only cross-disciplinary, but stemming from English professors and faculty. Writing centers have been called “fix-it shops,” a place for “remedial” or “special problems,” and a place one colleague said he would only send a student with a minimum 25 mistakes per page. Maxine Hairston described writing centers that had sprung up as “ad hoc remedies to the writing crisis” giving “first aid” but not working towards a solution.

North argues that writing centers are there to improve writers, not texts… which is something anyone who had worked in (or probably even visited) a writing center would know. By making better writers (across disciplines), he suggests we are addressing the process or writing, and, therefore, contributing to a solution. He says, “A tutor is a holist devoted to a participant-observer methodology” (438) and sees writing center dialogue as “dialogue about writing that is central to higher education” (440). And back to Platonic/Socratic dialectic, this is a continuous process, but definitely a start; by inviting writers to visit the writing center (of their own free will), discussing writing with them, and meeting them where they are, on their terms, we are opening up a discourse on writing that is, in itself, an end. And by opening this dialogue about writing, perhaps it will clear up some of the misconceptions about grammatical fix-it shops across campus and within English departments themselves.

WAC

Mahala, Daniel. “Writing Utopias: Writing Across the Curriculum and the Promise of Reform.” College English 53 (1991): 773-89.

Once again, I liked the title. First off Mahala is talking about James Britton and LAC, learning across the curriculum… or maybe literacy or language… whoops… anyway, it began in England.

Britton’s theory has to do with three functions of language:

Expressive: the use of symbols to make sense of our reality.

Transactional: Primarily communicative, getting something done.

Poetic: means and object of contemplation and appreciation. (773)

He states that most schools are transactional, and really we should expect language to develop from expressive into the other two. We need expressive communication to be a part of a human community, a member of a “literate community.” We should consider culture and individuality, and not insist on separating in-school and out-of-school learning.

In America, there are more often the “formalist” and “expressivist” groups:

Formalist: Teach directly and explicitly. “There are normative ways of arguing and gathering evidence” (779). This insinuates that there is a “correct” way to think, and that this would be to think like the teacher. Implies that there is a closure of intellectual possibilities, and end instead of a question (782).

Expressivist: This is often considered pedagogical eclecticism and would include being “open to cultural significations of students outside the classroom” (779). In other words, back to the cultural eye again, journal writing, free writing, and all that good stuff.

However, on the positive not of journal writing (my opinion), Mahala makes it clear that there is a danger for journal writing to become a “haphazard technique where no theory is needed.” It should be a tool for self-interrogation, not pedagogy in itself. He ends with a quote by Fulwiler:

“What you trade off in breadth you make back in depth: the more complete immersion in the assignment makes for a greater commitment on the part of the learner and a more thorough understanding of the subject” (784).

 I think the point is that to teach writing in meaningful, pragmatic ways is to make it meaningful and connected to the students themselves, particularly when teaching writing for or in other disciplines. As in the Elbow article, learning to write means writing A LOT and so the purpose seems to be to get students to WANT to write. With Expressivism, they write to make sense of things, to get their ideas out there, not to an audience, and on subjects that are meaningful to them.