Woods vs. Freeland

I feel like Kate Freeland lays out a lot of ideas and approaches that I'd kind of had floating around in my head but hadn't been able to solidify into words. The end goal, as Freeland notes, is getting students to be reflective writers. As Freeland describes it, "Reflective writing teaches student writers to evaluate their own work, which makes my job as a facilitator much less stressful. I agree with Elbow (1986) that we haven't taught the student how to do something unless she can determine on her own whether she has done it." (250). Similarly, my goal had always been to get students to think for themselves and learn how to improve their own writing without specific instructions on what to fix.

As I mentioned in class on Monday, I've always been a little wary about critiquing the work of my fellow writers. Much of this stems from a concern regarding one person's creative taste clashing with anothers. But there's still carryover when it comes to academic papers. Naturally I was curious about what types of things I'd be saying and doing to help my students improve their work. Frankly, I don't think I'd be particularly good at laying out a concrete series of steps or bullet points that would result in a quality paper. Fortunately, according to Freeland at least, I may not have to do this. It could be that being a good teacher doesn't necessarily mean I have to come up with brilliant pointers as to how students can improve their papers. It could be that all I need to do is work at being an effective mirror, a fellow writer who reflects my students' ideas and thoughts back upon themselves and really makes them think about why they are saying what they are saying and how they can improve their own words. This is an approach that I think I'd be much better suited for. It's also a notion I'll keep in mind when attending future creative writing workshops.

Interestingly, Freeland's philosophy seems to run counter to some of the other authors we've just read. When critiquing student papers, she puts great stock in asking open ended questions. In her words, "I ask questions such as, "Is this what you want to say?" or "How can you revise this sentence to make it easier to read?" or "As a writer, you have several choices—which do you think conveys your meaning to you reader?" When my students answer open-ended, nonevaluative questions, they hear in their own language, based on their experience as readers and listeners, what their reader needs or wants from the text." (247) It strikes me that this advice stands in contrast to the approach taken by teachers such as Peggy Woods, who wrote that "I want peer responses to be effective in terms of revision by providing comments that do not correct but rather offer descriptive reactions to the text, questions that enable the writer to think about the piece in a new way, and options for revision." (188) First of all, it seems to me that there is a pretty thin line between "correcting" and offering "options for revision." There may be a difference in tone, but the end result is the same. It seems that it would be hard to avoid one while striving to incorporate the other. Second, this is a highly different approach from Freeland's open ended questions. I recognize that the former was talking about teacher comments and the latter student comments. But if taken together that would make for an interesting classroom, one where students get most of their writing tips not from the teacher but from fellow students. It's a conundrum, because I can see the value of both approaches, I'm just not sure they would work well together.

Responding in the Resoundingly Affirmative

How do you comment on an article you completely agree with? How to reformulate any kind of argument with a work that you find yourself nodding your head to?

This is my only problem with "Critical Reading and Response: Experimenting with Anonymity in Draft Workshops", by J. Paul Johnson: I agree with it. Wholeheartedly, unabashedly, completely, which is a rare experience for me.

This article answered a couple of very important problems that I have run into as I've mused about forming my syllabus for the spring semester. The first problem: how do I get the students involved in the revision process more than the apparent college norm (which is to say, barely at all)? The second: how can I incorporate exercises where the students write for more than one audience?

This article has given me some serious tips on how to do both. That makes me happy.

Pedagogically, the article is well grounded. Johnson refers to other educators whose work we've already read, namely Hillocks and Nystrand (197), so he has based his argument on solid theoretical ground. "The peer response activity I discuss here - a directed draft workshop - is one well grounded in contemporary composition theory: more focused than mere peer review, the draft workshop reinforces the social constructedness of writing." (197, italics his)

Throughout virtually all the articles we've read, one near-constant problem I've noted is the prevalence of apathy in the college students that have been viewed in a classroom setting. Whether it's a community college, or the University of Cincinnati, or the Ivy League, these students seem to have one unified purpose: how to get the best grade doing the least amount of work. Faced with this attitude, which was certainly in place when I was an undergrad 15 years ago and was probably in place 30 years before that, the one burning question in my mind was: how to get the students engaged in the writing process, get them to completely commit to improving their writing, without standing over them with a lash, shouting at them the entire time?

Johnson provides the answer. With an anonymity-based critique system, I was initially skeptical that the professor could hold the students accountable for the critique that is entered on the blog. Johnson provides the answer by having the professor control all the names being used. Only the professor knows who everyone is, and only the critic and the professor know who the critic is. By having the students post their WORK with their names on it, and by having the CRITICISM be anonymous, the accountability factor is high. The students will be writing for a different audience - their peers, not just me, which helps to solve my second problem as well. Furthermore, by placing this in a blog, the students can augment their critiques with pictures, video, audio and other materials if they choose, to take full advantage of the medium (the entire written critique will still be required). By proposing this system, Johnson enables me, the professor, to keep tabs on which of my students are actually doing the work. Peer pressure will keep many of the students in line, even if the system IS anonymous - they may not know who hasn't posted, but they'll be able to count the number of posts on their papers. As an added bonus, I can have the students add their best critique or two to the portfolio I plan on having them submit for their final grade. Making the critiques a portion of their grade should ensure that the work gets done, and gets done to a reasonable degree. (They can also be part of the class participation grade - wonderful!) I can keep track privately of who does the work and who does not. The students will have to maintain their involvement in the course, and become personally invested in the success of not just their own work, but each other's, as they begin to identify with the papers they have critiqued. The class will, hopefully, bond through the online experience. Although anonymous, the experience of posting and waiting for criticism on their papers (a nerve-wracking experience) will be a shared one for the entire class.

Through this semester's experience, I have learned (or re-learned, in my case) just how valuable a skill critical analysis is for a student. I have also learned in other classes that the ability to critically analyze a piece of writing is like a muscle; it must be exercised in order to be fit. Johnson's article seems to me to be an ideal way for me to teach, develop and nurture the very rare skill of peer response to my classes.

This article has been one I have enjoyed tremendously, and it comes at a very opportune time: when I am scrambling to finalize my textbooks for the coming semester. Incorporating a peer response unit will chew up some class time (in a good way) and allow me to keep the focus of the class where it needs to be - on the students' writing - while satisfying a desire for both multimodality and accountability.

I have seen the light!

After reading more articles on peer groups I really do see the value of these. I think I was so opposed to peer response groups in undergrad because they were not handled correctly. I was never given valuable comments because my teachers did not structure the groups properly. After this week of reading and learning about peer groups I now have a much better grasp on how to approach them. For today’s readings I really liked the ideas presented in Paul Johnson’s article. I did like the relationship building groups discussed last class in Murtz’s article, but I think Johnson’s approach is just as effective without needing to spend time and dealing with students straying from the main point of the class. Posting papers online and having students respond with different names is a great idea. It could work in our technology classrooms and may be easier for students to use the technology to respond instead of handwriting out responses. I also think this could work in class, with students not putting their names on their papers and then distributing the papers out randomly and having respondents also not include their names.

I think this approach allows students to really make their comments and respond to each other without worrying about hurting someone’s feelings or being too critical Johnson’s approach really seems to get away from the one word response or the “nice” responses students feel they are obligated to make.

I was more critical of Kate Freeland’s article. I thought her expectations of individual conferences with students were rather high and a bit dreamy. She is under the impression that each piece of writing her students submit is like the newest masterpiece. I think meeting with students about their writing is a good idea, but I think by her taking so much class time away to do so is not the best idea. I think instead of getting the response of other students and if they needed the help of the teacher after class or during office hours Freeland is just offering up her opinions. Her students are only receiving feedback from her and not their peers. After reading these four articles this week I now see the value of peer groups and the right approach to peer groups and I do not see as much value in the approach Freeland takes.

Elaborate on the elaboration, please...

I’d like to sum up, what I think, is really important from this week’s readings.

Mirtz: I suppose “off-topic” discussion is similar to underlife (or perhaps an instance of underlife). To go back to Brooke, he argues that underlife behaviors “seek to provide identities that go beyond the roles offered by the normal...student-as-passive-learner educational system” (p. 141). Brooke also posits that writing “involves bring able to challenge one’s assigned roles long enough that one can think originally; it involves living in conflict with accepted (expected) thought and action” (p. 141). Likewise, students perform “writerly” acts, as Mirtz argues, “when they don’t seem to be talking about their papers - exploring audience” (p. 104). As an act of underlife, seemingly off-topic discussion is actually a relationship-building activity that allows students to solidify their identities within the group while assessing audience.

Again, exceptions are always possible, but I do think that by explicitly placing the responsibility on the students for constructive indirect discussion may actually result in constructive peer response. By at least mentioning the possibilities involved in indirect talk, students may begin to see this type of talk as something different, and perhaps learn something from it (i.e. about audience). Mirtz also provides a helpful guide for promoting constructive indirect talk and peer response:
1) Give students specific instructions and information on indirect talk. There is a difference between ineffective and indirect talk.
2) Instructions for peer response are more specific than those in #1, but are also fewer in number.
3) Help students to interpret their indirect talk. Become part of their conversation!
4) Have students report on their peer response activities. This also places responsibility for monitoring indirect talk on the students rather than the teacher. (pp. 114-115)
5) Mirtz also suggest having students complete reflective journals in response to their group sessions. She lists goals for these responses on pages 117-118.

Woods: In addition to Mirtz, Woods provides a great activity (which we all encountered on Monday) that will be particularly productive for students with little or no experience in critical and effective peer response. Woods’ emphasis on the writing and not the person is also an important part of peer response. It is difficult, as many of the texts we’ve read argue, to step away from “being nice” and engage in critical yet respectful peer response. This is a skill, not only in reading, writing, and critique, but also socially. By learning ways of being a respectful respondent, students may learn to receive such critique less personally (i.e. understand that respectful critique of one’s writing is not a reflection on oneself).

Johnson: The use of anonymous response seems to be an effective way to counteract “nice” but ineffective peer responses. By requiring the in-class draft response to be published on the course web site, (as Johnson points out) students are discouraged from providing ineffective and partial responses. Also, as we know, not everyone is as organized as an Ikea showroom, therefore the online response remains available even when a lost paper response would not.

With the addition of Freeland’s essay (which I discussed in my response to Ben’s post), I think the common thread throughout these four texts is this: writing is a social process, and this includes peer response (conferences are response too), and thus we need to be aware of the relationships and identities among our students. With this awareness, our students will benefit from assignments, class workshops, and class relationships that foster learning and invention. In order to teach writing, we need to recognize the activities involved in writing, and that those activities are not always individual and independent of the social realm.

Ben thinks!

Fascinating stuff, these essays on peer response. They always give me more things to think about that I hadn't before. This last one, Kate Freeland's on conferences, was particularly interesting because it basically suggests an entirely different framework for the class. I do quite like some of her principles, but as is usually the case I think I'd have to use a slightly scaled-back version in my own class.

I'm curious about this portfolio idea, which we're using in this class. I am liking it in here because of the nature of the course and the types of things we're working on, but in a class that's focused on writing a set number of papers I'm not sure how effective it would be, especially in the first semester where I'm trying to establish my own sense of grading and interaction with student papers. Maybe it's a weakness on my part, but I feel like I'll need grades as much as the students to get an idea for how things are going, how they're responding to my feedback, and so forth.

I also really don't care for the "negotiation of course grades" at the end of the semester she talks about. This goes back to a few readings ago...I think if you allow the students to negotiate their grade with you it's a bit of an undermining of your position of authority. That's where some of my difficulty with the portfolio idea comes from...I feel like it's easy for them to question your position if it's just one summary grade rather than a series of grades in which they can gauge their progress and standing. I know I myself once got righteously pissed off over a portfolio grade over which I felt I had little control.

Another thought the Freeland piece stirred in my coconut was the fact that she really has a bigtime focus on the process and on the writing itself. With the course theme requirement and all the things we have to think about, I feel like it might be a bit difficult to have that sort of focus. The piece made me worry a bit that my course will focus too much on me, my plans, and my goals for the course instead of the students' writing. I think that'll be an easy trap to fall into. But maybe it's just me.

Peer Response....Something for Everyone

Now that I've read all of the material for this week, I'm thinking more and more about peer response. Yesterday in class, there were a lot of interesting observations voiced about peer response. I can definitely see where
Katie was coming from when she said that her first response to the Mirtz piece had to do with the "when the cat's away the mice will play" syndrome when it comes to indirect talk. I had the same thought at first, but as Katie has said elsewhere on the blog, that they're not getting away with anything if they're "caught" before they begin. This one really turned some of my own assumptions upside down, and I was glad to see that I wasn't the only one who began questioning assumptions in reading this.

I think this week's readings have been really helpful in prompting me to rethink some things that I might not have realized were assumptions at all, and beyond that, these readings have addressed directly a lot of my misgivings about how to conduct productive peer response. I've always felt that peer response can be one of the most helpful ways to refine ideas and revise writing, but I've questioned how to do it in a way that students will experience all of the benefits of getting and giving feedback on writing that I have. I still to this day like to talk over what I'm writing, and often someone says "that's good, but did you think about this...." which is always the most helpful. It's difficult to always be able to examine your argument in every way to which it could possibly be responded. I have also, however, been involved in workshops and peer response groups that have not been so effective or helpful and felt like a waste of time.

I liked how each piece that we've read for this week has addressed the major problems with peer groups....being too "nice," off-task talk, the way that beginning writers don't really feel like writers yet, and probably the biggest stumbling block of all (which will probably happen in every class without fail) the lack of experiencing with giving and receiving useful feedback on writing. I think that this shows us a variety of methods that could be utilized either separately, together,or piecemeal to address these issues. At this point, I'm not that sure where I come down on how I will go about doing peer response and how I will pull from these resources, but I feel better in thinking that there are many options available. I think the anonymous approach that Johnson discusses would be very good for subverting the being nice problem, as well as the complexities of social behavior and relationships within the classroom for a first year class in the beginning of the semester. I was surprised in reading it, just how effective the students' responses were, and how in not having to share their identities as responders that students really stepped up and wrote productive responses that were not directed at the writer as an individual, in the way we talked about in class. I think this exposes something beyond the "being nice" problem, these are relational politics, and what better way to defuse it than to remove the identities?

I also like the idea of become a responder yourself, the way that Freeland discusses. I think we're all aware that a writer's ability and desire to write, particularly early on, are quite fragile and can be derailed easily. True, we can't be discouraged from writing at this point in our careers, but we really don't count in this argument. We're pretty experienced writers, and we have had time to build our confidence through both successes and failures, unlike the freshman-level writer. I think that Freeland's idea of treating the inexperienced writers as writers in the sense of conferencing and showing them that they not only have choices, but that those choices are theirs alone and that they should be dictated by their needs and the needs they perceive from their audiences, and not "awk" or some other thing we write on their papers. I think that dealing with our students as writers is the best way to help them build their confidence in their ability to write and to show them the choices they have available, and if they still have trouble with making the choices, we will be there to guide them.

In short, I liked the readings for this week because they each offered a slightly different way to think about all of the anxieties I have had about how to conduct peer response in a way that is most beneficial to the development of our students' writing. They have also helped me to identify some long-standing assumptions that I have held which I am not so sure I subscribe to anymore.

Darkness visible

If Brookfield’s article on reflective teaching makes one aware of the importance of being constantly vigilant about one’s assumptions about teaching, the two articles on table for today seem to focus on a similar problem from the opposite spectrum—reflective learning, and how teachers need to be aware of its possibilities and affordances. In a way, these articles challenge the understated or unstated assumptions we harbour while teaching or being taught, and make the “darkness visible” (to use Milton’s words from Paradise Lost that so famously ticked T.S. Eliot off) in both the cases. Before reading Ruth M. Mirtz’s article on “indirect” talk during peer responses, I had no idea what earthly purpose the talk about baseball games or favourite hair salons that serve ‘rich-people candy’ as a means of attracting customers (overheard during one of the class observations, not made-up) could have served in forming effective peer response to writing assignments. It is important to know where the critic (and hence, the critique) is coming from in order to evaluate its ultimate importance, and Mirtz makes the point very well in her essay that this seemingly unnecessary and futile occupation has its own uses. For example, the group dynamic of Cynthia’s group is set on a particular tone when all of its members arrive at the conclusion after some ‘indirect’ off-task discussion that there are “vast differences between women and men” (109)—an extremely unsurprising, unoriginal and sad consensus that is bound to be importantly reflected in the group’s peer responses. Mirtz raises two very important questions—what is the role of the teacher in the context of ‘indirect’ talk in peer responses, and what kind of indirect talk is really ineffective? The first question she answers in the context of lessening teacher control and encouraging student empowerment: to forcibly steer even peer response or formulate it within such rules as it becomes a reflection of the teacher’s own purposes—“ channeling peer dynamics toward teacher-mandated guidelines” (DiPardo and Freedman, qtd. in 104)—is a trap the teachers should avoid. However, I wandered to what extent she fails to follow her own advice after reading that in the light of her observations with Cynthia’s group, she “give[s] the students specific tasks which speed up the process[es]” (115) of peer response. The second question is answered by a useful distinction between fruitful and fruitless indirect talk (112-113). The most exciting piece of insight by Mirtz, however, comes when she decides to make the students conscious of what they are doing by helping to interpret their indirect talk for them (114).
Peggy M. Woods’ article was an eye-opener in the same vein. I recognized the inadequacy of some of my own recent peer responses that failed to move beyond the standard “This is good” formulation. The truth is, it requires hard work to come up with intelligent constructive criticism—something I also noted recently by comparing the two responses I received recently for my mid-term papers. One was very helpful, pointing out the exact areas I needed to focus on for improvement, while the other did little more than pointing out obvious shortcomings. What Woods points out in her essay is that the necessary hard work should not be shirked while giving peer response. The key idea is to avoid focussing on the writer, and focus on the writing instead (191), something also noted by Glynda Hull et al—although only on negative terms—in the article on remediation when they historicize the character of the ‘school failure’. The moot question I ended up with after reading the essay was—what do I do with the insights gained from this essay while teaching? I could see the application quite clearly while providing peer response myself, but how do I apply them while teaching? One answer is given by Woods herself in the conclusion—as teachers, one should avoid falling “into a routine of responding” (195). Another seems to be including one’s students in this project of making darkness visible, both from the teaching and learning sides of the spectrum.

The joys of peer response groups

Oh, peer response groups. We’ve all been there, exchanging papers and getting them back with the single comment “nice job” or “this looks good.” What I liked about the Ruth Mirtz article and the Peggy Woods article was that they both addressed the problems within peer response groups and gave suggestions on how to make peer groups really a worthwhile exercise for students. The most interesting suggestion made by Mirtz was creating designated, ongoing peer groups. In many classes I have had in the past where you break out into groups and have others read your paper there has been no designated group. For one peer group you may be with different classmates than you were for the previous peer response session. At first I didn’t like this idea of having designated groups throughout the semester. I saw it as only getting three or four opinions throughout the course as opposed to ten or twelve different views on your writing. What I got after reading Mirtz’s article was the relationships that were formed within designated semester long groups. These students who started out as strangers grew together in their writing and as they got to know each other through their indirect talk they became more comfortable with genuinely expressing their opinions on one another’s writing.

The indirect talk Mirtz addresses was always why I had a resistance to using peer groups in my classroom. I saw the students talking about their weekends and their favorite bands as wasted time, but now I view this indirect talk in a very different way. I really do see how it builds relationships and opens up the responses students give each other on their writing. As Mitz says, sharing allows the students to understand their differences and differences so when a paper is returned with remarks from someone in the group, most likely the student will understand why they received those comments, or at the very least know from getting to know each other that the comments are being made by someone who now understands them and their writing better than someone outside of their peer group.

I also liked that Mirtz walked around her class and engaged in the conversations going on within the peer groups. By showing that she wasn’t going to discipline the students for not necessarily discussing the papers she opened herself up to be more approachable, so when the peer groups did have questions they were not afraid to ask because Mirtz had become a part of their conversation. She even didn’t care in the beginning how much actual response was being established as long as everyone was involved in the indirect talk together to help build the group’s relationship as a whole. Both Woods and Mitz discussed the views students had of other students reading their work saying that many see the feedback as criticism or, on the opposite end, as Woods determines, many give little to no feedback because they do not want to offend another student, especially one they do not know very well. I think Mirtz’s approach really counteracts these two obstacles of peer response and peer groups. I think if students establish a relationship within a set peer group they will work themselves away from being afraid they will hurt someone’s feelings or will learn to not take the feedback they receive as criticism.

In addition to our group's previous post...

Iʼm going to detail our “bubble assignment” a bit more (Jenn and Anita, please feel free to do so as well!) in the context of Nelsonʼs article.

Nelson asserts that “we must learn more about how particular tasks and writing situations influence studentsʼ efforts. By examining when and how studentsʼ interpretations of writing assignments converge or diverge from their teachersʼ intentions, we can increase our understanding of how certain classroom practices and studentsʼ assumptions affect student writing” (p. 363). Nelsonʼs case study exemplifies the ways in which individual students respond to such an inquiry (as stated above). Our groupʼs assignment is designed to do exactly this type of inquiry in the context of our specific classrooms.

The students will be instructed on how to create a bubbl.us account (free and easy). They will either have the three questions on a separate sheet and will need to create bubbles for each question; or I will figure out a way for the students to access a prepared template, complete with the three questions (this is ideal). They will be required to fill out the bubble map for at least three assignments throughout the semester.

This assignment is designed to help students engage in self-reflective and detailed thinking, planning, and engagement with the three assignments. It also acts as a way for me (or any other teacher) to have a deeper understanding of the studentsʼ thought, planning, and writing processes. There may be exceptions to our expectations with this assignment (i.e. students who fill out the bubble map after actually writing a draft or final paper, or making everything up), but Iʼm assuming these will be exactly that: rare exceptions. Iʼm trying to think of my future students as actually trying to learn something, because if I assume they are lazy, unmotivated, etc., then those assumptions will have a negative impact on the studentsʼ learning (i.e. as seen in the “Remediation” text). So letʼs assume this assignment will be received by students in the way our group envisioned. :)

As noted in the explanation next to the graphic of the bubble map, the map we devised is an example of what could be done with this technology. The user has the freedom to create bubbles, connected or floating, change their size and color, play with font choices, etc. Therefore, it will allow students to create connections between their ideas and responses that might now be possible in a simple word processing program. It also allows a visual aspect that is not present in word processors: visual layers, spatial proximity, etc. (all things that could be accomplished in word with extensive practice, but bubbl.us allows this in a more simple format). This web applicationʼs primary purpose is to create visual maps, and I think it might be an effective learning tool.

The yellow bubbles with questions are paraphrased from Nelsonʼs article, and thus may need further paraphrasing due to their complexity of language. I might try to simplify the questions so that students donʼt get too bogged down in the language and not fully understand the goals of the assignment. Anyway, itʼs a prototype, but one that seems full of possibility.

Class Assignment: Katie, Ben, Adam

We discussed in class the exact approach that we had wanted to take in this assignment and all three of us felt that one quote in particular was important. On page 366 Nelson states; "In addition, these strategies allow students to focus on the products they are required to produce instead of on the processes they are being asked to engage in."

We felt it was important for us to address this in our assignment, so here goes;

Early in the semester (2nd or 3rd day) the students would be required to "Take a stand" on any topic of their choice. We agreed to allow the students roughly 30 minutes to complete an in class writing assignment. Since we are concerned with working on the process and not the product, these assignments would be anonymous. At the end of the 30 minutes of writing, the teacher collects the assignments and then promptly shuffles them and hands them out randomly to class. This accomplishes the 2nd students being able to respond the first paper without seeing it as a tightly defined audience.

The responding students would then take the papers home with them and write a 1-2 pages response to the stance taken up by the first writer. This response would require no sources or formatting requirements, only the addition of their names and the attachment of the first writing sample. We feel that this would be an effective way of allowing our students to see the way in which a discussion can take place not only vocally but also through the written word.

Katie, Ben and I will also respond to this assignment with more personal/individual reasoning for our choices as well as any adjustments to the assignment or parts that I may have overlooked in my summarizing of the assignment.

Assignment Generation: Alex, Sohomjit, Michael

Class,

In keeping with the in-class assignment handed out today (10/22), here is the assignment Alex, Sohomjit and I devised, with a separate section describing the theory behind our practices.

The assignment is a five week process to generate a research paper. The general topic:

UNIVERSITY LIFE

The particulars of the paper are:
- 6 to 7 page limit
- 3 outside sources minimum must be cited
- MLA style

The students will submit a topic for the research paper that has to deal in some way with university life. They may employ any research method they choose. There will be four checkpoints to guide the student on this project, with each checkpoint being conducted weekly:

Checkpoint 1: in the beginning of the first week, the student will submit a proposal for the paper, which will be discussed later that week in a one-on-one meeting with the professor. This proposal will define the student’s argument.

Checkpoint 2: in the second week, the student will submit a journal entry, defining their processes and what they are doing to work towards their project. This entry will be more informal and does not have to be submitted in MLA format.

Checkpoint 3: in the third week, the student will submit a second journal entry, continuing the progress from the first journal, as well as shaping the thoughts of the student as they progress in their work.

Checkpoint 4: in the beginning of the fourth week, the student will submit a rough draft of the paper, which will be discussed later in the week in a one-on-one meeting with the professor.

Checkpoint 5: at the end of the final week, the final papers will be turned in.


PEDAGOGY:
The theory behind this exercise is to avoid the trap of over-specifying the requirements of the paper to the students. By giving the students plenty of room for initial thought and topic selection, we hope to have them take ownership of the project. The checkpoints will guide them and require them to think about the process from a structured position, forcing them to avoid the last-minute frenzy of writing a paper. By keeping in communication with the students, we will be able to work with them in discovering the revision process.

Self-reflective bubbles!!!

We adjusted Nelson's three questions (p. 367) and used them as part of a self-reflective assignment. Using www.bubbl.us, students will respond to these questions as they relate to at least three assignments throughout the semester. The tool acts as a way to map out their brainstorming ideas in a self-reflective manner.

The example above is just that: an example. The only bubbles that would remain as they are for the actual "assignment" would be the top four yellow bubbles. The smaller bubbles are used to illustrate how a student might expand on their responses to the primary questions. The arrows suggest how one bubble might relate to another. The web-based application is pretty simple, but I think for this assignment it allows students to connect their ideas and goals in ways that a bulleted word document might not. 

Above is a jpg screen shot. You need a free username and password to use this web-based program.

Jenn, Anita, Lindsay

Teacher and Student Relationships

After reading the two articles for today, it seems to me that we will have to approach our classrooms with the age old theory that “you can’t please everyone.” That is not to say that we will not try, but as Nelson and Brookfield point out, not everything will turn out the way you intended. I thought it was important when Nelson discussed the role of graduate assistants in her article. Although the majority of us will be teaching our own classes and will never have to experience working as an assistant to a professor, it was interesting to see how upset the students became when they realized they were possibly being treated unfairly. I thought this was a tough subject to tackle because, in a sense, they were being treated differently. Students in the class were being graded by different people, which could come off as unfair if not addressed properly. I never was taught or graded by a TA in my undergrad, but the core classes we had to take, like the freshman writing courses we will teach next semester, were of course taught by different teachers, and we would get upset knowing one class was being taught by an “easy” teacher and another by a “hard” teacher and yet everyone was having their grade show up under the same course on their transcript no matter who taught the course.

Nelson’s study did prove that the ideals we have for our assignments may not translate as well to students. The assignment where the Carnegie Mellon students had to sum up their readings in 200 words was viewed as a waste of time and pointless to the students Nelson was studying. The professors clearly did not intend to create a “worthless” assignment, yet that is the way the assignment was perceived. I directly related with the Victorian literature assignment and Helen’s struggles to comprehend what was required of her for the paper. I have had this struggle in the past and even this semester. It is a horrible feeling knowing you may be writing a paper that you think is correct, and all along the paper may be nothing like the teacher had wanted.

Where Nelson spent the majority of her article discussing her study and the assumptions and outcomes of her results, Brookfield seems to take a lot of the assumptions about classrooms and critiques and discusses them. I like that Brookfield says some things are maybe not the ideal way to approach teaching or a classroom, like lecturing or creating circles, but they are sometimes the best way to approach an even less approachable situation. He assesses the risks of critical reflection and of teaching in general. Brookfield’s article tries to show that it is ok to experiment and try new ways of doing things within the classroom because these are all part of critical reflection. Brookfield wants students to not only be engaged within classrooms, but to trust the teacher who is trying to engage their learning. I think the idea of trust within a classroom is one of the most important things we can instill within our classes.

Awesome.

I ran across some stuff I quite liked in the Brookfield (is that his name?) article, stuff that gets to the heart of some things that have been eating at me. Here they are, with my quick responses.

"Before students can engage critically with ideas and actions, they may need a period of assimilation and grounding in a subject area or skill set. Lecturing may be a very effective way of ensuring this" (4).
This is where I've been a little squeamish on some of our readings. Yes, it's great to be interactive. Students get bored when they're not involved. But we're also more qualified than them to be teaching things. Maybe only marginally so, but more qualified nevertheless. Building everything around lecture is obviously a bad idea, but so is avoiding lecture entirely.

"Students will be highly skeptical of group discussion if the teacher has not earned the right to ask students to work this way by first modeling her own commitment to the process" (5).
This one made me think. We (I) tend to assume group work is good by default, but maybe it isn't always. This is something I'll have to be more conscious of than I would have otherwise.

"To students who have made great sacrifices to attend an educational activity, a teacher's attempts to deconstruct her authority through avowals of how she'll learn more from the students than they will from her rings of false modesty" (6).
Again, good stuff to hear. I feel like some of the concepts we've discussed about group equality, while not without merit, tend to devalue the teacher. No matter how you feel about the power relationship and our position relative to our students, we ARE in a position of authority and need to bring certain things to the table, to use a bit of a cliche.

Just a few thoughts, but this article was definitely refreshingly different than some of the others and felt pretty realistic.

The virtue of vagueness

When I was composing my two multimodal classroom assignments (one outlined on paper, and the one I described in my video), I found myself continuously nagged by the question "am I being to vague?" I didn't want to spoon feed my students every single step they needed to take. At the same time I didn't want them scratching their heads and pressing me for further clarification or—worse yet—inventing their own wildly inappropriate and intellectually flaccid interpretation of my well intentioned yet ill conveyed instructions.
In the end, I opted for the minimalist approach, if for no other reason than I knew both assignments were drafts and I could always add clarifications later. However, after reading Jennie Nelson's case study on student and teacher assignment interpretations, I'm increasingly inclined to leave my multimodal assignments fairly open.
The problem starts with a seemingly unavoidable evil: academic work takes place in an "evaluative climate." In other words "grades are exchanged for performance. As a result, accountability—in the form of answers and processes student are actually rewarded for—becomes the driving force behind how students respond to school assignments." (365) No matter how captivated or inspired a student may be with the material assigned, the bottom line for him or her will always be "what am I specifically accountable for in order to make an acceptable grade?" Thus, students are primarily concerned with the end product. This puts them fundamentally at odds with teachers who assign projects to promote learning and are therefore primarily concerned with the process.
On the surface, it seems reasonable to conclude that specific, step by step instructions would help students focus more attention on the process of research and project completion. But this doesn't seem to be the case. On the contrary, specific instructions can aid students who wish to circumvent the very process they were meant to illuminate. Art, from the field study, is a clear example. "The seven-step paper guidelines furnished by his teacher proved to be an especially valuable resource. These guidelines served as a prompt and helped him to produce a "field study" without ever actually collecting any data. Thus Art's predisposition to expend minimal effort on the writing assignments may actually have been fostered by the resources his teacher provided." (377) It seems that knowing the specific steps one needs to take simply makes those steps easier to fabricate.
Clearly, students can and often do expend minimal energy on open ended assignments as well. However, the very ambiguity that may frustrate a student at the outset might also prevent him or her from checking off a series of requirements and calling it a day. If they know what the path of least resistance is then they can take it. But if the student doesn't know exactly what is expected, then (I'm guessing) they will be more likely to err on the side of caution and do a slightly better job on their project.
This goes hand in hand with the findings that students tend to do better when knowledge of their overall grade is kept from them. "English teachers who want to encourage students to take responsibility for all phases of their writing—from task interpretation to revision—often put off grading student work. It would be worthwhile to explore this practice further, to learn more about how providing minimal feedback in the highly evaluative climate of the classroom influences students' approaches." (390)
It strikes me that one area where abundant explanation is not an issue is in regards to why projects are assigned. Nothing kills motivation faster than the perception that an assignment is busy work and therefore a waste of time.

Carl Gerriets’s idea of establishing dialogue with the students through cover letters makes sense in the KSU context for several reasons. Like the students described in the essay, the students we will teach will have too much on their plates as they strive to juggle work and course load with a busy lifestyle. Speaking from the experience of observing a few of the writing classes, more fruitful interaction between the writing teacher and the student can only be deemed beneficial. It might not be always possible to interact with all of the students on a particular problem. In such a scenario, the cover letter does seem to provide a fool-proof mode of communication if used correctly (assuming that is, that the student takes it seriously, and understands effectively the teacher’s purpose in instituting it as a form of extended dialogue). Since the course will be on writing, a customized written response to a student paper can get the important message across that his/her voice is being heard. It also seems to be an original way of relinquishing control by the teacher if used in Gerriets’s way. However, as Gerriets mentions himself, it may not be well-received for a number of reasons. I am particularly concerned with it being perceived as ‘extra work’ that makes each assignment a paper-within-a-paper, placing it in a frame. Won’t there be resentment in the wake of this perception? It will work best, in my opinion, if it is used sparingly on some assignments that call for it (the multimodal ones, for example, in which more dialogue is sure to provide a more sure footing both for the teacher and the student). What do you think?
The essay on remediation made interesting reading. I was especially struck by the writers’ attempt to historicize the concept of ‘school failure’. The repudiation of the notion that academic failure comes from “defects of character or disposition” (312) and the observation that “variability disappears as rich differences in background and style become reduced to a success-failure binary and the “problem”…shifts from the complex intersection of cognition and culture and continues to be interpreted as a deficiency located within families and students” (313) on the essayists’ part seem particularly penetrative. That one should focus on the aforementioned interesection to enhance literacy is a point that has been underprivileged in traditional classroom practices for long, and continues to be so, as seen in the case of June’s class with reference to Maria. Maria’s disruption of the IRE sytem (very helpful formulation by Shaughnessy, I found myself thinking about our class and trying to figure out how we follow or avoid this pattern!) obviously stems from a basic misreading of the class ground rules. I am not sure whether this is a result of her ‘cultural difference’ though. The four ways in which the writers suggest one should go about in making a better learning atmosphere in a remedial classroom should also serve equally well in all other writing classrooms, and that seems to be the primary merit of this essay—its suggested methodology sounds universal in application.

Teacher-student dialogue

Hull’s article recalled what Nystrand discussed earlier. Hull et. al. strives to find ways in which we can examine “our assumptions about our students’ abilities” (p. 299). Learning involves much more than simple memorization of information, but rather, “competence in classrooms means interactional competence with written language: knowing when and how and with whom to speak and act in order to create and display knowledge” (Hull p. 303). In other words, we need to continuously assess our teaching styles in order to avoid IRE (see p. 301). In order to do so, Hull suggests the following:
1) remembering teacher development,
2) attending to classroom discourse,
3) making macro-micro connections,
4) and rethinking the language of cultural difference. (p. 316)
Gerriets touches on these issues as well, and focuses specifically on teacher-student dialogue. While we have discussed cover letters and written responses in class, Gerriets gives a short framework that will help us focus our written dialogue with students.
1) Create an ongoing teacher-student dialogue through their cover letters and your responses. We should also consider teacher-student conferences and in-class conversation as a part of this dialogue, but here I will consider the written dialogue.
2) The cover letters are “informal notes to the reader explaining what the writer thinks about the draft” (p. 255).
3) The teacher’s comments reply to the cover letter:
a. Gerriets suggests to start off by “agreeing with the student’s comments” in an attempt to decrease any of the student’s fears (p. 256).
b. Gerriets also suggests to focus on “practicality and…toward building relationships that will help each student” (p. 257).
c. He doesn’t grade individual assignments; only leaves comments on each assignment. We haven’t really delved too deeply into assessment (i.e. grading), so maybe this is a discussion for later.
d. The comments should be tailored to the student’s concerns (mentioned in the cover letter). Garriets argues, “My purpose in such comments is to appear to the student as an ally who is interested in and able to offer useful suggestions for writing, not as a tyrant or judge who wants to take over the writing” (p. 259).
Gerriets’ use of cover letters and responses also points to equality in the classroom: “I seek to create a dialogue in which the student speaks first and has the opportunity to define where our dialogue will start” (p. 260). With this in mind, we can see how such an attitude may also prompt students to take more responsibility for their learning, rather than following the IRE structure. A cover letter may allow students to feel as though they have control over their writing, and thus take responsibility for their learning.

Hmmmm....

Gerriets' (Gerriets's? Gerrietsis's?) idea about cover letters and dialogue is definitely a new one for me. I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about the idea, though I can definitely see where it could have some merit.

I quite like this part at the beginning: "To reach this diverse group of students, I need to establish a conversation with each student and build on it throughout our time together. The specific practice I feel most confident about in my writing classes is the ongoing dialogue between me and each student" (255). Like I've mentioned in this space before (being the snooty one with teaching experience), I found my relationship with the students both the most important part of my teaching and the part with which I had the most ease. Even when my actual teaching and ability to communicate with the students was somewhat lacking, I could always fall back on our good relationship to maintain a relatively orderly and productive classroom. I liked how Gerriets used the cover letters to establish and maintain this relationship and develop a strong connection that allowed him to communicate information and advice.

Where Gerriets makes me a bit nervous, however, is on 260: "many of them will not accept such instruction from me as an authority figure; instead, they need to see me as a friend who corrects and exhorts them for their own good."

Um, what?

From what I've experienced and heard from other teachers, being seen as a "friend" instead of a teacher is one of the biggest problems a teacher can have. I'd rather have my students see me as an authority figure, even if that sacrifices part of our relationship. Being just a friend saps much of the authority a teacher should have, even if the students don't necessarily like it.

So that's my big concern with Gerriets, though I'm giving strong thought to using the cover letter idea in my class. I appreciate the need for trust and a good relationship, but getting too friendly is always a problem.

Garriets and Teacher Response

I found the Garriets piece particularly interesting because I have continually been concerned with the concept of teacher response and how I will go about doing it when the time comes. I love the idea of the cover letters that Garriets utilizes, and I think that the best part of this article is the fact that his student, Jennifer Lowe's, responses are taken into account in the writing of the article. I think that it's not only important for us to think about it from the perspective and goals of the teacher, but also that of the student.

I think Garriets gets right to the heart of a blockage of student and teacher interaction when he quotes Jennifer: "I will never forget it [receiving the letter] because of how scared I was when I saw it. Usually the only time that a teacher takes time to write to students personally is when they did something awful" (257). I personally think it is extremely important, in whatever way you can manage it, to establish a relationship with each of your students and get to know them and the way that they think. This is something that isn't present in high school student-teacher relationships. From my own experience, I went to a tiny high school (72 in my graduating class), but this didn't automatically mean that the teachers went out of their way to get to know each student and the ways each student learns best and where most of their difficulty and strengths with assignments lie. Because I excelled in English, I did have a pretty close relationship with my English teacher, but in some of my weaker subjects, like Math and Sciences, I had virtually no relationship with the teachers and I'm sure they hadn't the foggiest idea of why I did as poorly as I did in their classes. Sadly, I think this is completely backward. Not only should teachers try to have relationships with their students, but I think it's even more important to have one with the students who aren't doing so well. How else do we help them? So, in entering a college course, probably one of their first, I can see where students would be shocked, as Jennifer was. Her words couldn't better describe the reaction I would've had to a letter accompanying a Math test in school. Instant heart attack.

On that note, although it will be surprising to students to receive that kind of concentrated attention to their writing, I also think it would be an immense benefit. I have vented my own frustrated previously on the blog, even with assignments on which I've done well, to the short little comments like "Very Good -- A" that I have received from teachers. Like in the Fox article, I felt that my work was going out into the world where an audience (even if an audience of one) would read and respond to it, and I feel pretty ripped off at putting in a ton of effort just to hear it was "good" or "watch your grammar" or some canned response like that. It has always made me feel like I must be one of 10 people in the class reading the same response. This is why I love the idea that Garriets proposes with using cover letters to get a dialogue going with your students, and using them throughout the semester to establish a relationship, not only with the student, but with their work.

I think this would prove beneficial to both the teacher and the student, and this is something I would like to try in my teaching. For the student, he or she is getting the response that their effort deserves, and they will get the feeling that I'm not only "really there" and reading, but I'm interested in helping them. Also I like his emphasis on being supportive when they are doing something well, and in beginning the letter with some positive reinforcement. I think that this would go a long way in establishing a student-teacher relationship built on trust. If the students think I'm just out to play "grammar police" with them, I don't see how they will trust my advice, or put any personal investment into anything they write for me. The further we go in this class, the more that I believe that the personal investment has to be there if anyone in the class is to be successful.

I think this is an immensely helpful technique for the teacher for a couple reasons. For one, realistically speaking, when we are working full time (someday we hope), it's a possibility that we will come into contact with a rather large number of students each semester, so it might not be feasible to establish a relationship with each and every one of them through their participation in class, or office hours, as some will probably not do that much of either. I think that, for the shy students who don't feel comfortable with that, it would be a huge benefit, because we may not get the same chance with them as with the more outgoing students. I think as teachers, it will be extremely important that we make a connection with each student. Given, it probably isn't all that probable to think it will always happen, or always in the way that we would like, but I think that requiring letters, or journals that circulate between myself and my students on an ongoing basis, I can come that much closer. I think that if there is a standing relationship, that the student will be more likely to make an effort to consider my advice in a more serious way, and will be egged on by my encouragement. I don't know about anyone else, but I don't want to be just an evaluator. I want to think of myself as someone who is helping, and I don't know if people will be likely to let you help them unless they feel that they have some kind of relationship with you, and that you're not just an authority or someone who has the "last word," but someone who wants to show you how to improve and come out of the course successfully with new knowledge and skills. I also think that this technique would work well for accomplishing one of the goals of the curriculum, as listed in the instructor's handbook. It it important that students understand and respond to the concept of audience. When their audience never says anything but "very good -- A" or "watch your comma splices," I think it's a bit of wishful thinking on our part. When we're not acting like much of an audience, I don't know how we will impress upon our students how important the notion of audience will be in creating effective writing. In order to teach about audience, I think that we should take the iniative and become a real audience and not just an evaluator. Of course, we will be doing peer response and things like that, where their classmates will also be a part of their audience, but in a way I wonder if we're kidding ourselves in thinking when our students are actually writing that the first audience the student is worried about isn't us.

I only had one professor in undergrad, in an upper level literature course, who really went out of his way to give us full responses to our papers, and I absolutely adored him for it, because I always felt that there was really someone on the other end who was putting as much thought into my paper as I was, and it was encouraging. He always returned a page or so of his responses along with our papers. I have always thought this was great, but in thinking about Garriets's mode of response, I see that it can be even better and more interactive. I think it would be sort of freeing for students to think that instead of pretending that their papers rock all the time, that they can be a bit vulnerable, and instead of going crazy over rough spots that they recognize, that they are able to say to the teacher, "I don't like how things were going in the part about _____. Would you give me some advice on how to make it work?" It seems a lot less threatening (and ultimately helpful) for a student to acknowledge where they feel they're going wrong and ask for help instead of putting up the stone wall and pretending that any draft is ever "finished." As I think we all know all too well, they're never finished, so why teach our students to approach them as finished?

Am I being to formal?

As I was reading through our readings for Monday, I came across a problem I think may arise, especially with freshman that I have been wondering how to handle. As I read through Carl Gerriets article he discussed his letters back and forth with students. At one point, when discussing the letters he said, “A frequent difficulty is getting the students to approach the cover letters seriously yet informally” (Practice in Context 86). That is something I have been wondering about for a long time. I want my students to not approach everything I assign them as an academic piece of writing. The journals I have them write in each class, even more creative assignments are not ones I want them to be so formal in their speech that they are not being themselves. Gerriets does not really solve this, because what he is discussing are the letters that accompany the papers his students turn in. I want to find a way to tell students to write informally but basically not get a jumble of incoherent crap mixed in with misspelled words and fragments of sentences.

I guess this goes along with the stereotypes discussed in the two articles we read, where we see those from upper middle class neighborhoods and good public schools as the typical better writers, and the ones Gerriets discusses who come to his community type two year college, but this expression of self within someone’s writing, to me, would come more coherently from someone who is not the typical college student because they are not used to writing and expressing themselves in a college setting. To me, it is almost just as crippling to have students always writing academically even when they are not asked to because it shows, to me at least, that they are losing their sense of self in their writing. Yes they may be expressing their ideas, but when they are doing it in a different way than they normally would write or speak, they are conforming.

I want to find a way to tell students it is ok to write informally. I want them to know just because they are in a class doesn’t mean they can’t be free to use contractions and an informal voice for some of their work. I think it will be simply a trial and error experiment. In one of the classes my group and I observed the teacher had students write rather informally. When she discussed their next paper she told them they needed to be more formal, they couldn’t swear and write the same way they did for the last assignment. I think maybe just talking to student’s, telling them just how formal or informal you want them to be is the only way to get somewhere. It is very easy to say how many pages you want a paper to be, how you want it formatted, but trying to tell students what kind of “voice” to use is a much harder task.

A few observations on the creation of the multimodal presentations...

1.) Technology takes time. I mean, wow. I am sure not everyone left the assignment until the weekend, but for those who did, I am sure it consumed some major time. I was in a multimodal induced coma of sorts, with "This I Believe" segments ringing in my head. My husband watched the show and said something like, "This is what has taken you all weekend? Just to make four minutes?" Note to self: start earlier next time, and work when husband is at work.

2.) There is a steep techie learning curve. I spent 60% of my time figuring out how to do something and 40% of my time actually doing it. The good news this that things go much faster once you understand what you are doing.

3.) A cool idea is not always a feasible one. I found all these great videos to put in my presentation, figured out how to upload them, finally placed them in my slide show, and then crash. Crash. Crash again. "Do I want to notify Microsoft of the problem?" No. No. No. I must have tried 50 times. Sometimes cutting bait and forming plan B is best in order to focus on the feasible. We aren't Steven Spielbergs. (Although if anyone else had crash problems with Windows Movie Maker and overcame them, let me know, I still want to learn how to do it.)

4.) The research can be more valuable as the end product. I was thinking we could use the blog to share some of the tools most helpful to us in creating these assignments. Might help with point #2 above. Share if you want!

For example:

Uploading device: Firefox's videodownload helper. And convert helper.
Presentation program used: ProShow, http://www.photodex.com/ I could not get Windows Movie Maker to do anything I wanted it to do without crashing.
Audio editing software used: Audacity, http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ (Alex told me about this.)
Audio Material used: Public Radio Exchange, http://www.prx.org/. Really cool site, with thousands of public radio clips. Free to use with a basic account.
Pictures: Google Images. Love it.

I think that is about it for mine. For those of you who used videos, I am curious where you got them. Youtube?

A grudging defense of multimodal projects

A visiting poet gave a lecture in one of my classes yesterday. During the question and answer period, one of my classmates asked what he thought about young people's interest in poetry these days. His answer was grim. The poet concluded that most young people dislike poetry and will continue disliking poetry no matter how much they are exposed to it in college or beyond. The reason for this is not because poetry is confusing, abstract, or even downright nonsensical. Any viewing of modern cartoons will demonstrate that today's youth have no problem with these qualities. Instead, the poet believed that young people dislike poetry because the first (and often only) place they encounter it is in the classroom. Thus, the abstractness that should have been whimsical becomes threatening. Young people see poetry and consciously or subconsciously think "How will I be tested on this?"

I think one of the advantages of technological or multimodal composition is that it is not yet (or perhaps ever to be) associated with the classroom. Movies, music, IM chat, texting, these all still exist in the realm of "fun" or at least practical.

Another inherent advantage of multimodal composition, particularly film based composition, is that its requisite accessibility invites a wide audience. Ever since Durst we've been learning that students are pragmatists and they will tailor their work to suit the audience. More often than not, the audience is just the teacher and all they really want out of him or her is an adequate grade. If you enter a project with the philosophy "let's make this just good enough" then it can never be anything but that. I don't believe in accidental brilliance. The only way a student will ever ache with caring while composing is to keep in mind the right audience. No offense to the teachers of the world, but frankly, we by ourselves generally aren't enough.

I've been browsing through youtube over the last few days, looking for inspiration. Most of the time I'm not searching for "school project" type videos. I'm just clicking on stuff that makes me laugh. It's amazing how many exuberant, unprofessional, and utterly brilliant videos there are that kids have just slapped together for the fun of it. Well, not just "slapped together." Some of them, while clearly made by amateurs, are remarkably sophisticated. People pour hours of creativity and effort into these clips, and for what reason? They want to send their compositions out to a wider audience. They want to say "Hey, look what I did!"

If I could inspire half the dedication I've seen in some of these videos, I'd consider myself a successful teacher. And on that note, I'm off to put together my own mulimodal project. God help me figure this damn thing out.

Oh the rhetoric I have learned

I read Daniel Keller’s chapter about thinking rhetorically because, as an undergrad, I took a rhetoric class where we focused more on the placing, coloring, spacing, etc. of objects. As I would sit through this course I would wonder why we were learning this, why we were spending our time looking at adds from Cosmopolitan or GQ. After looking at images we would then look at ads online. It was Christmastime so there were many ads to analyze. Little did I know I would end up taking much more from the course than those who sat through lectures on Plato and Aristotle. At the end of the course we were asked to compile a project where we looked at an event rhetorically. We had to look at everything that was happening around us, from what people wore, how they interacted, the setting of the event, the placement of objects, and many more. While this article focuses more on creating your own video to be viewed rhetorically, I think what I did in class was also a multimodal assignment because we were constantly viewing images and analyzing them.

The videos Keller refers to are viewed on a more complex level than what I was asked to do in class. They looked at camera angles, where and why voice over’s occurred, why images fade in and out in certain ways, and the music and images used. As he writes, it is much harder to sit and write about the videos Beth and Dan created because there is so much occurring in such a short amount of time. This certainly makes me think back on my class. At times we would spend our hour and fifteen minute class looking at only two or three images. You become so involved in why images appear how they do, why things are placed where they are, and the conclusions you draw that it becomes very easy to discuss a single image for a very long time. When discussing a tv ad as opposed to a print ad we would view the add a few times before discussing initial impressions then we would rewatch the ad when people would bring up specific things from the ad. We would sometimes spend a whole class or even more on a single tv ad.

As I think now about multimodality and why we use it, I think now of how in-depth and informative a paper I could have written about a single print or tv ad. Especially tv ads, where in a short 30 second clip you have some much to look at and even the things you did not look at, like sounds and music. For my students I will definitely do something that deals with seeing images rhetorically. I think taking one image and showing them just how much they can dissect it will hopefully help them see that they can do this in many other things. Even having them create something multimodal that the class can then share and analyze would really help them see things rhetorically. To be honest, I never thought, once I stepped out of that class that I would ever use what I did in that course again (because I really didn’t feel that I learned anything) but I’ve come to see that I learned more in that class than I did in others where I simply sat and listened to lectures and took notes. It’s a very nice revelation.

college is the time to experiment...with multimodality

It seems like much of the tension surrounding multimodal composition is focused on new media technology. Branscum and Toscano address many of those concerns in chapter seven, “Experimenting with multimodality.” The authors emphasize a need to “focus on rhetorical effectiveness” when experimenting with multimodal composition (p. 85). This is a good point, too, because it reiterates the fact that we are, first, teaching composition (which should comfort those who are queasy about new technology), and that new writing technologies should be used to fulfill our purpose.

Many of the suggestions in the chapter may seem like common sense, but I’m guessing when something goes wrong in the classroom, common sense might fly out the window. The point is...this is a great reference chapter to have on hand.

The authors also explain how a class might go about learning a new software program or piece of equipment:
-Keep a technology log to jot down notes and comments when learning to use new software or equipment. These can be printed for everyone else in the classroom or posted on Vista for reference. If one person is testing something new, he or she can share what is learned to others who might benefit from that technology. Not only does this support collaborative learning, it also emphasizes the knowledge gained from personal experience and teaching others.
-Take advantage of other campus resources: IT departments and the library multimedia lab. It might be helpful to have a specialist come to your class to discuss new technologies, or perhaps take a field trip to the library and check it out in person.

Below are some web resources for new media technology and relevant issues that I find helpful:

http://dmp.osu.edu/DMAC/resources.html
-This site has various PDF documents that are quite handy, such as a multimodality bibliography and an Audacity handbook.

http://www.hu.mtu.edu/~awysocki/resources01.html
-Don’t miss the “toolbar” at the top left corner of the page.

http://www.lynda.com/
-Video tutorials, etc. I think there is a trial you can get for free, but after that you might have to dig into that student loan. I admit it, this is kind of a tease, but it’s probably worth it if you’re going to buy a bunch of software handbooks anyway…

http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~schneidw/digital/
-This is a web page for one of my OU digital imaging professors; it’s dense, but has really good information and detailed explanations. If you want to learn how to use Photoshop, this is your man.

Assessment rubrics

I chose to read chapter 8 on Responding and Assessing multimodal projects (and not just because Brian was one of the authors). One of the issues that gave me pause (other than the multimodality of it all; I'm still doing my best to reconcile myself to that concept) was the discussion early on of rubrics constructed by the class.

On page 101 the text says "Creating a collaboratively constructed rubric--or using other similar instructive-assessment strategies--helps to make classroom expectations, including the newer elements of multimodal texts, more apparent for both teachers and students."

This is something I've thought about quite a lot in putting together my assignment sheet and in general about getting ready to assess a class. I'm by no means an expert on most of these multimodal concepts, so it's going to be tough for me to tell students exactly how I'm going to grade them on, for example, a film project. How systematic do I make the grading procedure? I know students have very definite ideas of fairness and want to know exactly how they're being assessed. But having the transparency of a defined rubric in which they'll see exactly how many points they get on each individual category seems a little problematic. It makes it much easier for students to quibble over every single point, for one thing. It also takes away some of our wiggle room; in general, we know what an A or a B or a C looks like, right? Or do we?

Back in the day...

Wolman, David. “When Tech Attacks!” Wired (Sept. 2008): p. 31-34.

When in doubt, blame the latest technology. Socrates thought the advent of writing would wreak havoc on the powers of the mind. Christian theologians denounced the printing press as the work of the devil. The invention of the telephone was supposed to make letter-writing extinct, and the arrival of the train – and later the car and plane – was going to be the death of the community.

Now comes a technological bogeyman for the 21st century, this one responsible for a supposed sharp uptick in American shallowness and credulity: the Internet and its digital spawn. Witness the wave of books and essays implicating the wired world in a sudden rise in uncritical thinking and attention deficits.

…Yes, it must be acknowledged that the Web provides remarkably easy access to such bogus ideas. On top of that, there’s the human tendency to seek out information that supports preexisting assumptions, a behavior psychologists have dubbed homophily. The Web magnifies this echo-chamber effect.

…The Web is not an obstacle in this project [remedying stupidity]. It’s an unparalleled tool for generating, finding, and sharing sound information. What’s moronic is to assume that it hurts us more than it helps.

Read the entire article here: http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/16-09/st_essay

I learned photography with a film camera, and I spent more time in my darkroom than I probably should have (adolescent development +harsh chemicals=high probability of cancer, etc…). When I discovered Photoshop and digital cameras, I was amused but definitely not converting. Silver halide crystals were the real McCoy; pixels were a sad imposter. Now, this stubbornness is slightly justified, in that when these new technologies came out, they were pretty poor in comparison to my darkroom and keen eye for an exposure that needed tweaking or a face that needed burning.

Needless to say, I no longer own a film camera, and I enjoy using Photoshop and not having contact with toxic chemicals. But I’m sure the smell of fixer would bring me back to the good old days. I appreciate the affordances in digital photography knowing the extra energy, money, and time I would be wasting in a darkroom ruining my film because the temperature was two degrees off.

Anyway, I thought digital photography was a false art and a trend that would soon die; it wasn’t the real thing, so what good could it be? In fact, I was adamantly against color photography until I moved out of the darkroom. I was a stubborn kid, trying to make excuses for things I didn’t have access to (a decent digital camera or a color darkroom), and for things I didn’t know.

Flash forward a few years to my senior year in college, the same year Mac introduced OS X. That was like the jump from my parents’ Kaypro 10 to a Gateway with Windows 3.1: it had a mouse attached to it. The screen wasn’t green and black. It had a CD player.

Anyway, OS X came with iMovie and Garageband, so instead of doing my documentary photography class project in the traditional digital slide with caption format, I put the images into iMovie and included audio from interviews with the subjects of the documentary. There was a huge difference: not only was it fun to watch, but the story was richer and had more depth due to the impact of human voice combined with the images. Yes it took longer for me to put together, and I had to learn a variety of new programs to execute my project, but I did learn important skills in what I now know as rhetorical choices. As Hess argues, “one of the most important reasons to design assignments for multimodal composition is to expand students’ thinking about composing and how this complex set of processes works….Effective composing assignments, we believe, involve students in reflection about not only the processes, but the products of composing” (p. 29). In addition, “we encourage both teachers and students to undertake such work with the goal of thinking about what humans can accomplish when they use different modalities – and all available rhetorical means – to communicate as effectively as possible” (p. 30).

I like the assignments discussed in _Multimodal Composition_ not because I “like” multimodality and have a beef with traditional academic writing (I’ll probably assign both types of writing). I think the point to understand about any writing (multi- or monomodal) is that the form is chosen by the writer to best convey the content, argument, etc. through the effective use of the rhetorical means available. The writer needs to understand the importance of the context, audience, content, etc. and then have the skills to combine all the elements necessary to invent and create. I don’t think the authors we have been reading are arguing for our students to learn multimodal composition just because it’s trendy or because they want to kill print text. There are choices that need to be made during the writing process, and the mode used shouldn’t be taken lightly; it serves a purpose.

Note: This post isn't necessarily a defense of the so-called 'millennial' way of existence. I know that students (and adults) need to be able to take responsibility for their learning and actions, and therefore, a certain level of respect for everyone in the classroom needs to occur. What I'm not sure I agree with, though, is the argument that new technology is the reason for a lack of personal responsibility and classroom decorum. These things need to be addressed in the ground rules as well as throughout the semester in how the teacher respects the students and vice versa.

Multimodal Assignments and Connecting with Audience...

In reading Chapter 3, "Composing Multimodal Assignments," I began thinking about how these types of assignments might help us to accomplish the goals of the course. This is something that I must admit, I was feeling at a bit of a disconnect about. I was wondering how working in these different technological formats would help students to learn to utilize "all available rhetorical means."

Hess argues: "Because video and audio are more popularly based forms of communication, students have a great deal of experience in receiving and interpreting such communicative forms--much more than they have, indeed, in reading and interpreting academic genres. Students know how video and audio messages are delivered and distributed differently for different purposes and different audiences" (31). This rings so true for me. I think that coming right out of high school, a person is much more likely to be able to connect the mediums of audio and video with the concept of an audience. This is an audience that, for them, is much more concrete, primarily because they are so used to being that audience. The idea of an audience that lurks behind a piece of writing like "The Symbolism in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter." is probably much more difficult for students to see than the audience that eagerly awaits the next High School Musical movie. When I was 18, I certainly would've been able to more easily understand the latter than the former.

This applies, I think, also to the idea of marketing and other related concepts. I'm currently toying with the idea of a course theme something like "The World is a Text" or something dealing with the many different avenues of communication both within the academy and without, because I do feel that if they can see how language functions as communication outside the academy, in an environment with which they are more familiar, that it will be easier to help them relate that to the communication that goes on inside the academy. I see it as a sort of "bridge-building" exercise. (There's the preview of my forthcoming (almost as big as High School Musical) movie...premiering October 13th in SFH room 106.) Although I have disagreed elsewhere on the board that this generation should be treated as a different species from the ones to which we belong and maybe we shouldn't tailor their experiences in school entirely to their experiences outside of school, I guess this is my answer to my own question. I think that if we can start with what they know and inherently understand (yet not stop there) before we even set eyes on them, we can begin to build a bridge between their world and ours.

From this, I think that the multimodal assignments that Hess discusses can be quite useful in introducing and reinforcing the importance of considering your audience in writing, no matter which means you choose to use to write. I think that in a way, that this brings the idea of audience home, much more than only writing alphabetic essays and nothing else. Even in this course, as I work and rework (almost obsessively) my movie, the fact that I'm approaching it with the understanding that I will be showing it to students on the first day of class in an effort to show them what I want them to begin thinking about and give them glimpses into my theory of writing and communication (in all spheres where it occurs) is continually reinforcing audience for me, in a very intense way, and in a way that feels "new" to me. Considering I've been writing for a long time and audience is nothing new to me, I see this as a really powerful tool. If it can make me rethink audience, when audience is something I'm almost instinctively aware of at this point, I think that it will also help beginners to bring this extremely important component of writing into focus. I wonder if there is any more effective way to reinforce the idea of audience....than to have them making videos and audio presentations. They have not been on the receiving end of academic writing, (and if they have, it has been very limited,) but on the other hand, they have been on the receiving end of video, movies etc. for their entire lives. It's a concept with which they are intimately acquainted. So for me, I can definitely understand now, at least on the level of audience, how useful these kinds of assignments will be.

This may kill my grade, but...

Okay, I'm going to come right out and take a stand on this sucker: I'm pretty sure I hate multimodal composition (forgive me, Professor Takayoshi; it's nothing personal).

I have tried my best to be open-minded about the whole proposition. I'm a relatively computer-literate person. Age-wise, I'm a millenial. I have a cell phone and know how to text message; I have an iPod which I love more than I imagine I'll love my children someday; I have two computers (a laptop and a desktop) and use email, the Face Book (did anybody else find that wording/capitalization/spacing in Monday's reading hilarious?), and other internet things regularly. It seems most of us do.

But as far as video/audio-based assignments in my English classes, I just can't convince myself to embrace the idea. Sure, I'll do the multimodal assignments for this class. I'll play my video on the first day of class. I'll do my best to think constructively about the affordances multimodality provides. If I'm perfectly honest, though, unless my mentality changes I'll never voluntarily put multimodal assignments into a class I teach. It's not required in the handbook's course goals (I looked) and, at least with my mentality, I don't think it'll be an effective teaching tool. I'm perfectly willing to admit that's due to a characteristic of my own and not to a larger fault of the concept. But it's how I feel.

My main issue with the idea goes back to an experience I had in seventh grade English class (bear with me). I was required to make a poster about a book, and I picked a challenging sci-fi novel called Creatures of Light and Darkness. When I made my poster, I focused on the content of its written portions (definitions of difficult terms, plot summary, main ideas expressed, and so forth) and didn't do particularly good work on the visuals as I'm not much of an artist. I was given a C- on the project, losing no points on the written materials but failing miserably in the "artistic" segments. I was pissed off. An English class, I reasoned, should be about English and not about my aptitude (or lack thereof) in art. Disciplines do of course cross sometimes, but my lack of ability in one shouldn't preclude my ability to succeed in another.

To my way of thinking, this is the concern in the multimodal concept. Audiovisual materials can present ideas just as alphabetical papers can, but I don't want to deal with them in an English class. It's not a question of time or effectiveness, it's a simple matter of not finding it relevant and constructive to what I want to do in a class. I would much rather use written papers and class discussion to develop ideas. Maybe I'm being close-minded. I'll continue to try to reconcile myself to the idea. But as it stands, I don't like the stuff.

In defense of digital writing

First of all, I’m pretty sure most people at this age (early adulthood…freshmen) have been called ‘lazy’ and ‘self-absorbed’ at least once, and therefore it’s not just the so-called ‘millennials’ that gain those labels. Instead of focusing on the lesson, some of my classmates in elementary, junior, and senior high school would read a magazine, write notes to friends, and chat with each other until the teacher noticed and let them have it. These things are essentially underlife activities, and I think that while they occur in each generation, the form they take may change. Notes to friends are now text messages, the magazine is a myspace or facebook page, and the chatting is still, well, chatting (but it could be a text or an IM).

Ground rules are therefore relevant here: make it a point that computers should be closed or open at appropriate times. If a student is seriously disruptive, discuss the issue with him or her after class.

Technology: let’s face it, it changes. The point is not to simply teach the technology, but to teach the students how to make significant and critical rhetorical choices that express ideas and arguments in meaningful ways, often utilizing various technologies to do so. As the WIDE Research Center Collective puts it:
“…the ability to compose documents with multiple media, to publish this writing quickly, to distribute it to mass audiences, and to allow audiences to interact with this writing (and with writers) challenges many of the traditional principles and practices of composition, which are based (implicitly) on a print view of writing. The changing nature and contexts of composing impacts meaning making at every turn” (“Changed context for writing”).
Rather than simply producing a textual artifact, digital writing allows our students to understand a range of writing activities. Publication and distribution (“Changed context for writing”) are not necessarily readily available to students in a traditional print text classroom. Access to a digital network (Internet) allows them to publish their work and perhaps receive feedback sooner than if they were to try to publish their work in a scholarly journal. It allows them to be public authors with an audience that is outside the classroom.

There are things that simply cannot be accomplished with a print text. Or if they can, the information may not be portrayed in the best possible way through print. Video, audio, print, etc. in various combinations can accomplish communication on many different levels. Since we have the ability to use these technologies and modes, and since our students will probably come in contact with them in their futures, we need to help prepare them to make effective rhetorical choices in multiple ways.

Check out these videos made by the Digital Ethnography program at Kansas State University: http://mediatedcultures.net/mediatedculture.htm
One of the videos looks at these millennials while others discuss technology and writing.

My mom and multimodality: a tenuous connection

My mom received her Master's in Library Science in 1976, a year before I was born. She worked in the Berea Library doing the things librarians do-- helping researchers, sorting books, keeping records. Her job appealed to her meticulous organizational skills, and she loved her career, although she left shortly after I was born to be a stay-at-home-mom for a few years.

When I was in elementary school, her library knowledge was invaluable, specifically when it came to the Dewey decimal system. A research paper on Ohio geological rocks? Head over to the 530's. Information on the Mormons? Check out 225.5. She seemed to be an endless source of seemingly meaningful information, and I was in awe of her education.

But things changed in the Library Science field while she was at home, away from the developments in library technology. When I was in 8th grade, I remember taking a trip to the library with my mother to do some research on the Titanic for a term paper. I sat down at the green-screen CRT and dutifully typed in s: (subject) Titanic. The computer spit out my sources, which I could print on the dot-matrix printer and take to the stacks. My mom was over at the card catalog, with their oak drawers and yellowing cards, looking up the location of whatever she was interested in at the time. Her reluctance to use technology at the library was real and unwavering. It wasn't until they hauled those card catalog drawers away that she finally took a seat at the computer, confused and defeated. She still stuggles with technology today.

Watching this sort of sad transformation of my mother's career made me vow not to get completely left behind in the technological revolution. I've stayed on top of it OK. I blog, I digg, I youtube, I get most of it. But reading the Carlson article made me realize I am definitely not a millennial, and as a teacher, I am not sure I want to encourge all of the millennial behaviors in the classroom.

I think it is sort of a travesty that students don't know how to "sit and listen" (a36). And I'm not sure I buy that it is because they are "too busy" (a37). (Although Jenn did make a good point in class today about the working nature of today's diverse student body compared to the more elite students of decades ago whose parents put them through college.)

The bottom line is that some of the behaviors described in the Carlson piece as behaviors of this new generation (i.e., multitasking during class and "paying attention without paying attention") strike me as unacceptable in both the classroom and in the "real world." I understand that students can do more than one thing at once and that someone doesn't need to look at me to understand what I am saying, but isn't classroom engagement easier if you, well, appear engaged? By providing students with a multimodal environment, how much do we exacerbate these behaviors and deem them acceptable? Is there a relationship between multimodal classrooms and discipline? Does discipline really matter in the classroom anymore so long as everyone is learning? We talked a little about it in class today, but I am interested in discussing it some more.

Although it is easy to dismiss some of the millennial's behaviors, I also want to understand them. I want to understand how today's students (although I am in the precarious position of being one again myself) think and process information, not just because I am going to teach them. I also want to understand them so I can see if I want to join them (I'm not that old), if I want to elect them (technological capability has been made an issue in the presidential campaign), and to see what I need to learn to stay on the technological learning curve, if not ahead of it.

And I want to understand them so I don't end up like my mother.