Calling Out Writing Teachers

Working on writing up my survey materials today–here’s a great perspective from one participant that I don’t think I’ll be able to weave into the write-up but want to share, regardless.

“I think our discipline needs to develop better descriptive/predictive/even prescriptive models for collaboration: what techniques to use for what kinds of projects, etc. To me, the social dynamics are what makes collaboration so valuable, complex, and sometimes frustrating. Also, we should be teaching these techniques in our classes, rather than just making students collaborate and expecting they’ll magically figure out how.”

Yes, yes we do. I had an epic fail this semester on getting students to participate in a collaborative writing project, but reading this inspires me to try, try again.

Now, back to the write-up.

Wordling through analyses

So, for the last week (plus), I’ve been busily crunching, slicing, and coding my data on my collaborative writing survey.  As one step in my analysis of textual results (really more on whim than out of serious methodological considerations), I created wordles of responses for three of my questions.  Here they are in all their splendour:

Question 21: “Based on your experience, what are the positive aspects of group writing?”

Question 22: “Based on your experience, what are the negative aspects of collaborative writing?”

Question 23: What advice would you givce colleagues who are about to embark on a collaborative writing project so that they have the best possible results?

Enjoy.  Full discussion of results forthcoming (if I ever finish…)

Do The Wave

(Because nobody’s used THAT one about Google Wave yet, I’m sure).

Link of note (mostly because it mentions/concerns me).

More on the Wave and its writing instruction potential to come, as I become more familiar with it.  I just got my invitation the other day, so it’s all quite new and shiny and exciting, but I have miles of papers to grade before I can honestly just sit down and play.

Fits & Starts

Warning: Reflective Maundering Ahead.

“Well, one morning recently while I was shaving–probably after a period of feeling conscience-stricken about my repeated failures as a teacher of writing –I stuck this big nose of mine against the tip of the nose reflected in the mirror and shouted at the top of my lungs, CORBETT, YOU FRAUD!”

in Living Rhetoric and Composition: Stories of the Discipline, 1999.

I’ve hit that point in the semester–you know, THAT one.  The point in the semester when all the grand plans I’ve made for incorporating a new tool (this year, it’s diigo) or discursive situation (blogging) are at the very edge of falling apart.  The point in the semester when that experiment that worked so well on the small scale hasn’t quite caught on yet with the big groups.  The point in the semester where I’m about to decide to scrap it and start over again, planning next year’s class to be completely different, throwing too much energy into rethinking the next syllabus, the next set of assignments, the next cool new thing to do.  The point at which (usually) everything almost disintegrates because I let it.  The point at which I can either decide to stick to my pedagogical guns and fight it out with what I’ve got planned or can hastily scatter my energies in coming up with a new writing assignment.  It’s happened before–and it’s usually a mistake.

So, after experimenting this summer with blogs in my Comp & Research class, I figured I’d just go ahead and incorporate them–just on a limited scale–into one section of my Comp & Rhetoric class (the honors group).  Unfortunately, I didn’t give it nearly as much thought beforehand as I should have.  I didn’t quite come up with “the purpose” for our blogging that would tie in closely to our assignments and community-building (like I did so well in Comp & Research).  And so their blogging–through no fault of their own–has been haphazard and halfhearted at best; dissipated and disparate as a whole.  It’s not bad, but it’s not good, either.  But, unlike previous semesters, I’m not going to scrap it and never come back.  I’ll keep it–but where it belongs, and where I’ve concieved of it, in the second half of the two courses, not in the first.  It’s a start, a lesson learned.

The other thing I’d planned for my students was a collaborative research project; this one’s been rough going, too.  On my part, too many high ideals about independent behavior and spontaneous embrasure of the project on their behalf.  On their part… well, they ARE first year students…  The project is moving, but it’s going slowly, and I’m not 100% convinced we’ll be able to get a really good groove growing.  Maybe (again), something that might better belong in a different course, but not something to drop altogether.  Something to redefine, to describe and delineate better, but not run screaming from.

My other FYC class–well, they’re okay.  We’re moving more slowly than I thought we would be–I explicitly spaced things out differently than in the past, and I like it, but it’s different.  Still, the writing seems to be good, at least this far.  So that’s something.  I continue to refine the studio approach; the repurposing of my classroom from perimeter computer lab with ubermassive seminar table in the center of the room to a simple tables-and-chairs format has been a surprise blessing.  The seminar style is nice, but this new arrangement actually makes the room more easily changed on a day-to-day basis.

I dunno.  I started this all depressed about the many things that seem to be going wrong; but I guess things are going mostly right after all.

Andrews, you fraud.

rrriting. (part 1 of x)

rrriting

Today, I met with my Theories of Composition class.  This course is aimed mostly at English majors who will pursue a career in secondary education but also at those who plan to go off to graduate school, where they’ll be hurled into the ranks of FYC teaching assistants.  Topics range from… well, if you want to read about it, look here.

After a broad discussion of writing, digital text, and multimedia (texts at hand were Yancey’s 2009 report on 21st century writing, Trauman’s video on multimedia and meaning-crafting, and Wesch’s “Machine is Us/ing Us”), I dropped the following “big question” on them:  Why teach writing?

It’s not the first time I’ve asked them this question (and likely won’t be the last), but it is the first time I’ve asked it in this way.  That is, early in the semester, in a discussion of Chapter 1 of Lindemann’s A Rhetoric for Writing Teachers, we emphasized the first word in the question: Why?  The reasons she offers are no doubt familiar to anyone who has grappled with the question on their own, and are fairly standard answers for our discipline: writing is tied to economic power, is a form of social commitment, plays a role in problem-solving, and serves any number of important humanistic functions.  But today, I emphasized a different word: Writing?

Why teach writing, specifically (as opposed to drawing, to videography, to graphics-editing, to podcasting)?  Is the purview of the “writing classroom” really just writing? Or is it tied more closely to composition? Or to rhetoric?  As I pointed out to them, the distinction between these processes and concepts is wider than it might seem initially.  Do we teach writing for a meaningful reason? Or do we simply teach it at the behest of history?  Do we teach writing because it’s important culturally, socially, economically, individually, materially, or do we teach it “just because”?  (Other questions, which I won’t get into here, today, now–what counts as writing? and when we teach writing, what are we teaching?)

Though it might seem otherwise, asking “Why teach writing?” isn’t a summative dismissal of alphabetic text (though it could be).  Today, however, I ask it as the foundational intellectual (and indeed emotional) issue that any writing teacher ought to give serious consideration to at some point.

Why am I teaching writing?  Why writing?

(to be continued…)

Music to Grade To

I’m always fiddling about with optimum tunes to be my essay grading background music.  I want something that moves, that will help me keep focused and not get too bogged down, but not something that’s so interesting to listen to that I focus on it rather than what I’m doing.  Lots of repetition, lots of beats, lots of movement, some good music, but something I can lose myself in.  Usually, for example, I listen to something like And Justice for All… Lately, I’ve been listening to bands like Lamb of God, which behaves sometimes like a lot of white noise at the right volume (Mastodon, on the other hand, is far too muscially interesting–I find it helpful for reading, but not for writing).

Today, Greg tweeted “some gabber to get in the mood”, and so I checked it out on a whim (video below).  I then proceeded to grade with nearly autotelic intensity.  I don’t know if it’s causal, but I’m keeping this video close by to see if this stuff holds up for grading purposes.  Might be helpful, as I’ve been having problems getting “in the mood” to really get essays done (and good writing done, for that matter).

Possible Replication Study

Noël, Sylvie, and Jean-Marc Robert.. “Empirical Study on Collaborative Writing: What Do Co-authors Do, Use, and Like?” Computer Supported Cooperative Work: The Journal of Collaborative Computing 13.1 (2004): 63-89. Academic Search Complete. Web. 14 Sep. 2009

This article might make for an interesting replication microstudy, especially given the rise in popularity of collaborative authoring tools such as Google Docs.  Noel and Robert found in their study that authors preferred email and individual word processors for collaboration; does the availability of free collaborative word processing change things?

Might mesh neatly with my secondary (?) research interest in “digital scholarship”–which collaboration plays a phat role in.

Microstudy Ideas

Moleskine: Because I'm Pretentious!

In the interest of getting things out of the scratchbook (literally!) and into the dumping ground, here are a few of the ideas that’ve been rattling around upstairs for my 5363 microstudy. So, in no particular order:

Idea One–Invention Remediation Study:

Compare invention/prewriting between students using tablet PCs (nearly ubiquitous now at my uni.) and pen & paper.  Are there significant differences between prewriting done in the two technological spaces (spatial? extent? messiness? ___?)  This is could be interesting–the tablet PC remediates pen & paper through the stylus and programs such as Microsoft OneNote and Windows Journal, both of which allow users to handwrite rather than type.  (While still allowing typing, visual clips, hyperlinking, etcetera).  The only limitation here is that I am only teaching one full section of 1310 (the honors class isn’t a comparable population for such a study), so I’d have to get the cooperation of another instructor doing a largely similar writing assignment.  I’ve got someone in mind, but still have to talk to her about it.  I’d be interested in descriptively comparing prewriting done on tablets (with OneNote) to prewriting done on paper.

This one, after having written about it, certainly seems most doable as a microstudy.

Idea Two–Digital Who-Whats?

This is exploratory and perhaps more than mildly dissertationally-directed, and includes a number of (still slightly fuzzy) options.  This could be done via a number or combination of methods:

Compare how students’ use of a specific digital discourse or tool (social networking, wiki,  google) changes as they progress through college.  This could be narrowed in any number of ways: specifically tailored to particular population (English, English & Writing majors) or draw on a larger university population.  Couldn’t be a true “progression” study, as I’d have to study the same specific population (i.e. a graduating class) of students.  But it could be an interesting qualitative comparison or case study.

What are some attitudes about digital discourse (social networking/wiki/blogging) in different disciplines?  Among students? Among faculty?   I suppose there’s a hint of replication here of Stephanie Vie’s study, “Digital Divide 2.0″ (2008), one of my journal review assignment articles, as well as an offshoot from the metaAcademia project that my coresearchers and I put together for Fred’s class this summer.

Again, as I write through these ideas (I must nod to Emig, I suppose), I come to realize that while interesting, the Digital Who-Whats? options may not be as viable for microstudy as the revision idea.  I deleted a bunch of half-crazy too-large ideas just by putting them down here.

There.  Metacognitive moment over.

So, there it is.  Commentary is welcome.  (If it weren’t, I wouldn’t put it on the blog!)

Speaking of digital practices and student research, by the way…  If you’re interested, I’m also currently facilitating a project with my Honors 1310 class, about digital practices of social clubs. It’s not super-rigorous at this point (really, it’s just getting started), but hopefully it will be so by the end of the semester.

manifesto

No, fair blog, I have not forgot thee. (But I have gotten lazy.)

I must get back in the habit of writing on a semidaily basis (as per my mission statement). Dear readers, all, I do entreat thee to perform your utmost provocation upon my slovenly hide. This bailiwick I must carry; this bugbear I must fight.

Seriously. I gotta write some sh**.

Digital Who-whats?

In my two freshman composition classes this semester, my students and I have been talking about the “digital native” and whether or not they self-identify as digital natives, to what extent, and so forth.  I’ve really enjoyed listening to and reading their responses–especially seeing how varied they are–to the texts we’ve been reading (everything from the introduction to Born Digital to interviews with Mark Bauerlein).

Some of them immediately embraced the identity, busily rejecting many of the negative aspects of the stereotype, while others were quite happy to point out that they didn’t see themselves like that at all.  Some have embraced the news media’s (and probably their parents’) disdain for elements of digital culture like wikipedia, blogging, twitter, and the like; others are self-proclaimed Facebook addicts.  Though many of the assumptions and generalizations they’re making are raw and uncritical (to be expected at this point in the semester), it’s definitely a group ready to think–and talk–things through.

It’s definitely a good reminder that overgeneralization–especially on my part–is dangerous; a reminder that this “digital native” thing is a population, not a generation.  Though the changes being wrought by the digital paradigm are massive, it’s important to distinguish meaningful change from hyped change.

More on that later.

Side note: I got asked a very good question today: “Does success in this class depend on being a digital native?”  I chuckled, but it’s a good question–a good reminder to stay cognizant of what they do and don’t know, and what is and is not REALLY important for success in the class, and not assume that my digital way is the only way.