Teaching Journal #9

Monday started off by me having to give my students an extension on their peer reviews. A number of my students did not complete their peer reviews because they waited to email each other links to their projects (even though I warned them many times against this.) This just further convinces me to create a Blackboard folder for project 2 links and peer reviews (like we did in 5910) the next time I teach this assignment. I let them turn the peer reviews in by noon on Tuesday and everyone met that extended deadline. I think I need to spend more time ironing out the logistics of teaching this project the next time around.

 

As an introduction to the discourse community ethnography unit readings, we discussed John Swales’s “The Concept of Discourse Community” and Cathy B. Glenn’s “Constructing Consumables and Consent: A Critical Analysis of Factory Farm Industry Discourse.”

 

In an effort to get my students thinking about project 3 early on, I had them define Swales’s six criteria for discourse communities and then we evaluated their suggested sample discourse communities as a classed based on those criteria. This wasn’t as illuminative for the students as I had hoped it would be, but I think it gave them a good base for starting to think about discourse communities, because their understanding slowly grew throughout the week. Plus, they are required to use Swales’s criteria as an evaluative tool in picking out their discourse communities on which they will write their ethnographies, so I think this was still a valuable exercise, and I would do it again. However, I might preface the activity by telling my students that they have to put each criterion in their own words. Often they would just read verbatim from the text and have no idea what each criterion actually meant.

 

With the Gee reading, “Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction,” I spent a little more time than usual on key terms, and I am glad I did. My students expressed serious confusion on discourse v. Discourse and the relationship between primary/secondary and dominant/nondominant. By forcing my students to attempt to define these terms, and then clarify and show examples when their ideas were a bit off, I think I was able to help them get a better basic understanding of the text. I was also able to elaborate on the relationships between these terms, which in some cases can be more confusing than the definitions themselves (i.e. a primary Discourse can be dominant or nondominant.) The rest of the class was whole class discussion, and went pretty well once the tone of the article had been set by our discussion of Gee’s pervasive key terms.

 

On Friday we discussed Wardle’s “Identity, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Workplaces.” I used Christina’s “trick email” activity as a way in to discuss authority in writing and discourse communities. I always email my students the homework that will be due for the next class a couple of hours before class time. So Friday, I took the opportunity for a teaching moment by sending my class an email about the homework for Monday that broke many of the conventions of the accepted genre as defined by our class. The email read as follows:

 

Hey peeps,

 

4 Monday do a RR on Devit &co….n doont forget to pick out a discourse community 4 ur paper

 

love, peace, and chicken grease,

 

ur teach

 

When I asked if anyone had read my email, a few laughed and nodded their heads. I displayed my email on the board for those who hadn’t had the chance to read it, and we discussed how the email affected their view of my authority. Somewhat surprisingly, the students all responded that the email did not make them think of me any differently. Those who didn’t just write it off immediately as a joke were very firm in their assertions that this did not give me any less authority in the classroom. They said that because I adhere to formal email conventions so often, they were less inclined to take this email as an indication that I was ignorant of or unwilling to conform to genre conventions. We actually got a very good discussion about authority out of this “trick email,” even though it did not make the students question my authority directly, it got them thinking and talking about authority in writing and discourse communities.

 

Overall the week was full of productive teaching. I tried some new activities, used some old favorites, and tweaked some based on the needs of the students and the difficulty of the readings.

Teaching Journal #8

As I rounded out the workshop days for project two, I noticed some trends with my students' projects.

 

Many took the "multi-modal" aspect of this project to mean that they didn't have to actually put a lot of thought into this project. I found, with most groups, a sort of intermediary stage between their story boards and their drafts submitted for peer review. As I went around to each group, assessing their progress and making suggestions on how to expand on what they thought were finished projects, I found myself having again and again to push my students to flesh out their ideas, either via more text or more visuals.

 

The next time I teach this course I am going to steer my students away from PowerPoint. The ones I have seen are really lackluster. And, though I know PowerPoint presentations can be jazzy and engaging in the hands of experienced professionals, I think they can be equally depressing and bland in the hands of the inexperienced student. The Weebly's and Prezi's I have seen seem to be a little easier to make truly multi-modal, with images, links, and embedded videos. Although, on the other hand, it may be more beneficial for students to become fully adept at using PowerPoint masterfully, as they might be more likely to use this visual medium down the line in their college careers and beyond.

 

The next time I teach this assignment I think I will show more examples of student projects. For our workshop day on Friday, I decided to show my students not one example of project 2's from other sections, but many. I like the way this turned out. I may do it again, or I may show more examples of projects earlier on in the process, like when I introduce the assignment. I think my react best when they see examples of what I am expecting. For instance, after class on Friday, one group came up and already had ideas for revision on the visual elements of their project, and they said it was thanks to seeing examples of what others had done. I was pleased, because they were able to self identify a problem with their project before they even had their project peer reviewed, and so were able to get a jump on the revision process over the weekend.

 

In this way we were able to assess different visual approaches to the assignment, something my students had been particularly struggling with. We discussed the design elements of CRAP, the use of hyperlinks, and cohesion between theme (if they had one) and message. I have drilled my students constantly about the importance of including all the elements I ask for in project two. To my delight, they were able to pick out instances where projects were lacking certain elements, even when they were not spelled out in clearly labeled sections.

 

On Friday, I spent some time lecturing on my expectations for peer reviews and revisions. I didn’t want to see the same problems I had seen with project one (peer reviews that only focused on grammar, even when whole required elements of the paper were missing, and revisions that weren't really revisions, just edits made for grammatical errors and typos.)

 

When I teach this course next semester, I am going to incorporate blogs for IWA's. Right now, I have some students turning in paper copies and some emailing me their assignments and it's insane. Lesson learned. I also am going to utilize blackboard more for project two. Why I didn't create an assignment area like we did in 5890 I have no idea. As it is, my inbox is flooded (and I am only teaching one class this semester.)

Teaching Journal # 7

Monday we covered the Wysocki reading. It was clear from the beginning that the students were turned off by the density of the text, and I had a hard time even dragging out of them how Wysocki felt simultaneously pleased with and repulsed by the Peek  image.

 

I used Yavanna’s “gender-separation” activity as a means of starting discussion, and in that respect it was rather helpful. There wasn’t much of a dichotomy between the reactions of the sexes one might have supposed. Many students had a “non-reaction” to the Peek ad. However, those who noted that the picture could be perceived as sexist were girls and those who liked the ad tended more to be boys. In any case, I was able to work in conversation about form as well as aesthetics as I talked with each group and then with the whole class.

 

I asked students to tell me what Wysocki suggests we might need to do if we want to promote social change about how we perceive beauty. I read them some quotes, and asked them to name advertisements or people they thought of as not traditionally beautiful. I showed them some paintings by Peter Paul Reubens, and we agreed with Wysocki that showing nontraditional figures of womanhood is not going to fix the problem. I pointed out Wysocki’s term “particular beauty”.

 

We looked at the ways in which Wysocki’s article was a “visual” text, and compared the article to Bernhardt, who promoted many of the visual tools Wysocki used, but did not use any himself in his article. We also spoke of the ways in which Wysocki pushed at the boundaries of her discourse community with her numerous and inventive ways of visualizing text.

 

Wednesday Lauren was nice enough to teach my class for me, as I was ill. She followed my lesson plan, which had the students individually answering the questions on page 460-1 in WAW and then coming together as a group to discuss and find common themes.

 

The rest of the class involved students formulating their topics and arguments, with Lauren touching base with each group to ensure they were on the right track. She told them that they would have to have their arguments by next class.

 

Friday was very much a workshop day. I was jumping from group to group for most of the class, answering questions as they arose.

 

We explored Weebly and Prezi as a class. I introduced them via the overhead projector and encouraged my students to pick a medium through which they are going to present their projects. I have one PowerPoint, two Weeblys and two Prezis.

 

I wrote down all the elements they would need to include in their projects on the board. I am finding that there is no way around repeating myself in different ways when I talk about these projects if I want them to successfully include all the elements of the assignment.

I showed them writingspaces.org, from which they would read sections for homework and general help on design style and implementation.

 

Almost all my students started their storyboards in class and many got quite far in the process before we ended class. This was helpful because I was able to look at some of the story boards and nip certain problems in the bud. I overheard some groups making plans to meet over the weekend, so I am hoping to see some nice progress on Monday. If it seems like they are behind schedule on Monday I might consider requiring meetings outside of class in the future.

 

I had some problems with keeping the students on task. I think this is always going to be a problem in computer classrooms. I don’t really yell or get angry in these situations, but I do force the student to talk to me about the work at hand by asking them a ton of questions about the assignment, and thus they are forced to start working on the project.

 

 

Teaching Journal #6

Monday I started out class by splitting them up into their groups for project two. I had them exchange emails and phone numbers, and went over some ways in which they could easily communicate with each other via the internet (GoogleDocs, Blogger). I also made them groups on Blackboard, so they can easily communicate via message thread or wiki.

 

I had them do the case study group activity Talitha had us do in 5890. It worked out pretty well, but I found myself having to give a lot of guidance to the group who did the Dwayne Lowery case study. When I asked them basic questions about what happened to Dwayne throughout the course of his life, they were unable to answer and spent much time riffling through the book. This led me to believe they did not read the text all that closely.

 

While overall the conversation derived from this group activity was beneficial, the struggles of the group covering Dwayne Lowery makes me question how closely my students are reading their assigned texts. Complicating matters is the fact that I had assigned a dialectical notebook on the Brandt reading rather than the normal reading response. I had done this once before, with the Dawkins and Bryson readings, and hadn’t noticed too much of a difference in the conversation, though it was obvious that some were putting much more effort into the dialectical notebooks than others. After this class, however, I am finding myself questioning whether I will continue to use the journals, especially on the more theory-heavy reading assignments. I think they can still be useful for some of the narratives we’ve read (King, Lamott, Diaz, X, Alexie, hooks). I could consider assigning a minimum number of quotes each student must take from the text, but I don’t want to limit my students who are really going above and beyond with this assignment. I know a lot of people grumble about reading responses, but they really seem to be the great equalizer with my students; everyone is forced to try to somewhat understand the text in order to complete the assignment…even if some fall short of that understanding.

 

To end the class, I had them take 10 minutes and freewrite about their own literacy sponsors as a bridge in to the next class as well as a way to get them thinking about project two.

 

In an effort to begin class conversation on Wednesday, I had my students take five minutes to do a freewrite in which they answered the following questions: What did you learn about literacy from reading X, Alexie, and hooks? Did you connect personally to any one of the narratives we read? Which one? Why? They responded with interesting tidbits they remembered from the readings for the first question, but responded not at all to the second question. So I asked them how their literacy histories were different, and the conversation took off from there. They were all fairly eager to talk about how literacy sponsors have shaped them (either as avid readers and writers or as uneager and apathetic readers and writers). I think some of them were rather glad to talk about their aversion to reading and enjoyed tracing this dislike back through their literacy histories.

 

After discussing as a class X, Alexie, and hooks, I split them into their groups and had them do a round-robin reading of each other’s literacy histories as yet another attempt to get them thinking about project two. I also went over some of the questions they might ask each other on page 460 in WAW as a way to find a topic.

Friday we went over the Baron reading. The students were very talkative—perhaps, due to the high number of absences, their inhibitions were lowered. Whatever the case, discussion was lively throughout the entire class, and the students especially responded to the Colbert- Alexie interview as well as the texting discussion and activity.

Wysocki Reading Response

Summary

           

In her article, “The Sticky Embrace of Beauty,” Anne Frences Wysocki seeks to explain to fellow teachers and scholars how an image can both please and infuriate her. She notes the inability of current scholarship on form to explain this emotional contradiction, and explains through an analysis of Kant the separation that is inherent between object and form. This separation allows for the objectification of the woman’s body in the Peek ad, which is the source of Wysocki’s displeasure. She feels she needs to explain the reason behind her anger to other teachers so that they in turn might revise their pedagogy to endorse not an abstract view of the object used but a universalizing view.

 

Synthesis

 

Wysocki’s discussion of the universalized versus the real image reminds me of Berger’s discussion of the naked and the nude in his article “Ways of Seeing”. For Berger, the nude is a universalized, idealized image, and the naked is an individual. Likewise, Wysocki cites one of the reasons for her anger at the image of the woman in the Peek ad as the fact that the woman is universalized and so able to be objectified. She wants teachers and students of visual texts to be able to accept and appreciate the strangeness and otherness of the image in a visual text, and this embrace of reality and individuality is akin to the figure of the “naked” woman in Berger’s article.

 

Pre-reading Exercise

 

This ad is kind of cute at first glance, and pleasing to the eye because of the background. However, something about the word-man coming out of the wall, yet still attached to it creeps me out. This ad doesn’t really make me angry per se, but I definitely oscillate between pleasure and discomfort when looking at this ad.

 

Questions for Discussion and Journaling

 

1) Wysocki says that it is socially acceptable to feel pleasure about the article because the image of the woman is universalized and therefore made to be an object, whose sole existence is for our enjoyment. I agree that before I read the article I thought the ad was visually appealing and well done, but her argument has now made me guilty for feeling that way, so I am working to adjust my view.

 

2) Wysocki’s text is highly visual. It utilizes many of the visual principles Bernhardt mentions in her article, and Wysocki, unlike Bernhardt, actually utilizes these principles in her own writing.

 

Applying and Exploring Ideas

 

2) I definitely agree with Wysocki that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. While you can play the numbers game and choose an image that will appeal to the largest number of people, it is a well known fact that you can’t please anyone, and one only need to look at beauty through the ages (think Rubenesque women) or beauty across cultures (tribal tattoos and piercings) to see that beauty is absolutely something that is socially constructed.

 

Personal Thoughts

 

I thought some of the visual elements in this piece were off-putting. For example, what on earth is with the text in the wreath on page 82? Also, sometimes Wysocki would set off her own statements like block quotes, and it confused me as to whether she was citing something or not at first. I am not sure if the visual confusion if from this article being reprinted into ROW, or if the original was also a little confusing.

Baron Dialectical Notebook

“My contention in this essay is a modest one: the computer is simply the latest step in a long line of writing technologies” (425).

            Baron is going to spend this essay talking about the steps various writing technologies take from inception to acceptance.

 

“I asked myself, if humanists aren’t harmful, then what’s the point of being one?” (425).

            One of the many humorous asides by Baron and an instance of his particular, entertaining voice.

 

“Pencil-making processes were from the outset proprietary secrets as closely guarded as any Mackintosh code” (426).

            This is a very apt parallel between two writing technologies that helps the reader to accept the pencil as being, at one time, a cutting edge writing technology.

           

“Plato was one thinker who spoke out strongly against writing, fearing that it would weaken our memories” (426-7).

            It’s hard to imagine that such a learned man could be against writing, especially considering the fact that we are only able to study his teachings through writing. I think a current corollary would be the ill effects texting is having on spelling and grammar.

 

“Both the supporters and the critics of the new communication technologies like to compare them to the good, or bad, old days” (427).

            This reminds me of the “golden age” syndrome, where everyone thinks the generation before them was the best time in which to live.

 

“Surely they walked around all day with a bunch of sharp styluses sticking out of their pocket protectors, and talked of nothing but new ways of making marks on stones” (427).

            I love Baron’s style. Tech geeks get no love.

 

“Doubters could question witnesses, watch their eyes, see whether witnesses sank when thrown bound into a lake” (429).

            Baron brings up one of the reasons people were first resistant to the written word: the difficulty of authenticating a document.

 

“Only when Mackintosh and Windows operating systems allowed users to create on-screen documents that looked and felt like the old, familiar documents they were used to creating on electric typewriters did word processing really become popular” (436).

            Here Baron illustrates how new technologies become accepted—by emulating already accepted forms of writing technologies.

 

“As the old technologies become more automatic and invisible, we find ourselves more concerned with fighting or embracing what’s new” (438).

            Herein lies the fear of new technologies. Something that is so simple as copying and pasting on a word processor seems indispensable to some and frightening to others.

“Literacy has always functioned to divide the haves from have nots, and the problem of access to computers will not be easy to solve” (439).

            This correlates with Brandt’s pattern of social stratification in literacy acquisition. It reminds me of the case study of Dora, whose parents had to save up for a second hand personal computer.

 

“ We have a way of getting so used to writing technologies that we come to think of them as natural rather than technological. We assume that pencils are a natural way to write because they are old—or at least because we have come to think of them as being old” (440).

            “Time heals all” comes to mind here. With age and prolonged exposure comes acceptance.