Genuine Drafting

Your Blog Face

2010-01-27T15:01:00.003-05:00

I have often found students feeling stymied by the task of choosing a title for their essays. I’ve been there too. I often just get done writing this THING, this organic fusion of thoughts and experiences and facts and outside opinions, and now I have to name it? And not just any name, but something that both gives a fairly clear sense of the actual content of the essay and yet offers a hint of creativity or language play. It’s no wonder academics “cheat” by introducing a colon to the mix; thus, as McDonald’s two-sided Styrofoam McDLT containers kept “the hot side hot and the cool side cool,” the two-sided academic essay title can keep the creative side separate from the quasi-literal side.

Which is taking longer to decompose? The styrofoam containers or the McDLTs?

Similar to the agony of choosing a title (an agony bloggers are not free from), there can be much hand-wringing when choosing an appropriate image to represent your blog. Much like an essay title, this image “labels” the blog. It offers a specific visual to the reader that to some degree influences the tenor of the site. Most popular blogs simply have a logo that incorporates their blog title that serves this function as the blog’s image. We in the 109.02 class are not ready to create custom logos for our oh-so-many followers yet, as I assume that no one in the class is strong enough at HTML to introduce a comprehensive design change, replete with logo. What we can do is let a graphic do the representation for us.

My particular choice of clipart shows a young man, “The Genuine Drafter,” fretting in front of a chalkboard, who appears to be contemplating what he wrote and what he will be writing. I am quite happy with this image, as it captures in the face of the young man what I call “the sweet agony” of the writing act. I have considered changing the image because it looks as if the young man might be currently engaged in a math problem; however, at the picture’s size, all that can be made out for certain is that there is writing on the board, and, truly, the expression of the writer is what I most want my blog image to, ahem, express.

A rejected image. Consternation, yes. Sweet agony? Nuh uh.

Coming this Fall on MTV: Real World Freshman Comp Class

2010-01-20T21:46:00.001-05:00

This past autumn, I was fortunate to take part of an English course at The Ohio State University designed to offer experience and guidance in writing articles for professional journals. For the course, designed and taught by Dr. Cindy Selfe, we students were prompted to select a previously written (in some form) essay that we see as being a strong candidate for publication. We selected our work and the target journal and set about revising for the audience we now hand in mind. Additionally, we assumed the mantle of reviewers for the pieces that our clasmates wrote. The entire course was not only an opportunity to better understand the process of producing and re-producing (AND . . . re-producing) an article for a professional journal, it also gave "real-world" application (that is to say an actual audience and purpose) for the writing we were doing in the course.

This real-world application for freshman composition is often harder to achieve for many reasons. As graduate students with backgrounds in Rhetoric and Composition, we in Dr. Selfe's course shared a common discourse community that--despite our specializations and journal selections--kept genre from being an issue in peer review. Likewise, our experience with writing cannot be discounted. Finally, despite what we may believe, I would hazard a guess that most school administrators and department heads (even publicly vocal former heads) would argue that the writing in our classrooms should be designed to be applicable primarily for the writing done in other classrooms (and secondarily to keep T. Rex from symbolically destroying the fabric of the universe). That is to say, composition is first and foremost an instruction in academic literacy. And, in many senses, this class is no different.

However, by turning our attention to blogs while simultaneously writing many conventional schoolroom compositions, we in 109.02 may are trying to better acquaint ourselves with both the academic essay as genre and the blog as genre. A better understanding of both makes for a better understanding of either. At least, that's the hope.Like other classes that try to make such writing tasks more palatable, freedom of topic choice is key. Such is so for the blogs we write, and it is so for the outsider blogs we are expected to read and comment on each week.

Despite this freedom, I am fully aware that most students would not participate in reading blogs weekly (no matter the topic) and contributing comments unless a grade depended upon it. And depend upon it it does, so we will be participating in something quite artificial, even as we venture into the "real world" and comment upon the blogs of others. So the best I can hope for is that at some point during any given comment, the spirit of the conversation inhabits the writer, the 109.02 blogger, and she or he finds herself or himself posting comments of interest, out of the need to communicate, expressand further the conversation--even if the spirit grips for merely half a sentence.

Of course, I may be seller the 109.02 bloggers short. They've had some fun reads thus far.

It begins . . .

2010-01-11T17:16:00.002-05:00

As we embark upon the coming semester of weekly blog posts, let us remember, 109.02 class and followers, that the writing and reading we will be doing online is indeed real writing and reading. It is not "less than" the writing that you will be expected to deliver in the form of essays, nor is it necessarily easier to convey messages and emotion. We will investigate how form and function is similar to most classroom writing and how it differs.

Ultimately, if I can be allowed a moment of cheerleading, I hope that these blogs serve to be sites of agency for you--places where you feel that you can express, analyze, synthesize, champion, and reject ideas without too much restriction (of course, with a concurrent awareness of an audience nonetheless). If much of the communication in our lives take the form of static or noise, let these blogs be distinct, proud voices that carry over the rabble. And let's have fun with them too.

The Guest Blogging Experiment, 2009

2009-03-06T10:52:00.006-05:00

In last year's 109.02 course, the bloggers undertook a covert mission to guest post on a classmate's blog about that particular blog's subject. After everyone read the guest posts and commented on them, the original bloggers wrote follow-ups about the experience of having someone else post on what had been up to that point mainly their text (of course, the inclusion of comments always complicates the ideas of authority and authorship).

Upon reflection, the "invasion" into their hypertextual space gave the bloggers many things to think about.

There were discussions of how the guest bloggers opened new avenues for content on the blogs: "What this means to me, to have this post on my blog is that I have a new perspective on how to shape this blog. When I picked this topic, flipping cars for a profit, I thought I had to write only about how I flip cars and what to do right and what to do. From having this post on my blog, I can talk about the cars them self. Not just about my experiences in flipping cars."
There were realizations that the text can alter the style of the author: "I found in Chase Hardwick’s post the guest writer was more of a joking funny guy compared to Doc Hardwick’s more informal type of posts. He did well by staying with the theme of Doc Hardwick and found a study that showed that in “moderation” (this is a different meaning to everyone) alcohol is beneficial to ones health. But the picture was the main tip off that gave away the fact that it wasn’t Doc speaking in the post."
And in some cases, the little differences in style stood out to the original authors: i also have noticed a lack of enthusiasm considering a Halo topic is my most favorite topic to write. the writer uses the i have played halo before enthusiasm as opposed to my Halo Geek jargon. Also being that i am a huge Halo fan I would have put a video link from the website G4TV from the episode were they talk about the game Halo Wars. I also noticed that the picture was placed in the middle of the blog and i like to place my pictures in the left hand corner of the post.

So what will this round of bloggers notice about the differences of style, the notion of authority, the constraints of topic or genre? We shall see. Do you want to surf through their musings on the subject? Be my guest.*

*Horrible, horrible pun.

Back it up!

2009-02-20T18:04:00.011-05:00

Oh, the multi-purpose phrasal verb. You take on so many interpretations.

As the students of the 109.02 class dive headlong into the first draft of their second papers--for which they are to read a blog/online article summarize it, and respond to it--I thought it was a good opportunity to discus the merits of the reverse outline.

Written after a draft of a paper is complete, a reverse outline is an attempt to describe the text that has been written, whereas a traditional outline, usually sketched before drafting, is typically an attempt to impose (prescribe) a structure and focus for the paper. When writing a reverse outline, an author writes down a few words that describe the topic of the paragraph. When the author discovers more or fewer than one paragraph topic, he may need to reconsider that paragraph. This also provides a wonderful opportunity to check a paper's organization between paragraphs (a popular understanding of the nebulous "paper flow").

Traditional outlines are written and assigned with the intent of helping the author collect his or her thoughts and organize them. Reverse outlines--well, they are written and assigned for just the same reason. Neither outline is essentially superior to the other; typically, their applicability to a writing task is dependent upon the author. Do you need to organize your thoughts before writing? Be traditional. Do you need to get your ideas out first before ordering them? A reverse outline is for you. Most experienced writers find time for conducting both outlines, even if just on scratch paper (like me), in the paper's margins (like me), or in their heads (like . . . well, you get it by now).

Remember the things to look out for when writing a reverse outline:

Paragraphs that have more or less than one central topic.
Paragraphs that do not work in transition to one another or in their place in the paper as a whole.
Paragraphs that are not meeting the expectations of the assignments (for example, in this assignment, the readers would expect to see a summary of the original blog early on in the paper)

Long live the reverse outline! And while we're revering backward things, let's hear it for the moonwalk, Kriss Kross's clothes, and Cooper's Dream from Twin Peaks!

Perhaps next week we'll look at another meaning of "backing up," that of supporting our writing with examples, statistics, anecdotes, and the like.

Setting an Example, Yadda, Yadda, Yadda

2009-02-13T15:37:00.003-05:00

The students in 109.02 are embroiled in the business of discovering meaty blog posts to summarize and respond to for their second essays. I thought, in the spirit of lifting the veil of what can be a challenging assignment, I would briefly model the sort of thing they will be pending the back half of the quarter working on. This may be my bet chance at a modeling gig, save for, perhaps, hand modeling a la George Costanza.

But really, who could compete with silky mitts such as these?

In "Student Blogging--What You Should Know," Sean Rahman of Michigan State University offers a series of tips for the nascent classroom blogger. Rahman notes that some college students will be asked by their teachers blog as part of their coursework, a pedagogical decision that Rahman sees as having many positive effects. Classroom blogs, he surmises, can offer opportunities for lateral learning, create additional means of communication between students and teachers, and "generally make writing more exciting for students." Stressing that classroom blogging is different from blogging in more informal contexts, Rahman lists a series of practical tips for the student blogger. Some of Rahman's suggestions range from urging the student to be aware of the opportunities and constraints of the technology (creating back-up files of all posts and allowing for computer mishaps are covered, for example), some deal with identity (blogging anonymously) and some with community (commenting on classmates' blogs).

Rahman's post trends toward the practical, and some of it could and does apply to using computers for any sort of composition; actually, if the students haven't been persuaded to budget for technical issue in their composing processes now, I doubt that this essay will inspire them to do so. The essay is hinting at being stronger when asking the reader to consider the importance of community in blogging, but Rahman again stays at a practical level, warning the student of half-hearted comments on others' blogs: comments such as "Try to put some "meat" into your post as well--many instructors won't give full credit for 'Me, too!' comments that don't contain any content" are important for students to read, but they shed no light for the student on just why thoughtful comments are integral to the communication found in blogs.

And perhaps this is my hang-up, that in fact the more theoretical sort of explanation is better left to another article. However, I really do think that Rahman misses an opportunity for real edification, having raised the specter of the importance of comments. Why settle for what amounts to a fleshed out checklist in an article that purports to offer students what they "should know" about blogging? Why not explain to them that this is a different genre of writing that has its own rules and context, different indeed from the essays students are normally assigned in class? Why not talk about the importance of design, images, and hyperlinks? I mean, besides their rhetorical value, aren't these part of the package that can cause blogging to be a type of writing that is "more exciting for students"?

Alas, space is apparently limited in Rahman's post, and thus it shall be here. Perhaps it was the author's goal to just provide some practical tips, so in fact, the title of the post is the only clear flaw. I wonder if I ask my students to create a similar list to Rahman's, what they might produce. Most likely, they will have written about a host of things neither me nor Rahman have considered. Yes, perhaps it's time for a little student-to-teacher learning.

NOT the sort of modeling either George or I should be attempting.

Goin' on a Holiday

2009-02-06T12:00:00.006-05:00

Lately I've been doing a lot of thinking about the notion of academic Discourse (the capital "D" is intentional). I've been playing around with the concept of Discourse as "identity kit," as introduced in the work of James Paul Gee. Specifically, I'm interested in the notion of the dominant Discourse of the academy, that which I teach in my English classroom for seventy-eight minutes, three days a week, for ten weeks. Unless I my math has failed me--which as time marches, becomes a greater possibility--that totals thirty-nine hours of contact time in a quarter to acclimate a writer into academic Discourse. Granted, this is not accounting for the time students spend reading, writing, meeting with me, meeting with a Peer Writing Consultant at the Writer's Studio, but the general idea is that our time together strolling through scholastic Wonderland, with the hopes of granting students membership in "Academese" is limited. Of course, Writing Across the Curriculum movements were designed in part to offer more saturation in the Discourse, but for this post, that way lies digression.

What I'm really pondering is what I consider probably the biggest challenge to teaching English Composition (or, really, any course): negotiating the extent of how much students need to assume the value of a given Discourse. Gee states,

Discourses are inherently “ideological”. They crucially involve a set of values and viewpoints in terms of which one must speak and act, at least while being in the discourse; otherwise one doesn’t count as being in it.

In this claim is true, and in order to acquire a Discourse we must share its values to some extant, how do we "teach" our students to value the precepts of Standard Edited American English (SEAE)? It's a puzzler--one that causes my brain to itch from the inside.

I do think, however, that I might better understand the dilemma through popular culture. It is my panacea after all. So here's my state of mind--awash in text, looking for inlets to help students value (for the time they're in school) SEAE, trying to empower the same students by asking them to slightly corrupt SEAE, overtired for all the reading on literacy and classroom learning I'm currently doing--and I'm confronted with this commercial.

And here's the joy: the literacy of freestyle rap is equated with other forms of higher learning that these commercials have covered before, like having the knowledge to be able to deliver a baby. But I do wonder . . . he knows the language, our rapping marketing rep here, but isn't he missing the boat on values too? Isn't this, rather than a promotion of the knowledge gained by staying in a Holiday Inn Express, an indictment of how it takes more (time, effort) to acquire all that which is valued by the community?

I mean, c'mon, check out ol' boy's moves. Is that the robot I spy?

Arrested by the Details

2009-01-30T11:53:00.005-05:00

On the Internet, no one can hear you shiver. Greetings from the rime-slathered Arctic region formerly known as central Ohio. I swear icicles are forming on hawks in mid-flight.

Fear not for the intrepid writers of ENG 109.02, for we are finding warmth and comfort in our words. We are embroiled in writing narrative essays, ways of constructing meaning about the experiences we have had. Our memories are burning bright on the page, with the brilliance of a thousand suns (or, at least, the functionality of a dependable space heater). And what gives our memories that roasting-by-the-fireside glow? Well, the heat of the devil's touch is, as they kind of say, in the details.

With parrot-like fanaticism, I stress the importance of "showing" the details of one's story rather than settling for simply relaying facts. The effect is striking--good "showing" brings the reader into the story with you. I've linked before to Professor Dennis G. Jerz's website that does a wonderful job explaining the difference between showing and telling.

We don't "show" every moment in our narratives; we couldn't. We choose to "tell" certain parts, backgrounding them, so that the moments of showing are that more vibrant and noticeable. Recently I've come to think of these selected moments of showing as short YouTube clips, where we are practically pressing the Play button in our computers to animate the story and bring the reader in.

In the following clip from the sadly-defunct Arrested Development, note how the video starts with a short sentence, a tell: "Job was being taken out to lunch." What follows--what we see, hear, and feel as a result of the action and dialogue--are a lot of details that shows what "Job was being taken out to lunch" entails.

When we go to write stories, we must be prepared to show the sights, the smells, the sounds, the feelings, the gestures, the dialogue, the comparisons that take a simple sentence into an overly dramatic reading of a menu. Remember: when in doubt of whether you are showing and telling, always check for club sauce.

The Computer: Snarky's Machine?

2009-01-23T12:26:00.006-05:00

I’d like to expand on last week’s contemplation on the importance of outsiders’ comments to blog posts. The ability to participate in and perhaps shift the conversation into new directions and the notion that, as long as the original post is still accessible, no conversation is truly “finished,” offer writers and readers of blogs a sense of community and a broader epistemological opportunity than those who share other types of texts. However, there are potential pitfalls. I mentioned the potential of gravitate to blogs that conform to an already established worldview and how the comments can potentially serve to simple support that view with little attempts at challenge, negotiation, or complication. However, there is a phenomenon in tone prevalent in many blogs that can also serve to simply disrupt communication rather than participate in it: the snarky comment.

Snark, often roughly understood as a sense of snide and detached delivery, has come under fire recently in a book by New Yorker movie critic David Denby. Denby posits that the prevalence of snark that he sees in the national conversation is damaging to public conversation. He sees snark as little more than bullying, a position that has been met with supporters and detractors.

For the purposes of the class blogs, I would expect to see little evidence of snark in the comments, like in the previous quarters. Most of the students’ comments are attempts at supporting one other through the act of public writing that there is little desire to get snarky, even when there are disagreements. And this is probably a good thing. While snark—especially when it’s smart and when it’s pointing out the absurdity of another’s actions or opinions—can be strong and effective, but blog comment sections are teeming with examples of snark for snark’s sake. While they can be enjoyable to read, often they are lame and lazy attempts at engaging in some demanding and (what should be) stimulating issues.

Comments: Acorns of the Blog Post Tree

2009-01-18T15:12:00.005-05:00

One of the blog's most definitive features is that it allows for its readers to leave immediate comments to the original text. While any piece of writing can--and does--inspire reaction, that reaction often stays private in the reader's mind. Sometimes, it finds it way into public conversations (in the classroom, over dinner, at city council meetings, in letters to the editor), but the blog allows for, enourages--thrives on--immediate feedback to complicate the original text and further the conversation. Beware the blog that diasbles the Comments function; by denying others participation in the discussion, the blogger is far too concerned authorship ans authority to realize the full potential of online writing.

This is not to say that all comments to blogs are gems. Indeed, one of the drawbacks of blogs--of any text, for that matter--is that we as readers often seek out what we already favor. Thus, the comments section can turn into an echo chamber, many different different simply assenting to the original idea. Likewise, like the blog posts themselves, the comments can fall short in areas of knowledge, reason, vivacity, or respect. Nonetheless, reading beyond the original post, clicking the links and reading the comments, gives the reader a deeper perspective on the the issue at hand. And, often, people in the comments section prove themselves knowledgeable and witty. Most importantly, the comments section promotes a sense of community on your blog, one that anyone who can be respectful in sharing their opinion is invited to join.

As far as the 109.02 class goes, I'm already heartened by some of the conversation going on in the comments section (see Ethan and Paige's comments for a couple of strong examples).

Feeling Lucky?

2009-01-09T12:14:00.007-05:00

It is time yet again for students in 109.02 to keep public records of their opinions in the form of blogs. In so doing, we investigate a pervasive and increasingly salient form of expression and communication by--in part--performing it. We will form a small community on a distant prairie of the Internet, but if past classes are any indication, we are not fully incapable of reaching out and tapping strangers on the shoulder. We have many ideas to share and negotiate with one another in the coming weeks, not to mention images and links, important aspects of posting to blogs that we will investigate in time.

So on the onset of this third effort of class blogging, I wonder where our words will go. Will we be able to make a splash outside of our classroom? Expand our virtual community? Come to some enlightened definition of terms like "writing," "audience," and "reading"? Will this third time be the proverbial charm? Perhaps, but I prefer to move forward keeping Branch Rickey's words at the front of my mind: "Luck is the residue of design."

I mean, that's why I write a syllabus, right?

"Free Bird!"

2008-02-21T15:58:00.009-05:00

In my youth, whenever I attended large concerts (particularly outdoor concerts), it was very likely I would hear someone in the crowd yell "Free Bird!" to the musicians onstage as a customary gesture of audience participation. I don't suspect that the person ever expected that Tom Petty or Pearl Jam or Skid Row (yes, yes, I know) would take them up on their suggestion of live material--although I'm sure the entire crowd would erupt in impish euphoria if they did, celebrating their victory of agency in a situation where they are generally expected to simply react. Still, yelling out the song name was a ritual at these concerts. There was even a specific voice the shouter enacted, that of the hippy-dippy stoner from the Freedom Rock record commercials from the late eighties ("Free Bird" is even included on the record!):

Many see the act of yelling "Free Bird!" a concert an act of heckling. For example, upon my suggestion that someone in my group should yell out the song title at a Bad Company/Damn Yankees concert, a fellow concert goer reprimanded me, noting that yelling "Free Bird!" is best left to those concerts where the band sucks. (Again, I was at a Bad Company/Damn Yankees concert.) Me, I'm not so sure about the heckling bit. Yes, the musicians most likely are sick of hearing the half-hearted request lobbed at them, and the luster of the irony and mischief has worn off. Still, there's something to be said about the audience member who wants to do more than simply react to the band, but instead hopes to drive the action, or perhaps even cause it to detour ever so slightly. They recognize the custom as fitting for the milieu, building off of the good feeling everyone is achieving, and although the contribution is not original, if timed well, it can still be a contribution. And rituals like these, once they become convention, can give birth to ideas that play off of or augment the original. It might be downright funny to yell, "Play some other Lynrd Skynrd song--anything but Free Bird!" or "Free Bert! Ernie's got him locked up!" Or maybe even slightly less lame suggestions.

Bert and the stool pigeon that got him locked up. No
truth to the rumor that the pigeon is the "Free Bird"
that inspired Ronny Van Zant to take pen in hand.

And what does this act of concert crowd etiquette have to do with blogs? Only this (that I can see): Bloggers, no matter how selfish we may feel, must consider our readers (even if they are only imagined or, Blog gods forbid, imaginary). Blogging is a public act of writing and to do so just for the satisfaction of the self is a ludicrous, and (as mentioned last week) improbable venture. Musicians wouldn't tour if they didn't think their music can touch people. It shouldn't be any surprise that the people want to touch back. Every concert goer is a potential showman, to varying degrees, just like every reader of our blogs is a potential writer of her own. When we give a blogging concert and are fortunate to have an audience show up to "listen," we cannot expect only rhythmic dancing, swaying, and lip-syncing to our ideas. There will be some people who will want to discuss the lyrics or disparage the song or introduce us to new tunes. And, yes, there are gonna be some "Free Bird!" yellers out there.

Just promise me this: should you cave in and (metaphorically, of course) play "Free Bird," please-oh-please don't play the seventeen-minute version.

Six voices fight until there’s only one left! Only one left! Only one left!*

2008-02-15T14:35:00.005-05:00

The metaphor of "voice" in writing has long existed, owing to rhetoric's oratory origins. Surely, the sounds of our voices, like any sensory detail, shape our identities, but they also have an impact on how the message we are sending is being received. The metaphor does not make a neat and tidy transition into written composition;thus, it has splintered into many meanings. "Voice" may be used to refer to a writer's graphical style, his perspective on the world, an outward expression of his true "self," or even simply the recognized assertion of one's opinions.

In Chapter 4 of The Weblog Handbook, Rebecca Blood advocates that nascent bloggers will be best off in their ventures by discovering and employing their "authentic voices." In so doing, she is advancing the notion of voice as perspective: "the writer's unique fusion of interests, enthusiasms, and prejudices--her personality" (59). Simultaneously, Blood suggests some support of the notion of "voice" as a mystical expression of the "real writer": a self that will "emerge" as the writer continues to "honestly stretch . . . to meet the world" (72).

I appreciate and endorse the idea that everyone has a perspective, a point of view, that is (at least somewhat) different than everyone else's. I also think that at base writing is an attempt of a person to assert one's self into the world around her. However, I think it is dangerous to assume that this self, this "voice," will magically emerge. I believe the process is one of negotiation and craft; a writer's real mettle, whether in the blogosphere or on essay exams or even e-mails to loved ones, is forged in reaction to and in concert with the outside world. It is a struggle--a larger one for some than for others.

Blood is certainly an advocate of the continual practice and process of writing, but I do fear that her suggestion to write for "an audience of one" is probably dangerous if it is in fact possible. We are social beings, and the way we view the world and then the way we express that view are shaped by the people we interact with, listen to, and read. Our "selves" as audience members are amalgams of the type of audiences of the sorts of things we like to read and hear. So, I suspect that those who claim to write for themselves and end up finding a broader audience for their work are in fact sophisticated readers who have a rich, well-crafted, multi-faceted "audience of one" reviewing their work. But before burgeoning writers can write for their "audience of one," they must themselves become audience members of many, many other writers.

And, I suspect that as if by, ahem, magic, they will find their "voices" strengthen in the process. But it won't be a cakewalk.

Incidentally, if your writing truly had a "voice," would it have the tonal qualities like your actual voice, or do you imagine it as sounding like someone else?

Me, I like to think of my voice as a Groucho Marx sneer belted out by an early-'80s Steve Perry.

Stretching to meet the world, indeed.

* Thank you, Mr. Show "Subway" sketch.

All about the Benjamin

2008-02-06T16:56:00.000-05:00

In “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Walter Benjamin wrote about how the technical advancements in the methods to produce and reproduce art changed the very nature in how we view the art. Benjamin argued that the “aura” of a piece of art—its authentic essence connecting it to time, place, and history—is demolished through the ease and acceptance of its reproduction. (While this may be oversimplifying things, let me put forth an example: after seeing countless reproductions of the painting, just what would most of us gain by viewing the Mona Lisa in the Louvre?) Further, Benjamin suggests that as these reproductions meets wider audiences, their “meanings” become more varied and fragmented, very dependent upon the viewers/readers/listeners of the texts:

By making many reproductions it substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence. And in permitting the reproduction to meet the beholder or listener in his own particular situation, it reactivates the object reproduced.

And while he no doubt foresaw the acceleration of this phenomenon, Benjamin, one can assume, had no way of knowing that access we would have to instantaneous hyper-reproductions of sounds, images, and text—that is to say, the internet (and before it, to a lesser extent, television). The internet takes this reproduction further, as the responder can co-opt, manipulate and repurpose a text in the blink of an eye.

All of which brings me to the next task in crafting blogs in our composition class: the introduction of images to our weekly posts.

I think it’s safe to say that most of the images we view in blogs have been plucked from elsewhere on the internet. While original images would be safest, it is likely that many of the images you put on your blogs will come from elsewhere online. I suggest that you strive for proper attribution of original artwork (in many cases this is handled in the form of a link to the site the picture is from); however, there certainly is a lot of free-form image grabbing out there. Many images are scans from other sources (as I suspect is the case for the picture of the Missing Link I put in my post last week), which probably means that all sorts of copyright infringement is happening, a property endemic to the web. The manipulation of images in photo editing programs like Photoshop, like the image of my friend Tim (where I put his face into an Uncle Sam poster), complicates the issue further, and shows the continual destruction of the “aura” of a work of art that Benjamin wrote about.

You'll have to trust me; Tim found it funny.

To be on the safe side, we should add images carefully: we should use free stock image sites or include our own whenever possible and give proper attribution when we use someone else’s image. But for Benjamin’s (or maybe not) sake, include images. In this oftentimes too passive culture, what’s so wrong with a little "object reactivation," after all?

The Glue and Rubber Bands of the Inter-Web

2008-01-29T15:11:00.001-05:00

Recently, I was having breakfast in Chicago with my friend Jeff, who was bringing me up to speed on the plans of a mutual friend. He explained that our friend was busying himself with the composition of a text that investigates the effect technology has on the self, but that he was confining his text to his own musings and the words on one particular philosopher. Jeff lamented that our friend, who is brilliant and insightful, is choosing not to include himself in the ongoing conversation about current technology and subject positions, instead opting to shape his writing through his interpretation of this one text. That got me thinking—considering how this class is always on my mind these days—about how the writing our friend is doing is a lot like a blog post without hyperlinks. Smartly linking our text to other texts not only adds depth to the ideas we are trying to convey, but links have become such an integral part to “reading” on the internet that the blogger who doesn’t link is looked upon with some suspicion.

In fact, perhaps the most important reason to link to outside texts is to show that, perhaps unlike my friend, you are willing to acknowledge that you are taking part in a greater discussion. The more connection you can show between your ideas and outside texts, the more credence readers give your thoughts. To that end, links also serve as an immediate citation for the outside sources you bring to your work, sort of a documentation shortcut (although it is important not to rely on links alone when it comes to citing sources for hypertext essays). Connecting to other texts also gives readers the chance to continue their edification with additional resources, especially if the additional resources are more substantial in scope and research than the original. And sometimes links offer a deeper “showing” of a concept by connecting to a page with more detail or a visual or aural representation of that concept.

Linking is wonderful, but there are some caveats. First, linking doesn’t absolve us from quoting outside sources completely. We still should be prepared to offer short or even block quotes of important passages in the articles we refer to in our texts. We also need to remember not to go link-crazy. In “Link Theory: Keep it Simple, Pick Meaningful Words,” Steven Johnson quotes New York Times web site design director, Khoi Vinh, about a strong rule of the linking thumb:

"The important thing is to hyperlink meaningful text," says Vinh. "You're contributing to the overall semantic nature of the Web by linking meaningful text."

This rule—that is to say, the act of creating hyperlinks itself—requires that we writers be prepared to recognize what is “meaningful text” in what we compose. Welcome to the lifelong struggle. I mean, really, isn’t determining what is “meaningful text” what the practice of composition is all about?

We’re Going Live in 5, 4, 3, . . .

2008-01-23T16:27:00.000-05:00

We, the bloggers of Winter 2008 109N02 (we need a nickname, I think: “The Fighting Bloggers”? “The Blog Demons”? “The Blog-eyes”?) have emerged from a long weekend, a weekend during which we probably spent little time thinking about or tending to our blogs. Now we’ll be taking a step that might cause that to change ever so slightly. I am asking the class to register their blogs at Technorati.com, effectively adding them to a searchable database of online journals. By requiring this action, I am asking the students to go deeper in their sense of responsibility for the texts they post. They are further committing themselves to their writing by alerting list browsers to the existence of their online compositions. Of course, posting on Blogger is a public act in itself; however, this move is a moment of recognition of these blogs as honest-to-goodness blogs. Naturally, I can’t help but be a-twitter at the potential for surf-by chatter.

That said, I call upon my class (and myself) to temper any real hope for discovery with a heaping spoonful of realism. Blogs are strewn about the internet like glass in a liquor store parking lot. (Yipe, what a negative image. Let’s change that to “as prevalent as scratch-‘n’-sniff stickers on a twelve-year-old girl’s social studies folder in 1984.”) So it is unlikely that anyone will simply happen to bump into your blogs. Although they might. And that possibility alone should provide extra motivation for these emerging writers—not to mention the instructor who assigned all this craziness in the first place—to make these texts are strong as we possibly can.

Realism looks a lot like chocolate pudding. The taste, however, is chillingly different.

Quarter it.*

2008-01-16T19:38:00.001-05:00

We have made our way through a quarter of the Winter quarter (which, if my math is correct,¹ means we're a full sixteenth through the school year, give or take Daylight Saving Time), and look at how far the class blogs have come. With each passing week they get clearer in focus, fatter with ideas, and dressier with the pictures and lists of links and the like that lace the text. As a regular viewer of the blogs, I appreciate the lushness provided by the accoutrement of the blogosphere, although I can understand how some may be wary of too many frills. As with both putting together a winning ensemble in fashion and crafting a text online, we should rarely strive to sport flair for flair’s sake. However, if I’ve learned anything from those 5 minutes of House of Style that I watched back in November of 1994,² it’s that sometimes the accessories bring additional meaning to the whole outfit.

And that’s the philosophy here. I hope that the choices that the students make when they trick out their blogs will add something to the texts as a whole. Surely, we find blogs with whimsical pictures and colors aesthetically pleasing, but these visuals also affect the way we view the text. A site with only words written in one of the standard Blogger templates will often be written off as “unserious,” and, depending upon the quality of the writing, “stark raving insane.” Those who humanize their blogs invite readers to put their feet up, sit with the blogs for a spell, indulge in the not-too-tart-not-too-sweet flavor of their prose. And the writers—I hope—achieve a stronger sense of ownership over their journals. If nothing else, perhaps they’ll be happy to fess up to the fact that they made that lemonade.

*With a wink and a nod to my high-school gambling buddies. You know who you are.
¹ It isn’t.
² I haven’t.

Word to the Whys

2008-01-11T11:56:00.000-05:00

By now, those of you in the 109N02 class have probably spent some time wondering (and rightly so) why an instructor of an English Composition class would have his class write weekly blogs. Judging from the responses I received to the prompt where I asked you to comment on your online reading and writing experience, many of you recognize that the majority of immediate communication on the internet has a fairly informal feel to it. While it is true that blogs often play fast and loose with some classroom essay conventions, we will come to discover that, by and large, they are still beholden to many of the rules we ascribe to Standard Edited American English. So consider this a warning that while your language may be more informal in your posting of blog entries and comments to the entries of your classmates, grammar and style still matter.

But let’s return to the question of just why we’re focusing on blogs in class. I have a dual purpose, I suppose. We are utilizing the blogs as a tool that will assist us along the process of composition—the informality that we assign to the genre, I find, coaxes students to produce a higher volume of writing than even in-class freewriting assignments. Secondly, we must appreciate that blogs are playing an increasing role in the dissemination of information and opinion, so through our experience in keeping blogs, we are studying them as a form of communication. Plus, they enable for feedback outside of the insulation of the English classroom, an invaluable addition to a writer’s learning experience.

So there we are: a brief defense of just why we’re keeping and studying blogs in 109N02. I look forward watching the evolution of your blogs and your writing selves over the quarter. And if nothing else, with blogs on the writer's faith, being/becoming a parent, legalizing marijuana, turning cars into cash, joining the U.S. Marines, etc., I’ll have plenty an eclectic read.

Welcome Winter 08 109N02 class!

2008-01-07T17:10:00.000-05:00

Take a look around my blog! I encourage you to check out the list of links to the blogs of the students from my class last spring, locatedin the left sidebar. They did a wonderful job with their blogs, and I'm sure they'll inspire you in your own work. I look forward to a wonderful quarter of writing and reading with you!

Spring Coda

2007-06-01T11:40:00.000-05:00

The quarter's end has arrived (not soon enough for some, I'm sure), and it's difficult not to let one's thoughts stray to summer. However, before we shelve the past ten weeks into the libraries of our memories, I encourage everyone to take this opportunity to reflect upon just how much writing and reading we've done this quarter. The blogs themselves offer considerable volume, but add in the draft work for the essays, the Short Writing Assignments, and studying for the grammar and style quizzes, and we will observe a hefty amount of text, all pregnant with inferences and implications for our brains to negotiate.

I have been fortunate to read every assignment--that is my job after all--and have learned a lot from both the students in the class and our visitors across Electricblogland. However, you need not be a participant in the class to observe the growth in ten short weeks. Of course, writers improve somewhat just by following through on the hefty amount of writing and reading I assigned. I also think we can thank the public comments from strangers for partly keeping us on our syntactic toes. Before we do close the book(s) on this quarter, I'd like to leave you with some end-of-term thoughts.

You are responsible responders to all texts. Language is powerful; language gathers armies, changes laws, sells us crap we don't really need. Make sure that you continue to work on your ability to read all texts with a critical eye. Take nothing for granted; consider everything. Assigned texts in classes can be suspect, while the homeless guy on the corner may have something valid to say between his ravings about cosmic peanut butter. Stay alert by reading between the lines. People are looking for suckers to just go along with the crowd or not to bother to check the fine print. Don't be one of those suckers. It takes longer to read critically, but your soul will be freer for doing so.
You are writers. And don't let anyone tell you different. Even if you don't like doing it, or don't want to do it regularly, you DO do it, and do it increasingly well. Look at these class blogs for proof.
Dissension is okay. We learn when faced with ideas, theories, beliefs that are new to us or different from the way we understand the world. It's one thing if people are arguing to just to get a rise from you or just to be difficult; it's quite another when they earnestly have different opinions and are effectively trying to communicate those to you. But before you agree to disagree, see if you can come to some understanding.

Well, that's it: the Springer Final Thought of the last class. I hope everyone has a great summer, an enriching school experience, and a life lush with learning.

Interviewing the Man Mirrored in the Computer Screen

2007-05-25T11:11:00.000-05:00

For this week, I assigned the 109.02 class to write blogs based on truncated interviews like the ones found in Never Threaten to Eat Your Co-workers. While not part of the blogging elite after a mere nine weeks of publishing their thoughts online, the students can speak from some degree of experience, and—let's face it—have immersed themselves in the wonderful world of weblogs by writing, reading, linking, analyzing. I am asking my students to defend (or decry) the blog topics that they chose in week one, and I am asking them to ruminate on the past nine weeks of public journaling. Should be a hoot to read the replies. Following is my—very brief, for a change—response to the assignment.

Why did you choose to have the class read and write blogs for the quarter?

I feel that a lot of great expression and rhetoric can be found online, in increasingly specialized texts. For example, I was thrilled to recently discover a well-maintained blog on baseball cards, an interest in which I have never been able to shake from my starry-eyed youth. Blogs are fresh, organic texts that lend voice to those who may otherwise not be heard in public. Thus, I feel that they are wonderful texts for freshman writers, particularly those who have had some struggles with writing in the past. They give a chance to get real, instantaneous feedback from people who are not paid to read their writing. Plus, there is a lot of liberty for the topic and content of any individual post. By linking, students get an idea of the importance of using resources and synthesizing their thoughts with that of the resource. And hey, it’s been a blast.

How has blogging changed your life?

I’ll be extremely careful not to omit verbs when posting comments to other blogs.

Rhetorical Questions

2007-05-18T09:07:00.001-05:00

In lieu of commenting on a classmate’s blog, for this week I’d like again for you to post a comment to my blog. This time, I’d like you to write a quick rhetorical analysis of one of the blogs that I asked you to look at for this week.

What is a rhetorical analysis, you ask? In brief terms, it’s an evaluation of a text’s diction, tone, assumed audience, and purpose. I’d like you to briefly comment upon one of the blogs I provided links to last week, considering these aspects of the blog to get an idea of the character—the driving ethos—behind the blog. To do so you should consider who the assumed audience of the blog is and what the overall thesis (purpose) of the blog is. Here are some questions to consider:

What topics does the blog address?
What is the substance of a standard post? Consider length, format (links, video, text), tone, and language, among other things.
What stance—if any—does the blog take?
What other blogs does this blog link to?

Remember that when imagining an audience for this blog, you must go push beyond notions of what the audience may favor reading. You should also consider how the posts assume the audience’s education, background, etc.

Write at least 100 words—chances are you’ll write much more. Since this is an in-class writing assignment, I’m not overly concerned that the posts be expertly organized; however, you might want to compose in Microsoft Word first and then copy your response and paste it into the comments section. Have fun deconstructing!

109.02 Students: The Blogs You Should Visit for Wednesday's Class Discussion

2007-05-11T12:16:00.000-05:00

Please take a good look around the following blogs for class discussion on Wednesday. Glance at a few posts, check out the comments sections, get a feel for the point of the blog.

Informed Comment

Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things

Michelle Malkin

Daily Kos

Things Students Should Know before Entering the College Composition Classroom

2007-05-10T15:28:00.002-05:00

My friend Michelle Potter, who teaches English at Thornton Fractional North High School in Calumet City, Illinois, recently made a request of me: “Can you give me a short list of ‘things you wish your writing students knew before they entered your writing class’?” I have long enjoyed making lists—and have taken it to extremes: my brother, friends, and I used to write the occasional “Top 100 Professional Wrestlers” list in the late ‘80s—so that part of the request wasn’t going to be a problem. It was the “short” part that had me worried. I am a loquacious sort by nature, and, really, there’s no fun to a short list. Nonetheless, I’ll try to keep the list as painless and as informative a read as possible. I may even throw in a professional wrestling reference in somewhere.

1. In Order to Look Sharp, You Must Have a Point: I am so intent on impressing upon students the importance of having a main point—a specific, significant take on a subject, issue, experience—that I’m willing to result to poor puns. Nothing is so frustrating for a teacher whose class is bent on student expression and dialectic than the words “I don’t know.” There are certainly things students don’t know about composition, rhetoric, and communication (and it’s my job to help you grasp those concepts), and most of the time when a student tells me that she doesn’t know how she feels about a situation, I believe her. However, “I don’t know” offers no absolution. I believe that schooling exists in large part to challenge you to think about things you haven’t thought about before. In writing courses you are encouraged to think about things political, social, and cultural so that you may work on how to best respond to these exigent stimuli (that is to say, stuff that needs to be addressed). I’m not looking for the right answer, but I am looking you to dip your oars in the water and attempt to make some sense of things. Remember always that the root meaning of the word “essay” is “trial” or “attempt.”

2. “All Right, Mr. Boczkowski, I'm Ready for My Close-up” or Narrow Your Focus: One way to make sure you have a point is by following a principal rule of the board game Risk: don’t try to cover too much territory in one fell swoop. Chances are there are books—or at least long scholarly articles—written about the topic you chose. Trying to cover a book’s worth of material in three to five pages will get you a D quicker than you can say “You sunk my battleship!” (Sorry, but there are no comparable pat phrases shouted out in games of Risk.) However, unlike the hubris that thwarts the overextended Risk player, most students keep their focuses broad because they feel they can’t flesh out a narrow topic. Trust me on the crazy composition economics of this one; it’s easier to write more about less.

3. What’s Good for the Goose is Good for the Pilcrow: I tend to think of paragraphs to be like the little minions of the Snow Miser and Heat Miser in the holiday special A Year without a Santa Claus: mini-versions of the bigger unit (whether an essay or a weather god), and at the bigger unit’s service. This is not a perfect metaphor, as the little minions would need to assemble in Voltron-like fashion to compose the larger body, and let’s face it; that would just be ridiculous. But back to paragraphs, it’s important to remember that each paragraph is trying to prove its own main point. Whereas on an essay level this point is the essay’s thesis, at the paragraph level, these points take the form of topic sentences. And sometimes little Claymation dudes with flaming hair. Whatever—if you have either more than one main point or none whatsoever in your paragraphs, you should consider revising. Or at least laying off the Rankin-Bass specials for a while.

4. T.S. Eliot Was No Wuss: A respected poet, Eliot has written many influential works. However, he wasn’t above being influenced himself; he sought the advice of fellow poet Ezra Pound on much of his writing. Getting help is not a sign of weakness. In fact, I find students who come to me to discuss their essays or who take advantage of their school’s tutoring services to be attentive practitioners of writing. It keeps their prose from becoming, ahem, a vast wasteland.

5. Whether or Not You Like It, You’re a Writer: You write papers for class, blogs, e-mails, and lyrics about tragically unrequited teenage love (I’ll show you my journal if you show me yours). Face it: you’re a writer. As a writer, it is your duty to pay attention to your strengths and weaknesses. I can individualize my comments to you sooner in the term if you alert me to what you’ve done well and what you’ve struggled with in the past. So pay attention to what teachers are telling you now, and work at the areas that need it. This is true for the individual essay level too. When handing in a draft, send along comments describing things you want me to look for. You’ll be surprised how often you’re right about the paper’s stronger and weaker areas.

6. Nodding Your Head Doth Not Participation Make: I understand that not everyone is the extroverted type. And no one (except maybe the instructor) likes the class know-it-all who just has to answer every question. But you wanna know the best way to cut down on the chatter from the class know-it-all? It’s to make some meaningful chatter of your own. If you’re the shy, silently-simmering-in-your-brilliant-juices type, fret not: simply note a couple things you may say to contribute to the class discussion (mark passages from the classroom text that caught your eye) before you come to class and share your ideas early, before your thunder is stolen from you-know-who. I want to hear everyone’s voice in class in roundtable fashion, not just a dialogue with the intensely caffeinated smarty-pants.

7. Be an Active Reader; Heck, Be a Full-Contact Reader: Engage in classroom texts with questions, suppositions, and opinions. Challenge the text; hold the author’s observations and experiences up to your own. Scrutinize the logic. Look for deeper meaning. Write your responses in the margins. Trust me; the bookstore will never give you close to what you paid for the book. Don’t just read the printed word actively, but apply it to all media. Apply it to events and landscapes. Engage in textual play, but be safe: always wear your thinking cap.

8. I Know When You Haven’t Been Active: Here’s a neat trick: Student A fails to do the reading, so during class discussion he waits until Student B makes a comment about the text and then latches on to the last thing she said, commenting on how “he can relate” with the issue the subject of the text is experiencing “because one time. . . .” And he’s off. He finishes, smug in the belief that he has earned his participation credit for the day. Hmm, did I say “neat trick”? Because what I meant to say was “lame maneuver.” The fact is that I can tell that Student A hasn’t done the reading, despite his attempts at synergy. How can I tell? Cuz I’m Santa Claus. Well, really, it’s just an old trick, just like, say, slumping down in your seat and averting your gaze to try to avoid getting called on. I do appreciate when students relate the text to their own life, but only when they establish that they know what the heck the text was about first.

9. The Lyrics from the Grammar Rock Shorts: A sure way to ferret out a Word Nerd (someone who really enjoys writing or the teaching of writing) is to start singing “Conjunction Junction” or “Lolly, Lolly, Lolly. Get Your Adverbs Here” and encourage the suspected W.N. to finish the lyrics. If he or she gets through the chorus and starts into the first verse, you’ve probably got a Word Nerd on your hands (mind you, this works best on people currently in their thirties). Now I’m not out to convert the cool or the blissfully uninitiated to my chosen lifestyle, and I’m not arguing that because you are able to sing all the way through “Unpack Your Adjectives,” you’ll never misplace a modifier. But I DO need you to come in with a working knowledge of the basic parts of speech so that you can best understand the comments I leave in your drafts’ margins. When I write “noun,” you should understand it to mean “a person, place or thing.” And if you immediately afterward hear an upbeat, folk-stylized “doo doo doo doo doo,” all the better.

10. Don’t Sell Back Your Handbook: Yes, it’s an intimidating collection of composition and grammar convention, and, yes, its heft can lead you to believe that you’ll get a pretty penny for it at thee bookstore (see item #7). But within that book are the—often-arbitrary—answers to the greatest riddles of drafting, usage, documentation, and style. If the handbook is a map to good writing, then I am your sherpa. Maybe the payoff isn’t always the top of the mountain or the mines of King Solomon, but at the very least, together, referencing the map, we should be able to direct your paper to some treat-promising destination, perhaps the essay equivalent of a Dairy Queen. And who doesn’t like soft-serve?

11. When Aiming for Good Research Writing, Be Sure to Turn on Your Cite: Another crummy pun, influenced by the hunting culture in which I find myself immersed here in Central Ohio, but it is really important to give proper credit for the concepts you are sharing in the paper. A lot of plagiarism—most that I have encountered—is done unknowingly. Nonetheless, you should strive to understand what constitutes plagiarism and what does not as soon as possible. Unsure? Come talk to me or a writing tutor. And while I may be willing to differentiate between intentional and unintentional plagiarism, there are probably instructors at the school who won’t bother with such distinctions. If you think the worst punishment you can get for proven plagiarism is being put in a twelve-step program where you are forced to give credit for any outside influence in every significant moment in your life (“Thanks, Coach Kostner, for teaching me sex education in my seventh-grade health class”), think again: plagiarism can be grounds for suspension or even expulsion (usually after a second proven offense).

12. Writing for College Does Not Necessarily Mean Writing More Words: Sure, the papers get longer and you’ll learn some new terms. You’ll probably even be encouraged to combine shorter sentences to embed clauses, which often makes for strong, sophisticated writing. However, teachers usually laud grace and economy in writing, and oftentimes lengthening words (for example, nominalizing verbs) and sentences (adding words for no apparent reason, writing in passive voice) will work against these concepts. I call such attempts to sound more hoity-toity “college speak.” Sentences like “The suggestion that in actuality they should be released from class was made by the students” tend to make my brain melt. Instead, try something like the following: “The students suggested that the teacher release them from class.” If you’re worried about word count, add concrete detail I can sink my teeth into, not the quicksand of abstraction, into which I, teeth and all, would sink.

13. You Must Sample from the Smorgasbord of Language: Railing against abstractions aside, I don’t want to discourage any attempt to write beyond your comfort zone, not at all. In fact, I want you try on new words like they were Skechers, seeing how they fit and what kind of reaction they get. Try using a new word in conversation each week. When writing, experiment with alternate styles of punctuation (it is college, after all). Look for examples of symbolism on your commute to class. Create an appropriate metaphor for the cafeteria’s blue plate special. Move beyond the cliché. Okay, I’m going to stop before this begins to sound like one of those “life is swell” feel-good books you get as a birthday gift from people who don’t like you enough to figure out what you really want.

14. I Don’t Get My Jollies Giving an F Grade: I have met the occasional instructor who I felt was a little too eager to exact revenge on a student, but even these cases were often specific to an individual student (who had somehow become a particular thorn in the instructor’s side), and I’m happy to say that many of these folk are getting up in years and going the way of the dodo. Honestly, most teachers I know fret slightly over failing students (unless the students make it easy, like by never showing up—which reminds me: be sure to show up) or at least meet the prospect of failing a student with solemn evaluative resignation. Please note that I don’t really “give you” an F in my class; you earn it. But, boy, I much prefer when students earn As and Bs. And when I give copious high grades, I have been known to dance The Bird like the flamboyant World Wrestling Federation grappler Koko B. Ware. (It took until the last item, but I snuck a wrestling reference in there!)

So there you are, Michelle. Or, Mrs. Potter, for when your students read this. There is a list of 14 things I’d like my students to know before they set foot in my college composition class. There still is plenty for us to cover in the courses themselves. I’m sure there is more sage advice that colleagues of mine could offer, or perhaps some may suggest amendments to an item or two listed here. I’ll find out by inviting them to share. I also am going to ask my students from my current class to weigh in with something they wish they knew before they started taking college English courses. I am hopeful that we can perhaps create a first-year writer Survivor’s Guide of some sort, although I would be fearful that if we succeeded, it would get published and mass-produced. And then my grandma would give it to me as a birthday present.

Six Butterflies Flap their Wings in Newark. . .

2007-05-03T20:27:00.001-05:00

. . . and you get a dirt devil on one plane of the blogosphere.

Not to get all Glenda Goodhug on the situation—as I believe in the potential of learning from discord and dissension—but I hope that cooler heads will prevail from this point forward.

I want to thank all of those who have joined in on the conversation sparked by what I incorrectly assumed was an innocuous classroom task on Wednesday. I also want to thank Matthew Baldwin from Defective Yeti for managing the surprise attack of compliments and solicitations for blog advice. I didn’t consider that so many students would choose the same blog to comment upon. Nor did I assume that their comments would resemble one another’s and a template of “blog-whoring” (thank you, Dorothy, for the term) besides. We now have a perfect backdrop for our discussion about rules and constraints specific to the genre of blogging, and I’ll get to use the term “discourse community ” with the advantage of having a real, meaty example to demonstrate the concept. I will certainly encourage more fervently that future classes make their comments more substantial and that they wipe their grammatical feet at the door before entering such a well-kept den of blogging. Live and learn.

For the most part, as a teacher of English composition, I understand blanching at poor observation of grammatical rules, and I think that the lesson the 109.02 students will learn—I hope—is that care should be practiced in all writing acts, for fear of turning others off with our syntactic halitosis. However, it has been my experience that some folk in online communities use debasing a poster's grammar to suffice for rebuttal of the ideas proffered in the post (not necessarily true here). I also find the impulse of pointing out grammatical errors on online communication to be quite bullying in most cases—an attempt to kick virtual sand in the faces of the 98-word weaklings. (Mind you, I’m not accusing those who are posting on Genuine Drafting of this aim; the ensuing dialogue may be a “sizing-up” measure, but there’s no need to involve Charles Atlas). And while I enjoyed spazmatic’s analogy,

However, typing like "wow ur post was awesome comecheck mine out" is the rough equivalent of walking into a restaurant wearing nought but your birthday suit, placing your feet on the table, and then flagging down a waiter with armpit flatulence. Okay, I exaggerate, but it's still rude and a great way to make people stop caring.

the difference is that for the crude diner to stop being offensive to those around him, he need only don a sweat suit, pull his feet down, and get his hand out of his musical armpit. For those who have yet to navigate with great success the choppy seas of Strunk & White, the task is far more time-consuming and arduous. Most of us who have had the privilege of being exposed from the start to “proper” construction take for granted the commitment and, really, immersion in writing and reading needed to master the handbook’s rules. So tired have I become of hearing coprolites bemoan improper usage as if the offender had just torched their Diagnosis: Murder DVD collection. For those of us who have long forgotten, I’m happy to assert it with tongue planted firmly in my cheek here: WRITING GOOD AIN’T EASY.

If it were, I’d be out of a job.

It smacks as elitist, I think, to deride one’s grammar without offering any advice or explanation (I’m sorry to say that there are examples of this in the comment trail on Defective Yeti). I, the flippin’ composition instructor, honestly am flabbergasted by the impulse to call out someone’s usage. And I would like to add, speaking to Dorothy’s and April’s thought-provoking comments about Netspeak, that from what I’ve seen, the comments my students left here are emblematic of comments we often see on MySpace or Facebook, where no one seems to be overly concerned with proper usage. I am keenly interested in how communication in these venues will affect our grammar in other texts we write—although I believe the significant difference between the students’ comments on DY and the entries in the students’ own blogs suggests that there is an awareness of genre, or at least of being graded.

The best we, the neophyte bloggers of the 109.02 class, can offer is to say that we are working on it—and boy are we ever. I’ve been as pleased as Punch with the effort these students—many of whom plan to write as little as possible for their careers—have put into all aspects of this class (a lot of reading and writing to complete in 10 weeks, although maybe not as much as in a 600-level course). There was a little less effort in these particular comments, some of it attributable to my lack of detailed direction of what exactly it was I wanted. The truth here, I believe, is that more time and care in the crafting of the original comments probably would have circumvented much of the chatter that followed.

But, oh, think of the learning opportunity we all would have missed.

Going Public

2007-04-26T18:19:00.000-05:00

The truth is, you have been in the public eye since your very first posts on your blogs. Nonetheless, while the public eye is ever-vigilant, the web is a mighty big landscape, and most visitors prefer returning to their favorite haunts. To truly appreciate the potential of the Internet as a communicative tool, to see how it allows for the expedient dispatch of information and how it fosters a deepening of discussion on important--and not-so-important--topics, one must wander.

The web, I believe, is a postmodern extrapolation of Kenneth Burke's Parlor, which suggests the omnipresent and interminable nature of conversation:

Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent, depending upon the quality of your ally's assistance. However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress.

The Philosophy of Literary Form 110-111

Your blogs won't be the be-all, end-all on your subjects; hopefully, they will be just the opposite, serving to perpetuate and instigate discussion about nursing, crew, stress.

To some extent, you have already been out ramblin' in the Burkean Parlor by commenting on each others' blogs and seeking out others who are writing blogs similar to your own. And by writing your responses to these strangers' entries and posting the responses in your own blogs, you are advancing the dialogue even further. But thus far, it has been a controlled experiment. Now you will be inviting strangers to visit your blogs by posting comments and links to their blogs. You will also be receiving more and more comments from people you don't know, as I send the word around to more people to check you out.

I'd also like you to add your blog to the directory at Technorati.com by following this link, signing up for an account, and claiming your blog. You're welcome to spread the word at the other sites I listed last week, but this is the only site I will require that you to sign up with. As we interact with people beyond the classroom, let's pay attention to how this new sense of audience affects our composition. I say "we" because I'm already registered at Technorati.

Off we go, into the wild web yonder . . .

In an Instant . . .

2007-04-17T10:54:00.000-05:00

I have been exhorting an active effort from you to be graphic in your writing--by showing and not just telling events, experiences, feelings--in order to give your readers a vivid picture, to pull them into your mind as you recall the narrative. However, there are events that we may not necessarily wish to be shown explicitly, yet we feel too compelled to pull away. Such is the case of many of the major tragedies of our lifetimes, including the horrible shootings this past Monday at Virginia Tech University. If you are like me, when confronted by the news of such an awful occurrence, you simultaneously want to know everything and wish you had never heard about it in the first place. You wish to turn away from the reports of terror, and yet you cannot, as you are prodded by a overwhelming desire to make sense of the situation.

In the age of instant news updates, when nearly everyone has the capability to be a reporter, it is even harder to detach from the news and easier to virtually be "shown." Much has already been made about the impact of student blogging, like those sent to the college newspaper site, which offered instantaneous first-hand accounts of the horror of the shootings. These blogs, and those written immediately in the aftermath, have been used as primary sources by news outlets nationwide. And it's not just the blogs. People can glimpse--if you wish; these items may be too graphic or simply just to "real" for some--both an instant message conversation between a Virginia Tech student (who was trapped in a classroom the gunman entered) and his brother and also footage taken by a student's cellular phone (in which multiple shots can be heard). The immediacy of these media-- cell phones, blog, instant messaging--along with the fact that nearly everyone has access to them, speeds up the news and perhaps even democratizes it. We will discuss over the ensuing weeks whether this is ultimately a positive change in how we receive information or if the downsides (like the quick scouring of blogs kept by Virginia Tech students leading to some people to accuse Wayne Chiang of being the shooter based on circumstantial evidence) ultimately outweigh the benefits.

And maybe through the discussion, we can make a little more sense of this mess.

UPDATE (4/26/07): A student in Canada was arrested for remarks he made in his blog regarding the Virginia Tech shootings and threats he made to schoolmates. Apparently, police felt there was the potential of Joshua Bryn Bauman committing copycat murders. Another dimension of blogging: the semi-anonymity can lead to private discussion becoming very, very public.

Linkin', Linkin', I've Been Thinkin' . . .

2007-04-11T11:33:00.000-05:00

Hello all. Week three already! Time whooshes, swoops, and soars when you teach on the quarter system. I imagine it may feel a tad different to those of you who are getting graded and not giving grades, but I trust there will be some point in the quarter when you wish you could manufacture a few extra hours or so. Of course, sooner or later, we all run out of time.

But while we're all here, I'd like to offer you some suggestions on how to spend a handful of your preciously finite minutes. Specifically, I want to tell you what I'd like you to do to your blogs. I want you to make the blogs more resourceful by adding a list of links or two. First, I'd like you to add a list of links to your classmates' (and my) blogs, like I have in the left sidebar of Genuine Drafting.

In order to do so, you need to click on the "Template" tab at the top of the page, then click on "Add a Page Element" on the template sidebar or bottom. I recommend you add the link list to the sidebar, as fewer people scroll at the way to a blog's bottom. Then choose "Add to Blog" for the Link List option. Title the List "109.02 Class blogs," copy and paste the URLs and blog titles from my list, and you are on your way!

Additionally, I'd like to see you add a list of blogs written by people not in our class. In order to do so, you will need to find jobs with a similar (it does not necessarily have to be the same) theme to yours and link to it. Use Google Blog Search, Technorati, Icerocket.com, Blog Search Engine, Blog-search.com, Bloghub.com, Blogarama.com, Blogcatalog.com or other blog search engines to find blogs about like topics.

And when you visit these sites, feel free to peruse what others are saying about your subject!

With Great Blogging Comes Great Responsibility

2007-04-06T09:27:00.000-05:00

One of the notions that I tend to emphasize in composition classes is that of the responsible responder—that is, I encourage my students (and constantly remind myself) to practice at being critically engaged with texts that they confront. These texts go beyond the mere printed word; we must train ourselves to be critical readers of television, radio, advertisements, gestures, social events—anything that can be analyzed and interpreted. We must constantly flex these muscles in our brain, lest they become weak and flabby.

Blogging, I believe, offers us a wonderful opportunity to work on the skills we need to cultivate to become responsible responders. This is not to say that all people who blog do so with a critical eye toward outside stimuli (blogs can become purely narcissistic smatterings); however, many bloggers are writing in direct response to news items, cultural artifacts, or other people’s online journals. Not only do these writers continually engage in the critical assessment of texts, but the nature of the medium makes it easier for their readers to do so as well.

By linking to the texts they are discussing, bloggers give their readers immediate access to those texts. This accessibility encourages readers to be more critical (or, at least, to offer better critiques) of the author’s interpretation of the texts he is discussing. We are more willing to take the word of the author of a printed article at face value, simply because, if we are not already familiar with the text (news item, cultural artifact, resource used for support), we are less likely to take the effort to research it ourselves. With instant access to the texts (even video) on the Internet, readers can instantly evaluate if the author’s analysis in one they agree with.

So get on out there and surf, read, write, link: begin responding responsibly!

Blogging is a Game of Inches (well, more word count, I guess)

2007-03-30T11:04:00.001-05:00

Well, here we are, on the threshold of (with apologies to Branch Rickey) “the Noble Experiment”: instead of breaking the color barrier in baseball, however, this experiment involves the incorporation of blogging into my composition classroom. I am aware that it is quite possible that the results may fall short of my hopes for the sense of community and sense of process that blogging can engender; I also am confident that there will be technological hiccups along the way (as of this moment, I am not sure of how often we can count on having laptops in our Friday classes, or—for that matter—how many laptops we will have access to). Nonetheless, I am hopeful that the rewards will far outnumber the difficulties. Besides, this practice promises to be a lot of fun. I look forward to reading the weekly musings of all of the students, whether they expound upon the heartaches and the triumphs of the Cincinnati Reds, recount the trials of being a nursing student, or explain the never-ending pursuit of cold, hard cash.

So here we go, a group foray into the wild virtual world of web logging. A good place to start will be to brainstorm ideas for the many directions our weekly entries can take. Remember that we should open our blogs up to consider other people’s experiences, other news stories—anything that in some way relates to our topics. Blogs can go anywhere and do not necessarily have to relate to the papers we are writing. A good idea for a first blog would be to introduce the blog and explain what you hope to say in it over the quarter.

Good luck and good words!

Hello 109.02 class!

2007-03-27T22:09:00.000-05:00

I am showing you this post in class right now. Am I blowing your minds?

I can add a picture of said mind blowing:

Or I can link to mind-blowing stuff!

Cool, huh?