Wednesday, June 16, 2010

21st century composing

Tech Camp #2 response

Kathleen Yancey argues in "Writing in the 21st Century: A Report from NCTE" that the three challenges we face for 21st century composition/literacy are:

"Developing new model of composing, Designing a new curriculum supporting these models, ad creating new pedagogies enacting that curriculum" (8).

I think this report is a very good assessment of the challenges we face with 21st century composition. I sent this report out a few years ago when it first came out to the program listserv hoping we could spark some conversation about it. So it's good to have the opportunity to blog about this and see us engage the piece (again) in Tech Camp.

This piece was actually one an inspiration point for me to start up Tech Camp. I feel and still feel our models of composing in the program are engaging some aspects of the elements Yancey describes, but not all and not nearly enough. I think we can do more (and I can as well) to harness the power of self-sponsored writing that is so prevalent with social media. Where I think we have made quite a bit of progress in the program is around work with visuals and images. We have a number of assignments, readings, textbooks, and resources that engage the notion of visual rhetoric. But I sometimes wonder if we are doing enough to address students as "producers" of images as opposed to "consumers." It's a classic cultural studies move to analyze visual texts--how do we move beyond that to image production and construction and understanding what images do and can be.

Also, how can we harness the networked nature of so much of that writing and the understanding of audience. Yancey discusses the role of public writing (6, citing Hesse), and I am very interested in that, especially with respect to our WRT 205 course. How can we produce researched writing for various publics that want it and need it? In my 255 course that I mentioned in my previous posting, I think that I made some strides toward students addressing various publics.

Finally, the work on video is a reminder of ways production-oriented composition can take place across media. I like the idea of "writing with" that Lovett et al describe on p. 3. The course that George took on this past spring "Writing with Video" is based on this course model. I hope we'll have a chance to discuss how that course worked and what some of the products are.

More later....

Engaging Technologies

OK, it's always good to have homework. I messed up and didn't do assignment #1 for Tech Camp, so I'm backtracking and combining both blogging assignments into one posting.

This was day one's prompt: "Reflect on your experience using media and technologies—images, audio, film, social media, hypertext, projectors, etc.—in your teaching. How does the Wysocki piece support, develop, or challenge what you already believe about writing and the teaching of writing?"

I've been pretty open to engaging technology in my teaching--blogging with graduate students in grad seminars since 2006 and some undergraduates in indp studies, for instance. I started blogging with students in CCR 601 in 2006. I've blogged in two additional grad seminars. I think that this has worked out somewhat well--students post their research notes and responses, respond to each other, and prime the pump for class discussion. Most students keep their blogs going beyond the class or had them before, in some cases.

So my life as a blogger has been pretty course-based. I have had periods of time when I've blogged on my own, especially about food and farming issues that I am tracking in the media. I've used my own blogging to get discussion going in undergrad classes of these issues. Some of my undergrads have read my blog posts on farming and food and send me their blogs as well.

As a teacher, I'm often using documentary, you-tube clips, and other media. I've had students do quite a bit with image work over the years--using images to design arguments about places and spaces, for instance. I had a 105 place-based assignment that had students analyze and represent a place in Syracuse (as part of the geographies of exclusion assignment). Students did a lot with google images and some with Flickr.

In my WRT 255 course (Fall 2008), II had students design an advocacy campaign as part of their final project. Some made videos, some designed brochures or websites, some hooked their videos to social media campaigns on Facebook. The work was really interesting. I'm sure Tech Camp was a huge influence in me going in this direction--also seeing Gail Hawisher speak about using video as a mode of writing.

Wysocki's article is helpful in thinking how I frame my work. I am interested in her argument about materiality and new media, in particular, and the idea that we can make student more conscious of the materiality of technologies, objects, and artifacts. I like the way she invites teachers of writing to the table and shows us what we can bring as well as what we will have to be open to learning. I connected a great deal to her point (p. 23) that we have to be open to the new type of work that is produced. This new work challenges us to rethink and push our criteria for assessing writing and our notions of what writing is and does.

My plan for my WRT 105 this fall is to go a lot farther than I have in the past with engaging social media, image work, and some work with video.


Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Blogging Tech Camp 2010

We're at Tech Camp 2010 at Syracuse University! Welcome back to blogging for me for this week at least.

I'll try to capture some slices of life from Tech Camp.

This morning (Tuesday) we're talking about Anne Wysocki's piece "Opening New Media to Writing" from the book _Writing New Media_ and also about the idea of digital ecologies.

One of the main points we are discussing is the way Wysocki links new media to materiality and material culture. We also noted how she doesn't just link new media to digitality.

Other topics:

How do we value and understand the new work produced and practice the "generous approaches to new texts" that she calls for on p. 23.

How do students and teachers "remediate" the new technology with the old?

Feenberg on system-congruent design and expressive design (21).

Discussion of how we design digital ecologies.

Discussion of Web 2.0. Identified by interactivity and interconnectivity. George: "The thing becomes your participation."

Twitter and Tweeting--we all have twitter accounts now. How can twitter be a way to engage students in writing and research? A way to encourage learning, sharing of information, and participation? We started to work on ideas for how to incorporate twitter into our classes.

more to come! Good to be back blogging.