I'm Back in the Home Computing Business

My computer is feeling better. Although, I will admit, it was nice not being a slave to the computer when I was at home. I didn't feel the need to compulsively check my online class. Yesterday morning, I actually didn't turn on my computer first thing, choosing to read a little bit instead.

Speaking of reading, I've done a lot of it in the past week.

First up:

Writing New Media Theory and Applications for Expanding the Teaching of Composition - Anne Frances Wysocki, Johndan Johnson-Eilola, Cynthia Selfe, Geoffrey Sirc

I did read the whole book, which has a intro justification by Wysocki and various chapters by the other authors. Some of the chapters were more helpful than others. And that is what I will discuss here. The previously mentioned justification, "Opening New Media to Writing" how the incorporation of new media fits in with and expands thoughts on composition pedagogy. She outlines how technology has has changed how we communicate and has opened more literacies that educators must address. It discuss how the writing process gives more agency and power to the author (in new media settings) and how as writing teachers, we can help them learn about making choices that fit what the students want to say.

"Students Who Teach Us: A Case Study of a New Media Text Designer" by Selfe tells the story of a student who was born into low socioeconomic conditions, but always saw his mother reading. When he got to college (on a football scholarship) he become interested in graphic and web design. While he suffered at writing traditional papers, he excelled at making rhetorical choices visually. Selfe uses this case study to argue for multiliteracies. She also uses this as an argument that with these multiliteracies in the classroom, the boundary between teacher and student can be broken down and that it can become a more cyclical relationship where they are learning from each other and that instructors shouldn't be afraid of this shift.

"The Sticky Embrace of Beauty:On Some Formal Problems in Teaching About the Visual Aspects of Texts," by Wysocki challenges the cut and dry principles laid out by Robin Williams in The Non-Designers Design Book and turns towards Kant's critique of judgement so that designers can consider the context of the audience by thinking about emotions that are brought up through visual elements. This article was less helpful, but interesting nonetheless, especially as someone who has lived and died by Williams' book.

I also read, Computers and the Teaching of Writing in American High Education, 1979-1994: A History by Gail E. Hawisher, Paul LeBlanc, Charles Moran, Cynthia Selfe

A really interesting read about the early use of technology, not just in the classroom, but in scholarship and the workforce and of the technology itself. The shift in the kinds of technology and how it can be applied to writing (networks and Internets as collaborative writing) is pretty fascinating and the challenges that these early adapters faced are still fairly relevant issues today. It has really pushed me towards looking at access and power in the use of computers and technology. Some students don't have a lot of access or limited access prior to getting to school and when instructors expect students to have this knowledge, they aren't empowering students to learn.

I feel as though, in terms of Computers and Writing, I am reading the same things over and over again. This does get a little frustrating, but I feel as though I am heading in a direction of focusing my question so that I can branch out a little more. More on my questions later...

I've read a few other things that I will return to later. I am hungry right now. Greek pasta salad is calling my name!

Ack! Why Now? Why Me?

I woke up on Saturday turned on my computer and saw a dark screen and heard three beeps over and over again. My computer has some RAM problems. This morning, although not fixed, I feel as though it should be by the end of the week. Hopefully. This makes online teaching a little difficult, but fortunately, I have access to computers.

However, this may put a dent in my comps. summary here for a little bit. I am still reading. The book I finished over the weekend is at home. And I will probably summarize in large chunks later in the week.

I want to be accountable, not only to myself, but also to those who actually may be reading this.

In other news, I received On Rhetoric in the mail this weekend and will soon start reading that. Aristotle. Wow.

Gunther Kress

" Reading images:Multimodality, representation and new media" - Gunther Kress

On page 119, Kress states, "The question of rhetoric-and how to make my communication most effective in relation to this audience, here and now-has moved newly, urgently into the center. Rhetoric has become a major issue for design." I think this is the important point Kress is trying to make as he examines how different modes can work, perhaps more efficiently, in conveying meaning. He traces both speech and writing as modes that work linearly. Audiences get little bits of information in succession. In these cases, the author or speaker has more power. In visual design, audiences can look at an image and take in meaning in whatever order they want, or as Kress writes, "design the order of the text for themselves (114). This changes the role of the designer. They are not the authority as a writer or speaker would be, they have to be aware of audience expectations and/or previous knowledge. It opens the rhetorical process.

I think this is going to a really interesting text that will work with both my computers and writing question and my technical communication question. Now onto, Writing New Media Theory and Applications for Expanding the Teaching of Composition. Hope to have it finished over the weekend. Have a long list of books that are commonly cited in articles that should provide some good context. The library doesn't have many of them. Although I am not opposed to buying the books for myself (because they can be used later), but if I buy every book, that is going to add up. Is it ok to ask committee members to borrow those (as I am sure they have these texts) or should I suck it up and buy them myself? Any advice?

Reading Summaries (or as I like to say, I am starting to get organized)

Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures - The New London Group

"Introduction: Multiliteracies: the beginnings of an idea"

Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis

In introducing how the New London Group came to be and what their goal was, Cope and Kalantzis trace meaning making is changing as ideologies and cultures change and how educators can change pedagogical approaches to encompass these shifts. Multiliteracies as a term was chosen because it, "engages with the multiplicity of communications hannels and media," and because of the "increasing salience of cultural and linguistic diversity (5)." In other words, technology is changing so quickly, altering every facet of our lives, that we need to consider a range of literacies that work together to create meaning. The New London Group ultimately set out to create a theory and pedagogy that focuses on the (supposed) flexibility of multiliteracies and how they work in a meaning-making process.

"A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures"

The New London Group

This chapter lays out TNL's pedagogical approach that furthers multiliteracies as a way to account for a larger cultural picture and how it closely relates to how these literacies can account for communication technologies. They break down how multiliteracies affect working, public and personal lives and cultures. They lay out a framework of design - Available designs (various elements, such as language, discourses, and semiotics that are available), designing (where available designs are transformed depending on cultural and social conditions that change the meaning making process) and the redsigned (what is produced through the design process). This process allows all multiliteracies to function so that meaning is made on different levels.

They go on to layout different modes of meaning (audio, linguisitc, spatial, gestural, visual) and how they work together to create meaning. Two important terms for TNL are hybridity ("highlights mechanisms of creativity and of culture-as-process as particularly salient in contemporary culture (29)" and intertextuality (meanings made through relationships to other texts, narratives or modes of meaning (30)).

Finally, they lay out four linear, components of pedagogy that account for the varying modes of meaning.

Situated Practice - considers the varying needs and identities of learners.

OVert Instruction - learning activites that focus the learners into gaining information, as well as drawing on what they already know.

Critical Framing - helps learners master what they are receiving from situated practice and overt learning and "gain the necessary personal and theoretical distance fromtwhat they ahve learned; constructively critique it; account for it's cultural location; creatively extend and apply it' and eventually innovate on their own, within old communities and in new ones." (essentially, be more critical)

Transformed Practice - where assessment is done from what the learners have learned and how they can apply to other meaning making processes.

"Designs for Social Futures"

Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis

Cope and Kalantzis focus on design, as a structure or function and as agency. Designing encompasses different modes of meaning and how it allows for transformation and change and cultures and everyday lived experiences (they use the term, "lifeworld"). They break down dimensions of meaning by looking at participants and modes of meaning, and well as situational examples. This leads to discussion of multimedia and how changes our lifeworlds in terms of access and power, but can also be isolating, which alters meaning making.

If anyone out there is reading this and thinks I have missed the mark or full of sh*t, please let me know.

Cope and Kalantzis use this chapter to

A New Semester, Some More Challenges

I just started my third semester and it is off to an exciting start. I am beginning a study about freshmen communication technology knowledge/use in a border institution (where I am a student and teacher). I am teaching a new class online (the rhetoric of going green - I've probably mentioned that 100 times already). I am also preparing for my comprehensive exam. I have chosen my topics (in a nutshell):

• Key theories in computers and writing, in which I discuss my own pedagogical approach.

• The importance of multiliteracies in the technical communication field

• Defining culture and the problems that lie with defining such things.

My third question deals with my specialized area, i.e. my dissertation. So I think I will have a question like this:

• Trace the rhetoric of memorial and commemoration from classical rhetoric through modern rhetorical theory.

Read, read, read. Notes, notes, notes. This will be the majority of my life for a while. I really want to take my comps in March. Most people think this is a quick turnaround, but doable. I just don't want to keep putting it off.

But right now I feel directionless. Not sure where to start reading. I had a dream last night where I saw all the books I need to read and it was a little scary. Yesterday, I was told, that if I wanted to get my comps done in a year, I need to read four sources a week. I am giving myself seven months. I am not a math person, but that's more than four sources a week. And since Thursday, I've finished only one - and it wasn't even a primary text I plan on using.

I am just going to keep remembering what a professor said: this is the only time in my life that I will be able to just read and soak in knowledge.

Ahhhhh...

My intent, if that's ok with all of my readers (I don't actually know who I am posing this question to), I am going to use this space as a reading journal. Keep account of all I've read and perhaps jot some notes.

Also, if any reader (and once again, I am not actually sure I have any) has any great suggestions of sources as I get going here, please, please, please share.

Summer Comes to an End, Another Semester Begins

First of all, I realize I am a terrible blogger. I don't know what I can do to remedy this. I like blogging and I was really excited for this blog to be an archive of my PhD experience, but obviously excitement doesn't equal writing. A schedule perhaps?

The summer hasn't been all fun and games (although it has been a lot of fun and games). I've put a lot of work into the class I am teaching in the fall, The Rhetoric of Going Green. I've worked on IRB applications and surveys for a research project I am doing with a fellow student this fall. I've volunteered on a conference that will take place at NMSU this fall. I feel as though I've had a very productive summer.

I am really nervous about the fall semester. I am done with coursework as of the spring, so this semester will be preparing for my comprehensive exam, that I hope to have done in March. I am nervous for two reasons:

1. I've never been a student and not gone to class. This will be a huge test of self-motivation. I don't doubt that I can do it, I just...well, I don't know. I won't miss class and having to deal with all the personalities that come with classes, but I will miss bouncing ideas off people and hearing new perspectives.

2. I am just nervous about the whole process. Picking questions, finding roughly 140-160 sources, writing 40 pages....sounds daunting. I admit, I am saying this before I've looked at the questions, before I've even thought about sources. But I am nervous and even though I know I need to just sit down for an afternoon and figure stuff out, I am afraid and the fear is keeping me from doing anything....

which might scare me most of all - that fear will keep me from moving any further. I think I understand how people never actually finish their PhD.

Fortunately, I don't really think I'll be one of them. Or I hope anyway. I suppose we'll find out. Since I am such an awesome blogger, the next blog post might be about doing my comps.

I Really Want to be a Good Academic Blogger...

...but being a graduate student gets in the way sometimes. But not for much longer. This time next week I will be completely done with the semester. Writing, grading - DONE! Yay. I'm also done with coursework, so next year will be my journey through the comprehensive exam.

I am hoping to more closely document that journey here. I am hoping that turns into closely documenting my dissertation journey as well.

Something amazing happened last week. I was brainstorming some conference panel ideas with a colleague and we came up with something that would be really cool to do and would probably be even publishable and we were excited! At such a late and tiring point in the semester, we were giddy on research. We were giddy in spite of having to fill out an IRB, making sure no one else had done what we wanted to do, and having to quickly come up with survey questions. We can't wait!

What is this exciting idea, you ask? We're interested in looking at how instructors in a border institute use technology in the composition classroom. One, we're curious as to whether instructors use it purposefully in the composition process. Two, there really aren't digital natives at my border institute. This is such a low socioeconomic area that most kids don't have experience with a computer.

There is a lot of work to be done, but it'll be exciting - all of it, comps, conference, dissertation.

Now ask me again after I ride out the end of the semester high.