English 758

English 758
Kevin's Teaching Blog

Sybil's teaching blog

Friday, September 16, 2005

<Sybil>

Sybil

</Sybil>

Wednesday, December 11, 2002

I highlighted the same Fox qutations as Lynne, but I wanted to include one more. (about transcending the boundary between western and world communication styles) "We'd have to be convinced that maintaining group solidarity or harmony is more important than being yourself, that tradition is more meaningful than history [. . .] and that the students' role is to thoroughly internalize what others have done rather than to critically question their own assumptions or the words of their teachers and texts" (61). Where do you (inclusive) stand on this? I'm still mulling.

</Kendra>

<Lynne>

So, I am leaving now. See everyone in class!

</Lynne>

<Lynne>

I agree I'm idealistic. It's much easier when you are out of the environment :-)

</Lynne>

<Kim>

The essay that really kind of scared me and made me think all at the same time (or maybe it scared me BECAUSE it made me think) was Fox's. I could really relate to her situation of trying to be an ally for students that needed an open audience, yet finding herself sticking to the more traditional ways of reading. I also was affected (like Emily) by the Mirtz assignment. I ESPECIALLY loved the handout she had for addressing the things we do when we're hit with an assignment we don't understand. I think I'll use that (or something very much like it) for my classes. It would be neat to do with essays they don't understand, too.

</Kim>

<Emily>

Idealistic Lynne- It seems as though the academy works as a filter- do we need this filter? I think for some reasons, I don't know. Should the academy by exclusionary? What are the benefits of having an institution that is exclusionary? Should Inclusionary teaching be limited to years prior to higher education? I don't know the answers to this, but it seems that there should be reasons for this. Anyone have any ideas?

</Emily>

<Lynne>

I like that she used the word "ally." It doesn't mean to follow along blindly. It means that we can work together, yet maybe have different ideas? That word has a positive effect on me.

</Lynne>

<Emily>

I like the connotation of Fox's title: "Being an Ally." Lots of positive interpersonal connotations- individually and socially (departmentally?).

</Emily>

<Lynne>

BTW - Helen Fox does not support these things. In fact - they scare her (I don't want to take her quotes out of context (sorry! already did!!)

</Lynne>

<Kim>

Okay, I'm writing quick because I'm not sure if this will come through or not...each time I come up with something very clever and witty the computer nukes it. Seems like someone shutting the door on a room I'm trying to get into! Ha! Tied it into the essays, so there!
I thought that the common trend here was about language...and likening language to rooms. Sometimes you can tell someone's been there and other times you feel like you have to pull the sheets off the furniture and rearrange everything to fit your needs.

</Kim>

<Lynne>

So, my question - Helen Fox says "what I'm finding ... is that what graduate students need to learn is the language and values of the acedemy, its styles and structures, its vocabularies and uses of voice..." and goes on to describe scholars as "narrow in their vision and exclusionary about their club." Why would we, not as acedemics, but as teachers, want to be exclusionary. Teaching - to me - is about bringing people in. Why can't we teach to do that?

</Lynne>

<Lynne>

I see this as stepping out and doing something new - whether it is writing related or not. I don't like the "slipping." I guess I would like something a bit more bold. I don't see all of life's adventures as accidents, as the word "slipping" connotes. Emily - now I don't know that I like this phrase either! :-)

</Lynne>

<Emily>

Mirtz's article left the biggest impression on me regarding "valuing the 'old' and trying the 'new'." Drat- I was planning on incorporating some of her ideas into my alternative grammar exercises.

</Emily>

<Emily>

Without devaluing the current conversation, I just have a small comment. Guyer says that "Slipping into the next room is the only life journey any of us ever takes." This seems like an over-simplification of life journeys- do they mean in reference to stepping outside traditional rhetorics? or stepping "slipping" outside our traditional boundaries of writing?

</Emily>

Holly said "the common thread, then, is basically that everyone is trying to get outside of the room." I think that's on the right track, but for me it is also just getting people to understand that they are in a room and asking them to observe and assess the room. After they have knowledge of the room, or box, or academy, or whatever, then they will be able to make an informed decision about stepping outside.

</Kendra>

Lynne- yes! It seems like the essays have been about respecting traditional writing, but more than that too. To me it seems like these essays, among others, are calling for people to look at and acknowledge their history/ writing style/ preconceived ideas in order to evaluate their appropriateness for specific situations. By looking at the other ways a dialogue could transpire, for example, students might be better able to explain the benefits and drawbacks of traditional forms vs. non-traditional.

</Kendra>

<Lynne>

Holly - I have been asking myself that question, and I think that your idea works. Isn't that what many of our readings, throughout the semester, have been about? About respecting traditional writing, while understanding the need to expand horizons.

</Lynne>

<SHANK>

Holly, -- I think you found what I was looking for from the Guyer piece, the idea that we already exist in different "rooms" and... how did you say it... "the connection isn't the fact that everyone is writing within a certain set of dimensions (like a room), although the limitations come from various sources (personal experience, the canon, technological limitations)."
That brought it home for me; I don't think it's a stretch at all.

And yeah, Kendra, I got sidetracked by the Cody character too. I was left wondering what Mirtz was using him for. Isn't it interesting how within the classroom, he would be just another independant student, but within her writing, he becomes a character that she creates? Even if she is "describing it just as it happened"... I don't know, it bothered me a little. But I did like the playfulness she had with her assignments. The instructions were a lot more organic, which kept it alive for me. I'm trying to think whether or not I would have done what Cody did, too, though...

</SHANK>

<Jenn>

Holly-- I don't think you are really stretching it, but I was WAY oversimplifying it. I thought we were just looking at alternative topics we hadn't looked at before: 1. space as story 2. MOO's or computer realities-- I dropped by a blog party once shortly after Sybil's presentation and it was this weird creative writing, group pretend game thing-- someone pretending to be a dog, peeing on the plant-- another guy pretending to eye up this girl and get up enough nerve to talk to her and she played right along mingling with everyone else waiting for his approach...it was weird, entertaining... Academic???? 3. Grammar B and its place in the academy 4. The question of how to bring intelligent people with INTELLIGENT/successful styles in one into academia successfully.... and I'm sorry I can't address the Daly topics.... But I thought this was even broader than what you were suggesting, but then, the whole class has been about stepping out of the box.

</Jenn>

<Jenn>

I'll have to end with the Alt Dis piece, as I must have left my Personal Effects at work, from which I am playing hooky after several nights of very little sleep.... It seems a fitting end piece to this term, anyway, suggesting, to me, the importance to find a balance between valuing alternative discourses, especially those grounded in cultural differences, while at the same time teaching the traditional discourses that admit very educated, intelligent and gifted individuals into an academy that is slow to change. I realize, of course, that most of us will argue that it is the academy that should change and, perhaps, that is true. However, in the meantime.......

</Jenn>

<Holly>

Although I don't have any of the assignment stuff in front of me (typing at work...), I think Betsy had asked us to consider how all of the essays are related. (Does that ring a bell to anyone else?) Anyway, while reading your blog entries, I wonder if the connection isn't the fact that everyone is writing within a certain set of dimensions (like a room), although the limitations come from various sources (personal experience, the canon, technological limitations). The common thread, then, is basically that everyone is trying to get outside of the room (outside of the box... so cliche). This may be totally oversimplifying the texts but, as I read them, that was the main connection I found. Anyone else?

Oh, and I have no idea what the Cody thing was all about... Maybe he symbolizes the uphill battle of stepping outside the box. (Okay, that was really a stretch...) :)

</Holly>

<Jenn>

I loved the Mirtz piece. What a fun assignment! It makes me long to teach at a level where I could try something like that......165 paragraphs with diagramed origins come in tomorrow. :-(. and I just got challenged AGAIN at a department meeting for not doing more with those damn diagrams. (Angry face!)...I won for now. Relief.

</Jenn>

<Jenn>

Lynne and Kendra--- I struggled with Guyer's essay A LOT. I started thinking of room as the setting for a story and that the story was the people that HAD been there or even the process of creating that room or the reason for creating that space, but then she seemed to flow into the concept that space WAS story and my mind was blown..... Maybe it's just that I'm in the middle of teaching my kids basic plot structure so I need setting, character, conflict. :-)

</Jenn>

<Jenn>

Conor--- you are worlds ahead of me simply for comprehending what a MOO culture might look like, let alone being able to academically consider its place in literacy! I started the whole essay sort of arrogant and cocky-like-- whoo-hoo, an essay on place and room and giving meaning to that place, ah-ha! my thesis, I know this...... Well, I didn't I don't I'm not sure I can. (Hey Kendra-- I sound like Cody!)

</Jenn>

Tuesday, December 10, 2002

The Mirtz essay was a pretty fun read. I especially enjoyed the lists of "Ways We Handle Unexpected Writing Assignments" and "Ways Writers Get Past Their Excuses." However, I got sidetracked by the "Cody" subplot (did anyone else notice this??). Are readers supposed to glean something from Cody's errant behavior? What are we supposed to infer from the fact that one of his friends saw him at the union on the morning the paper was to be handed in? It seemed like ambiguous character development, either explain it or cut it out.

</Kendra>

I think I lost my point on that last one. I'll try to find it again. Lynne mentioned the questioning of emptiness when there is evidence of people having been there. (sort of, right?) Guyer writes about rooms in "sad buildings" with hard lines: "But these, too, help me to understand how the furnishings in our lives suggest events, and how boundaries operate" (324). I understand that the photos are likely intended to help the reader understand the same thing, but for me, it's not working.

Moving on, however, I did like Guyer's idea of places as stories. I like the idea that everything is a story. Hurray for stories!

</Kendra>

Lynne--I had trouble with the Guyer piece too, and I can't tell if I am just missing something obvious or what. I feel like I'm missing the big point of the pictures--I wasn't able to find a connection between the photos and the texts, other than that they were photos of rooms. Specifically, I wondered why most of the pictures were taken in churches or missions. I also wondered about the resolution of the pictures--for example the one that had the note in the caption about the blackboard in the church meeting room where "Kevin loves Brenda + it= true love" was written. Other essays in this book have more detailed pictures, is the low resolution here serving some sort of purpose or what? Also, is it actually a strong enough photo to be included if the viewer can't even see this writing, which the author clearly thought was important? Maybe I was looking for too much in the photos, or maybe I am missing some deeper symbolism in the flourescent lights. Anyway, yes, I had some trouble with it.

</Kendra>

<Lynne>

Conor, you connect to the technology, and I connect to the statements where Guyer questions whether or not a place is full (I am paraphrasing because I don't have a book next to me.) I love how she questions emptiness when it is obvious that someone was there, decorating, making someplace a home. I think that flows smoothly into the idea that place doesn't have to be physical - as in MOO.

This is the second time that I have read this piece, and I still haven't read it as thoroughly as I'd like. I'm am trying to decide how much I like her style of writing. I start to read, and she gives no clues as to where the piece is going. This seems somewhat alternative in that I question, now and before, what is your thesis? How did you get from there to here? Most importantly, does it really matter? Is that the teacher in me? Am I the only one who struggled with this a little?

</Lynne>

Monday, December 09, 2002

<SHANK>

This again goes back to what Kendra said about location. This essay again emphasizes location in lots of different ways, while also talking about different literacies(?).

</SHANK>

<SHANK>

Guyer's essay on the whole MOO culture hits a lot of different targets with me. Back when I still had a very old MAC LC II, many of the games were just 8-bits away from being text only; very similar environments where words are what makes the rooms. Although, like the students from Carnegie Mellon, I tried to do things like "eat the cat," especially when I got frustrated. But I'm still trying to connect the idea of different rooms to different forms of literacy. Does anyone see what I mean?

</SHANK>

<SHANK>

I don't think Kendra talked about her feet... did anybody check to see if the humidifier/sexualizer was on?

</SHANK>

<Sybil>

Hey all! Back from Edmonton... and I feel behind a bit in this class. What happened in class? Did Kendra mention her wickedly sexy feet again? :-)

</Sybil>

Wednesday, December 04, 2002

Had to test the first one before I moved on. :-)

Barry School

Stir Stix--links to examples of many genres!

See you all tonight!

</Kendra>

Hey kids! I've been too busy to post much this week--sorry about that. Here are some online resources for you for multi-genre pedagogy. I particularly enjoy these sources. I'm bringing a rubric for multi-genre grading. Here are the links!
Sheboygan Falls Multi-Genre

</Kendra>

Tuesday, December 03, 2002

<Jenn>

Here's another interesting quote..... "I have yet to pursue fully the concepts of multigenre from multiple voices".........

</Jenn>

<Jenn>

Here's a good quote from one of my research pieces... If I added it a million weeks ago, I am sorry I forgot, but I came across it again tonight.

"Most projects that schoolteachers assign are often narrowly defined and can be done by only one assigned method. While this structure provides control fro the teacher, it does nto reflect many of the challenges people face in the outside world. The multigenre project, however, teaches students techniques to live with ambiquity and to address issues in a variey of ways/"

</Jenn>

<Jenn>

I am immersed in multi-genre as I finsh up my project. I'll be ready to discuss. Believe it or not... I miss class.

</Jenn>

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving break. Don't forget, we'll be discussing the multi-genre readings tomorrow night. See you soon!

</Kendra>

Wednesday, November 27, 2002

<Jenn>

TOTALLY OFF THE CURRENT SUBJECT, BUT RELATED TO THE PREVIOUS AND I HAVE TO GET IT OUT TO PEOPLE WHO I KNOW WILL 'GET IT'. I am nearly paralyzed at the moment, forgive me if I sound over-dramatic.... I knew I had a student whose brother committed suicide a year or so ago, but I never suspected that HE been with him at the time, or that HE had found the body and called 911, or that HE would chose that day and that moment to write about for his grad standard narrative. And I am COMPLETELY and TOTALLY unable to WRITE a SINGLE comment or MARK or GRADE or ANYTHING on it. MY GOD he deserves nine thousand million A's for living through that moment and I don't care to make any part of that day worse for him. So there. He passes the assignment and that is all he needs to know. Does it matter if he misses a quotation makrk or ten?

</Jenn>

/archives