On the relevance of Media to Composition

I always get a few students who don't see the point of using media in a composition classroom. This always surprises me. How many people see themselves writing essays for a living? How often will we write essays in our future jobs?

In my as-of-yet unpublished dissertation I have found a wealth of solid research supporting the incorporation of multi-modal forms of "writing" in composition:

Sheltzer and Warshauer (2000) write, “Language professionals who have access to an Internet computer classroom are in a position to teach students valuable lifelong learning skills and strategies for becoming autonomous learners” (p. 176). Those without access or with limited access are at a distinct disadvantage.

Teachers, in preparing content for digital modes of instruction delivery, have too often tended to, “transpose books and lectures, and so they miss the opportunity for use of the computer for creating responsive and active learning environments”(Bork, 1985. p. 7 cited in Alvi text but not referenced in their works cited).... Researchers (Lunsford, 2006; Jones-Kavalier and Flannigan, 2006; Ito et al. 2008; Lenhart et al. 2007) argue for us to redefine what it means to write in the digital age. Whatever definition we use, we must consider the role of modern web-based communication networks. It is likewise important to note, as Zhao (2003) and others have, that it isn’t the technology that makes the difference for students, but the way it is used.
Cummins (2000) notes that projects making extensive use of instructional technology (IT) can develop language and literacy more effectively than projects that make minimal use of IT. He concluded that this may be through heightened communities built across ethnic, geographical, social and linguistic divides (See also Brown et al., 1998; Cummins & Sayers, 1995).
Language educators should examine the potential of IT not only to increase the linguistic power of the individual student but also to harness that power in critical and constructive ways to strengthen the social fabric of our local and global communities…we should acknowledge the fundamental changes that IT is bringing to our societies and seek ways to use its power for transformative purposes (Cummins, 2000, p. 539). The diverse student population of our school makes development of literacy and the building of community essential.

I frequently share that many instructors (I can think of 3 off the top of my head now, and I think earlier I counted as many as 11) use multi-modal (or media) projects in composition 1. I also share that this project was the teaching demonstration that impressed my hiring committee when I got this job. We took a museum tour where the docents explained how art was composed - in many of the same ways the written word is composed.

If you need to make a presentation to a boss, will you read an image free text - or will you include pictures, charts and graphs? Will video or sound help persuade a manager or sell a product?

And my final question, should colleges prepare students for the workforce of 20 years ago, the work force of today, or the workforce 5 years down the road?

Finals schedule

Here's the finals schedule for JCCC. Evidently I'm not the only one who couldn't find it. Lesson: when in doubt, ask the administrative assistants. They know everything.

This reminds me of a classic XKCD cartoon. Include Finals Schedule for something people would look for - which the search engine couldn't even find.

Rules for beginning writers.

Got wind of this advice for beginning writers from BoingBoing, who found it from VS Naipaul.

1. Do not write long sentences. A sentence should not have more than ten or twelve words.

2. Each sentence should make a clear statement. It should add to the statement that went before. A good paragraph is a series of clear, linked statements.

3. Do not use big words. If your computer tells you that your average word is more than five letters long, there is something wrong. The use of small words compels you to think about what you are writing. Even difficult ideas can be broken down into small words.

4. Never use words whose meaning you are not sure of. If you break this rule you should look for other work.

They found it here. I agree with Cory Doctorow that these rules should not be absolute - with the exception of # 4. What will it take for people to use the dictionary? And yet when dictionary is used - will they resist the impulse to cite it as a source?

When a toddler announces to a dinner party that they have pooped and wiped themselves, we find it acceptable and even cute. When an adolescent does the same - not cute and only acceptable if we have very low expectations of said adolescent. We expect students to use dictionaries and encyclopedias, but we don't look for that as sources on papers.

Review: Lost on Planet China

I found this book on MP3 audio at the Lawrence Library. His introductory admission that he is, in no sense, an authority on China nor on any things Chinese, drug me into this book.

While an admitted non-authority, he did offer an honest and perceptive first hand account of his travels in China. Also, his research and journalists eye for detail and social criticism - - combined with a trenchant sense of humor (3/4 reviewers online have called it rollicking) reminded me of my time in the middle kingdom.

His irreverent social criticism - and his multi-national perspective (he's some sort of Dutch / Czech/ Canadian living mostly in California) should appeal to the traditionally aged students at our school, though he drops the f-bomb a couple times in the first chapter, and the mofo-bomb a couple times in a clever and funny recollection of his meth-addled neighbors in Sacramento. He seems to be a devoted family man - who none-the-less speaks candidly of the unclear roles of, for instance, the student/ "take out girl" or the factory girl "Cinderella." These moral ambiguities are part of the mystery of the east, he reasons. In his humor, I detect an elusive and indelicate truth.

I'm halfway through the book, but the following comments brought back memories, and reminded me of some of the visceral first impressions I'd forgotten, such as:

Pollution

• "700,000 people per year die just from breathing the air" - the air pollution in China is unimaginably bad. 1/3 of the pollution in California, he asserts, comes originally from China. - and has survived the 4000 miles of ocean.
• 1/3 (or 2/3rds) of all the water in China is unfit for even industrial use. It's too polluted for even use to make leaded paint.
  
• Air quality in Beijing is 3 times worse than what the level at which we tell children and the elderly to stay indoors because of unacceptable danger. If that link is correct - he may have understated .
  

Culture

• "I was finally having an authentic Chinese experience: It was awful." Here he spoke of a train ride. The second-hand smoke recollections rang a bell.
  
• Chinese culture has a unique approach to queuing up - or waiting in line. It's a contact sport more akin to football than anything in the west. It has to be experienced to be understood.
  
• The interactions with food (including experiences eating sheep brains, frog, and live squid).
• The way the Chinese call out Lao Wai when they see a foreigner - his Chinese language skills aren't stellar, but he figures out it means something negative. In Taiwan the meaning is much like the n-word here, or the c-word. It may mean something less negative in China - but considering how the attitudes toward human rights differ - I'm not sure we can ever make easy comparisons. That said, I cringe every time he uses the term. It might be his causal honesty, or that refreshing wise but clueless - eyes wide open stance of his that I initially found endearing.
  

The MP3 lasts 11 hours, and I regret not being able to bookmark pages - but I'm diggin' it.

• Book review - by someone else.

• Find the book on Amazon

Metaphor paper explained

Once again too many papers start off with a paragraph to a page of random BS on the nature of metaphors in general. Papers should get to the point quickly - and focus on the text one analyzes.

Here's an example where someone analyzed the epic Rebecca Black song that all the kids listen to:
Of course some of this is false - like that the name of Kennedy's chauffeur is Kickin - that wouldn't fly in a class paper - but enough of the content is usable that this could have been developed into a 1250 word paper.

A couple students have translated the goal of the assignment into different languages - I can't speak to the accuracy of their translations, but as we get more non-native speakers who translate the goals of the assignment into their own languages, perhaps a dialogue that transcends English might develop which will shed some additional light on the assignment.


Note: it doesn't really matter if the author meant to achieve or communicate what the student writer finds. Much like it doesn't matter if Ms. Black meant to write a song about Kennedy. IT's about Kennedy now as far as I'm concerned. And in French:


Again, some students waited too long to start and misunderstood the goals of the assignment. Though for as many who think that misunderstanding an assignment is defense or excuse, it almost seems like a strategy - failed though it turned out to be.

Why doesn't this work in my class?

If you want to know why this won't work in my class, read the syllabus.

Master Teacher Retreat

This weekend I'll be co-facilitating a Master Teacher Retreat in the bucolic splendor of Tall Oaks. We've got the wiki started up, and I'll give anyone attending rights to add and edit content. If you've never participated in a wiki before, I highly recommend the 3 minutes it takes to watch the common craft presentation, Wiki's in Plain English. For further ideas on how to use wikis, check out this page.

I'll share my experiences using wikis, blogs and podcasts and other collaborative media in and with my classes.

Here are some links I'll use:

• for the podcast
• podcasts of yor
• Twitter (I'm Kaizer3 and I'll be using the hash tag #kcpdc and displaying using visible tweets (and for those that don't have a twitter account - just enter the hashtag).
  
• Social bookmarking
  
• Google Docs Moderator - where audience can ask and/or vote on questions. http://goo.gl/mod/c33D
  
• Facebook group for the retreat (note: we shouldn't have to friend to collaborate here).
  

Research in the news.

A new research study on composition reports

An analysis of research papers written in first-year composition courses at 15 colleges reveals that many students simply copy chunks of text from the sources they cite without truly grasping the underlying argument, quality or context...

The researchers analyzed the students' 1,832 research citations and assigned each of them to one of four categories:

• Exact copying -- a verbatim cut-and-paste, either with or without quotation marks.
• "Patchwriting" -- the copying of the original language with minimal alteration and with synonyms substituting for several original words (patchwriting is often a failed attempt to paraphrase, they said).
• Paraphrasing -- a restatement of a source's argument with mostly fresh language, and with some of the original language intact; it reflects comprehension of a small portion, perhaps a sentence, of the source material.
• Summary -- the desired form of citation because it demonstrates true understanding of a large portion, if not the entirety, of the original text; summarizing was identified by the researchers when student writers restated in their own terms the source material and compressed by at least 50 percent the main points of at least three consecutive sentences

The paper speculates that this indicates a lack of engagement: apathy. Students don't care. They provide an example and conculde

students tended to rely heavily on their sources -- so heavily, in fact, that students rarely seem to fully own the material and marshal it to form a novel argument, the researchers said.

“The compelling, unnerving issue is that the student has nothing to say,” said Howard of the piece that drew so heavily on WebMD. “How could she, since she's writing a research document from reference materials?”

This is the big question. Why do students seem to have nothing to say? Part of the problem may stem from deficits of reading comprehension. Many students don't seem to understand what they read and balk at, or shy away from, meaningful resources. They don't read, but is it right to assume they can't? Or are they accustomed to pretending to be ignorant to keep instructors' expectations low. I used to do that. It was a big mistake.

The article also speculates that most sources are merely the first hits from a google search. Do students understand how lame that sounds? Why or why not?

I'm seeing this on the iSearch, which necessarily is topic that students care about. Maybe the research only looked at early drafts. I do want to see the process, but on the final paper reference material won't cut it.

This relates as well to something I'm seeing in the Metaphor paper. What's up with people quoting the dictionary? That's common knowledge. By college - dictionary definitions are assumed to be common knowledge - In the past I've chalked this up to a lack of sophistication or understanding of rhetoric, but perhaps it is instead (or as well) a deficit in research skills.

Research is an active process. It is a hunt: an exploration; an adventure. At least it is when it's done right.

I need to make reading logs regular assignments - and we need to do more "think/pair/share" in the classroom.

Office Door Comics

I always notice cartoons posted on the office doors of faculty, and I enjoy the people who stop at my door and read what I've posted. This image is from the last bit of unclaimed office debris left over from a former adviser of mine. He passed while I was still at KU; he always had my tremendous respect, though I saw some element of our strained relationship in this cartoon. Even so, I'm hard pressed to explain it.

He spoke of Hermeneutics, and I remember this cartoon adorning his office for a decade.

I believe this posting is fair-use. The publication data I have is clearly visible. It is being used for educational purposes and it is re-purposed to illustrate teaching theory and vocabulary. But I invite anyone to criticize my use by reading the awesome free digital comic that explains copyright law by Keith Aoki, James Boyle and Jennifer Jenkins at the site hosted at Duke University.

BTW: the scanned image data is (Sept. 7 1996 by O'nelly (?) Creators Syndicate Inc. speedbump@ compuserve.com).

Profile Writing

Our textbook offers excellent instructions and suggestions for writing profiles, in addition to many fine examples. If one reads that material one should have no trouble with the assignment.

A profile differs from a memoir in that it is about another person. For this assignment we require that the subject of your profile be associated with JCCC and available for interview (or respond to email requests for information). This is necessary because the paper must have at least 2 examples of quoted material (be it speech, email or publication) and that all sources be listed on the works page/ bibliography at the end of the writer's paper. All choices are up to the discretion of the instructor, and family and /or romantic partners are not allowed.

To give some ideas and expose students to some of the groups available on campus the following JCCC organizations have sent representatives to address classes in the past.

• Inter-varsity Christian Fellowship: campus contact erin@ivkansas.org
• Queers and Allies: Facebook group; Google Group page;
  

The JCCC Center for Student Involvement coordinates a host of other groups, and in the future I hope to have other groups talk to our classes.

Who's using facebook.

Mashable has an interesting infographic on the demographics of Facebook. A year ago on April 5th 37.5 % of the total US population had a Facebook account. The Makeup of the US Facebook population had significantly more diversity that the US population, at least with Black, Hispanic and Asian users (Muhammad Saleem 2010). Roy Wells estimated the total US Facebook population in August of 2010 at 41.6%.