Final blog for Sp 09: the portfolio as reflection

In a little more than a week, May 4, my ENG 102 students will submit their final portfolios for this semester: the ones that account for 60 percent of their final course grade. In preparation, this week has been a marathon of individual conferences and workshopping in order to help students make choices about which projects to include in the portfolio and what revisions to make to those projects. Essentially, they are making a final argument that they have met the course goals and can produce work that is evaluated highly according to the Writing Program rubric.

One of the differences in preparing a portfolio is that there is no attempt at thinking about "readers" in general or even in terms of classmates as peer reviewers. The audience for the portfolio is me. So it's appropriate that my last blog for this semester be a review of what I look for in the portfolios.

• How does the portfolio as a whole demonstrate the student writer has achieved the goals outlined in the course syllabus? This includes understanding how to: adapt your work to an audience; achieve a purpose with your writing; develop effective writing strategies that include invention, drafting and revising; be creative but use the appeals (logos, pathos, ethos); incorporate secondary research; work in groups; be able to critically read your own work and that of other writers.
• How does each piece of the portfolio demonstrate the skills listed above AND address the guidelines for the project?
• How does each item in the portfolio rank on the Writing Program rubric? In other words, I read each paper with the idea of assigning it a grade, but I don't just "average" the grades together. I consider the portfolio as a whole when assigning a grade.

For my student bloggers, one idea for your last blog this semester is to discuss how you think your work demonstrates your achievement of the syllabus goals?

Another option is to answer the question: How am I ready for ENG 104? Not that you can accomplish the goals for 104 yet, but are you ready to work toward these goals? Here is an overview of the goals of that course:

• Create and complete research projects using both primary and secondary research, and document the sources appropriately.
• Generate a research question that you are interested in investigating. Pick appropriate research methods to investigate.
• Employ critical thinking in evaluation, analysis and synthesis of research.
• Use a variety of strategies to gather and organize information to persuade your audience.
• Use the university library for research.
• Complete individual and joint research projects.

I'll close this semester's blog by thanking my ENG 102 students for an excellent semester. I really enjoy working with writers, especially when I get to learn so much from them and about them in the process. See you on Facebook!

Ethos: writing as if you have the right to enter the conversation

As children we are encouraged to be "seen and not heard." That is a statement about our ethos: our "right" to join in an adult conversation. Children do not have a complete  understanding of adult discourse systems: things like waiting until the other person is finished before you speak (turn-taking), or empathy, or how to present ideas logically. As we grow up, we learn more and more about how to do language in certain circumstances and communities. We learn that we can ask for something one way with friends, but have to adjust our language and voice when talking to teachers or parents. That is learning how to do language rhetorically.

By the time we graduate from high school, (hopefully) we are mature enough as people and as communicators, that we are ready to take on the challenge of learning the discourse systems of other adult communities like college and our areas of study. ENG 101/102 and 104 assume students are ready to learn more about how to effectively convey ideas into the communities they want to join. It's not about just learning how to do language, but how to do language in those communities.

Students are newbies in these new communities. They are not children, because college students have the benefit of what they've already learned about other adult discourses, and are more maturing emotionally and intellectually. But undergrads are new to the various discourses of college and of their disciplines. Freshmen are just starting to learn how those communities do language. The more they learn about how those communities use language -- the expectations, the forms, the ideas and the words that represent those ideas -- the more ethos students have in those communities. Students develop the right to speak up in their communities as they move through college.

Passing ENG 101/102 and then ENG 104 does not guarantee this right to speak up. These courses are designed to help students begin to develop the critical reading and writing skills to diagnosis what counts as discourse in a community. As you learn how to be a better reader and writer, you also learn to figure out how any community that you want to join in the future does language. You learn what counts for knowledge (like academic sources in an academic community). You learn how to develop your own ethos in that community. You develop the right to speak in it.

This past two weeks, as my class has done workshopping of each other's papers, I've noticed the confidence that most of them have developed in doing language in our little classroom community. A year ago, if we had drawn together in a circle and listened as one of their classmates read a paper out loud, the fear and tension would have been thick. Each person would have struggled to give feedback, and most of the time would just muttered said, "I think it's good."

Today, I am confident that any one of my students could go into another writing classroom, writing group, or  informal gathering of students working on papers, and have the ethos to contribute in significant ways to that conversation. I'd like to hear what my students have to say on that subject. After all, they have the right to speak up on college writing now.

Hunting the rare topic sentence

As writers revise projects for the final portfolio submission, we start to look at how your ideas and evidence are being delivered to readers. The basic delivery system for human ideas is language. We use language to get ideas out of our own minds and into the minds of other people. ENG 102 is all about using written American English language to convey ideas that you've researched and developed. Written American English uses standards like paragraphing and sentences to deliver these ideas in ways that readers will find clear and understandable.

Last week one of the tips I gave in class was to circle your topic sentence in each paragraph. Try it. Look at each of the three projects you've selected for your portfolio and circle the topic sentence in each paragraph.

Go ahead...do it now and then come back here. (It's easier to understand if you've got one of your papers in front of you.)

Here's what happened:

• You found a topic sentence: one that explains the main point of your paragraph. It might be the first sentence in a paragraph, sort of like an announcement of what will follow. Or the topic sentence may be at the end: something toward which the others sentences build, sort of a "Ta-da!" You may even find the sentence with the main idea buried in the middle of the paragraph, perhaps wedged between explanations of sub-points and evidence that supports them. Wherever it's located, each paragraph should have a topic sentence.
• Perhaps, you didn't find a topic sentence in some paragraphs. All the ideas might still be connected to each other. They might belong together in the paragraph; however, there is no one thought that connects them. These sub-points just sort of huddle together and try to look like they are a real paragraph. It is your job, as the idea-transformer and writer, to turn them into a real paragraph for your reader. Come up with a topic sentence -- a thread, an overview, a question -- to which all the sub-points connect. It may sound different depending on where you position it in the paragraph, but the topic sentence should be there.
• In some paragraphs, you may find a topic sentence to which a few sub-points are connected, but others are not. In these cases, you can of of the following: revising the topic sentence, move the sub-points that don't fit to other paragraphs where they might fit better, or (if you have a few sub-points that relate to each other but not the rest of the ideas) create a new paragraph.

The point is that your readers expect ideas to be delivered to us using language that is organized into sentences and paragraphs that build upon each other. Use these language tools to show us your ideas, to prove to us that you've done your research, and to convince us to believe you.

For this week's blog, one of the topics you might consider is how your topic sentence hunt turned out. Pick one of your projects and try the exercise, then write about it in your blog.

Works Cited

"Topic Sentence Image." Inter-Cultural Communicative Competence. 11.3 Eastern Mennonite U. Web. 10 Apr 2010.

Nearing the end of our ZPD journey in ENG 102

When I begin working students, I talk about my teaching philosophy, which includes the idea of "zone of proximal development" or ZPD. This term is mostly credited to Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky, and suggests that people learn best when new information or skills are introduced as extensions of existing information/skills. At one end of the ZPD model is information a student already knows and can use and -- with the help and guidance of another higher-skilled person -- the student moves toward the zone of proximal development that was just outside his/her understanding. In many ways, the student's knowledge and skills "mature" into a higher level of skill.

A component of ZPD is "scaffolding," which is a term I use quite a bit in class when discussing activities we do. The idea is that I show my students how to do something, then the students do the activity with me monitoring, then the students do the activity by themselves. I gradually take myself out of the equation as students become more proficient. This way, when my students and I are done working together, they can continue to do the work on their own.

ZPD guides all the activities we do in my classroom. I model writing, peer response, blogging, critical reading, researching and all the other kinds of skills students need to succeed as researchers and college students. Then I ask students to do the activities for each other and for me. Over the semester, more and more of the choices are turned over to students, as their skills and knowledge develop. By the time we reach the last four weeks of class, students should be doing most of the work for themselves. My role as a guide and coach is more as a resource (and an occasional referee).

The message to my students today is: you are in charge of the success of your portfolio. In a little less than four weeks, you will submit a portfolio that will determine 60% of your semester grade. You have the knowledge and skills to do it well. Your classmates and I are a support system -- giving you feedback and answer questions -- but you make the choices about your own work.

Most of us have been on this ZPD journey together for nearly a year. I have seen your skills and confidence as writers grow. You are ready to continue on your own. All that is left is to develop a portfolio that shows off what you've gained.

My questions are: Looking back to where you were when you began working with us (either last fall or in January) what do you see as some knowledge and skills you've gained? Are there areas that you'd like to develop more? Are you ready to move on and do the kind of work we've done on your own? What else is do you need during these last four weeks?

Works Cited
"Zone of Proximal Development Focused Teaching." State of Victoria Dept. Education and Early Childhood Development. 2007. 31 Mar. 2010. Image.

Our slide show advice

Check out the slide show I created from the photos I took last week. What do you think?

Why is there timed writing?

I sit quietly listening to the click of keyboards as our ENG 102 class completes the mid-semester timed writing, and I reconsider why students are required to go through such an exercise. My 102 students don't complain much about it, but my ENG 393 class is full of frustrated seniors who didn't pass the Ball State Writing Competency Exam and now find themselves cramming in a 12-week Writing Portfolio class before they can graduate. Some 393s are bitter about how the exam is proctored: handwritten, stuck in a packed room full of other panicky writers, and responding to prompts that some students find confusing. Others disagree with the entire concept that a timed writing proves any sort of competency.

 
Those students are not alone. The use of timed writing, especially as a graduation requirement, is controversial. The complaints of my 393 students are the same ones raised by some researchers and writing instructors. Writing in the journal College Composition & Communication in 1995, Edward M. White says some critics of times writing describe it as "formulaic, unresponsive to the nature of writing, and destructive to the curriculum" (30). Peter Elbow, one of the composition rock stars I met at the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) in Louisville, Ky., last week, described an essay test as a "faint, smudged and distorted picture of the student's writing ability (qtd. in White). 

White does not disagree with these assessments of timed essay writing, but says the criticism is too broad -- that not all essay tests are bad, especially when compared to multiple choice exams, which is the most frequently used alternative to test a student's competency in many subjects. Both multiple choice and essay exams offer "snapshots" of knowledge and skills. However, as White asserts, multiple-choice tests are artificial and authority-based. Such tests force students to try to figure out not just the "right" answer, but the answer the test-creator thinks is right.

Essay exams are a step-up from multiple-choice in that, while they still focus on the "right" answer, at least they allow for a student's interpretation of that answer. Time writing like the kind done this week goes a step further. It is not concerned with a correct answer, but rather how that answer is developed, supported, organized and communicated to readers. In many ways, it is more similar to the portfolios students submit at the end of the semester than to either multiple-choice or essay tests.

White says the most important consideration in any kind of assessment is its purpose. The purposes of the mid-semester timed writing include:

• part of a continuing assessment of students' progress through Writing Program courses 
• skill development and practice for timed writing situations such as the Writing Competency exam, essay exams in other courses, and impromptu writing situations outside of academia 
• an opportunity for focused drafting on a specific topic

It's the last purpose that I find particularly important. Sometimes that kind of focus produces some very good ideas (if not always good writing). When I review what students write in timed situations at this point in the semester, I pay at least as much attention to the ideas as I do to the writing. Frequently, my students and I find ideas that can be revised into effective portfolio contents.

Whether or not you agree with any of White's ideas, others' criticism, or my analysis, timed writing will likely continue to be a part of academic discourse. Hopefully, when you are faced with your next timed writing situation -- whether it's a course exam, a placement essay, or the Writing Competency exam you may need to graduate -- you'll keep in mind some of the strategies that worked for you this year in class. Also remember that you continue to have access to the Writing Program's e-handbook Ballpoint. Chapter 11 offers some very helpful strategies for doing your best timed writing.

Most important, consider timed writing as its own genre with specific rhetorical context. As with other kinds of writing, keep your audience and purpose in mind when you respond.

Prompts: What is your feedback on White's ideas, others' criticism, or my analysis? What is your experience with timed writing (either this week or other times)?

Works Cited

“BallPoint.” BSU English Dept. Writing Program. Web. 15 Aug. 2009. 

White, Edward M. "An Apologia for the Timed Impromptu Essay Test." College Composition and Communication, 46.1, Feb. 1995. 30-45. Print.

Putting your Facebook fan page on the map

For class on Monday, March 22, we'll meet on the second floor of the Bracken Library in the GIS Research and Map Collection. As the GRMC website explains, there are more than 145,000 maps, atlases, images, and pieces of data in the collection. For the purposes of your Facebook fan page, Melissa Gentry and Angie Gibson are going to show us how you might include digital aerial photography, a custom Google map or historic map, and/or photographs from the Digital Media Repository.

The GRMC has its own blog, which discusses some of the research that can be done using its data. If you are interested in visual compositions, you might find some of the digital collages interesting, such as the exhibit on the women's baseball league of the 1940s and 50s completed for Women's History Month.

Basically, almost any topic you can research can be explored through GRMC. This might be a valuable source for your other projects. For instance, a recent GRMC blog explains how to access current earthquake information on Haiti.

There are some fun map sites and collections, like the one featuring fictional places such as Oz (left).

Come prepared Monday to explore how you can add visual interest and information to your Facebook fan page and your projects by accessing Ball State's Geospatial Center & Map Collection.

Keeping Facebook fresh

This article talks about five Facebook pages that demonstrate qualities that keep fans coming back. In rhetoric, we talk about knowing your audience and giving its members what they need and expect.

As you all know, Facebook is all about status updates. People come back because they want to see the latest on their friends and family. Smart organizations increase their "social capital" by tapping into these updates. But marketers can't just use status updates to hawk their stuff. Fans want real two-way communication, not fakey commercials. Starbuck's FB is a good example of authentic updates. Some updates come from local Starbucks staff, but lots of them are from customers who shout out for their favorite flavors. Starbucks also includes tabs with photos, videos and games.

If you like your caffeine cold, the Red Bull page is also very interactive. Two special tabs highlights Red Bull's relationship with professional athletes, including following their Tweets. Another one has places for discussion threads. Of course, there are plenty of photos and video too. There aren't as many fan posts, but there's still plenty to look at.

Do you have a favorite Facebook page to share? What makes it such a good site?

Social media in the classroom

Social media is not just for personal use. As soon as Facebook and Twitter fans begin using these social sites to communicate with friends and family, the marketplace began capitalizing on them to market their products and services. Search Facebook and you'll find pages for most films, TV shows, celebrities, and other products. It seems to me that academia must also be part of this social media revolution. This YouTube video from San Diego State University shares some interviews with others, who have mixed opinions of this trend. What do you think?

Academic social networking

I'm what technology experts call an "early adopter." I began writing with computers in newsrooms while finishing up my undergraduate degree in 1978. (Yeah, I've been writing with a keyboard since before you were born!).

When I crossed over into public relations in the mid-1980s, the firm I worked for one computer...in the IT guy's office. I was asked to write on a typewriter and edit "copy" with a red pencil and cellophane tape (literally, cutting apart pages and taping them together to revise). The IT guy tried to get me fired when I went around him -- after he said writers didn't need computers -- and contacted a local vendor to get a bid on technology for my department.

So I was surprised when, 15 years later at a workshop on technology at the first college where I taught, most of the discussion centered around how to keep students from screwing around on computers during class. One instructor even asked that a technology "kill switch" be installed in the main lecture hall where he taught. He wanted the ability to cut power to all the computers in the classroom, so that he could keep students from being distracted from his lecture.

As you may have noticed, I've been dealing with technology distractions in our classroom lately myself. You've heard me announce, "Eyes up here!" and "Hands in the air and off the keyboards!" as I try to draw your attention to the center of the room for discussion. I'm looking for middle ground -- somewhere between shutting off the technology in the room and talking to myself while you all update your Facebook profiles.

I also believe that college should reflect the world in which we live and work. That world is influenced heavily by social technology. It's a powerful way to create and sustain community. Part of my job is to help you become effective communicators and collaborators, interacting and engaging with those communities. Increasingly, that means harnassing the power of social-networking technology. It's a power you are already using, judging by how many of you have Facebook pages. So for the next project, we're going to combine your fascination with Facebook and your skills at analyzing rhetorical situations and audience needs, doing primary and secondary research, and developing compelling compositions.

Facebook began as a personal social network, but it's moved far beyond that. Most businesses, organizations, artists, entertainers, and politicians have Facebook pages. It's an important marketing strategy with how-to books and consultants. Unfortunately, many academics still see social networking sites as just places where people post embarrassing photos and inconsequential comments. Carrying on my reputation as an early adopter, we're going to experiment with Facebook as a teaching and learning tool.

In your blogs this week, I'd like to hear what you think of the idea of using Facebook for academic purposes. Is it a strategy that will catch on? Should it be done, or should Facebook stay mostly a personal social networking site? Will people your age abandon FB if too many non-personal pages erupt? Do you think it has a future in the work world? Recommend some FB pages for organizations that you belong to. What are some creative and/or fun FB wigets that might work for academic pages?

BSU's Writing Compentency Program

Here is the link to the Writing Competency Exam (ENG 392) and Course (ENG 393) to which I referred in class today. I strongly recommend you include this in your course plans when you are a junior, rather than wait till right before you are ready to graduate as some unfortunate students choose to do. Project 3 is an example of the kind of writing the exam asks of you, and that a 393 portfolio might include. In other words, it is the kind of writing that other professors expect you to be able to do.

"Harumph!" and other useless responses to an issue

I made a reference in class the other day to a quote from Blazing Saddles, and since only a few of you have even heard of the classic 1974 satire, I thought I'd share the scene with you. There is lots of "coarse" humor in this Western spoof by Mel Brooks (including the campfire farting scene which goes on way too long), plus a litany of gender, sexual, and racial stereotypes that some people find offensive, others believe is apt social commentary, and millions have found hilarious. (The film has been selected for preservation by the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.)

In the middle of all this parody, burlesque and chaos is the "harumph" snippet. The crazy governor, played by Brooks, is being tricked by his conniving State Attorney General (Harvey Korman) into trying to drive the townspeople of Rock Ridge away so that the SAG can grab their land and sell it to the incoming railroad. Korman's character whips the governor and his lackeys into a frenzy with half-truths, innuendo, and a few fallacies. But rather than do anything about the perceived problem, the room reacts in a flurry of "harumphs" (sort of like an airy grunt). The lawmakers show disdain, frustration, and outrage, but no reasoned, logical consideration or investigation into the truths of situation. There is no solution, only reaction.

I'm sharing this scene not only to give you context for my attempts at humor, but also to reinforce that the kind of argument you present in Project 3 should not be just a "harumph" at the issue you select.

Ted Koppel on "ideologically driven news" & how we need to be smarter

Former Nightline news anchor Ted Koppel was -- to use his cliche -- preaching to the converted in his "conversation" tonight at Ball State's Pruis Hall. Although his comb-over is now more white that gray and he just turned 70 this month, Koppel seemed pretty energetic on stage and intense in his discussion of critical issues facing the country and its journalism. Leaning more than sitting on a wooden stool, Koppel held court form more than an hour with an overflow crowd of journalism, T-Comm, and a few errant English composition faculty and students.

Koppel's overarching concern was "ideologically driven news" and the American public's danger of getting the kind of news it wants rather than the kind of news it needs. But he lead into that discussion by talking about a couple of elephants in America's living room that are not being explored enough. The first is the trillion-dollar deficit that the United States is funding primarily by borrowing from China. His analogy to a business that loses $1 million per day, seven days a week for 3,000 years was sobering. The second elephant is the war in Afghanistan, which Koppel insists is more about preventing its neighbor Pakistan from allowing a few of the nuclear weapons it's stockpiled fall into the hands of Al Qaeda or the Taliban, who might try to use them for another 9-11-type attack.

While the issues are closely related, since the war is helping wrack up the deficit, Koppel's real point in raising both issues is that the American people don't know enough about either issue. And they don't know enough because a consumer-driven marketplace has put too much emphasis on "what happened in the last five minutes, while the really important news might be something that happened six weeks ago that we are just learning more about." As a former print journalist, I can relate Koppel's worry that the search for the "scoop" -- who can get the latest news out the fastest -- means too much focus on speed and not enough on getting the whole story. As Koppel said tonight, "Just being first with the obvious is not enough. It's content that matters." And content takes time (for broadcast) and space (for print and Internet). We cannot get it in sound bites and 160 characters.

It used to be that to get a national audience for your thoughts, you had to work your way into an anchor position on the 6 p.m. network news. Koppel talked about how the entire nation used to gather around its evening television news "campfires" to find out what happened in the world that day. Now, anyone with a laptop can publish their version of the news at any time. And because contemporary news audiences think that the really important news is stuff that just happened, they get mostly headlines, soundbites, and sensationalism.

This type of news draws viewers, which, in turn, draws advertisers.  Koppel said news media are businesses, so we can't fault them for following a good business model of giving the public what it wants. Right now, partisan media like Fox News and MS-NBC are among the few turning a profit. The problem is that people get used to reading, viewing, or listening only to news that fits with their preconceived prejudices. Consuming media that only agrees with your world-view has a tendency to narrow your perspective even further. It deepens divides in the country. Rather than providing us with all the information and perspective we need to really understand important issues, ideologically driven media make it easy to blame "the other side." This seems easier than working toward compromise and finding solutions. In the end, however, this we-versus-them strategy solves nothing.

One of the solutions that Koppel supports is the New Literacy Project, which brings journalists into middle and high school classrooms to talk about how to be critical consumers of news. It sounds very much like the type of critical reading we do in class, in which you learn to critique the sources as well as the information. Koppel said several times that journalism needs to be "vetted," meaning that sources are examined to see if they have a bias and are accurate. It's similar to the concept of credibility that we talk about in class.

Lastly, I thought it was fortuitous that one of the questions posed to Koppel was about the satirical news coverage of Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart. He's a big fan of both shows and says they serve the public interest, although they cannot take the place of professional journalism. Stewart was one of the speakers in 2008 when Koppel was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the News & Documentary Emmys.

What is your disposition toward writing/revising?

What is your disposition toward writing (and by that I mean revising) ? I don't mean just whether you like it or not, or whether you think you are good at it or not. "Disposition" is more about how you approach writing. You may have heard that one person has a "sunny disposition," while someone else has a "cloudy disposition." I recently stumbled across the solar images section of NASA's website. Here you can see current images of our sun, taken regularly through powerful telescopes. This is my kind of sunny disposition: one that is filled with energy, that has incredible power, and changes constantly.

One's disposition toward writing and your own writing process significantly influences the kind of writing you can do. Novice writers tend to view the act of writing as getting all their knowledge about a subject down -- a behavior psychologists Carl Bereiter and Marlene Scardamalia call "knowledge-telling," and what I call puking on the page.

In my experience, another characteristic of novice writers is that they resist revision. George Hillocks, emeritus professor at the University of Chicago, says novice writers are often apprehensive about their writing and their writing process. As a result, they get very attached to the writing they are able to create and resist making changes to it. "Writers often view their words as representing themselves," Hillocks hypothesizes. "That is why they become upset when someones attacks their words. They see the attack as directed against themselves rather than against the words they have uttered" (83). I put the word "attack" in italics because some student writers resist giving or getting feedback. They take feedback only as criticism of the writer and his or her writing. They seem to think that any feedback begins with the assumption that something is wrong.

Mature writers, on the other hand, tend to see their writing as thinking. Writing is thinking that has been transformed into words and sentences so that others can consider it. Writing is thinking transformed into language so that the writer can re-consider it. If I want to figure something out -- be it a research question or a problem I'm having with a family member -- I write about it. And because my writing is thinking, it changes as my thinking changes. Writing helps transform my thinking -- what Bereiter and Scardamalia call "knowledge-transformation."

As a mature writer (remember, that doesn't mean that I act maturely, but that I have a mature disposition about writing) my disposition is that writing is a valuable tool, but I am much more than my writing. I see feedback not as an attack, but as a mirror. The reader is reflecting only what they see in the writing. I can consider their reflection, but do not have to accept it as the only was to see my work. That's why I ask more than one person to give me feedback. If I hear similar reflections from different people, then I get a better idea of what needs to be revised.

For me, reader feedback is similar to these solar images from NASA: each is colored differently because a different light spectrum was used to filter the image from the telescope. Each is an image from the same sun, but reflects different light. Taken together, they help scientists learn more about the sun.

What's more, although I am attached to the ideas in my writing, I try not to get to attached to the words themselves. The writing you read today in this blog represents my current thinking on the topic. But my thinking changes even as I write it down, so it is never my last word on a topic. I can always find something to change to make it better, stronger, clearer. My disposition toward my writing is that it serves my thinking, but it can never perfectly represent it.

What is your disposition?

Works Cited

Bereiter, Carl and Marlene Scardamalia. The Psychology of Written Composition. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1987. Print.

Hillocks, George Jr. Teaching Writing as Reflective Practice. New York: Teachers College Press, 1995. Print.

"SOHO Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope." 17 Feb. 2010.  National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center. 19 Feb. 2010. Web.

Individual conferences: more than just a couple of days off

It's almost 3 p.m. Friday and I've met with the last student I'm expecting to see individually this fifth week of classes. I'm tired, but content, because I know the extra time individual conferences take from my schedule (50 min. x 2 classes = 1.5 hrs versus 30 min. x 18 = 9 hrs) makes a big difference in students' understanding, writing, and relationship to the class and to me.

In their book The St. Martin's Guide to Teaching Writing, Cheryl Glenn, Melissa A. Goldthwaite and Robert Connors say individual conferences are a critical teaching strategy for several reasons. Conferences allow instructors to get to know their students and their individual writing processes better (69). It's not that instructors don't want to get to know students on a personal level, but our primary role is to help you with your writing. Most instructors I work with genuinely care about their students, but the best way we can show that we care is to help you achieve your personal and course goals. I want to be friendly, but let's face it, after this May most of you will not care what's posted on my Facebook. You'll move on to other classes and other instructors. And I'll move on to other students (granted, they may not ever be able to match up to this class).

While we're working together for the next ten weeks, it helps that I know as much about your writing, your processes, your frustrations, questions, and ideas as possible. Conferences let both you and me ask questions, discuss strengths and weaknesses of your work, plan for future work, and explain writing strategies that might help you.

Glenn et al suggest that the best use of conference time is in discussing a piece of student work. It gives us something concrete to talk about and to refer to (71). This is especially useful when we have a previous version of the work to look at too. I can use this comparison to point to choices that you've already made about your work that you might not even be aware of. Sometimes it takes another person to point out what's going on in your work. The best writers get lots of feedback from their editors, writing groups, and other writers and readers whom they respect. That's the kind of writing community I'm trying to create in our class.

The best conferences have a little bit of a plan, but are flexible enough to cover whatever ground the student needs. Glenn et al say its good for the instructor to have some scripted questions in mind, like "What is your purpose in this project?" and "What main ideas are you trying to get across?" and "What is frustrating you about it?" (71). These kinds of questions allow you to keep ownership of your own work. It's not my job to tell you what to write or how to write it. In fact, that kind of prescriptive teaching will almost guarantee poor projects and a student who can't write outside of class. I refer to myself as a writing coach or mentor. I make suggestions and throw out ideas, but what happens in your work is still up to you.

You may have noticed that I began my conference with you by outlining what I hoped to accomplish regarding Projects 1 and 2. I also had some notes about things I wanted to be sure and cover with each of you. But it's more important that you get what you need, which is why I tried to get you to talk too. Research shows that the more dialogic (both student and instructor talking) a conference is, the better the results.

If time allowed, I'd hold conferences after each project, but then we wouldn't get as much ground covered and, frankly, I'd be worn out. Students may look forward to conference week because it means only 30 minutes face-to-face with me versus 1.5 hours sitting in our lovely Lafollette basement classroom. I look forward to conferences because they are the few times in the semester when we can really focus on your work individually.

I'd like to hear what you have to say about you experience with conference this week. Good and bad. Did anything surprise you? Did you get the answers you needed? Or is it just time off that you are happy to have?

Works Cited

Glenn, Cheryl, Melissa A. Goldthwaite, and Robert Connors. The St. Martin's Guide to Teaching Writing. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2003. Print.

Visualizing Beneficence

In our course text Writing: A Guide for College and Beyond, Lester Faigley points out that we live in a highly visual world that tries to influence us every day. "We are bombarded by images...They compete for our attention, urge us to buy things, and guide us on our way home from work" (272). This influence, however, is not often something of which we are aware. That's why, Faigley says, writing a visual analysis can help us consider not only the visuals, but what they are trying to get us to think, feel and/or do.

In Project 2, I ask that you pick a visual in one of the many communities in which you interact and analyze what's going on in its design. In a way, you are critically "reading" the image just as you critically read a printed article (remember that fun assignment from last semester?) You are looking for the choices that the designer, photographer, video editor, architect or artist made. These clues will help you answer the question: What values are being expressed in this visual? What is the creator saying is important? How is the artist trying to influence us to see the community that the image represents?

One of the images that people connected to Ball State see constantly is Beneficence. The sculpture sits at the south central part of campus, facing University Avenue. There are lots of photos of "Benny" on the BSU website, but it's worth the trip to see her in person. The sculpture stands in a lovely promenade with a series of columns surrounding Benny. The plaza is filled with flowers in spring and summer.

The history of Beneficence, and the struggle behind the construction and funding of the plaza is described in an article on the Bracken Library's archives and special collections web site. Benny's sculptor, Daniel Chester French, also created the 19-foot-high statue of a seated Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial. French was commissioned by the Muncie Chamber of Commerce to create a sculpture to honor the Ball brothers, who founded Ball State University. He studied the Balls to come up with a concept that embodied their dedication to education and charity. (The word "beneficence" is related to the terms "beneficial" and "benefit," as in doing acts of kindness and charity, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary online.)

This visual representation of the values of education and philanthropy was eventually incorporated into the BSU logo. Art scholars can probably better explain the artistic influences and merits of Benny, but as an instructor and student, I see her first as a giver and receiver of knowledge. Certainly, her outstretched right hand can be seen as someone who is willing to take money (like the BSU Foundation or Alumni Association) but I sometimes worry that universities stress the need for financial support too much. So I will stick with the intentions of the sculptor: that Benny's outstretched hand represents our responsibilities to learn and to create new knowledge. I see it as a hand outstretched to help others by sharing our knowledge. This hand is empty, not because it wants something, but because it is inviting us to join Benny in her quest for understanding.

The decorated chest in her left hand does not contain all the knowledge, but all that is known so far. Beneficence invites us to be a part of filling that chest up. Her right foot is raised as if walking forward...moving forward to make more meaning and to share what we already know. Her wings, while perhaps part of the historic representation of knowledge, also can be reminders that the search for knowledge can take us far. Benny may have been standing in that same spot for almost seventy-three years, but the students and faculty she's seen have traveled widely and come from around the world.

These are the values that I believe Daniel Chester French tried to embody in Benny, and the ones that I think should drive almost everything we do at Ball State.

Works Cited

Logo. Ball State U. Web. 11 Feb. 2010.

Beneficence. "Campus Map." Ball State U. Web. 11 Feb. 2010.

"Beneficence." Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary. Web. 11 Feb. 2010.

Benny.  Ball State U. Bracken Library Archives and Special Collections Research Center. 2003. Web. 11 Feb. 2010.

"Benny's Story: A History of Beneficence." Ball State U. Bracken Library Archives and Special Collections Research Center. 2003. Web. 11 Feb. 2010.

"Designing the Lincoln Memorial: Daniel Chester French and Henry Bacon." National Gallery of Art. 2010. Web. 12 Feb. 2010.

Faigley, Lester. Writing: A Guide for College and Beyond. 2nd brief ed. New York: Pearson, 2010.

What does diversity have to do with me?

Is multiculturalism something we as a writing community value? Can we express it as a value that means something to us? 

After reading the current versions of Project 1 and talking with many of you about your ideas, I know that some people are struggling with what specific ideas they want to write about. Multiculturalism and diversity are huge topics and it can be daunting to try to find something that is relevant to you and that you are interested in exploring. That's why we've read, discussed and wrote about a variety of pieces that others have written. That's why I asked you to attend a multicultural activity. These are all idea-starters -- ways to prick your imagination, to get you to consider diversity as something more than just a big idea or ideal that others talk about. 

Still, the ultimate question is: So? What does this have to do with me? What Project 1 asks of you is to be willing to try and find an answer to that question. Not the big answer to the world, but what one aspect of diversity might affect your life and the communities you live in or hope to live and work in?

As we've learned, multiculturalism is something that is considered an important value by at least some people on the campus of Ball State. Part of the history of multiculturalism at BSU dates back more than 30 years. The same day in 1968 that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot in Atlanta, Robert F. Kennedy made a campaign stop on our campus as part of his run for president. The younger brother of the 35th president, John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated five years earlier, RFK continued to serve as U.S. Attorney General under President Lyndon Johnson. Then he was elected as a U.S. senator from New York. By the time he arrived on BSU's campus the afternoon of April 4, Bobby Kennedy had split with Johnson over the Vietnam War and was the Democratic Party's front-runner for the presidential nomination.

Bracken Library has an extensive online collection of photographs, news coverage, audio and video clips from RFK's speech at BSU. We'll take a look at an excerpt from the video in class, but I was also interested in how the old footage has been mashed with a song from Coldplay for a YouTube video posted above.

Later the day that RFK appeared at Ball State, Dr. King was assassinated in Atlanta. Three months after that, Bobby Kennedy was assassinated after delivering a speech to supporters who helped him win the California presidential primary.

Are their legacies relegated to history and a once-a-year day off from classes, or are they still relevant to college students today?

Is your answer to the question: what does multiculturalism have to do with me?" a simple "nothing" or "who cares?" If so, research that topic and make a case for it. 

If, however, it is something that is part of your community, what small piece of multiculturalism can you explore in 1,000 words for Project 1?

For Monday's class, Feb. 8, I'm asking you to bring something visual from one of your communities...an example of how the community expresses a value it holds. I chose the RFK collection because I think it shows that BSU values its history, especially history that connects to important national events. I'll be writing about that for Project 2. One of the things you might do with your blog this week is to post your visual example and begin writing about it.

Insight guidelines

Clicking on the title of this blog entry will take you to the Insight Game, which Brandon and Desiree mentioned in class today (Jan. 25, 2010). It's sort of like a card game, with each card having two sides from which you pick and then "place" on the table. The "flip" function allows you to flip the card to the other side to see the other choice (or you can just click on the card and it will flip). You must pick one choice from each card. Sometimes this is not easy. You may find you don't like either sides of a card or that you have trouble deciding which side is most appropriate. Just try to pick what seems closest.

After you've picked a side from each card, hit "analyze" and the game will come up with a four-letter code that best represent your styles in interacting with ideas, in gathering information, and in making decisions, and in interacting with the world. It also provides a synopsis of how your personality typing might be described. Click "next" and you will see further details and cartoon illustrations of the four different aspects identified. Here I encourage you to especially look at your Learning Style because these descriptions may help you make choices about how you prepare and participate in classes.

The Insight Game is a brief, icon-driven alternative to the pen-and-paper Myers-Briggs Type Indicator questionaire. It allows you to get a general idea of your four preferences in attitude or the world in which you prefer to gather ideas (Extravert/Introvert), perception or information gathering (Sensing/iNtuition), decision-making (Thinking/Feeling), and lifestyle, or relating to the outside world, (Judgment/Perception). Please take the test and then blog about your results.

WARNING: Write down your results. The website says it will email them to you, but I've taken the test a few times and have never gotten an email. Also, once you move to the cartoon details, you cannot hit "back" to check your overall score.

The instructor as ENFJ

The Insight Game came up with the same results as the full Myers-Briggs questionnaire I completed last year found.

As the graduate student representatives said today, sometimes preferences will be really close. For example, although my overall score shows an ENFJ, the score is very close on the last letter (Judgment/Perception) and I have answers from both sides of the card for each preference. As an instructor, I was particularly interested in how my ENFJ shows up in teaching. You may notice that the details are concerned mainly with the two middle letters of the analysis. As an NF, the game says I "tend to shy away from rigid outlines, rules and schedules." That depends on the definition of rigid. I develop all those things, including a detailed outline for each class. However, I also adjust each of them depending on who is in the class and what students need. I never teach the same course exactly the same way twice. That is far too rigid for me.

Another teaching characteristic of NF's is that they "try to relate philosophical issues to academic subjects: their impact on human destiny." This is illustrated in my ideas about creating community.

NFs treat each student as an individual, which is true of my teaching philosophy. However, the game says NFs often "fail to realize or emphasize vocational, occupational, "real-life" applications," and I encourage you to explore the field you are considering and how issues related to community manifest in your field. So I might argue that I'm not an NF that way. The other characteristic in which I don't think NF applies in grading, which the game says NF's do subjectively. By using tools like the Writing Program rubric, the grading scale outlined in the syllabus, and basic math, I try to take much of the subjectivity out of grading. I'm more concerned with being fair and consistent. (I confess the cartoon annoys me, in which the instructor makes allowances for a student's absence.)

As a student, the NF label fit especially well in describing us as "masterful in interpreting signs and symbols of meaning" and being an "intellectual butterfly" that moves from one field to the next. As many of you know, teaching college is my fourth career -- having already been a newspaper editor, the vice president of a public relations firm in Chicago's Loop, and the corporate communications director of a multinational firm. I stayed in each of them about ten years before being ready for a new challenge. Meanwhile, other people look for a job that they hope to stay in for most of their lives.

Every corporate job I've ever interviewed for required that I take the Myers-Briggs. Over the years, my scores in Extravert and Judgment have increased slightly but I've pretty much always been an NF!

I'll be interested to see what your scores reveal about the class and how we might work together going forward.

Humor and inspiration from civil rights grandfather

I'm sure I must have read about Rev. Joseph Lowrey in news reports or history books -- after all, I am the only one in class old enough to remember the civic rights movement personally, even though I was a child when the Selma marches were going on. But his role as co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and chair of the Selma-to-Montgomery March in 1965 was overshadowed by the other co-founder, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Still, I was looking forward to hearing someone who had such an important role in shaping civil rights in our country, who gave the benediction at President Obama's inauguration a year ago today, and who was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom last April. But despite these recognitions and many others, the Rev. Dr. Lowrey is still every bit a retired Methodist minister.

While he delivered a rousing, rhythmic, call-and-response message -- although the Pruis Hall audience had to be coaxed at first to be comfortable with responses like "Amen" and "Hallo" -- Rev. Lowrey also made us laugh. He was introduced by BSU President Gora after an amazing rendition of "There is No Way" by the Voices of Triumph Gospel Choir (the group ended the evening with an equally impressive "He's Able"). As he approached the lectern, the audience gave him a standing ovation and he remarked that it would be a good time to take up a collection while everyone was "in a good mood."

When talking about President Obama's request that he speak at the inauguration, Rev. Lowrey said the then-president-elect left a voicemail on his cell phone. "You cannot have the number," he told the audience. He said when the President asked him to join him on the dais for his swearing in, "I said, 'Let me check my calendar. I believe I can work that in.'" 

Lowrey's humor sometimes had a bite to it, as in when he said, "I'm neither Republican or Democrat. I am Methodist" and then added, "I have a problem with both parties. One of them takes us for granted and the other just takes us."

Whether he was sharing a snippet of civil rights history or calling for today's generations to "tear away the veneer of complexion" and see that we are all the same, Rev. Lowrey was a careful orator. His use of vivid language, organization (especially presenting ideas in a series of triplets), and voice modulation reminded me of a rhetorical analysis that I read last year by C.L. Hatch in which the scholar analyzed representations of the black folk sermon. Yes, even sermons can be analyzed rhetorically. Hatch looked specifically at the work of C.L. Franklin, a legendary preacher and father of Aretha Franklin. He noted the complex use of language, syncopation, and metaphor in creating a message that was both biblical and contemporary. Lowrey was able to accomplish something similar using the language of MLK's letter from Birmingham jail, which pulls examples from the Bible.

Ultimately, Lowrey's message was that civil rights cannot rest on ceremony -- as in a one-day observance of MLK -- but must "lived in sacrament" by not just honoring the man but also the vision.

Afterward, I met Rev. Lowrey in the Pruis foyer, where he showed me the lapel pin that is a replica of the Presidential Medal of Freedom that he was given last year. "That's on a ribbon that goes around my neck," he explained. "It doesn't look as good with a suit."

Welcome back to spring 2010 and ENG 102-04

Based on our work together last semester (apologies to new class members), I've outlined a plan of action this spring that encourages us to re-see, rethink and revise our ideas about our communities, composing in those communities, and, ultimately, our roles in those communities.

I've picked my favorite picture of our campus "Frog Baby" to represent the ideas in this posting because I think her story fits our goals. As several stories on the BSU website reveal, Frog Baby's role is related to the culture, values and space of our campus. Her cultural role is as a piece of art -- a bronze statue of a little girl playing with frogs, her joyous face upturned to the sky. Edith Barretto Stevens Parsons cast Frog Baby in 1937 and the piece was on exhibit in the BSU Museum of Art before its relocation to the fountain near Bracken Library.

Frog Baby's connection to the values of BSU is in students' relationship with her. Years ago, it was considered good luck to rub her nose before an exam. This academic value almost wore off her poor little nose! Frog Baby had to be restored before moving to the fountain, where I like to think of her as celebrating all the knowledge represented by the library. Today's students often wrap Frog Baby in hats and scarves in the winter, which I see representing our value of caring for one another. (Some communities have to worry about their artwork being defaced or vandalized; nobody messes with our baby that way.)

Lastly, Frog Baby represents the kind of academic space we try to create at BSU and in our classroom. We work hard to achieve our goals, but we try to enjoy ourselves in the process. The kind of space we create in our classroom -- physical and mental -- reflects the kind of work we can produce.

One of the projects that many of you produced for last semester's writing portfolio addressed the idea of community. One of the goals for the class is creating an effective, cooperative and creative space that supports your growth and practice in achieving the course goals. Many of you wrote about what it meant to be a part of the Ball State community and/or smaller communities within the BSU umbrella. This semester, we're going to re-examine some of the ideas you raised as we expand our understanding of community.

Specifically, we'll be looking at rhetorical aspects of community, including culture, values, issues and space.

We're also going to work on re-seeing, rethinking and revising your work. Last semester you composed three or four versions of the projects for your portfolio. This semester, I'm challenging you to reconsider what it means to "revise" your work. Revision is, unfortunately, sometimes considered just "cleaning up" a piece of writing. Focused on fixing grammar and mechanical errors, this definition of revision is way too limiting. It stunts ideas, stops inquiry and usually creates some pretty boring stuff for the reader (otherwise known as "crappy writing"). True revision happens as your write, reconsidering your ideas and goals for the piece, reflecting on feedback from your readers, and making changes that add depth and meaning to your work.

There are more details on these concepts in the syllabus and we'll talk about them in class. In your first blog for class, you can respond to any of the ideas I've presented here, in the syllabus, or in class.