Important Links

Online Teaching Portfolio (still under severe construction)
http://drdisarro.weebly.com

Geek of the Day Presentation
http://drdisarro.weebly.com/research-interests.html

Investigation vs. Individualization

I think both Jeff and Tess do an excellent job of summarizing, synthesizing, translating, and explaining the “Five Pedagogical Principles” outlined by Hewett and Ehmann. In particular, I really like Jeff’s point about individualization where the preparation of the students and the persona of the instructor (in large part) play a role in how successful a given lesson will be and explain why there are no “one-size-fits-all” pedagogies (in online instruction or elsewhere). Indeed, Jeff’s discussion on this notion of swapping pedagogical techniques amongst colleagues is something straight out of Stephen North’s The Making of Knowledge in Composition: Portrait of an Emerging Field, which describes most of the research of practitioners (i.e. composition teachers) as “lore,” or “…the accumulated body of traditions, practice, and beliefs in terms of which Practitioners understand how writing is done, learned, and taught” (22). This sounds legitimate enough, but North paints this kind of pedagogy (and research) in a negative light because of its unreliability (hence, the need for more investigation with an empirical bent). In relation to online teaching and investigation, I agree that more empirical study is needed and perhaps we as practitioners are the ones to do it, but (as Jeff mentions) the constraints on our time only allow us to investigation through gradual experimentation and implementation of online technology. So, the question then becomes how far removed from individualization is this form of investigation (where the instructor is learning bits and pieces of technology by collecting data from their own classrooms)? Did I misread what you were driving at Jeff? Thoughts?

Personal Experiences with Online Tutoring

The only real experience I have had with online instruction, tutoring, etc. was in the writing center last semester, and it was not exactly a positive experience for me. Although I appreciate the ability to read, comment, and chat with students about their writing in “real time” (as oppose to someone sending me an e-mail attachment, making comments, and sending the document back), there was often such a lag in between communication that the one-to-one interaction (as Casey mentioned in his posting) was laborious or completely lost. For example, say a student pastes their paper into the whiteboard and I start to read (let’s just say). ;-) I ask about the assignment, get the usually short answers like, “It’s a persuasive essay,” and then I continue reading. I come across something I feel needs attention and type, “You said this is a persuasive piece, yet you don’t tell the reader what your position is in the introduction, what points you will use to support your position, or even the importance of your topic…could you brainstorm or answer those questions for me? And then, several minutes later, I will get one of two possible responses: “Umm, not really. Can’t you just edit it?” or some lengthy answer that actually addresses my question; either way, there is a huge disconnect (the former being the student fiddling with other things on their computer, leaving the room, doing whatever – not to mention completely misunderstanding what a writing center does; the latter being the student engaging with me, but the wait-time creating an environment where not as much gets accomplished). So, as Nikki described in her posting, I suppose I haven’t had the same experiences as Hewett and Ehmann. Regardless, I do see the necessity of online learning and tutoring (distance education can be a wonderful thing), but I’m a little reluctant in terms of its pedagogical effectiveness (i.e. how much are students really learning and is anything missing because there is no face-to face communication?)

In-class Discussion on Shipka

Question on Shipka:

After reading/watching Shipka’s text, do you feel that her assignments foster notions of functional, critical, and rhetorical literacy as outlined by Selber?

Answer #1

Shipka’s assignments were open ended but she did provide lots of instruction and examples of what the assignments might look like. While the students didn’t necessarily use technology , many rhetorical skills were needed to figure out the purpose of the “writing” and the modes in which the writing might appear. Selber would applaud her methods.

Answer #2

I was a little confused by some of Shipka’s assignments. In the beginning of her text I liked the discussion about open ended assignments and forcing her students to think creatively. However, I am not all to sure exactly what was going on with some of those assignments. I think there was definitely a lot of critical thinking involved in these assignments, as she notes when discussing students frustrations, but I think Selber would agree with her approach. They assignments worked on the multiple levels Selber talks about.

My Response to the Answers

I suppose I just need a little more background on what Shipka did leading up to the assignments. Did she talk to students about the purpose/use of certain technologies in certain rhetorical situations? Was there any kind of gradual transition the students previous experiences with alphabetic texts to multimodal projects? For the first question I would say yes, to the second, no. It seems like Shipka was banking on the fact that students wouldn’t be comfortable, wouldn’t necessarily know what to do with the assignment, and out of that chaos there would be excellent projects drawing upon the strength of the students.

Shipka and Pignetti

One thing I have appreciated about many of the readings for this class is the variety of ways in which information and research is presented. For this week, the Shipka and Pignetti articles certainly made me rethink what constitutes Scholarship in the field (an essay with streaming video of student interviews and an analysis piece based almost entirely on the deeply personal? The hell you say). In relation to the Shipka article, I was found myself at once inspired and put on the defensive. Her assignments seem so innovative, thought-provoking, and relevant to what students will have to do once they leave the academy, i.e. “Instead of requiring that students produce linear, print-based texts, the framework for composing…provide students with open-ended, inquiry-based tasks that invite students to draw on a much wider range of materials, methodologies, technologies and rhetorical strategies than writing courses have traditionally tended to allow” (Shipka). Yet, aside from my one claim to non-conformity (the multi-genre paper), I have my students produce three “linear, print-based texts,” (a narrative essay, an analysis piece, and a persuasive essay). Why is that? Is it because, as Shipka’s participant Amanda noted, that that type of paper was what we are engrained with since elementary school? Probably. No matter where it stems from, I know my major assignments (and the scaffolding around them) need to change drastically in order to be relevant, no matter how uncomfortable it makes me; however, one thing that put me at ease in relation to Shipka, was that many of her multimodal assignments were not necessarily technology-based (thus, some of my worry about not knowing certain programs for multimodal compositions and not being able to teach said program effectively to students, was subsequently erased).

A brief note on the Pignetti article, it was quite refreshing to read something that was not, say, littered with the “academic speak” of the McClure and Baures article (prose that I myself am horribly guilty of as well). It also made me realize the breadth of possible dissertation topics and how (as a researcher) you don’t have to completely remove yourself for your work. Pignetti seems to skim that line between traditional academic discourse, creative nonfiction, and journalism and I feel that this genre-blurring is something which (although Composition certainly allows for it more than other fields) needs to be encouraged even more.

Library Miscommunication

It is quite ironic that our readings for this week focused primarily on research instruction and the dialogue between composition instructors and librarians; ironic because tomorrow is when I am taking my students to the library for a tutorial session. As McClure, Baures, Peele, and Phipps all express, there are often numerous frustrations on both sides as to what method of instruction would best serve the needs of students who know damn well that they can just “Google it” and find a wealth of information (though not always the most reliable). I am in total agreement with Peele and Phipps that the two parties (instructor and librarian) should collaborate on assignment ideas for students to facilitate a greater understanding of various databases, resources, and what constitutes a “valid source” on the web, partly because I myself have been subject to many a miscommunication with library staff. For example, last semester I scheduled a library session right after introducing the multi-genre paper to my students and, when explaining the assignment to the librarian via e-mail, he was confused as to what the paper actually entailed. The result was him showing art databases, websites for literary journals, etc. because he thought students needed to research visual or creative genres for a traditional thesis-driven paper not create such genres as the basis for the paper itself. Obviously this miscommunication wasn’t entirely his fault. I certainly could have met with him face-to-face, shown him examples from previous semester, or even pointed him to one of the many shrines to Tom Romano (the “founder” of the multi-genre paper).

One thing that the readings also made me think about was how first-year composition became responsible for introducing students to college-level research…? I don’t want to sound cynical (although I am, always have been, and probably always will be), but it seems like it is our job to foster critical thinking, introduce students to rhetorically understanding various forms of communication, establish an awareness of proper citation and plagiarism, and (oh yeah) help them become better writers. Now we have to be the go-between for the library as well? What are the other fields/disciplines doing with their time and their students? It just makes me think/realize/feel that the majority of colleges and universities really do think of composition as service course, that’s all.

Wiki Woes and Collaborative Dissertations

Okay, so I’m planning on doing something with Wikis for my “Geek of the Day” presentation and (although Moxley, Meehan, Loudermilk, and Hern’s examples definitely showed me what was out there) I found sites like writingwiki.org and teachingwiki.org to be rather clunky and confusing. It appears that Moxley designed these two sites for USF students (fine and dandy), but how do I create something similar for my students that looks a hell of a lot better and is easier to navigate? Wikispaces.com appears to be the most straightforward of the bunch, and (at least from a design standpoint) the user has a lot of options to make the various pages look somewhat interesting. Even so, it seems like most of the Wiki sites I’ve been exposed to follow the same stringent design format…is there a reason for this? Or am I just not familiar enough with the possibilities of these web-based programs/editors?

Another brief aside on collaboration…last semester in Dr. Grutsch McKinney’s ENG 601 class we talked briefly about collaborative dissertations and whether or not that notion of singular authorship (i.e. of doing one’s own work) was becoming somewhat outdated considering what we know about knowledge being socially constructed and the emphasis we place as instructors on collaboration. Since many of you weren’t in that class with me (aside from Carolyn), I was just wondering your take on the subject? Should institutions of higher education allow the option for culminating projects (such as theses and dissertations) to be co-written? Personally, my initial reaction is yes, particularly if in our classrooms we exalt the benefits of writing with others (and thus might appear hypocritical if don’t partake in such activities ourselves), but I’m also reluctant considering the prevailing views of the academy where individual scholarship is seen with less suspicion than collaborative work (the subtext being you were either too lazy or too incompetent to complete the article, thesis, dissertation, or whatever on your own). Thoughts?