April 21st - Multimodal Project

Over the past two weeks, I have been working on my final multimodal project for Composition Theory. I wanted to research a subject that might be useful to me (and other teachers) for teaching ENG 103 next year, so I chose a classroom exercise about which I had heard mixed reviews. From my conversations with several of this year's ENG 103 teachers, I knew that peer-review was a common exercise used in the classroom, but had heard that it didn't always work so well. My research consisted of a few articles on the subject, as well as videotaped interviews with three of the teachers from the 2007-2008 and the 2008-2009 years in ENG 103. Both sets of research had many similarities. Basically, I found that peer review is great, but only for those students that really take full advantage of it. Some partnerships take the process more seriously than others. To improve the effectiveness of peer review in the classroom, a teacher must do 3 things:

-Structure the reviews in such a way that students give constructive feedback, preferably in writing that the students can take with them to use during their revisions
-Convince students to take full advantage of the process
-Monitor student reviewers to make sure that they are giving constructive feedback

I created a website to explain the benefits of and the potential issues with using peer review. Check it out at: www.clemson.edu/~bricke/peerreview

April 7 - Blogs

In preparation for today's class, we looked at several blogs that discussed rhetoric, networks, and the pedagogical role of blogs and webpages. Collin Brooke's Weblogs as Deictic Systems was a compolation of related essays. The first blog post was about Diexis, the use of words and phrases that are purely contextual. The author then continues his thoughts by writing about how software is becoming more and more social, how this social networking is either inwardly-focused (centripetal) or outwardly-focused (centrifugal), or both. He then addresses how networks of people and ideas can quickly include a large number of people though a small number of connections and how blogs can help create these connections. Blogs are a tool for both centripetal and centrifugal networking.

In sharp contrast to Weblogs as Deictic Systems, The Blogora allows for a dialouge on many different topics and is constantly updated by many different contributors rather than only including one person's viewpoint. Although it is harder to read as a stand-alone source of information, it seems to allow a rich mix of opinions on everything rhetorical. A particularly interesting recent post I saw was about a Apple application that disables a users internet for 8 hours at a time so that they can't get distracted online. It posed the question of whether it was positive or negative liberty and was meant to start a discussion on the topic open for others to contribute.

I think that blogs can play a very important role in the classroom, but feel that they need to act as a discussion and not only as a stand-alone statement by the author. There is obvious value in having a student write and post their own materials, but by opening up their materials for others to comment on (and contribute to) it creates a small discourse community and involves a larger number of students in a more substatial way.

March 31st - Multimodal Project

For my multimodal project, I knew that I wanted to create a webpage, which would allow me to include text, pictures, video, and perhaps even a short quiz at the end. I was happy to be able to create a lesson, as well as a product that would address my research on a topic of pedagogy. I emailed Dr. Haynes with a project idea that will discuss the potential benefits and problems with including peer-review exercises in the classroom. From listening to conversations among this year's English 103 teachers, it seems as though this could be a great exercise for students, but that many of the freshmen students don't take advantage of it. I hope to find the best way to implement this exercise in the classroom and be able to share it with my peers via a website.

March 24th - English at the Crossroads

This was our first class in a couple of weeks and we had a very interesting group exercise. Over the past three weeks, we had read Selfe's "Toward New Media Texts," Sirc's "Box Logic," Kress' "English at the Crossroads," and Wysocki's "The Sticky Embrace of Beauty." Each of these papers (explicitly or implicitly) make an argument for viewing and practicing English pedagogy through either a Traditional, a Multimodal, or a Neo-Avant Garde lens.

The class split up into three groups that would argue for each of these categories, plus a judges group that would decide which group made the best argument. I joined the Multimodal group, as I feel this viewpoint offers understandability and approachability for students, as well as plenty of creative room for the class to interact and creatively add to the discussion. Our group joined up and had a lively discussion about what arguments we should present to sway the newly appointed judges.

The three groups' presentations were interesting, but somewhat predictable. Although the Neo-Avant Garde group was only predictable in its unpredictability, which was a lot of fun to watch. I think each student in the class would have been able to argue for any one of the three groups, which just means that I think we all understood the basic concepts of each viewpoint. I think I learned most from our group's discussion/arguments about what we should present to the judges. It was somewhat difficult to create a compelling and unique argument for each of the nine of us to present, but I think we did a good job and was disappointed to find that our group failed to convince any of the judges that a multimodal pedagogy is best for English students. Even after hearing the other group's arguments, I still think this is honestly the best way to go.

March 17th - Spring Break

This week we did not have class due to spring break, but our applications for the teaching assistantship we due during the week. I asked Dr. Howard for a letter of recommendation, as I have worked with him in the MATRF and he has seen me make presentations in class. I also asked my fiance', Christina D'Elia to write a short letter for me since I will be guest lecturing for her classes some time next week and we have worked together on crafting a lesson plan. In addition to asking for letters of recommendation, I wrote a short letter about my previous teaching experience for the application. This not only was a necessary part of the application, but also gave me the chance to look back in my collegiate education and my work experience to see the various times that I have had a chance to teach others. I had more experience than I would have thought! I'm really looking forward to being able to expand on this.

March 3rd & March 10th - Group Project

Over the past two weeks, I have been working with fellow students and fellow future teachers to teach our Composition Theory class about photo essays in 20 minutes. We had a chance to all meet together in class on March 3rd and really got to plan things out. Before this we had bounced ideas off of each other via email about what we each thought was the most important part of photo essays to teach to the rest of our Composition Theory class. I had originally thought that teaching our fellow students how to make one in a step by step manner should be the main focus of our lesson plan and that we should go in depth into how to take pictures, edit them, and then compile them into a final photo essay. However, after hearing my teammate's ideas, I quickly reconsidered and agreed that there was a lot more to our lesson than just teaching students how to create a photo essay.

Meeting in class on March 3rd gave us the chance to figure out what we needed to say, how we needed to say it, and how to split up the presentation (and the work) among the six of us. I think we all worked great together and each member of the team pulled their own weight. Maggie took charge and acted as a very capable leader throughout the process, and each teammate added their own ideas to our lesson plan. I suggested that we include a section about visual rhetoric to the lesson plan and came up with the idea to actually guide the class through the process of creating a brief and simplified photo essay. I thought this would be a fun way to actively include the class in our presentation. I hope it turns out okay! We'll see tomorrow afternoon. After we all reached a consensus about what needed to be included and who was responsible for what, I suggested that we meet before class the following week to go through our presentation and to make sure that we would be able to finish it in under 20 minutes. I think we were all concerned about this and everyone was enthusiastic about having a practice round.

Over the next week, we each worked on our own part and emailed our materials and our final ideas to Maggie. We each added to her original PowerPoint presentation and were able to all include our own ideas. Also during this time, Allen worked on creating an original photo essay which will conclude our presentation tomorrow. This will provide the class with a concrete and powerful example of what they (and their students next year) will be able to achieve with a photo essay. I wanted to find a series of pictures that would be able to demonstrate different potential meanings to different audiences. Following an idea from my teammate, Sarah Brown, I chose to collect different pictures of Barack Obama. These worked out great! There were many, many pictures online to choose from and any one of them could be used in different photo essays to create different effects, depending on the context. I also needed to find materials for the class exercise of creating a photo essay. Again, Obama seemed like a great subject. I also found several songs that the class could choose from to create their short photo essay. I compiled all these materials into the PowerPoint.

Today, March 9th, our group met to discuss our plan for tomorrow's presentation and to go through a practice run. We added a few items and changed a few things around, but were pretty much ready to go. We each tried to speak fairly quickly and we all recognized the importance of splitting our time evenly and working together to make a cohesive presentation that flowed nicely from one section to the next. We finished our presentation only 2 minutes over, but considering that we had some technical difficulties that shouldn't exist tomorrow, we were all pleased with the final result. I hope that everything goes well tomorrow, and considering our preparation, I think it will. I'm really looking forward to teaching a small section of class tomorrow!

February 24 - Commenting on Student's Papers

Unfortunately this week I was very sick and unable to attend class. I did however read two interesting articles about the role of teacher's comments on student papers. Nancy Sommers' Responding to Student Writing discussed how commenting on student’s papers has long been seen as time consuming but essential in student's learning processes. However there are many problems with how it is used today. Her research found that commenting takes the focus away from the student’s topic and places it on the teacher’s instruction and that comments are used like rubber stamps and may not actually help each student understand what can be improved with their paper. She finishes the article by saying that comments need to be paper specific and be geared for a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd draft and should always show students their own writing potential.

In Faigley's article, the author argues that teachers need to see themselves as a coach instead of a judge and that they shouldn't focus on whom they want their students to be. This paper argues that allowing students to write about themselves will help them gain control over their own writing. These two papers are very useful to me in my current education in becoming a teacher for next year. I can see the importance of not just making comments on student papers, but taking the time to make constructive comments that will do two main things: allow the students to maintain control over their own writing, and to write comments that are useful and understandable to the students so as to show they the full potential of their own writing.

February 17 - Composition Process and Teaching

This week we wrote a 5 to 6 page paper about our composing process. To be honest, I wasn't sure of what I had to say about my own composing process. I had always just thought about it as a slow and arduous process of trying to actually get myself to sit down at the computer and get started. Before starting, I thought about what I was going to say and for the first time, realized that I had a different composing process for every type of writing that I engage in. I had never even thought of how I compose emails, which actually probably makes up the bulk of my everyday writing. This turned out to be a very interesting exercise, because it forced me to think about how I write in many different situations, how these differ, and even how I can improve some of my processes. For example, I realized that I didn't really have a good process of writing emails and that I should start treating them like academic papers. Not to extensively plan them, but just to jot down a few key points and then start writing from there. I plan to try this out for a little bit and see how it goes. Different documents need to have different composing processes, but each process potentially has something to offer my writing process in general.

February 10 - Class presentations

Today I will be teaching a short 5 minute segment to the class about Jennifer Meta Robinson's paper: A Question of Authority: Dealing with Disruptive Students. I found this short paper to be very useful and even inspiring. She began by telling antecdotal accounts of teacher's encounters with disruptive students include two accounts of her own. Although this warning made me hesitate about my own potential abilities as a teacher, Robinson quickly gave advice and encouraging words on how to deal with this potential adversity from some future students. This is the part that I will focus on the most during my class presentation. She gave the following steps to mitigate disruption in the classroom:

-Set course policies at the begining of the course
-Maintain immediacay with students
-Encourage active learning
-Seek feedback
-Avoid grade trauma
-Maintain high self-esteem at all times

Techno Literacy Paper

When we were assigned to write a narrative about our own techno literacy, I thought for a while about how I would approach the assignment. Having a great deal of experience in a variety of areas dealing with technology and education, I didn't know where to focus on. Rather than narrowing in on video games, video editing, graphic or web design, I decided to go way back in my memory and try to tell a broader story about my first experiences with technology and learning with technology. By trying to think about my very first interactions with technology, I was able to remember a few things that I probably would have forgotten about. It was really cool to think about how technology has grown up with me over the past 25 years, and amazing to see the impact that it has had on my life. One thing that I noticed is that often times, education through technology is less about learning a specific subject, less about training and more about learning how to live.

January 20th

This past week, I learned a great deal from conducting an interview with Christina D'Elia, my fiance' and MAPC peer. I thought of my learning style as being straightforward, orderly and preferred to have things laid out in an outline-type format, but after hearing her thoughts, I can see how I am much more of an active learner -that I need to practice or complete a trial run of things to learn. This is as true inside the classroom as it is for putting a bookshelf together. I was also surprised to find that she thought of me as having a structured composition process and that this helps my creativity and flexibility with writing in different genres and for different audiences. It was very interesting to get an outsider's perspective on this.