Resource Blog # 4 Writing Without Teachers

Though I know we only had to do three Resource Blogs, I thought I should do one more as one of my resource blogs was from our class readings. The  Resource Blog which I will be using not only for this class but for other classes to come  is the classic book written by Peter Elbow, Writing Without Teachers. My version is the 25th Anniversary Edition published in 1998. In 2013 it will be the 40th Anniversary Edition, and this book will prove to be a valuable asset in the composition field if you agree with Elbow’s teaching.

One of the most interesting things Elbow writes in the book as far as I am concerned is in the beginning chapter he discusses “Freewriting  and Garbage.” He suggests that as you let yourself go and just write not being concerned what you say if it is correct or not, or if it is grammatically correct or spelled correctly but the importance is that you write and from that writing will come better writing that if you restricted your self by stopping to make corrections as I was doing when I began writing or typing but that now that I am letting go by the wayside to come back and to “clean up my mess” later as Elbow would say.

Elbow suggests “that writing is a process”  and he also suggests that, The Process of writing is growing as a writer…His point for those people who have writers block is to start writing and not to stop until You have a pageful of writing from what others would consider garbage is where some of the best writing begins…

Resource Blog #3 Weblogs and Literary Response Socially Situated Identities and Hybrid Social Languages in Class Blogs by Kathleen West

I found this interesting article in relation to English composition and using Blogs written By Kathleen West. Though the article  written concerns an 11th grade high school class,  I believe that this article can also be used in reference to a first year composition course. Though the article leans toward using Blogs in a Literary analysis format, what I think is great about this article is that the students in this class are drawn to use the Blog as a way to connect to their English class assignments.

Some of the students in the class were proliic Bloggers acording to West. Part of what I kikes is some of the students connected  with “audience ,” “identity,” and “voice.” west writes concerning on of her students, “Lucy has a strong sense of audience, which helps her build the identity of ‘pop-cultured humorist’ in this entry. She includes in-jokes for her classmates in the form of class and popular-culture references.”

What I got out of this article was that  there were no requirements over ‘correctness ‘ or “format.” This allowed students according to West to “forge new identities” online. The students were encouraged to “explore the facets of the text,” (588).

Resource Blog # 2 The Digital Imperative: Making the Case for A 21st Century Pedagogy

This article by Clark (2009) was a real eye opener. Clark begins the article commenting on Yancey’s NCTE publication (2009); she writes “writing in the 21^st Century is a call to action, a call to research and articulate new composition.” She discusses six points and a conclusion; however for the sake of brevity I am only going to cover three points and also touch on using Blogs. The first point, which she calls Gutting the Gutenberg pantheon: Changing “habits of thought.” She discusses how Guttenberg’s press in 1450 changed the way that books were made from a single book, “one at a time by hand,” to printing several hundreds of copies of books per year. Clark discusses that in 50 years or less the way of producing books had changed, also as people views on producing books changed. She ties this in to today’s “digital revolution.” She also suggests that the digital media will also be able to manifest this change by “the power of digitally distributed knowledge.”

However,  I believe her main point was in getting people to change their way of thinking. I also believe that people do not like change, and there are usually people who will drag their feet instead of going with the new change. We get comfortable with things good or bad, it is something we know, it is safe. I know because sometimes, I too am also resident to change.  I believe this what the first part of this article is about “Change.” Not only change, but “Changing “habits of thought.” When you can get people to change the way they view things or the way they act by modifying their behavior you will definitely see change.  But it is difficult to get people at  first to embrace change, we are usually set in our ways.

 Clark’s second section is called “Challenging the willful disconnect: making the case for a 21st century rhetoric.”  She brings up Peter Elbow in this section, I have been doing a lot of independent reading on Peter Elbow from  articles such as “Closing  My eyes as I Speak: An Argument For Ignoring Audience,”  to “Voice in Writing Again: Embracing Contraries,” to his classic, “Writing Without Teachers, and other superb articles. She writes, “Since the advent of Peter Elbow’s ground breaking composition faculty have struggled to introduce the idea of authorship and authority in the classroom, encouraging students to take ownership over their own writing.” This is part of what we are talking about in 21^st century writing, she suggests that when “technology changes, so does society and necessarily, the classroom.”

 The third point she brings up in this article that is strongly connected to my research is what she calls ePortfolios: Crafting the digital persona.  I will be including portfolios in my classes, but as I learn more about  ePortfolios, I will be adding them later. The purpose of this section is how Clark  demonstrates a student’s writing through ePortfolios. She points out that she has used ePortfolios from Basic Writing, Composition I, and Creative Writing to her other classes. Clark discusses a student by the name of “Ally” who was in her 101 class, but was not writing at the 101 level. By using the ePortfolio and Blogs, “Ally” was able to become a better writer. At the end of the term “Ally” was selected by Clark to show her work at “the college wide ePortfolio Showcase.”

 Clark argues “ePortfolios are a powerful tool for engagement in my courses.” Another point that was brought up was the question of public and private writing. Clark writes.  “Many student s assume the right to publish…from photographs to personal narratives.”  Clark discusses the idea of “crafting a digital persona.” She discusses a student who wrote an autobiographical piece about how she got to this country, (she came in the country illegally). Though Clark and the university did not have a problem with this, they were afraid for the safety of the young lady as she had given to many details, of her adventure naming names, dates, and times. They were afraid that INS might try an deport her or even worse that somebody else might want to try to harm her. This goes to show the power of autobiographical writings.

Clark also discusses digital stories, which I want to, tie in with autobiographical writings and the use of Blogs. She writes, “We study and discuss the format of Blogs as a means of creating arguments in online writing.”

The Virtual University: Why cash strapped colleges need to stop worying and learn to love the online classroom.

“Today nine out of 10 American high school seniors say they want to go to college,”  writes Kamenetz (2010). She suggests that around the globe “150 million students are enrolled in some kind of education beyond high school.” She argues that this is, “ a 53 per cent increase in less than one decade.” Implying that in other parts of the world there is more of a demand for higher learning, but that in the United States we are falling behind the rest of the educated nations.  Kamentez points out that we have fallen from number one to  number ten, ”we’ve now fallen behind nine others.”

Kamenetz goes on to suggest that the cost of student tuition is one factor in this country, she suggests that tuition has been “outpacing inflation for decades.” As college tuition increases, the possibility of a college education is delayed, and the suggestion in this article is that the solution is in online learning. She points out, “More than one in five of the nation’s 19 million college students took at least one online class by the fall of 2006…”

Kamenetz quotes David Wiley of Brigham Young University, who comments on his blog, “If universities can’t find the will to innovate and adapt to changes in the world around them…universities will be irrelevant by 2020.”  She suggests that universities should be proactive in the use of online learning. One example she uses is MIT which in 2001 began a OpenCourseWare project” funded by Hewlett and Andrew W. Mellon foundations. She suggests that if you investigate  MIT’s website you will find the following online: “Full syllabi, lecture notes, class exercises, tests, and some video and audio for every one of the 1,900 courses MIT offers…” She points out that by 2009, these courses had been viewed by “students, alumni, professors,” and others around the world.

In this article, Kamenetz also discusses what she calls the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources in which she comments that “approximately 140 colleges have signed on to share textbooks…” these textbooks, “can be downloaded, edited, and used for free.”  She writes, that the biggest hurdle has been “intellectual property rights.” But, the administrator of this program, Judy Baker has been persuading professors to write their textbooks. However, instead of relying on their royalties which would generate them a small profit,  instead the professors have been guaranteed that they would have a larger audience read their works instead of 1,000 to over “100,000 page views.” Baker, suggests that she has a long rang plan, not just free textbooks, but a vision of open education shared with the world.

It was also discussed in this article that Universities in “NCAT’s Course redesign program” have come up with a plan and a solution for courses in all disciplines to “blend social-media tools and software-based drills with peer-to peer instruction, tutoring, and traditional classroom settings.”

One of the schools in this group was Alabama who saw an increase  in students scores from less than 50 per cent to just under 70 per cent. They also noted in that in relation to Alabama that “Women and African-Americans made even larger gains.”

It was also mentioned that Senator Durbin and others introduced The Open College Textbook Act, which is a law that would “mandate all educational materials, including curricula and textbooks, created through federal grants to be released under open license.” The suggestion at this point in the article is that “hybrid, NCAT-style course-redesign models seem most compelling.”

I liked this article over all, it was mentioned in the beginning of the article that “Today nine out of 10 American high school seniors say they want to go to college.  Also mentioned in this article was, “In the U.S., about 30 per cent of high school students drop out, and just 56 percent of college freshman complete their bachelor’s degrees after six years.”

What was mentioned, but was not discussed was, “In the U.S., about 30 per cent of high school students drop out…” My question is what happens to the 30 per cent of those that drop out of high school? Can they be somehow reached through digital media? 

One of the experts in this article, an expert in the use of gaming in teaching was quoted saying a couple of interesting things, I would like to point out:  ”Technology can’t make a bad teacher into a good teacher.” And she also said, “Students who don’t want to learn won’t suddenly become great students when you put a gadget in their hands,” (referring to gaming or the digital divide.”) 

So, the question I put forth is, What will happen to the 30 per cent who drop out or those that choose to not go to college after high school, will online education help them also?” Or will money be used in other areas such as in the community colleges or vocational programs? We still need skilled workers in this country. One point that has not been discussed, is the question no one seems to want to address,  is college for everyone ? Or to be put in a better light is the opportunity to go to college or to be trained in a high demand skill or new technology for everyone?

Resource Blog# 1 Using Autobiographies of Minority Writers and Digital Media (Blogs):To teach First Year Composition Students / Writers in the Community College

I have been interested in autobiographies ever since I read Run Baby Run: The Life Story of Nicky Cruz, a hard core gang member from the streets of  New York City.  David Wilkerson would reach Nicky Cruz and then write his own book The Cross and the Switchblade . I would read both books in seventh grade. Later, I would read The Autobiography of Malcolm X while in eight grade on Chicago’s Westside.  However, it was my first college class that really drew me into autobiographies. Samuel Betances, a young Puerto Rican graduate student from New York City, was my first college instructor.  Betances used Down These Mean Streets  written by Piri Thomas as our main text to introduce us to  Sociology 101, and to motivate us not only to read, but to want to read.  Betances, years later would graduate from Harvard with a PhD in Sociology.

I am going to use autobiographies of minority writers and also New Media (Blogs) to get First Year Composition students in the community college system to write, as my independent research project. I have modified my research at this time about teaching autobiographies in the jails and I will put that off for another study. I have been conducting research on autobiographies of minority writers and one of my first sources I found this semester dealt with the subject of autobiographies in the African-American community.

This discovery pointed out the importance of autobiographies in the lives of African-Americans. Andrews (1990) a scholar and professor of English at the University of Kansas wrote the following on autobiography. “Autobiography holds a position of priority, many would say preeminence among the narrative traditions of Black America.”  Andrews goes on to expound in detail on how autobiographical writings in the African-American community or in African-American Literature are highly revered within the African-American experience:

“The history of black narrative since the slavery era is informed by a kind of literary counterpoint between autobiography and its successor, the novel. The number and importance of novels that read like or are entitled autobiographies in African- American literature confirm a recent black critic’s contention that ‘ours is an extraordinary self-reflexive tradition,” (Andrews, 1990, 197).

Scott Warnock’s Teaching Writing Online Chapters # 7-10

In reading Warnock’s (2009) Teaching Writing Online chapters # Seven – ten we are presented with great information that we will be able to use in the future as we end up teaching some of our courses or part of them outline. One of the first things the Warnock brings up in Chapter seven is the debate about reading or how much reading is enough? He writes “Studies show that students do much less ‘traditional ‘ reading than they once did, according to a New York Times article,” (58).

Some of his suggestions on the subject of reading are that we as instructors use an Anthology, or the open web or to send our PDF files. Warnock suggests checking online for newspapers or magazines online. In addition to this, he suggests using blogs or wikis.

He asks the very pertinent question, “How do we know-they read?” (63) He details this subject in chapter twelve, however for this chapter he suggests what he calls the “Five Question Quiz” In which he asks five important questions in reference to the subject matter at hand.

In chapter eight he moves us on to the subject of conversation. He discusses that his primary motive or pedagogical tool for the students to learn is through conversation, “talking”. He suggests that students can do this “talking” through various forms from message boards, blogs, wikis, emails, to word documents posted through emails.

He writes that in his ten-week ” online classes, students write dozens of ‘officicial’ posts, (71). His point is toi get his students to join in the conversation and write. He suggests various forms that the students may be able to this from raising questions to laying out the role ahead of time.

 In chapter nine he moves us on to discussing assignments online and also student texts. He suggests that this can be accomplished by having them write small assignments. This can be done by reviewing other students assignments and also through the use of portfolio writing including the use of a cover letter and table of contents.

In this chapter he discusses peer review, he also suggests that you as the instructor can have the students investigate your writing process. He list various forms that this can be accomplished from blogs to emails,  word documents that can be emailed or posted online, also message boards and through using journals which can be posted online.

In the final chapter which is chapter ten, Warnock suggests we conduct peer reviews suggesting that this will help students help each other out, another point that I found interesting , was that he suggested that we give them our rubric. I found this interesting because I had been discussing this in English 700. I made the comment that when I was teaching seventh graders, the teachers that had been around for a while posted their rubrics of what an “A” paper, “B” paper, “C” paper, “D” Paper, and an “F” paper looked like. Over all i thought the last several chapters in Warnock’s book were very helpful and informative. I intend to use this book very much as a reference guide in the future and now.

Writing and Citizenship: Using Blogs to teach First-Year Composition

After reading why Youth (Love) Social Network Sites, by danah boyd, I went back to read the article Writing and Citizenship: Using Blogs to Teach First-Year Composition,by Charles Tryon. I got to the part where Tyson writes, “Other students sometimes subvert the goals of my blogging assignment by writing their entries at the end of the semester rather than gradually.” And I thought I fell into that category, so I am making a conscious effort to catch up and maybe even go back and comment on some other articles we didn’t cover in class especially the first few weeks of class.

This semester has been very interesting for me because unlike many of you, I just began to blog. I started to blog this summer then I forgot my site name , my pass word and other things. The closest I had come to blogging was last semester in Mark Roberge’s English 704 class.

This semester has been interesting because I know have three classes which use or involve blogging. The first class has been Mark’s English 700 which we use iLearn as a blog to comment on out reports, isearch paper, and other articles. Then I have this class English 708 , and my other class English 790 with professor Hanley which also involves the use of blogs.

So, I have found myself overwhelmed with not only reading but trying to remember my new blog site names to sign in and my new pass words which are all different. It has been a hell of a semester as some of my former  middle school; and high school students would say. But I have been carried and dragged into the new media and the 21st century.

Which brings me to comment on Tryon’s article on Using Blogs to teach First-Year Composition. I figured I better start writing and commenting on the Blogs in our class if I am to teach using Blogs to teach First-Year Composition. I like this article Tryon writes about one of his major goals is to get his students, “to take charge of their writing.”

What I like about this article is it discussed “audience” much like the previous article I mentioned. This idea of audience awareness now made these young writers realize that just about anybody in hyper space was going to read what they said, which was a good thing but, it could also be a bad thing.

Though he mentions in his article that at first they (the students) were a little uncomfortable they now realized they had to be a little more serious with their writings because other people were going to read their comments.  He writes, “I have found that with the ongoing expansion of free blogging tools such as Blogger that students continue to receive occasional comments from readers who happen to come across their blogs…”

Why Youth (Love) Social Networking Sites

I found this article interesting in that this article was about the phenomena about social networking sites. In this article the writer danah boyd discusses youth’s interest in the social networking arena. She makes the claim that younger boys have a stronger interest in social  networking sites than younger girls at a rate of 46% Versus 44%. In contrast to this she lists that older girls are more likely to go to social network sites at a rate of 70% versus 57% in comparison to their male counterparts.

The writer discusses how the internet has spread over the world not only in the US but in countries such as Brazil and India but also to other countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines to Singapore. She also discusses the need for young people to understand “audience.” she cites a couple of examples one of them she lists is in the case of Stokely Carmichael one of the leaders of the Black Power Movement in the 1960s. She discusses that Carmichael was able to speak to different audiences in different tones or rhetoric when he was addressing separate black audiences or white audiences. However, once he became famous he spoke simultaneously to both audiences because his message alienated his white audiences.

She uses this example to discusses how teenagers are not able to use the same discourse to their teenage friends as they would to their parents or to other adults because they will alienate one group or the other. She uses an other illustration to make her point. She writes about a young teen ager who thinks her dad is cool so she invites him to be her friend on her MySpace account. He finds to his horror a comment on her MySpace account which asks the question, “What kind of drug are you?” to this question she responds, “Cocaine.” It turns out that she thought that all the responders that used marijuana were “lame.”

Another thing that was brought out in the article was how the term teenager is a recent phenomena that occurred in the 1940-1950s that was promoted by marketing people and Hollywood. Another thing I discovered that that the reason for compluseroy education was because social reformers and labor organizers thought the way to keep young people from being competitors for jobs was to force them to go back to school until a certain age be it 16 or 18 years of age.

Using Autobiographies and Literacy Narratives of Minority Writers to teach Basic or Remedial Writers using New Media

Reading has always been a strong passion of mine since I was a young child.  Even as a young Marine I had a book with me. Writing however, was another matter. It was my own personal struggles with writing that have led to my interest in the area of autobiographical writings and Integrated Reading and Writing.

Malcolm X, once said,  ”I have often reflected upon the new vistas that reading opened to me. I knew right there in prison reading had changed forever the course of my life. As I see it today the ability  to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive, ” (Haley, 1965, 179).

I previously worked as a middle school, high school, and adult school teacher. I currently work with young people in juvenile hall and with inmates in jail and in prison as a volunteer in the criminal justice system. I have seen first hand how the lack of literacy skills negatively affects young people and adults.

The purpose of this study is to examine how autobiographical writings combined with Integrated Reading and Writing programs can improve reading and writing skills of adult learners and remedial college students with the help of New Media.

Did you ever notice when ever family,  and friends get together at family gatherings and when someone pulls out some pictures, the question is always, “Where am I, in these pictures?”

You see we always want to see where is our involvement, where is our place in the family, in society, etc. That is why as an aspiring teacher of first year composition students, including non-traditional students, special needs students, and students of working class families who are the first in their family to go to college…they all have special needs and goals that can only be addressed when they know who they are?

Which can be called identity! We all want to know, where are we in this picture?” And where are we going?To introduce students to reading and writing we are going to do it by introducing autobiographies and literacy narratives of minority writers. Follow me on a journey of life called the autobiography Using Autobiographies to teach Basic Writers. 3.21.2011

This is just a TEST! Be advised that Big Brother is WATCHING You

Running, Screaming, kicking and being dragged into the new technology, into the digital age…So, be advised this is just a TEST! TEST! TEST!

Be advised that Big Brother is WATCHING You AND EVERY keystroke is being copied and will later be analyzed. Be aware that  if you say any thing  wrong against your government or the corporations (Big Brother) it may affect your prospects in the near future. Such as that new job you Thought you were going to get at BANK of AMERICA.

Consider twice about posting those sexy, raunchy pictures of yourself on FACEBOOK, with you holding a bottle of wine and a big fat Panama Red (joint), I know I am dating myself. And your big red, bloodshot eyes peering into the camera with that stupid crooked smile of yours…

Be advised this is only a Test! Test! Test!

This is my first post on the class blog. I am being dragged Running, Screaming, kicking into the new technology, into the digital age…

Please be gentle with me (smile)…

From the ATM card to personal computers, to the internet, laptops, cell phones, to blogs, wikis, smart phones, to who knows what is next ipods? And tomorrow the new iphone…oh my goodness!

 Toto let us go back to Kansas…