Feminisms, Technologies, & Rhetorics

changes

2005-09-14T23:36:00.000-05:00

It may be time for some blog changes, some renewal maybe? I don't even know if anyone reads this anymore... I keep forgetting I have it. Regardless, I thought I'd say something before the well of somethings runs dry...

Good semester so far. It is hard to balance all the beautiful things I want to do in life with classes & teaching & responsibilities... This semester I am working hard to focus all my classwork into my area of interest, and it seems possible which is exciting. I'm also planning to attend the FemRhet conference in a few short weeks, so I really need to get going soon on that conference presentation. With my laptop on the fritz, I'm not sure how much of my website is still out there. I didn't want to publish it since it wasn't quite finished... Oh well. I've got the primary images & body of research, just need to tweak it a little.

My classes are on Literature & Science (really we're just reading theorists I wanted to read & some sci-fi novels which I always enjoy), so that's totally up my alley. It's my first literature class in grad school, and I find myself a little uncomfortable at times, but we're theorizing about technology so I can handle it, for now. My other class is on Aristotle's Rhetoric, and actually I've never taken a course on Rhetoric in Writing Studies (only Speech Com) so that's also a very different experience. Both classes have tons of reading, so I just barrel my way through as much as I can and basically skim the rest. I've finally learned some skimming strategies that work. I don't really understand giving us so much to read... we can't possibly talk about all of it, so why do us such an injustice by expecting us to read it? It doesn't really make sense to me. Then again, I sadly don't get to make the rules.

Things are going well with teaching. It's fun talking about this stuff with my boyfriend. He just looks at me and says things like "You think you're a bad teacher, why? I wish I had a Rhet teacher like you." This is my first time teaching two courses. I enjoy my students, and I'm finally getting to a place where I can actually listen to them & let them say what they say. It was hard to do that last year with an advisor, but this year it's just me & them, so I'm actually going to allow them to take things in directions that they find meaningful & important.

Last but not least, we are having a teacher training course for Writing With Video, a potential course to be taught here in the future. If nothing else, I am really enjoying shooting footage & figuring out how to put it together. It is so neat to do something a little different than what I'm used to and use that other part of my brain that I deny too often. And plus I get to learn iMovie. Now if only my laptop were back...

Anyway, that's an update. Hope there are still a few readers left. Hope to hear from you soon!

strange goodwill

2005-08-01T08:00:00.000-05:00

So, a couple of months ago I was walking on Washington St. and found a check. There was an address on it, so I sent put it in an envelope and mailed it back to the person who lost it.

Then today, I opened my mail, and inside was a nice note and a $20 bill from the guy I sent the check back to.

Isn't that nice? He has no idea how much I need this $20 right now.

completing some resolutions

2005-07-27T19:25:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm not really one for resolutions, so they're more like things I just wanted to do, maybe this year. And I've gotten around to a few more.

One, I have fallen in love, so I'm crossing that off.

Two, I have harvested 3 tomatoes from my garden, so yay for that one. Next year I'm going to try peppers & cucumbers too.

There's not much time left in the summer session. My students are working on their final projects now, and doing an excellent job, which is fabulous because I don't have to do much. I'm excited about working with such smart students this semester. I wish I was teaching business writing in the fall because I feel like I'm finally getting it, but I'll just go continue to challenge myself and see if I can get it teaching rhetoric as well.

I'm busy, teaching days, working nights, taking care of my sick boyfriend (he's better now which is good), working on some personal writing, doing a little reading and watching a few TV shows in my spare moments (finally got through SG1, and am now watching the Sci-fi Friday line up, SG1, Atlantis, & Battlestar Gallactica).

All is well really in my life. Don't think I've ever been happier. It's thrilling and terrifying all at the same time.

Summer

2005-06-18T15:57:00.000-05:00

Things I love about summer:
1) being on campus with far less people
2) sleeping in the sun in the afternoons
3) fresh organic produce from the farmer's market & my farmer (in fact I have to say the biggest advantage of living in central Illinois farm country is the produce, it's out of control)
4) hours of sunlight
5) parties every weekend

Things I hate about summer:
1) teaching in the summer means I teach 4 days a week
2) more time off means I work more hours at my other job, and I work harder cause there are more people around who want to walk through gardens in the summer
3) more things I want to do like sleep in the sun & grow vegetables but not enough time to do them

Well at least there are more things that I love than hate.

lots of stuff

2005-05-24T18:53:00.000-05:00

Not sure where to start really on this one. If I blog everyday, I have lots to say, but when I forget about it, it seems that blogging moves off my radar. It's a funny thing really.

Anyway, lots going on. I finished the semester with a bang, spending 48 hours straight holed up in my house writing. I created a semi-masterpiece. It'll be a lot better when I revise it again.

I am going on a mad amount of weekend trips this summer. Last weekend was to Naperville, IL to see Star Wars Episode III, which was way better than I & II, though I don't understand why some of the main characters have to be such sucky actors. Next weekend, camping in IL somewhere (perhaps someone will comment on this entry and tell me where we're going since I can never remember), weekend after that, to Philly to visit my folks.

In July, 1st weekend to Rockford IL for a much needed relaxing girls weekend, and 2nd weekend to Kansas City, Missouri to visit some new friends. In August, one weekend in Chicago visiting friends, another in St. Louis with my dad when he comes to visit. It's fun to take some mini-trips and make the summer a bit more worthwhile since I'll be stuck here teaching. I might be able to squeeze a trip to Madison, WI in somewhere.

rest

2005-05-10T07:27:00.000-05:00

One of the things I'm learning about being a grad student is that it's important to rest and to take care of myself. I really think I function better when I've gotten enough sleep, but sleep is not always rest. It's important to do what I did last night, take a break from all the work, hang out with the girls, have some drinks, relax, etc. I just feel so recharged now to face the next week, couple of weeks, month. I still have the same pile of work. Now, it just seems manageable.

productive (or not so productive) weekend

2005-05-09T15:46:00.000-05:00

I am currently procrastinating from grading a zillion online student portfolios by putting all of the new music I got this past weekend on my mp3 player. Here is the list:

Kristen Hall Be Careful What You Wish For
The Frames DC fitzcarraldo
John Gorka Between Five and Seven
PJ Harvey Is This Desire?
Steve Earle I Feel Alright
Disappear Fear live at the bottom line
Disappear Fear Deep Soul Diver
Amy Correia carnival love
Catie Curtis Truth from Lies
Jonatha Brooke & the Story Plums
the Story the Angel in the House
Abra Moore strangest places
Patti Smith Gone Again
Cosy Sheridan Ant Hymn
Sweet Honey in the Rock Still on the Journey

Also, I got some nice items at garage sales: a few books, a cat pillow cross-stitch, and a huge handful of gardening magazines. I love garage sales.

Anyway, my hand is starting to ache from too much typing, so I'll cut it short. Can't wait (I emphasize the CAN'T) until this semester is over!

sheesh

2005-05-02T06:35:00.000-05:00

I haven't blogged since April. So long ago...

This month just slipped by. It's been good overall.

I did a presentation on Thursday of my web installation that I'm working on for my feminist media studies class. The class loved it. My professor loved it. Even though I'm so busy right now, I'm still finding time to do work that I can find interesting and can be proud of. It's good to be a graduate student and be passionate about what you're working on, because you spend so much time with it, and when people love it you can appreciate that it's something cool that scholarship can achieve. You also risk kind of hard core rejection, but risks make the work seem more valuable. And when I work on stuff I only believe in half-heartedly, it just feels like going through the motions.

Today CCCC proposal is due. All these conferences! I'm hoping to get accepted this year since I haven't yet, but we'll see. No high expectations. I'm writing on Health Literacy this time around.

last weekend in pictures

2005-04-20T09:14:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to update, but of course, haven't gotten to it. But I wanted to show you some pictures:

flowers, bought for me by Darren, brought to you by me, Sony, & the mom's day flower show

a green file cabinet, bought for me by me for $3.50 at a garage sale

a purple chair, bought for me by me for $10 at a garage sale, already soaked in cat fur

Last but not least, last monday I gave a presentation at Allerton, proposal for it pasted here:

Ethos and the Teaching of Web Design in the Business Writing Course

Scholars of Writing Studies (Klem & Moran, LeCourt) have discussed the ways that teaching in a computer classroom affects the relationship between teacher and students. The space of the classroom changes, and the computer becomes another participant in the class, forcing the teacher to reconsider issues of ethos in the new space. Additionally, scholars (Burbules) have discussed the importance of teaching changing technologies in the business writing classroom because as students are entering the work world, they will continually face the affects of rapid technological changes in their writing. Taking these issues into consideration, I have been teaching web design in the business writing classroom for the past two years. This presentation will focus on my findings that students learning web design often feel they are gaining an important work skill that they probably will not learn in another class, and thus the technology changes students’ investment in the business writing course.

And finally, my proposal got accepted to Feminism(s) & Rhetorics(s), the conference for which the inspiration for my blog name has come from. I'll give you more info on that presentation later. I am working on different versions of the paper that I will turn into that presentation for two of my classes this semester. The presentation is entitled "Digital Health and Feminist (Re)visionings of Healing".

bored with too much to do

2005-04-08T10:44:00.000-05:00

Um, somehow I have another presentation to do on Monday. Plus meetings to do go to today and tons of grading that I'm still way behind with. And yet, I just want to watch Firefly and Queer as Folk Season 4. I need a day off.

Last night I presented in my feminist media studies class on the Miracle of Life. I remember seeing this in sex ed class in high school. It was from the Nova episode and a few other pictures that Lennart Nilsson took that pro-lifers started engaging in the debate with pro-choicers about when life begins. It is difficult for pro-lifers to argue that those images don't represent babies (or life). It strikes me that feminists sometimes paint themselves into a corner by arguing strongly for things they cannot prove to a public audience like when life begins. I think abortion really needs to be an option because the material conditions of pregnancy and child rearing really should be a woman's choice.

Anyway, I think I had a lot of good things to say in class last night. So I thought I might share, see what your opinions are on the matter (though I'm not so interested in a debate about whether or not to be pro-choice or pro-life, more on what feminists might be able to do about the shaky position we're in on this issue)

feeling so proud!

2005-04-01T10:38:00.000-06:00

I can't tell you how truly excited I am about the work I'm doing this semester. I love my classes, even though they frustrate me sometimes, but overall, I really love them because I am learning a lot and thinking of things I find really interesting to write about.

And I love my students, again, they can be frustrating, but at this point, they finally seem to be getting it. I have piles of their work I can't wait to read (shouldn't grading always be like this?!?)

And I love my administration job because we are developing context-specific materials to teach our business communication course and that kind of work is thrilling to me. And I think these are very positive changes that I'm so excited to be a part of.

There are actually a lot of things I love right now: spring, my house, spending time with my cats, the idea that the farmers market will be open in 6 weeks, doing yoga every morning, spending time with my boyfriend, Passover, work, family, friends. Really just about everything but politics. Nice.

10 things I learned over spring break

2005-03-29T13:51:00.000-06:00

I learned a few things over the break:

1. You can get a lot more work done when you don't have to go to classes or teach. You can also get a lot less work done.

2. Movies in the middle of the week are fun. Robots was a pretty dumb movie however.

3. I can still fall asleep in movies during break with a bunch of people I don't know well. How well I know the people is no determining factor in my ability to fall asleep or stay awake.

4. Playing Settlers of Catan is a good game to break the ice when you introduce your boyfriend to your mother, especially if you win (well it's always a good game when you win)

5. Four hour naps everyday are good on break weeks too!

6. You can go to Chicagoland to go to church on Easter Sunday. Churches are open, but the mall is closed. So much for the religion of consumerism.

7. If you decide to get married and change your name, you better make sure you save multiple copies of that marriage certificate, even if you get divorced. Otherwise, if you're like my mom and your wallet gets stolen two days before you have to fly somewhere, you'll only get a new driver's license if you beg and find the mercy of a compassionate supervisor. Without a driver's license, you can fly even with an expired photo ID, but you cannot rent a car.

8. K's Merchandise deeply discounts Fiestaware and sells individual pieces.

9. The colors turquoise, scarlet, orange, yellow, rose, and shamrock look awesome together.

10. And of course, spring break is never long enough!

CCCC in San Francisco

2005-03-22T12:25:00.000-06:00

Well, it's Spring Break, so a little bit of a blog update is possible. I'm very glad to be back from San Francisco. It was a good trip, but going to a conference in a city is far less fun than actually vacationing in that city. I spent 3 days in sessions, and only 1 seeing the city. Plus, there were a lot of people and I get overwhelmed by too many people. It was nice to see some old friends and meet some interesting professors, but I am really glad to be back.

My presentation went well, although it was at the same time as an entire panel on medical issues, so there was nobody interested in my topic at my panel. That's ok though because I didn't have to field any questions. And the people at CCCC and ATTW are really nice, which makes presenting much more relaxing.

Thursday I got to see Matthew, Eli, and Jason (friends & professors from Philly & Tampa) as well as go to the Writing Studies reception Thursday night. I worked hard to introduce myself to professors I hadn't yet met and get their feedback on my interests. Most everyone I talked to gave good feedback and seemed positive about my research which was encouraging. I went to dinner with Writing Studies folks Thursday night.

Friday it rained and I went to sessions all day, but then felt really anti-social so I ate dinner at Whole Foods (awesome grocery store) and went to bed early.

Saturday I met a friend for lunch in El Cerrito (near Berkeley), and went to City Lights, the best bookstore ever. I carried 6 really heavy book about 1.5 miles back to my hotel. Saturday night I went to dinner with conference folks again, and did some shopping.

I was so happy to come home and see my cats and my boyfriend (Darren) and cook in my own kitchen again. I did learn a lot from the sessions I attended, but it's nice to be on break and hopefully relax a little this week. My mom is coming to visit on Friday which should be really nice.

CCCC is in Chicago next year, so that means I'm definitely going!

WMNF

2005-03-14T07:53:00.000-06:00

Well, as you know, I love singer-songwriters, folk music, independent artists, acoustic music, etc. When I lived in Florida, I listened to WMNF every morning, and the show totally lifted my spirits, as I was angry all the time because of the Bushes (who are very present in Florida). The morning show has great music and great news every half hour. What more could you ask for? I hope that if I ever get a show on WEFT, I will model it after the morning show on WMNF (which I guest hosted once).

Anyway, just wanted to let you know that I pledged and am getting this awesome t-shirt.

FYI conference presentation update

2005-03-11T17:24:00.000-06:00

I have a lot of good stuff in my head right now for my conference presentation. The question is, can I get it out onto paper in 35 minutes? The answer is, let's post something to my blog.

I love Google news.

Also, here is my conference proposal so you can get a taste of the good things to come.

Technical Communication Research and Public Healthcare Interests

In this talk, I will address the technical communication field’s current move to better position our work in the public sphere through a discussion of my current research of medical records as socially constructed and positioned technical documents. I will discuss possible directions for the field to shift toward work that explores technical documents in a private sphere which are highly relevant to public policy debates. These possible directions might more effectively explore the ways in which these private documents might function for public audiences. My research involves medical records (specifically private patient charts) as a form of technical communication that is central in the healthcare of all individuals. I will first outline the ways medical records qualify as a form of technical communication, and then I will begin to deal with the ways that various agents (doctors, nurses, lawyers, insurance companies, legislators) take up these private documents into public spaces for multiple purposes.

This talk will examine the ways that private healthcare documents and research into their uses in public spaces can reposition the technical communication field to address issues that are relevant to public audiences and public policy.

too much to do

2005-03-06T18:12:00.000-06:00

A word of advice:

If you decide to go to graduate school and you want to get a job as a professor in the field of Writing Studies/Rhetoric/Composition, this means you must do things like attend conferences. Our biggest conference, CCCC, happens right around Spring Break during the spring semester. What does this mean for a graduate student who is presenting at this conference (or in my case, ATTW, a conference for teachers of technical writing that is taking place at the same time)?

This means you will have to write a paper. But don't forget, you will still have to keep up with all your classes and research for the papers you are completing for your coursework. You will also have to continue teaching, and grading papers, and showing up for class (not to mention prepping). And you will also have to fulfill your other obligations: member of English Graduate Students Exec Committee, union member concerned about health care, singer in choir, taker of yoga classes, person who occasionally goes to church, etc. etc. etc. And perhaps your roommate might move out in the middle of things and so you'd have to purchase all those items that are now missing from your drawers, just so you could function day to day. All of this, and you might like to maintain a social life, seeing your friends and boyfriend every once in awhile.

And imagine if you had children to care for (hence the fact that I don't have a family). Being a superwoman is just about impossible.

So really what does this mean?

If you're like me, and you still haven't written your paper for the conference, it probably won't be as good as it could have been had you not had 20000000000 other things to do. I hope they take that into consideration during the question and answer period.

thursdays

2005-02-17T23:20:00.000-06:00

Thursdays are my worst days.
Thursdays I wake up at 5 AM.
Thursdays I have to pack lunch and dinner and bring them to campus.
Thursdays I run from room to room across campus.
Thursdays I leave the house at 8:25 AM and return home at 9:30 PM.

Thursdays are my favorite days.
Thursdays I get to teach.
Thursdays I hang out in my office with feminists who have more life experience than me.
Thursdays I get to see my ladies.
Thursdays I have class with a bunch of brilliant people from different disciplines, mostly women, in a space where we're allowed to talk about being women and we're not put down for having ideas.
Thursdays I get to sing with a bunch of beautiful and brilliant women from all walks of life who make me smile.
Thursdays I may be out all day, but I spend the day with wonderful women and men.

And that's just Thursdays.

Feminist Media Studies

2005-02-10T22:02:00.000-06:00

I'm not knocking my department or program or anything by making this post, but I just wanted to say that the enthusiasm of the people in my Feminist Media Studies class totally gets me excited about doing academic work. And it's awesome that this space is actually filled with people from different disciplines, and housed in an interdisciplinary space. I get kind of tired of being in a program where interdisciplinarity is necessary, but I'm always the outsider, unless I'm taking classes in my department. But even in those classes, there's always someone who feels like an outsider. But not in my Feminist Media Studies class. In there, everyone actively participates, even if they're in different disciplines. And we all wait with baited breath to see what next stroke of genius will come out of someone's mouth. And we all nod our heads and scrawl furiously on our notepads. And we all smile at each other. (Just to note, I can't really speak for everyone here, but this is my limited impression from my limited point of view). I just need more spaces like this. It makes me feel good about what I do.

much needed blog update

2005-02-04T19:37:00.000-06:00

To quote the famous Ani DiFranco, on her new and fabulous cd Knuckledown, "nothing much going on." But by request, here is a photo of me in my new glasses:

birthdays

2005-01-26T05:26:00.000-06:00

Well, yesterday was mine. And now I'm 27. My students guessed I was only 22/3, my dad thinks I'm still 12, and my brother thinks he's in his late 20s (he's 24). So funness all around.

But what is most fun is that I'll be finally able to cross off one of my resolutions. My great new glasses have come in the mail! Pictures to follow later : )

epic 2014

2005-01-22T10:24:00.000-06:00

This is amazing. I'm definitely going to have to show it to my students.

mlk day

2005-01-17T07:29:00.000-06:00

Well, I'm all for celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday and freedom from oppression with non-violence, but does the holiday have to come right before school starts? I feel like I can't enjoy it, because I'm too busy dreading tomorrow and having to get ready to go back to the grind which my foremothers fought so hard for me to participate in. On a better note, WMNF is playing great freedom fighting gospel music this morning. Someone needs to play Donna the Buffalo's "Mr. King." It's one of my favorite songs.

stuff

2005-01-13T07:03:00.000-06:00

I finished Galatea 2.2 by Rick Powers, and it was such a beautiful book. It's strange reading books by people I know because I'm curious about how much of the book is autobiographical. This book is written as if it could be an autobiographical story, based on the very little I know about the author. It's an interesting take on science and Artificial Intelligence and literature and academia.

But besides that, this book is beautiful. The language inspires me to become a better writer. I want to jam pack every sentence with powerful descriptions. But who has time? I guess actual novelists have time for things like that! Anyway, I'll quote him:

Because you embodied the world's vulnerable, variable noun-ness. All things ephemeral, articulate, remembering, on their way back to inert. Because you believe and have not yet given up. Because I cannot turn around without telling you what I want to see. Because I could deal even with politics, could live even this desperate disparity, if I could just talk to you each night before sleep. ecause of the way you use two fingers to hold back the hair from your eyes. Those were the words I wanted. Instead I said "Everyone in the world and his bastard half brother loves you."

A few other things to note: I'm broke. The library has movies and music for free. I plan to spend a lot of time there. Yesterday I got The People vs. Larry Flynt and Broadcast News, both of which were very good. The library offers the opportunity to watch all those old movies you always wanted to see but haven't gotten around to. Very cool.

shout out

2005-01-10T10:01:00.000-06:00

to oday:

the new picture of me with my hair straightened is for you. too bad you're in france and can't see it in live person! but soon enough you'll be home, and i'll let you stare at my hair for hours if you want.

computers and the teaching of writing

2005-01-10T08:08:00.000-06:00

Well, I finally finished Computers and the Teaching of Writing in American Higher Education, 1979-1994 A History: Gail E. Hawisher, Paul LeBlanc, Charles Moran, Cynthia L. Selfe. I started this book as a recommendation from a professor to learn if computers and composition might be the right focus for me. I'm not sure if this book has helped me figure that out. I do know I plan to keep teaching with computers as long as they'll let me, so in that sense, I'm already finding my work informed by computers and composition.

I found this book confusing in a lot of places, fairly disconnected and difficult to follow all the simultaneous narratives (there's the text of the book, plus a zillion quotes in the margins of the book, plus personal narratives by scholars at the end of the chapter, plus a MOO with many streams at the end of the book). I don't think this was a bad thing, and perhaps it was appropriate to structure a book about computers in such a way since they do reference hypertext quite a bit. But in a way, perhaps it does a disservice to computers & writing to structure a book this way. I only say that because all research and scholarly work can be like hypertext; this is not exclusively for scholars of computers & writing, however, most other scholars don't do this. That might be because they're difficult to read. Why think of the work of people who study computers as being the most difficult to read? Perhaps they need to make even more of an effort to make their work accessible.

Anyway, the thing I am thinking about most in relationship to this book is the way that technology is always thought to bring some kind of redemption along with the changes it brings. The authors of this book quite persuasively make the point that this is not true in their history. Computers in composition classrooms do not necessarily imply more equality for difference in race, gender, sexual identity, etc. Technologies are reflections of social situations, not miracle cures to those situations. It's interesting how people tend to either praise technology as a force for positive change or shun it as a force for destroying our world. But as long as we've been people, we've had technology, and we make it, so it's neither good or bad. It's just something we invent to allow us to do whatever we do as humans in a more extreme way. This point is something I hope to bring out with my composition students this coming semester: what things does technology truly bring? Why do people tend to look at it as all good or all bad? Interesting stuff.

nothing to say

2005-01-08T07:03:00.000-06:00

Well, I did say I wanted to blog more often in 2005. It's not working so far. I have nothing to say. I don't have a lot to do either, which is a wonderful thing, because I'll be back at school in 9 days and then I'll have WAY too much to do. So I am working on some non-academic projects as well as a few academic ones.

I finished my coursepack for next semester. This time around, I plan to focus on more technology readings, have a much more well defined web project (that will not be a research paper), and try some new response and assignment ideas. I'm back to portfolio grading, which I feel is truly the only way for me to grade my students' work as a whole rather than on an individual basis, thus taking into account the entirety of their work for the semester. I feel pretty good about my course, especially since I can teach just with the readings I feel are relevant this semester. I'm looking forward to it.

As for non-academic projects:

1) I am working on a mini cross-stich that Sarah gave me for Christmas. It's a few adorable cats at night. I really like it. As I cross-stitch I generally like to movies on in the background. I've made my way through Return of the King, the Extended Edition, which is literally like 5 hours long. It was really great. I've also watched the Godfather & the Godfather Part II, as I got the box set for the holidays. I love the Godfather movies!

2) I bought some posterboard yesterday to work on a series of collages for my meditation room (forthcoming when Sarah moves out). I have all these old goddess calendars, which I'd like to repurpose into really interesting interpretations of the nature of God. I'm thinking a trinity series (Father, Son, & Holy Spirit) which would be all images of women. We'll see what comes of it (I'll post pictures to my blog).

Ok, well, for nothing going on, that was a rather long post. So far, 2005 rocks!

blog changes

2005-01-03T09:31:00.000-06:00

Well, with a new year, I thought I might go with a new color scheme. It is gold, rose and purple (Oday, do you love it?) I'd like to do more blogging in 2005, but I can't do it successfully without a good color scheme.

new years resolutions

2005-01-02T09:26:00.000-06:00

Well, I'm not much for making resolutions, but I think I'll post a few here and on my sidebar, and see if I manage to get any of this stuff done over the course of the year. This is pretty much a shortened list of 27 things I wanted to do when I'm 27.

Travel in Europe
Finish the Lord of the Rings books
Eat really healthy food and maintain weight loss
Rearrange all the furniture in my house
Get new glasses
Get my own radio show on WEFT
Continue singing with Amasong
Watch all of the remaining seasons of Star Trek that I haven't seen yet
Visit Memphis, St. Louis, Madison, San Francisco, and Chicago
Do the Serenity Prayer cross-stitch I've been wanting to work on forever!
Plant a garden
Fall recklessly in love
Read 4 academic books outside of classes
Finish a novel

happy new year

2004-12-31T09:09:00.000-06:00

Well, posting has been scarce for a bit as I made a trip to Philly for the holidays. I think this was trully the best trip to Philly I've ever taken. If I had the time and energy, I'd photograph all of the beautiful Christmas presents I received to show you, but alas, it escapes me. Needless to say, I got some kick ass clothes. I look awesome in them. I plan to get decked out and party until at least 12:01 tonight. It will be great!

I finished the semester up nicely. I wrote a paper which I thought was great until a day after I handed it in when I thought it was crap. But it's over now. I can work on revising it. I have piles of books I'd love to read, piles of movies to watch, great new music to listen to, and lots of things to think about. But today, I'm gonna just relax with my Chambana family, eat yummy food, and open presents. I'll get to that thinking thing tomorrow.

I saw my friend Rach when I was home. We've been friends for 17 years. I have no other friends with which I've maintained a relationship with for that long. Rach is a great person. She's the kind of person who is always thinking about what other people would like. I hope she comes to visit me over Spring Break.

I decided to skip spending money on MLA in favor of buying clothes. What a horrible academic I am! Next time MLA is in Philly, I'll be sure to drop by. Maybe they'll have CCCC in Philly one day. But this year, it is in San Francisco, my favorite city in this country. I can't wait to get to City Lights and purchase the best books to read. I wish I could take you all with me!

continued from "from c-u with love"

2004-12-09T23:31:00.000-06:00

I wanted to post about Kris Delmhorst's notion of Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, in response to my yoga teacher this week.

Kris says:
I'm not on no yellow brick road, got a mind and a heart and guts of my own
I'm not looking for a one to set me free
I'm not on no yellow brick road, I'll find my own way home
I'm just looking for someone to walk with me
from "Yellow Brick Road"

My yoga teacher said on Monday that she thinks we should all be like Dorothy, wanting to go home because everything we need is already in our own backyards. Well... I think that's an awfully anti-feminist notion. I mean, what if you grew up in a dysfunctional family like mine where the only thing in your backyard is a nice happy Christian marriage and a lot of pregnancy, or in Dorothy's case, a whole lot of cows? And what about making a family of choice wherever it is that you are?

So you can see why Kris made me want to cry so much tonight. She knows how to hit on all the right soft spots.

san francisco, here i come!

2004-12-09T13:11:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, I found out I got into the ATTW conference, with this lovely email from Brent Faber:

Dear Hannah,

On behalf of this year's ATTW program committee I am pleased to accept
your proposal for the 2005 ATTW conference, Technical Communication and
Public Healthcare Interests.

This year's pool of proposals was very large with many excellent
proposals. As a result, the competition for space was tight. Each
proposal we received was blind reviewed by at least two reviewers.

This means I get to go to San Francisco for four days in March, I get to go to CCCC because they run them together, and all my ideas are not worthless and rejected! I'm super excited.

I'll post a little more about my topic later.

searches

2004-12-07T06:47:00.000-06:00

It seems from my counter that someone found my blog by searching for "Goblin Market" and "Anorexia". That's so cool!

In other news, I have finished one paper so far. I have one to go. Plus grading. The semester is almost over, thank God!

Announcement--I'm singing!

2004-12-05T17:00:00.000-06:00

A M A S O N G
Champaign-Urbana’s Premier Lesbian/Feminist Chorus

PRESENTS

To Sing is to Fly

A Winter Concert

Saturday December 11th, 2004 at 8 pm
Sunday December 12, 2004 at 3 pm
McKinley Presbyterian Church, 809 S. Fifth St Champaign.

Suggested Donation: $10 - $20 for adults, $8 for students
Space provided, no one will be turned away for inability to pay.

Wheelchair accessible.
Free desserts and drinks follow the concert.

this is cool!

2004-12-03T07:45:00.000-06:00

It's a feminist weblog community. I've enjoyed reading these and thought I would share.

in memoria

2004-11-30T14:55:00.000-06:00

I have no time to think about things such as old friends and death because I have papers to write! But alas, life throws you curve balls when you least expect it.

I worked with Marge in Tampa and she was a good friend. You knew she was a good friend because she always told it like it is, never held back to save your feelings, but loved you despite your faults. That was Marge. She worked until the end, when cancer finally took her. She even wore her Kerry/Edwards shirt as a gown in the hospital for surgery. I'm sorry we couldn't give her Florida this time around either. I wish I could have been there to see her make the doctors so mad.

An old friend called me last night, one of the oldest of friends, to tell me that Marge passed away yesterday morning. I haven't seen her in two and a half years, and somehow I always expected she'd be around. She's gone now, but as she gave life abundantly, I will continue to give the same wherever I can. I am priviledged to call her my friend.

27 things i want to do when i'm 27

2004-11-25T08:34:00.000-06:00

Stolen from E (although I get 27 and she only gets 25):

*Sidenote: I've stolen this with the understanding that if I don't realistically get to all this stuff this year, it just gets bumped back to the next.

1. Get married
2. Travel in Europe
3. Finish the Lord of the Rings books
4. Go dancing at a gay club
5. Go to the beach
6. Eat really healthy food and maintain weight loss
7. Rearrange all the furniture in my house
8. Get new glasses
9. Cut my hair short again
10. See Melissa Ferrick at least twice
11. Get my own radio show on WEFT
12. Continue singing with Amasong
13. Watch all of the remaining seasons of Star Trek that I haven't seen yet
14. Go to the movies alone a few times
15. Visit Memphis, St. Louis, Madison, San Francisco, and Chicago
16. Do the Serenity Prayer cross-stitch I've been wanting to work on forever!
17. Read Bust, MacWorld, and Paste magazines
18. Spend a lot of time at Pages for All Ages
19. Ride a bike to campus and back
20. Plant a garden
21. Forgive all of the people who've hurt me
22. Fall recklessly in love
23. Publish an article in a journal
24. Read 4 academic books outside of classes
25. Keep up with blogging
26. Do the collage that's been floating around in my head for 2 years
27. Actually write a novel for NaNo month this year!

Wow, that's quite a list. I guess I won't have any time to talk to any of you when I'm 27, cause I'll be very busy!

scholarship

2004-11-23T07:49:00.000-06:00

I just wanted to share with you the joy that is Google Scholar. I used it yesterday for research, and what is wonderful about it is that it gives you a list of where the source that you're looking at has been cited. Brilliance! I know WorldCat can do this, but it's soooo slow. Google does it in seconds. So if you need a quickie approach to research, this is the way to go (or one way to go)

i must be doing the wrong thing with my life!

2004-11-22T09:26:00.000-06:00

Sarah asked me to tell you this story:

The other day I was in the grocery store, talking to this rather older lady about squash. Without knowing anything about me, she says "Too many women these days are getting masters degrees and PhDs and not getting married." When I told her that was me, she says "Well you better hurry up and get married and have babies because if you don't soon you'll be too old and you won't even know how it happened."

Well, folks, I guess I better quit grad school and start having babies. Those things are sure to make me happier than any of this learning nonsense does. What was I thinking?

resolutions

2004-11-22T07:43:00.000-06:00

I must finish my cross-stitch before I can work on these papers. Cross-stitch allows me to procrastinate for hours at a time, so if I finish it and I haven't started a new one yet, than I can focus right? The problem is, the idea of spending another day on the couch watching Babylon 5 and cross-stitching seems far more appealing than the idea of work. Where has my discipline gone? Why can't I just buckle down and get it all done. Another problem is, as I've been told, procrastination is fear. And I'm procrastinating on this one big time, because I'm pretty afraid of not being able to achieve greatness and getting a bad grade. And believe me, this is unfortunately not outside the realm of possibility. I'll be thrilled when this semester is over.

Right now, I'm glad it's break, and that I took a sick day yesterday because I really needed one. I need to sort out some things now, think about papers and what I can get done before I go spend 4 days in Philly. Why didn't I leave yesterday? I wish I had. I'd much rather be on vacation, already.

So kids, I best be off to working. I was up at 6:00 this morning, so I'm ready to start the day. It looks a bit dreary, but I'll make my way to the library and hit the books. Hurrah!

stitching

2004-11-21T14:06:00.000-06:00

This gives a whole new name to communal sewing. Wish we had one of those in Champaign! I might actually learn to make my own clothes...

post of substance

2004-11-19T10:09:00.000-06:00

I haven't had a post that says anything in a long time. I don't know why it seems much more productive to just post pictures of the cats, but alas, that's where it's been recently. But I thought it was about time I said something about something.

I finished Wasted, a memoir by an anorexic and bulimic woman that had me glued to the pages, literally. I thought the best part about this memoir was how she absolutely captured perfectly how crazy having an eating disorder makes you. It wasn't even so much the actually binging, thinking she was fat, throwing up, or starving herself that truly demonstrated her insanity. It was the fact that she thought this was the only option for a way of life, the way she lied to herself that she had to live that way to remain sane. She talked about the way our culture might have promoted her eating disorder behavior, but that ultimately it became an addiction, and then it didn't matter how society pressured her, because she was compelled to do it from something internal.

Anyway, for as much as feminism questions the origins of eating disorders and blames the media for them, I wonder what effect that kind of critique can really have. Ultimately, an individual woman has to choose to live, as Marya Hornbacher says in this book. And even when they make the choice to live, they still live with the thoughts of the eating disorder every day. Such is the nature of addiction. Her experience was really an interesting critique of feminism. She studied and studied, but it was never enough to help her take care of herself. Interesting.

crockpots

2004-11-10T16:06:00.000-06:00

In honor of my hard work towards better health, my mom sent me this lovely crockpot in the mail. I can't wait to make my baked apples in this later this week. I think I can cook a whole chicken in here!

Also, Elijah promptly jumped in to guard the box.

He's very helpful!

Happy Halloween!

2004-11-01T13:03:00.000-06:00

Here's my Pippi Longstocking hair. I didn't go to any parties, but I dressed as Pippi for work yesterday, and lots of people didn't even know who she is. Sad!

Anyway, I put on a skirt that hasn't fit me in a long time, and found out today that I lost 7 lbs this month. Go me!

craziness

2004-10-27T09:07:00.000-05:00

Now that I have another blog to post about what I'm reading and listening to, alas, this one is getting no play. I thought since I need to write a demand letter this morning I'd procrastinate and do some posting instead.

Last night Sarah & I discussed the "one," this one being the perfect research idea. Since stumbling onto my fascination with all things medical, I can't get enough. I can ask people about it constantly, read about it constantly, think about it constantly. I'm such a freak! It's a good and scary thing all at once. When I'm not engaged in my work, I don't care what people think of it. But I care a lot now. I'm into it, but what if too many people are doing it and I can't get a job, or what if I can't find a committee, or they just tear me to pieces. Blah to academia. But yay to exciting research.

I also thought you might like to know that an inordinate amount of leaves have been falling the last few days on my front lawn. You can find where my lawn ends and the driveway begins. That'd be fine if it'd stop raining long enough for Dan to come rake my lawn. Oh well. They are beautiful. Here's a pic of my car this morning:

life goes on

2004-10-17T09:31:00.000-05:00

I finished a book yesterday. Can you believe it? I haven't finished a book since I don't even know when cause I didn't post on the Book Club Site. Oh well.

I will post about this book on the new site. I may also review a few CDs here. It's gonna be great!

academic productivity

2004-10-10T09:21:00.000-05:00

A lot of the time I feel like I have no good ideas and nothing of value to offer the world of academia. But Thursday & Friday were not those days. I taught an awesome class (actually my students taught an awesome class) where my only instructions were "Take this article and turn it into a performance where all class members participate in some way. You have one hour." They did a rockin' job. And they were able to look at rhetoric in a new way.

I met with a prof about possible seminar papers, and I got a lot of good feedback and direction. I'm excited about what I'm writing about as it encompasses all my interests in technology, professional writing, and feminist studies. Good stuff.

I presented a response on Thursday in class that incorporated performance and yet was an object my prof could take home. All of the class did really interesting things. It was a very engaging experience. I both wish and don't wish class could be like that more often.

Then on Friday I wrote what I consider a decent session proposal for the ATTW conference. Granted, my stuff keeps not being accepted to conferences, but I think this one is good and I hope it gets accepted, and I hope I get to go to San Francisco. It'd make me sooooo happy.

I'm sure the doubts will creep in, but for now I'm feeling on. I think I'll go with that for now.

challenges

2004-10-04T08:23:00.000-05:00

Well, I suppose I should post something because I haven't posted in forever. I'm too busy to have anything of interest to say these days. I literally wake up and run from thing to thing all day long. Example, schedule for today:

11:00 meet student on campus
12:00 eat something
1:00 class
3:00 GEO mtg
4:00 advising group
5:00 GEO general membership meeting
6:30 go home
7:30 eat dinner
8:00 catch up on all that work I haven't done all day long

The worst thing about running from meeting to meeting today is that I have so many I won't be able to go to yoga, and frankly, that just bites.

I've been thinking about teaching a lot and how to restructure my class so my students "get it" better. I haven't figured any of it out yet. But I do think it needs a bit of tweaking. I got my second set of student assignments back, and despite all we did in class, they still don't seem to have gotten it. Assignment 3 has even more specific criteria, and between now and then I will be conferencing with each of my students, but still they might not get it. Well, let's hope for the best.

miscellaneous

2004-09-24T06:25:00.000-05:00

I wish there was more time in the day. There are so many books I want to read, but I have to sleep. That's part of my problem.

I watched Good-bye Lenin this week and it was pretty interesting to see what the Democratic Rebublic in Germany was like to live in. I kept thinking about what true freedom is. Is it that I get to choose whether or not I'd like to wear Diesel jeans or Gap ones, because although that does not seem like freedom, I'd be pissed if someone took away my ability to choose designer clothing. On the other hand, is freedom having to buy ugly clothes produced by the Republic I live in or being able to choose to buy clothes produced in a sweatshop? Interesting question. Maybe I'm not free in either scenario. But which one is more free? Who knows...

Interesting things about teaching

2004-09-18T08:55:00.000-05:00

I've heard some things this week that had never occurred to me, and I find them interesting:

1. I was observed this week and my advisor made the comment that it was really hard for her to evaluate my teaching because she had never observed someone let their students direct the way class would go. Wow. I just thought with all the harping on critical pedagogy in various fields that everyone taught that way. Apparently not.

2. I told my students what my advisor said, and one responded that I don't really let them direct the way class will go, that I always have a plan but I just let them try to guess what it is. Wow. I guess it all depends on your perspective.

3. Truth is, neither party is right. I both let my students direct and have a plan. My plan is usually: talk about readings, talk about an activity, talk about an assignment, etc. I usually don't plan what should be said about those things. Anyway, it's an eye opening moment for me.

4. I've talked to two Rhetoric advisors this week who are watching their advisees teach, and both of them have commented that they get sick of watching Rhet 105 classes. Apparently I'm missing something HUGE, because that sounds like a lot of fun to me. Apparently people don't really teach in anyway close to what I'd imagined. And I know a lot about how people teach business writing classes, but I love observing those. I get excited to see what ways my advisees throw away the textbook and find their way around the classroom.

So much of the literature states that things shouldn't be the way they are at my University. We should be teaching student centered collaborative classrooms. We should be interested and excited about what other people are doing in their teaching. I guess since it always made sense to me, I just assumed this is the way everyone practiced. I feel like I'm in the minority even amongst some of my fellow Writing Studies grads, and that's sad and scary all at the same time.

how cute!

2004-09-13T08:30:00.000-05:00

Great ideas

2004-09-12T08:10:00.000-05:00

You know what really is a great idea? Giving your students assignments that allow them to produce something that is not the same as everyone else's and that is actually interesting to read. It makes me want to grade more than read for any of my classes. Crazy.

I'm going to be observed teaching on Tuesday. I'm not nervous, but I will be having my students draw and talk about their drawings for a significant portion of the class period. Another portion will be dedicated to their literacy journal assignments that they're turning in. Another portion will be dedicated to the handing out of a new response prompt. But truly, it's better that I wasn't observed for Kindergarten Day.

Speaking of which, let me just tell you that college students love Kindergarten. I believe they would prefer to do snack time, story time, and arts & crafts all the time. Why did Kindergarten seem like a such rip off when I was 5? Anyway, it's a pleasure now, and a really interesting way to talk about literacy practices. Thank you brilliant teachers who have come before me and given me the good ideas!

Two mixes of note

2004-09-11T11:06:00.000-05:00

I know y'all aren't super interested in hearing about me making mixed CDs, but it's a literacy practice about knowing these songs, understanding my audience, and mixing together something that sounds good. And plus I just want to tell people about it. So here are the two most recent ones that have yet to find themselves in the hands of those I made them for.

Music Mix for Josh
A mix of mostly singer-songwriters with themes about politics, identity, and love.
1. Sunrise--Norah Jones
2. Tether--Sarah Harmer
3. Out in the Country--Kristen Hall
4. Lullaby 101--Kris Delmhorst
5. 'Tis of Thee--Ani DiFranco
6. Ignorance--Kasey Chambers
7. Among all God's Creatures--Rachael Sage
8. america's on sale--alix olson
9. Simon Says--Sam Shaber
10. Hey New York--Anne Heaton
11. Praise!--Kinnie Starr
12. Company of Women-Poozies
13. It's a Hit--Rilo Kiley
14. 1963--Rachael Yamagata
15. Will You Be the One--Melissa Ferrick
16. Four Leaf Clover--Badly Drawn Boy

Break Up Mix for E
A variety of songs about breaking up and starting over. Most of these songs I listened to during periods when I was breaking up and starting over.
1. That's Just What You Are--Aimee Mann
2. My Lover's Gone--Dido
3. China--Tori Amos
4. Then So It Is--Melissa Ferrick
5. Untouchable Face--Ani DiFranco
6. Love Ridden--Fiona Apple
7. Rain-Patty Griffin
8. Not Pretty Enough--Kasey Chambers
9. Break Up Song--Melissa Ferrick
10. Are You Happy Now?--Richard Shindell
11. Coffee Stain--Sarah Harmer
12. You Had Time--Ani DiFranco
13. I Still Love You--Melissa Ferrick
14. Short Work--Kris Delmhorst
15. Paper Bag--Fiona Apple
16. Your Heart is For Breaking--Anne Heaton
17. Miss Misery--Elliot Smith
18. Hallelujah--Rufus Wainwright
19. Moses--Melissa Ferrick

Sociohistoric theory and Private vs. Public

2004-09-05T09:34:00.000-05:00

I created this blog at some point early this year when I felt like I had too personal a persona on the other blog I was posting to. I wanted something more academic, something to sort through my ideas, and a place I could share them with others. But I was sick of writing about my relationships to purge the inner blahness by sharing it with a public audience. I wanted to separate out my personal life and my work.

And then blogging became far less interesting...

I have a class on sociohistoric theory this semester. The basic idea is, academic life does not exist in a vaccuum. You really can't separate them out. Activity is laminated, and its all occurring at the same time all over the place in my brain. It's huge. You can't study writing just by looking at some papers a set of students did for a class. There are personal histories, classroom activity, academic politics, etc. that affect how students write in classes.

It's been very difficult for me to separate my personal and my academic life. I have a journal that I wanted to use for both, but I hate to take it to campus for fear I'll leave it somewhere and people will be able to read about everything I think. All of it is who I am, and yet I constantly feel the need to omit what I think whatever audience I'm addressing won't understand and will misinterpret. Like I can only teach certain things to my students cause I need to think of where they come from and what topics they will be able to take up.

So I've decided to relive on this blog a conversation I recently had with some friends. Basic gist, copying Paul's course pack would be a pain in the butt, some of us chose to do it and some not, and I dressed cute that day, and my friends liked my shoes. A picture of my cute new shoes:

blogging stranger

2004-09-01T07:07:00.000-05:00

I've been so busy and I really just keep forgetting to blog. I'm sure there are interesting things related to technology and women and rhetoric that I could be blogging about... but mostly there are little stupid things I want to talk about:

1. My course pack for one class this semester cost $96. The other cost nothing. I could be kind of mad cuz $76 of that was just in copyrights, but I'm not cuz the other was free, so in the universe it all evens out.

2. I'm teaching Freshman, and they're so cute and active and interesting... I can barely keep up. I'm getting too old for this. I want to have more directed conversations, so that my students get some point out of our diversions. I'm working on it.

3. I'm an all organized advisor this semester. I even made a schedule for my advisees which I promptly changed. Go me.

4. I'm singing with Amasong. Did I tell you that? It's my community thing to do this year. It's lovely. There are many great women. I love great women. It's such a good soul lifting thing to be doing. It's hard though cuz I haven't sang since High School, but I'm looking forward to the sense of accomplishment I'll feel when I sing in the winter concert, I'm ok with it.

6. I feel guilty because I haven't managed to get up before 6 and do yoga all week. Bummer.

7. There is a lot of beginning of the semester chaos as well as relationship chaos as well as other chaos all around me. As much as I hate chaos, I kind of thrive on it as well. It motivates me. This morning I am feeling motivated enough to walk to campus with my roomie and get a lot of work done. Go me once again.

More later, when I have something intellectual to say.

the first day of classes

2004-08-25T07:59:00.000-05:00

The summer has come to an end, although it mostly feels like I never had a summer and basically spent the whole summer working. I did get a great new laptop out of the deal though.

We had what I would consider a fantastic orientation where we were able to do a lot that we had never been able to do before. This being my second year working on orientation, I finally feel like the group I was working with really got the hang of what we were doing and were able to implement enough hands on activities to help really prepare the new grads to teach. It was an exciting although super busy work. It'll be nice to stop working all day long like that and return to the more normal grad student schedule of early morning and early afternoon work.

And so I start classes today and teaching tomorrow. I can't believe I've been doing this for two years now. I'm not so new anymore. I wasn't even new last year. Time FLIES by. I'm a PhD student now. Exciting, but terrifying since I have no idea what I want to do or where I fit. I guess we'll see.

Great womenfolk

2004-08-20T18:32:00.000-05:00

As I was talking to one of the new Writing Studies students and Business Writing instructors, he told me he likes women and folk music, but his knowledge was limited to Dar Williams, Lucy Kaplansky, and Joan Baez. Well, to expand his horizons, I immediately came home and made him a CD. Here's the playlist:

1. Rain and Snow--Be Good Tanyas
2. Subdivision--Ani DiFranco
3. Rachel--Buddy and Julie Miller
4. With Our Hands--Edie Carey
5. Underdog--Anne Heaton
6. These Pines--Kasey Chambers
7. Out in the Country--Kristen Hall
8. Hurricane--Kris Delmhorst
9. Fireflies--Lori McKenna
10. Everything I Need--Melissa Ferrick
11. Tailspin--Nerissa & Katrina Nields
12. Sunrise--Norah Jones
13. Starting Over--Rachel Bissex
14. Basement Apartment--Sarah Harmer
15. Penitent--Suzanne Vega
16. Happy and Satisfied--Toshi Reagon
17. By Way of Sorrow--Cry Cry Cry
18. Long Ride Home--Patty Griffin
19. Amai--Amasong

I really need a radio show. I would be so good at it. I think I missed my calling to write fiction, sing in women's choirs, have a radio show, and stay up all night dancing. Bummer that I chose academia I think.

back at the beginning

2004-08-16T06:42:00.000-05:00

um yeah. first day of work in a new semester. i feel that need to write all in lowercase letters and not think about everything i need to do today. but rather than letting life bowl me over today, i'm taking it by the ears and pulling real hard. maybe once life calms down, we can chat and walk like normal people. for now, i think i must be in charge.

I just got back from a lovely vacation to Nashville, Tennessee. I love the South. If it wasn't for the ridiculous politics, I think the South and I would be a perfect match. Anyway, that being said, perhaps Nashville isn't really the South, and neither is Florida, although both of them really are. But I could live in Nashville. I could live with cheap live acoustic music every night. I could live with the amazing food. I could live with Publix the greatest grocery store in the country. I saw my first plantations, which was fascinating and totally renewed my interest in African American studies. I bought 2 Tennessee cookbooks, 2 fiction books with slavery & Nashville women, a memoir about Jim Crowe, and a Southern history book. Now, I just gotta find some time to read for fun.

it's 6:48 am, and i'm thrilled to be awake, and ready to take life by the ear.

students' final project

2004-08-05T19:02:00.000-05:00

I thought some of you might be interested in seeing my students' final project. They did an ok job, not where I wanted them to be, but decent considering it was the last week of summer II. I'm working on ways to make this project a bigger part of the class in order to keep their interest in it. Today we had the website release party, and I said good-bye, but I'm not as sad as I would expect. Possibly it's because I get a whole new set of students in less than 3 weeks. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's that.

why it is so difficult to be me

2004-07-29T07:03:00.000-05:00

It's far easier to teach a course when you know nothing about it. It's far easier when someone else can tell you what they think you should do, and you can't argue with their reasoning because you have no beliefs about it. It's far easier to not know...

I hated my first semester teaching. I knew what I was doing was a huge disservice to my students, but I had no information on what else to do. Now I know what I need to do to grow as a teacher, but I am not allowed...

It's awful when someone promises you freedom, tells you how to achieve freedom, and then quickly limits your freedom in ways they don't see as limiting, but threaten to undermine everything you believe in. It'd be far better if they told me I had no freedom from the beginning instead of taunting me with the promise of it...

I'm probably being cryptic. Let me just say that writing a Rhetoric syllabus and teaching this course next semester seems to be one of the hardest things I've ever done in my entire life. And I've done some awfully hard things before...

I've had to resolve myself to turn this next semester over to the universe, hope I don't screw it up too much, know it's going to suck, and trust I'll learn something valuable from all this, if nothing else, how detrimental the mandates of certain people can be to my own sanity and the education of my students. STANDARDIZE STANDARDIZE STANDARDIZE! You'd think we might have learned that doesn't actually work... You'd think the years of Writing Studies theory and the professors here might have been able to teach us that. Unfortunately not. The good news is, this only has to last the length of one semester.

Shameless Music Promotion

2004-07-26T07:19:00.000-05:00

I discovered a gem on Friday morning. I was up at 5 (don't ask me why I was up at 5 on my day off, but I was) and listening to WMNF, my radio station in Tampa (they stream on live365) Anyway, the host of the show kept playing music from the Paste Magazine Sampler, and I had to find out what this was. Actually, it's the coolest magazine ever. Every 2 months, they release an issue with tons of reviews of independent singer-songwriter music, as well as a CD sampler with like 20 songs on it (22 this month), all from different artists who are about to release CDs. This month there are songs from Rilo Kiley, Tift Merritt, & Richard Shindell, as well as articles about Kasey Chambers, Damien Rice, & Rachael Sage. Not to meantion the great set of book & movie reviews. I stayed up for a couple of hours reading this thing last night.

Two tidbits about Paste Magazine & this town:

1. Paste also has a radio station that streams on live365. This is great if like me, you can't stand the radio stations in this town (with the exception of WEFT, which I can stand half the time)

2. They don't sell Paste at Pages for All Ages (bummer cuz I have a gift certificate to there) but they do sell it at Borders, and occasionally when you go to buy it there, you might bump into your roommate who is also there buying it for you. You could only be so fortunate to have a roommate like that.

The real thing

2004-07-22T14:24:00.000-05:00

Blockbuster joins the Netflix like mania

2004-07-20T20:15:00.000-05:00

This is so interesting! All the money I paid in late fees to Blockbuster... Only reason I don't want to do this is because they don't have the selection. I really wanted to watch all of the Sopranos, but they didn't have them. I doubt they have Star Trek DS9 either. Plus, I don't feel like driving across town to get my movies when they'll deliver to my house. But sometimes Netflix can be rather slow, especially considering my distant location in Urbana.

powerbook madness

2004-07-20T07:27:00.000-05:00

This is my new powerbook. Isn' t it lovely? It shipped today! In a week or less, I should be a MAC user again. Life is great.

things I can't live without

2004-07-19T23:47:00.000-05:00

1. A Shrinter
2. A Italian art litter bowl for my cats

The internet is a funny funny place. (Courtesy of other people's blogs)

The Cross of Interdisciplinarity

2004-07-17T20:55:00.000-05:00

Doing interdisciplinary work can be a burden. Now, in CWS at the U of I we're encouraged, in fact, we really can't get by, without doing interdisciplinary work. There's just not enough classes in the English department to make sure we get everything we need. I personally enjoy working in other disciplines: Speech Com, Women's Studies, Art & Design, Cirriculum and Instruction, Library Science. However, as Gail et. al.'s book points out, I'm not the only one suffering from a case of too much interdisciplinarity (and no ability to focus)

Many computers and composition specialists, caught between two worlds, felt an obligation to remain current both in their knowledge of technology and in their understanding of composition studies. (165)

This is definitely a problem for me. I love teaching web design, but in order to do that well, I have to learn Dreamweaver MX and Photoshop thoroughly so I can problem solve for my students, and I have to learn whatever new program is industry standard when it comes out. In other words, I'm always teaching myself new computer programs. I love it, but when do I have time to learn new programs, plus keep up with all the current theory in all of the fields of my interest (which are far too many), plus read back on all the theory I've missed in the last 2000 years before I was born. All this just to become a competent scholar. Boy I wish I was interested in dead people. There's less work to do, and fewer people to argue your claims. These live ones just keep changing and making life more difficult...

Now here's where Pat Sullivan summarizes it all in a moment of pure revelatory genius:

I think that was my learning experience--being interdisciplinary. You have to learn all the languages of the groups that you're dealing with. You have to constantly reframe your project into the questions and interests that each of these groups have. I wasn't very good at doing that when I first started, and I think that my dissertaiton didn't get out to as big as a community because I didn't quite know how to be interdisciplinary--I was learning how to be interdiscplinary. (169)

Pat makes the point that this is why she couldn't get a conference proposal accepted, because she couldn't sell it to the right audience. Oh, I hope that is my only problem! I hope it's not that I'm an incompetent scholar or I really don't know what I'm talking about (because I think I do, and I think it's valuable) but just that I don't know how to talk to my audience. Certainly, I learned how to talk to my students this semester, but I hadn't a clue how to do that last semester. Anyway, we'll see if I can narrow all these disciplines into one dissertation topic, sell it properly to the different disciplinary audiences, and figure out some way to get it published. That will be a big enough feat for me!

Why do I have nothing to say?

2004-07-16T19:15:00.000-05:00

A good question, one I can't answer apparently since I haven't posted in over a week, and thus I must make it a theme of this blog post. I've been involved in bargaining the first contract here at the U of I, and we finally have a contract, which the membership still has to ratify. Here is a NG article (if this link works). At this point, I don't know what I can say, so I won't say much else. I'm glad the bargaining is over, and as the article says, we support this contract. It was an interesting process to be a part of.

I almost bought a powerbook today, but I'm going to see if I can get a lower interest rate on it with a certain credit card, so I'll wait a day or three. I'm very excited to have a laptop, especially to return to the world of MACs, which I haven't owned since I was an undergrad. My last 2 computer purchases were PCs, a Compaq laptop (which sadly died in an incident involving a glass of water and my ex-roommates cats) and a Dell desktop. The Dell I love, but I really think I'd be better off with a powerbook. There are things I want to do that Dells can't do. But I'm opting out of the IPod, even though it was going to be cheap. I already have the Jukebox, and I like it, so I'll stick with that for now. Perhaps in 3 years I'll buy a purple IPod, as there are secret plans out there that are in the works.

And thus as I've come across this quote, and am still in the midst of Gail's book, it is so very appropriate:

Apple marketed the small, combined CPU-and-monitor system as the people’s computer and claimed that behind the system’s design lay the assumption that it made more sense to teach computers about people than people about computers (74)

I hope my new laptop will be so well taught about me that I'll barely have to teach it anything. Of course, I'll have to change my programming from a PC, and I'll have to learn to switch back and forth (something like being ambidextrous?), but it's all possible. And I'll be able to bring it to work with me. What a joy!

things that make me happy

2004-07-08T15:06:00.000-05:00

1. One of my students told someone in the hall that she likes my class.
2. I have a number of students who are taking their projects to places I never anticipated, and doing a fantastic job of it.
3. Breakfast in the morning with your roommate at the Original Pancake House for her birthday makes for an excellent in class discussion.
4. Mozilla Firefox is a far superior browser to Internet Explorer. I am in love with the tabs! Brilliant!
5. I am about one step away from purchasing a Powerbook and I sort of rode a bike again for the first time in ages, two things on my Goals list.
6. This semester teaching Dreamweaver (which is in fact the only thing I've taught consistently in my course, with the exception of resumes & cover letters) I'm going to learn more things about the program that I never knew how to do, and be able to make even better websites, and thus teach my students to make far superior websites than my former students.
7. Since tonight is my only weekend night this week (thrilling isn't it?) I plan to eat home made Indian food and watch City of God.

computer classroom issues in english

2004-07-05T09:42:00.000-05:00

Gail et al's book, a history of computers in composition, had this interesting tidbit which reminded me of my own recently computer classroom problems:

A further challenge for those wanting to use computers in their teaching was getting access to computers in the face of institutional cultures that saw writing as a trivial activity--relative to the number crunching and data processing. (48-49)

At the U of I, we have ATLAS who runs all the computer classrooms for Liberal Arts and Sciences. Their biggest concern in ensuring that the computers are being used in the classrooms all the time. They want number crunching. Most of their computer classrooms are a screen and huge computer system at the front of the classroom, so big you can't see a short instructor like me behind it. There are a set of computers facing the front of the room. They built a room in English that is a bit more mobile; the chairs move around, and they built a section of the room with tables that you can also move around. However, if you want to lose the computers and sit in that area, you can't see each other very well. They just didn't build enough space over there. It was more important to put the space in the computer area. Sad.

Why aren't labs designed with users in mind? Why aren't computers? These things are supposed to make our lives easier, yes? Well, sometimes they're so hard to use that they just make life far more difficult. So much of it has to do with thinking about computers as only scientific machines, not designed to aid people in their lives, but to have people figure them out and aid them. I wonder how much of it is related to this quote:

I had the opportunity as a very young person working my way through school to use IBM magnetic tape electric typewriters that were available mostly in the business world...I also used line editors on mainframes when I could get my hands on one, usually in business settings. (Burns, 53)

When I think about MAC vs PC, MACs are typically used in education, PCs in business (although this may be changing). MAC has so many innovative programs, but for PCs, you can get only the same types of programs over and over. I was looking for something like Notetaker for PC, but I couldn't find anything, at least not on a quick search. How many software companies still see writing as "number crunching" and "data processing", something to be done with concision, without much consideration of the processes of folks when they're actually writing?

blog edited collection

2004-07-02T21:45:00.000-05:00

Super exciting! It's an edited collection online, and you can comment on it. Oh, and I know someone else published here from my university, not associated with Writing Studies, but ICR, where I will be taking a class next semester. Very exciting. I'll look at these articles in more detail and comment on them later.

too fun to pass up

2004-07-01T22:40:00.000-05:00

via culturecat

*Bold the ones you've seen

*Italicize the ones you've seen a bit of

*Add three movies to the bottom of the list

(not in the directions, but I'm going to bold & italicize all the films I own on this list)

01. Trainspotting
02. Shrek
03. M
04. Dogma
05. Strictly Ballroom
06. The Princess Bride
07. Love Actually
08. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings
09. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
10. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
11. Reservoir Dogs
12. Desperado
13. Password Swordfish
14. Kill Bill Vol. 1
15. Donnie Darko
16. Spirited Away
17. Better Than Sex
18. Sleepy Hollow
19. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
20. The Eye
21. Requiem for a Dream
22. Dawn of the Dead (The Old One)
23. The Pillow Book
24. The Italian Job (the original version)
25. The Goonies
26. The Basketball Diaries
27. The Spice Girls Movie
28. Army of Darkness
29. The Color Purple
30. The Safety of Objects
31. Can't Hardly Wait
32. Mystic Pizza
33. Finding Nemo
34. Monsters Inc.
35. Circle of Friends
36. Mary Poppins
37. The Bourne Identity
38. Forrest Gump
39. A Clockwork Orange
40. Kindergarten Cop
41. On The Line
42. My Big Fat Greek Wedding
43. Final Destination
44. Sorority Boys
45. Urban Legend
46. Cheaper by the Dozen
47. Fierce Creatures
48. Dude, Where's My Car?
49. Ladyhawke
50. Ghostbusters
51. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
52. Back to the Future
53. An Affair To Remember
54. Somewhere In Time
55. North By Northwest
56. Moulin Rouge
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
58. The Wizard of Oz
59. Zoolander
60. A Walk to Remember
61. Chicago
62. Vanilla Sky
63. The Sweetest Thing
64. Don't Tell Mom the Babysitters Dead
65. The Nightmare Before Christmas
66. Chasing Amy
67. Edward Scissorhands
68. Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert
69. Muriel's Wedding
70. Croupier
71. Blade Runner
72. Cruel Intentions
73. Ocean's Eleven
74. Magnolia
75. Fight Club
76. The Beauty and The Beast
77. Much Ado About Nothing
78. Dirty Dancing
79. Gladiator
80. Ever After
81. Braveheart
82. What Lies Beneath
83. Regarding Henry
84. The Dark Crystal
85. Star Wars
86. The Birds
87. Beaches
88. Cujo
89. Maid In Manhattan
90. The Labyrinth
91. Thoroughly Modern Millie
92. His Girl Friday
93. Chocolat
94. Independence Day
95. Singing in the Rain
96. Big Fish
97. The Thomas Crown Affair
98. The Matrix
99. Stargate
100. A Hard Day's Night
101. About A Boy
102. Jurassic Park
103. Life of Brian
104. Dune
105. Help.
106. Grease
107. Newsies
108. Gone With The Wind
109. School of Rock
110. TOMMY
111. Yellow Submarine
112. From Hell
113. Benny & Joon
114. First Knight
115. Panic Room
116. UHF
117. Amelie
118. Three Amigos
119. Muppets From Space
120. Babe
121. An American In Paris
122. X-Men
123. Spy Game
124. 12 Monkeys
125. Citizen Kane
126. What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
127. Life as a House
128. The Broken Heart's Club: A Romantic Comedy
129. Life is Beautiful
130. All Over the Guy
131. Quills
132. Dances with wolves
133. Van Helsing
134. Hidalgo
135. Ned Kelly
136. Wilde
137. Blazing Saddles
138. A Walk on the Moon
139. Brotherhood of the Wolf
140. The last unicorn
141. Imitation of Life
142. Jaws
143. Starship Troopers
144. The Shawshank Redemption
145. Drunken Master
146. The Good the Bad and the Ugly
147. The Exorcist
148. Don't look now
149. Braindead
150. The City of Lost Children.
151. The Abyss
152. Annie Hall
153. Almost Famous
154. Secretary
155. High Fidelity
156. Paris Is Burning
157. Pitch Black
158. The Graduate
158. But I'm a Cheerleader
159. Better than Chocolate
160. Kissing Jessica Stein

A brief teaching update

2004-06-30T13:48:00.000-05:00

I thought I might update you on the progress of my teaching in this summer session; it's absolutely amazing, and far better than I could have anticipated. My students, though generally confused by the theory I've been throwing at them, have being engaging with it to the best of their ability. I always enjoy grading, because I actually like reading their assignments. Perhaps I am doing them a diservice by not teaching them traditional memo writing form and testing them on it. But really, it is much more enjoyable to teach them the rhetorical aspects of business writing and ask them to put those into play with contexts and audiences in ways that are meaningful to them. Plus, they are far more interesting to read.

So, we have one more week where we talk about grammar and the job search, and then we are off to the wonderful world of web design and my final semester experiment, a collaborative web project with my entire class. We'll see how it goes!

Medium, expanded

2004-06-25T10:51:00.000-05:00

This post on Datacloud about what is a medium, is money a medium, and is transportation a medium has expanded my thinking about media in general. Since it's the topic my class in currently on, there will be a lot to do with it this week. I bet if my students were able to think of other things as media, besides paper-type media, and even box-type media, they might be able to do even more amazing work. I barely feel smart enough to say something intelligent about the topic now, as it's Friday, and after a week of teaching, I am now officially brain dead. I need the weekend to revive.

I have also started reading this history of computers & composition book that Gail gave me, and it's hard to read because they have a narrative, but then they have all these cool quotes in the margins, and my brain can't switch gears fast enough. I know I'm losing a lot of interesting stuff here. But I'll just include this first quote they have in the margins in my blog, because it also works really well with what we're currently doing in my class:

A revolution in communications technology is taking place today, a revolution as profound as the invention of printing. Communication is becoming electronic. For untold millenia, man [sic], unlike any other animal on earth, could talk. Then, for about 4,000 years, [humankind] also devised ways to embody speech in written form that could be kept over time and transported over space. Then, with Gutenberg, the third era began, and for the past five hundred years written texts could be disseminated in multiple copies...We are now entering a fourth era ushered in by a revolution of comparable historical significance to that of print and the mass media. We have discovered how to use pulses of electromagnetic energy to embody and covey messages that up to now have been sent by voice, picture, and text. Just as writing made possible the preservation of an intellectual heritage over time and its diffusion over space, and as printing made possible its popularization, this new development is having profound effects on civilization. (Pool, 1990, pp. 7-8)

A rather long quote, but what strikes me about it most is again this idea of time and space, and how techology deals with those two factors, and transforms our understanding of those two factors. Perhaps even the tension over technology and its inherent "evilness" is its transformation of time and space, thus critics always want to return to an earlier time where the pace of life was slower. In terms of business writing, it is a good point, because I told my students yesterday that the nature of writing has changed, but this quote is a clear historical point as to why. Interesting, interesting.

Lectures

2004-06-24T10:44:00.000-05:00

I'm overwhelmed with excitement, and super sad Sarah is cleaning rooms right now because I just want to call her and express my excitement. Today, I gave my first lecture ever. Last semester I sat & watched both Sarah & Jody give lectures in their classes, and it was awesome. The best lectures I'd been to that I could think of. Well, I did that today. I had 5 pages of single-spaced notes and I talked for almost the entire class. There was a little discussion sprinkled into the lecture, but it was mostly me. After class, I told them it was my first lecture, and they said it was great, better than most because they could follow it, and that just made me feel so happy. I think I was able to make a lot of connections for my students today that will help them continue to make connections for themselves. I love them. They're really great. I'm so glad I'm teaching BTW 250 again. I thought I wanted to leave it behind, but really, I can teach it and many other things. I'm learning a lot about what I'm able to do in my teaching.

good-bye bell

2004-06-22T19:26:00.000-05:00

I've finally finished Teaching to Transgress (took me about 6 months, go figure) and I'd like to quote bell hooks and just mention that this book is wonderful, though 10 years old, still very relevant, at least to me. And so

It saddens me that colleagues are often suspicious of teachers whom students long to study with. And there is a tendency to undermine the professorial commitment of engaged pedagogues by suggesting that what we do is not as rigorously academic as it should be. Ideally, education should be a place where the need for diverse teaching methods and styles would be valued, encouraged, seen as essential to learning. Occasionally students feel concerned when a class departs from the banking system. I remind them that they can have a lifetime of classes that reflect conventional norms. (203)

decisions, decisions

2004-06-22T15:52:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I actually made a decision today (amazing!) I found out they are no longer using the Writing Material reader in Rhetoric, which I was actually considering using. But since I have no interest in using the other reader (Ways With Words or some such thing) I'm going to change the focus of my course and be a little less risky for my first semester. I'm going to do a lot of writing technologies readings. They'll fit in just fine with the projects I had planned, will be easier to collect, and I can work around the Writing Analytically stuff too. I may also choose to dump the Web Design part of the course. So far this semester I've barely taught web design, and have been able to use the room to its fullest. So yay. Less stress, more direction.

Now I just have to get over the fact that I have to teach from a book which actually has a section called "Why Correctness Matters". UGH!!!!!

Things that fascinate me

2004-06-21T20:41:00.000-05:00

I am recently fascinated by Asian culture. I want to travel to Europe, and Asia, so much, out of America, and see more of the world. I've lived a few places in America. I love American culture. But Asian culture seems fascinating, different, out of my grasp. Movies give me the illusion that I can grasp it and then it quickly slips away.

From Lost in Translation I can see that Tokyo seems like an amazing city. From Platoon I can see that Vietnam is jungles and villages and not anything like western culture. And from Farewell my Concubine, I can see that China has had such a recent changing of governments and rich history, not to mention the sheer volume of people! From my mutterings you can see how little I know about Asian culture.

I also love the West Wing and everytime I watch I wonder why I'm not in politics fighting with these smart people. What is up with the decision I made to do academia? I want to go work for Kucinich and then he makes an amazing comeback and becomes the candidate, and then the president? It's all a fantasy world I know, but it's fascinating. And it makes me cry.

Not to mention once again how fascinated I am by hospitals. Weird thing, I actually would like to go spend a lot of time in hospitals right now. Especially Carle. Carle is a great hospital. But nobody likes hospitals. Well, I'm in love with them right now. And I can't explain it.

Communicating, & Hospitals

2004-06-20T08:49:00.000-05:00

I am distressed, but as of yet I have no response that I will be given help on how to incorporate the required texts into my syllabus. Blah.

I graded my first set of student assignments last night. They weren't able as a whole to achieve what I wanted, and it's entirely my fault. I used to have a boss who never knew what he wanted until he saw what he didn't want. That's me in this case. I think they did their best to give me what I asked for, but I didn't ask for what I wanted. Instead, I asked for a disconnected and random piece of writing. But had they been able to give me a connected and meaningful piece of writing, they would have done outstanding work. Their ideas were beyond what I could have imagined in this project. What to do, what to do... I haven't decided how to grade these. They have the option to revise... I don't know.

I was in the emergency room Tuesday night with food poisoning. Hospitals fascinate me. They run on writing. They communicate by writing, not just in charts, but on walls, doors, beds, machines... There are so many rules, so many things that must be done a certain way. There are no Geordi LeForges altering the equipment to make it perform in certain circumstances. My current fascinations are leaning towards medicine, bodies, technologies & writing. The physical is so affected by the writing, and the writing is so much more physical than it is in many professions. When I worked for lawyers, we rarely were allowed to do things like write on the walls.

Politics, & a bit on language

2004-06-18T10:29:00.000-05:00

I find myself in a very difficult position right now. I have finally begun to come into my own in teaching business writing. My students this summer are great, and the work we've done in only the first week is better than anything I've participated in as a teacher. I signed up to teach Rhetoric next semester because I felt I wasn't able to go where I wanted to with business writing.

Well, because it is my first semester teaching Rhetoric, even though I've taught for 2 years and taken a ton of courses on composition (since Writing Studies is my focus), the department still feels I need a lot of guidance in my teaching. They're willing to allow me to have my own coursepack (although they want to "supervise" the readings), but they're forcing me to incorporate Writing Analytically and a handbook. Well, that's basically going to cost my students more money, force me to teach something I'm not comfortable with, and make less room in my syllabus for the things I actually want to teach. I had planned to teach in the lab and teach web design, and had already put in a book order to require my students to buy a Dreamweaver book. I don't want to require them to buy all this. It's very expensive and pointless. And it's frustrating the heck out of me.

I like this quote:

In academic circles, both in the sphere of teaching and that of writing, there has been little effot made to utilize black vernacular--or for that matter, any language other than standard English. (171)

I wonder what would happen if I started submitting papers where every other line had a Yiddish word in it. I wonder what would happen if I broke into full paragraphs of computer languages. I wonder how folks would respond to even the use of language from different disciplines within their own discipline. Do we care to take the time to learn the subtleties beyond our language control? Wouldn't we grow a lot as a society that way? Although academia, really, is not about growing as a society. It's about control, as evidenced by the politics I am currently encountering. What would it matter if my department actually trusted me to teach this course? I would be a happier, better teacher, and would be able to bring out happiness & betterness in my students as a result. The only thing that might suffer is their egos. What a bummer.

Online stuff

2004-06-15T07:46:00.000-05:00

Well, I spent about 1 hour on Friday photoshopping an image for my class website, but then I decided to shrink it, and now you can't read it anymore. I'll have to re-do that soon. I had a lovely weekend of vacation by the pool and shopping and IKEA, so I've been a bit out of the loop on my blogging. And teaching is all time consuming right now. I can't spend 4 hours in the morning sitting around anymore. If you'd like to be all consumed by my teaching as well, I thought I'd put up a link to the course website, where you can also find your way to our blog.

Bodies and liberatory practices

2004-06-11T08:48:00.000-05:00

hooks collaborates with Ron Scapp on this amazing chapter called "Building a Teaching Community." There is so much here, I found myself underlining and writing plenty of notes in the margins, fully enagaged. Thus is the goal of liberatory pedagogy as hooks sees it, creating a space where students can become fully engaged.

I've really been reminded here of the importance of bodies. Is teaching not really "work" because it is supposed to be mental and not physical? How do our assumptions of the way we are supposed to be physically in the classroom determine the kind of work we can do there? What if we can move around, use the space differently, uses spaces outside of the classroom? What if we can be with our students rather than occupying only the front of the classroom? And how does the way I look and move in the classroom contribute to my delivery of the material? How does teaching in the computer lab change this, and what are the assumptions of how to use the space in the computer classroom? And what do I do with this?

I know so many prefessors who are progressive in their politics, who have been willing to change their cirriculum, but who in fact have resolutely refused to change the nature of their pedagogical practices... they will work with texts, work with the ideas they share, in ways that suggest there is ultimately no difference between this work and more conservative work emerging from folks privileged by class, race, or gender. (140-41)

That reminds me so much of my Women's Studies class last Spring. I liked the professor, and she presented a lot of interesting readings on feminism that were progressive and liberatory. But we could not engage them in any productive way. We could barely enter a conversation, and whatever started was constantly shutting down other conversation. It was awful. I'm sure I'm guilty of this as well at times. Why is it so easy to admit the old ideas aren't working, and yet not be able to change them in our physical practices?

The world of digital portfolios

2004-06-09T11:48:00.000-05:00

My students have been doing portfolios in my class since the first semester I taught, when they told me I had to stick to a traditional model of grading that to me seemed to set up an adversarial relationship between me and my students. I couldn't take it. Grading pulled all the wrong strings, and seemed to go directly against any model of process we constantly harp on in composition.

My students have been doing electronic portfolios since my second semester teaching. I started teaching in a computer lab, and have slowly helped my students get better at representing their work digitally. At this point, I can't imagine going back to a traditional model of grading, and I can't imagine teaching anywhere but in a computer lab. It has fundamentally changed the way I think about work.

And my conception of portfolios keeps changing. As does Kathleen Blake Yancey's. Her current article in CCC is fantastic, putting into words a lot of my own thoughts and goals for my teaching. Strangely enough, she is talking about the very things I've been addressing on my blog, delivery changing and disappearing from print, and reemerging with the onset of digital forms of writing.

What I plan to do now in my teaching of portfolios is work more at letting my students do the representing in ways that are meaningful to them. It's easy enough for them to imitate my syllabus and arrangement of texts on a website. But as this article talks about, there may be many more things my students could do with these very public and immediate (hyper)texts. And I am initiating the use of collaborative portfolios for my teaching, to see the ways that my students might represent themselves as a class. But as Yancey states:

...the medium is suggestive rather than deterministic. The virtures of the digital outlined here are more potential than realized, but this articulation demonstrates potential for a new identity, one not fully determined by medium, but possible within and through it. (753)

Yeah. The brilliance is all over these ideas. I have a lot to think about.

Experience

2004-06-07T09:56:00.000-05:00

I'm currently working on my Rhet 105 syllabus. The theme of my course is going to be Personal Writing in Public Spaces. I am in the process of choosing readings, and as I haven't chosen any yet, I am trying to consider ways to encourage my students to theorize and look critically at the personal, as well as using the personal to understand the world around them. So I find hooks discussion of "Essentialism and Experience" particularly relevant to this debate I'm having in my head. hooks seems to be saying that there must be a balance with the personal, that experience is important in what it can add to a course, but must be looked at critically. I agree.

In much of my reading on pedagogy, I find good teaching seems to come back to the way a teacher presents things in class. Different teachers can present the same things, and through their practices, convey those things in entirely different ways. As I work on what to present, I must also work on how to present it. In academia, the how has not been an issue: you present a paper at a conference, or you submit a paper to a journal. Papers generally look the same although may vary in style based on where you present it. But the how has been generally unimportant, and generally uncritiqued (although Writing Studies folks do this more and more; Anne Wyscoki is one example).

As I read this quote, I thought again that perhaps some of what might change the way we think in academia is to change how we write:

...largely because critics fail to interrogate the location from which they speak, often assuming, as it is now fashionable to do, that there is no need to question whether the perspective from which they write is informed by racist and sexist thinking, specifically as feminists perceive black women and women of color. (78)

Wouldn't it be something if our writing practices could do this? Couldn't we possibly abandon the forms of writing that create hierarchies and exclude? Probably a lot of wishful thinking on my part.

"Theory as Liberatory Practice"

2004-06-06T10:08:00.000-05:00

In my "Feminist Theory in the Humanities" course last spring, we read "Theory as Liberatory Practice" by bell hooks in class. Those who spoke up in this class (and there weren't many; there was a lot of silencing by the theory we read in that course) criticized this essay, especially the section in which she claims the way we read theory in women's studies courses is analogous to rape. They also criticized bell hooks and quickly wrote off her work. I knew I was in trouble, because every moment while I was reading this essay, I kept nodding my head, underlining bits, and feeling that her theory was granting me a place in that course. How wrong I was...

In light of the recent experiences of myself and my friends who are graduate students just starting out in this world of academia, I find this quote to be quite reassuring:

There were many times early on when my work was subjected to forms of dismissal and devaluation that created within me a profound despair. (72)

I truly want the academic work I do to be connected to practice. I am in Writing Studies for this reason; sitting in a small room with an individual and helping them work out their ideas in writing was a way to put academic work into practice for me. I try to put these purposes ahead of all the other crap that comes up, because there is a good reason for me to do the work I want, and although that may not seem "academic" or "theoretical" enough, it might help someone else. As hooks so eloquently says in this essay, what is the point of theoretical work that nobody wants to read and has no real application in peoples' lives?

Is critique the only way?

2004-06-04T10:15:00.000-05:00

hooks says:

...critical interrogation is not the same as dismissal...It is feminist thinking that empowers me to engage in a constructive critique...(49)

A lot of times when I read, I read for how the text can be of use to me. Does it change the way I think about something? Can I use it in my teaching? Does it illustrate points I already believe to be true? Do I feel inclined to dismiss everything, and why?

Sometimes it seems the way I read is not typical in academia.

But I agree with hooks. Are there ways to critique that are constructive? Are there ways of looking at a text that allow me to take what I need and ignore the rest? I often feel like I do not fit in when I sit in classes where we rip everyone to shreds. Not to say that everyone is right all the time, but everyone is certainly not wrong all the time either. Perhaps a better balance can be struck.

Explicit teaching philosophies

2004-06-03T09:47:00.000-05:00

I'm reading bell hooks Teaching to Transgress, and I'll probably have occasional things of note to post here. Today I read this:

In the transformed classroom there is often a much greater need to explain philosophy, strategy, and intent than in the "norm" setting...In my professorial role I had to surrender my need for immediate affirmation of successful teaching (even though some reward is immediate) and accept that students may not appreciate the value of a certain standpoint or process straightaway (42)

We recently discussed this first issue on my blog as I expressed some fear about the ways I have revised my business writing class for the summer. But the second issue here is what I'd really like to address; after having one awful semester teaching, I'm even more concerned about what my students think of my teaching. It is comforting to think that even bell hooks struggles with this issue. I know I work hard on my teaching. I know that I care what my students learn, that the material they engage and the ways they engage it can allow them to leave my class with a better understanding of how the world works, and that requires, as hooks states later

...the opportunity to know that difficult experiences may be common and practice at integrating theory and practice: ways of knowing with habits of being (43)

Well, the current business writing cirriculum uses very little of the theory and the practice is so abstract that in my mind there must be better ways for students to learn these things. But there are many more pieces to this puzzle that I'll just need to learn over time.

Is work supposed to be satisfying?

2004-06-02T11:20:00.000-05:00

I've been feeling rather unsatisfied with my academic work as of late. Perhaps it is because I have no good product to point my finger to and say I accomplished this year (even though I wrote an esssay review and book chapter with the promise of publication, still, those things are not a journal article which is apparently what I need to be original). I have my nose in so many interests at this moment; it's hard to settle down. It's hard to commit myself to something when I'm broadly interested in feminism, technology, personal writing, professional writing, pedagogy, and that's just to name a few. I met with Gail last week, and she gave me a book. A book is a good thing. But mostly I just want someone to tell me it's going to be ok.

What Feminism is to me

2004-05-27T08:15:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking a lot about the comment that breakit left yesterday about the paradigm shift. I think it's a really good point, so I wanted to respond in a more sustained fashion about what I believe feminism can be, and is to me. I think that will help clarify what I intend by male and/or female defined spaces, because I think that terminology is inadequate to describe what I mean.

Feminism to me is the belief that women and men are equal. That means that neither gender is less than. The problem with the three examples I presented yesterday was that they all made women less than. The rape seminars in the military make it seem like women cause the problem of rape, not that men & women in society might share equally in this problem. The law firm example shows that those men thought women were less than in the way they talked about them only as bodies, and when they turned to me and apologized, it was almost like saying "we think you're only a body, but we just didn't find it appropriate to say it to your face." As if I'm some delicate creature who doesn't know how they really see me. And in the third example, the guys insult each other by calling each other queer, and female. As if these are insults?!? Again, making women less than with speech and behavior.

Some feminists think women are better. They think that separtism and lesbianism is the answer. I have two musicians who I will quote addressing that problem. One is Ani DiFranco when she says that feminism is not a bad word. We make it seem like its discriminatory in society, but the belief that women are equal is not discriminatory. It's not intended to take away the rights of men, even if it seems that way. The other is Melissa Ferrick. She refuses to play at the Michigan Womyn's Festival. She states in every concert I've been to that men, women, straight, queer, and whatever people are welcome at her concerts. Every concert of hers I've been to (except maybe Indianapolis), there have been a sprinkling of men.

I know there is no answer to any of society's problems. But I think there might be answers in contexts. And I wonder if looking at spaces where both women & men can coexist as equals might reveal something about something. What those somethings are, well, we'll have to leave that to the universe. See what it brings back.

Thanks for letting me ramble.

Rape & Discriminatory talk

2004-05-26T11:02:00.000-05:00

I found this post the other day on CultureCat by a woman in Iraq who is talking about the rape prevention seminars over there. Boy did this get me thinking...

I have become interested in spaces defined by women recently, and this post fits in very well with that question. The military, certainly a space defined by men, has rape prevention workshops defined by men. Is it progress that they have these workshops when the workshops are only geared to how women can prevent themselves from getting raped? And what if they had workshops that were for men about rape? I can see if they had a woman leading such a workshop what kind of shit she might get from the men. I wouldn't want to lead it...

I was once in the elevator at work with a group of guys who were runners at the law firm I was working for. They were talking about women's body parts as if I wasn't there. One of them apologized to me. Why apologize if you're not really sorry? Like it's ok to say those things, just not in front of me? I told him no apology necessary, I was used to it. If it's not sincere, I don't want it. J used to talk about how he never fit in with those guys because of the way they talked about women. He just didn't know what to say. Yeah, me too. Male defined spaces.

I was at New Year's dinner with my ex and all of his male friends. They kept calling each other queer. They asked me why I was so quiet. One of them wanted kept shushing the guys so he could call a girl and lie to her about his plans for the evening. He was just trying to get laid. My ex just smiled and went along with it. I didn't know what to say. Male defined spaces.

What do you say when you're in a space that condones, and in fact even praises, that kind of talk? There's not even a space for me to say anything there.

Syllabus woes

2004-05-25T08:20:00.000-05:00

I spent about 4 hours yesterday working on my syllabus for the business writing course I'm teaching this summer. The syllabus is dense. There is a lot here. There is a lot I want to do in 8 weeks. It might be awesome.

I spend a long time thinking about teaching, more than most people I know. A lot of people teaching this same course have only tweaked their syllabus a little; I've overhauled mine 3 times. This is the first semester of teaching the course that I haven't changed ALL of the reading.

I'm nervous. This doesn't look a thing like a typical business writing course. I know exactly the reasons why we're doing this instead of learning the genres out of Locker, but what if my students don't get it? What if we can't pull it off? I think I'm going to need to trust one day at a time on this one. It's easy when you don't need your students to participate in order to pull a course off. But seriously, this is not the banking theory of education (quote, Paulo Freire). You don't learn writing by me telling you about writing. You learn writing by writing. And you learn rhetoric by becoming aware of your choices. And so, that is what will be doing this semester.

Girl with a Pearl Earring

2004-05-23T08:38:00.000-05:00

I used to have a teacher in elementary school (he was a staunch Republican and tried to get me to vote for Bush in the last presidential election) who used to say that priviledge equals responsibility. I think he mostly meant that if we were going to be allowed more freedom in school, we'd have to clean up after ourselves and be responsible for the school. But there is also the same quote in Ever After, one of my favorite films, where the prince's mother states that with priviledge (in this case the priviledge of being royalty) comes certain responsibility (the responsibility of running the kingdom).

Girl with a Pearl Earring also made me aware of my priviledge as a feminist living in this particular society. Some feminists think this priviledge makes us reponsible to spread our notions of feminism to all the women in the world so they can be extended the same freedoms. I'm not sure where the line is; in the name of freedom imperialism has thrived for centuries.

Griet is a poor peasant girl. In this film, she is forced to work for a rich family in order to support herself because her father is blind and can no longer support her. Servanthood meant doing whatever anyone said or losing your job. She puts up with a lot of abuse and an attempted rape. She does choose to have sex with a man she likes out of wedlock; the last servant who did that got pregnant and shamed for having sex out of wedlock. The father of the baby was rich and had no reprecussions. The man Griet has sex with asks her to marry him, saying that she'll no longer have to work for anyone (she'll be free, if free means bearing his children and taking care of his household). She doesn't want that either. The man she really seems to love, the man of the house (played by Colin Firth who looks so handsome with long hair and an unshaven face) is off limits, although there are some intimate scenes of him painting her. What an interesting world.

Gender Genie

2004-05-22T17:43:00.000-05:00

According to this Gender Genie (found from this blog), my writing indicates that I am male. I entered my previous blog entry to test it out. It is supposedly correct 80% of the time. So I must be one butch male!

Brilliant Rhet 105 ideas from the shower

2004-05-22T08:19:00.000-05:00

I think while I'm showering. Today I thought about the DVD project idea I have for my Rhet 105 class. As a way to help my students understand meta-narratives, I want to show them the special features from Lord of the Rings extended edition DVDs (not all of them, just clips). It is so interesting to see how the director talks about his work, how all the other collaborators talk about their parts, how a movie can be split up into different components such as art, script writing, acting, etc.

Since the theme of my class is to be constructions of the personal in public spaces, I was thinking that since my DVD project will also be the research paper, my students might look at personal writing in academic spaces. As a way to do this, I might have them read part of Casanave's book Writing Games wherein she talks about the positioning of the personal in the academic writing of different students. I might also have them read two versions of a paper that I wrote about English majors working in a law firm. In the first version, I wrote a strictly academic piece with the intention of showing some of the benefits of a liberal arts education. In the second piece, I juxtaposed the academic writing with a version of the personal, intending to play with the idea of my own positioning as both an employee of the firm and a researcher. I wonder how my students would respond to reading my writing.

Feminist? Priviledge

2004-05-21T22:40:00.000-05:00

The experiences I had today, coupled with some of the movies I've been watching recently, make me acutely aware of my own priviledge, especially to be a feminist. I watched Osama a few nights ago, a film about a little girl in Afghanistan that her family dresses as a boy in order for her to work and provide for the family. In the movie, most of the men in Afghanistan have died, and the Taliban will not allow the women to work. They must be entirely covered when they leave the house. The Taliban regulates the behavior of the women in this film through force. Several Americans are arrested for providing services as doctors or filming anything in the country for the press. These individuals are executed by firing squad. The girl gets caught as a girl dressing as a boy, but instead of execution, she is pardoned on her execution day if she marries an old man (she is perhaps 10 years old?). On her wedding night, he lets her choose from a number of padlocks that he will use to lock her in her room. What a wedding present.

In America, I can wear whatever I want, like tank tops and skirts. I am allowed to protest. I am allowed to call myself a feminist. I am allowed to post this blog entry. I can dress like a boy if I want, work if I want, and marry who I want. I can support my family rather than being locked up in someone else's family. I do not have to choose between a miserable life as someone's slave wife or death.

I am a graduate student, but I make 3x the amount of money per month as most of the women I spent the day with. This week, I treated myself to a Dell Jukebox that cost over $200. My friend treated herself to two CDs that cost a total of $10, the first music she's bought in a long time. I can afford to shop at the IGA. I can afford to go out for meals a few times per week. I can rent $20 worth of movies per month. My legs work, I weigh less than 500 lbs, and I've never spent the night in the hospital. I've never had major surgery. But my friends can still read what they please, listen to what they please, and marry who they please (or choose not to marry).

Do I want the rest of the women in the world to have what I have? No. I want all of us to have more. I want to live in a society where being a feminist won't get you stoned. Guilt? Priviledge? Gratitude? Definitely.

New Media and Swish

2004-05-20T21:18:00.000-05:00

There is this very interesting article on Kairos by Madeleine Sorapure about a course she taught called "Writing in New Media." In the course, the students worked in Photoshop and Flash, and also looked at Lev Manovich's book The Language of New Media wherein they wrote on the theoretical work in that book. It sounds like a fantastic class. I want to teach it. What is so absolutely cool about this class is it incorporates the practical of these programs that students would like to learn with the theoretical of new media. I think I could sell a class like this to the majors in professional writing here. S says I should wait and teach Rhetoric 105 for a year, but I would like to propose a course like this. We'll see.

I went to another FSI workshop yesterday, this on a program called Swish, which is like Flash, and makes Flash compatible objects (meaning if you have a Flash plug-in, you can view it), and is far easier to use and cheaper. It's great. My only concern is if this program is not the industry standard, do I want to teach it to business writing students? They might be better served by having Flash on their resumes.

Dell Digital Jukebox

2004-05-20T10:15:00.000-05:00

Hooray for digital music! I can now carry 7000 songs around with me wherever I go. I think as an end of the semester present, this is a perfect one. I have to charge it for 6 hours before I can use it though, so it looks cool, but I don't know how it works yet. Things this will allow me to do:

1. Listen to music while I walk to campus
2. Have access to all my music in the car
3. Arrange my music into playlists in whatever order I want
4. Bring music to campus and hopefully be able to plug it into the speakers so my students can listen to it also

I got assigned a last minute section of BTW 250 for summer session II. It's going to mean lots of last minute planning to get my class together. But since I'm not working out at Allerton very much the next couple of weeks, that shouldn't be a problem. I am excited about the opportunity to teach the course again, and I am rethinking ways to adapt this to a summer course and still do a lot of interesting projects on business writing. I am thinking about assigning every student to a day (or group of students) and having them market the day in some way. Or perhaps starting the course off as a business, etc. like others have done, and assigning the groups to a day. As it forms in my head, I will keep you up to date.

Last night I was thinking about "the turn to the visual". It's interesting how in Writing Studies some scholars have advocated having students do visual arguments in class, but few Writing Studies scholars (or scholars in general) do this themselves. Even Kairos is sometimes just an article in a hypertext rather than using the visual in any substantive or creative way. It seems to me that it often easy enough to advocate that "our students SHOULD be doing this", but what about us? Shouldn't we be doing what our students are doing? Shouldn't we be collaborating in substantive ways? If this is how one SHOULD learn to write, how we are exempt from learning to write that way? I think since we believe we are already "good" writers by the time we end up teaching writing, there still exists an attitude that we make up remedial exercises to help our students learn to write. It makes me queasy. I have a goal this semester to do every project I assign my students to do. If it's too boring for me, it's too boring for them. I'm not interested in teaching any sort of remedial skills. I want to teach writing in a way that my students can explore real ideas that are important them.

FSI Workshop on Teaching in the Smart Classroom

2004-05-19T22:11:00.000-05:00

My head has been going a million miles a minute recently, so pardon the excessive posting. I have been attending the Faculty Summer Institute (FSI) on campus the past few days (actually I only attended one so far). Anyway, the session I went to yesterday on the Smart Classroom had me thinking about so many technologies I want to play with, both in my teaching and my personal life.

The tablet PC would allow me to cut images easily to the screen my students see and write all over things, hilight them, etc. Boy, would that change the way I think about teaching. Other things I could try using in class: Windows Media Player (why don't we listen to music more in the classroom), QuickTime (there are lots of clips I keep running across to show in class, but I never thought this would be interesting).

So there's a lot of hype recently in Writing Studies about the visual. Some of my colleagues have challenged in their own teaching and research why it is we only hype on the visual. There are many many ways of learning. The film & music both use auditory, as well as visual. I learned that almost 1/3 of the brain is for visual processing. What does that mean exactly? I don't know. But I'd certainly like to incorporate many more kinds of learning into my classroom.

A New Experiment

2004-05-19T21:00:00.000-05:00

I started blogging as an experiment last December, intending to use blogs as an alternative to Blackboard in the Rhetoric 105 class that I will be teaching next fall. I figured to require my students to do it, I ought to try it out myself. Well, blogging has just exploded all over my life since then. I currently participate in 7 blogs, one for each of many uses, from extremely personal to academic, to marginally personal. Now that I've begun my blogging, I have decided to abandon the original experiment and begin anew.

This is going to be my new main blog. The topics will include reviews of films and books that spark me to think of ideas related to my research in writing studies and my teaching. The audience will be anybody interested, especially my students, friends, and colleagues. And, as it is an experiment, I can make no guarantees of its permanence. But, we'll see.