Ahh. Day one, and how do I spend it? Fiddling about for a while in my room. I didn't go to a morning workshop, so there seemed no reason to rush. I did go downstairs to make myself a nametag and check on all my NCTE coworkers, to make sure that no one needed help. I decided to go ahead and lug my heavy laptop to the workshop so that I could take notes on the session. I was fortunate enough to get a seat near a plug, so I didn't run out of battery power. The battery on this thing seems to only last about an hour :-/ Perhaps I should see if I can buy an extra battery for it, or maybe this is another excuse to get that baby Mac that I want.
There is no wireless in the meeting rooms so all I could do was take notes. No live blogging from CCCC it appears. Delayed blogging will have to do, so here goes:
I've broken in on an afternoon workshop, Fostering and Sustaining a Community
and Culture of Digital Writing, with Doug Eyman, Dànielle DeVoss, Joy
Durding, Angela Haas, Stephanie Sheffield, Martine Rife, and Suzanne Rumsey.
The room is relatively full of people, but I managed to get here early enough
to get one of the outlets in the room. The group has introduced themselves,
and Danielle even introduced the handouts and CD of resourcesn (and an excellent
parallel Web site
with copies of the resources).
After a brief introduction, we've been set to work as a group to think about
quuestions sent to folks in advance--basically defining the genre of digital
writing and exploring the pedagogical and professional issues and goals involved.
Issues that came up include:
- Lack of professional development
- Challenge of working in a completely paper-based classroom and meeting
students current literacy demands
- How to build community and programs, at the beginning of the process
- Conception of literacy in general, not just decoding words on a page
- Distinguishing between technology as a media and technology as a mode of
delivery
- Goals: using tech because we can, or because students really need this
- How does it shape community
- Not just techne of it but also critical analysis
of the media
There was lots of discussion of the term
digital rhetoric, with one definition
that focused on "anything
you can transmit by the Internet"—an oddly limiting definition.
Also focusing on word and image, none of the other modalities. Someone mentioned
CAPTology (computer aided persuasive technology). Most visual assignments focus
on image as argument/persuasion. Need to consider other modes of discourse.
Sharing of group goals for the workshop, and for exploration of digital rhetoric
at home institutions. Importance of sharing, fact-finding. There was discussion
of whether the word
digital was necessary. If rhetoric is communication
by any available means, isn't the word
rhetoric enough? And that exchange
led to a crowd favorite question: "What is the opposite of digital rhetoric—analog
rhetoric?"
Throughout the session, there were many video clips and Web site examples of
writing and pieces for students to discuss and explore. All were excellent,
but my favorite has to be the
World of Warcraft video—"Grab
your dick, and double click for porn."
There were a number of specific assignments described, and I didn't begin to
get them all written down. Here are a few:
- List the different digital communities
you belong to and think of the ways that you interact in those communities. An
idea that was somewhat a combination of things included in the ReadWriteThink
lesson Defining
Literacy in a Digital World and Paying
Attention to Technology: Writing Technology Autobiographies.
- Focus on an exploration of the Variety of ways that we represent
themselves in those different communities, including analyzing current representations
and creating creating new ones. Doug Eyman described a variation where students
began by investigating themselves online. Another example was to have students
create a profile for a group or organization that they belong to. Parts of
the conversation overlapped with the ReadWriteThink lesson plan Naming
in a Digital World: Creating a Safe Persona on the Internet.
- Analyze various Web sites and then apply what you learned to designing your
own Web site, an idea shared by Joy Durding, which she used with 9th graders.
I rushed up to ask her to submit it to ReadWriteThink. She had the resources.
She just needs to make it fit our format. And it's definitely a lesson that
we could use on the site.
- In discussion, ask students to consider what you need to know to compose
the various digital texts that they interact with. While mentioned as a simple
point of discussion with students, the idea seemed like a possible lesson plan
idea to me. It could be a sort of variation of Defining
Literacy in a Digital World, which really focuses on reading. What we need
is a parallel Composing Texts in a Digital World lesson plan that focuses on
the ways that people create these various texts. I'm thinking not of something
that teaches all composing skills so much as asking students to look at available
texts and analyze the composing skills behind the texts.
- As discussion swirled, another lesson plan idea came to me, and since I had
my laptop, I just began writing. I tentatively named the lesson Exploring
the Digital Divide: A Social Action Project. It seemed to me that perhaps an important
project was to ask students to do some actual exploration of the issues of
access around them. The working overview that I came up with is "Students define
issues of digital access and the resources necessary to take advantage of digital
resources. With their definitions in hand, small groups complete an environmental
scan of the digital resources available to them in a specific setting (e.g.,
the classroom, the school or local library, the workplace) and determine how
they are effected by the digital divide in a local community. Inspired by this
field research, group members propose and complete a social action project
appropriate for their findings." It may be too much, so I may end up focusing
it more; but it's a start and I think it could be a useful lesson plan.
- Dànielle described a postcard assignment. She has students get postcards
of the university and then analyze them: how does this represent the university?
After exploring, they create their own postcards that represents how you
feel about your school? Might be able to create a ReadWriteThink lesson plan
that does similar things with postcards from their state or region, or they
could use other documents on their location (e.g., pamphlets and resources
from the chamber of commerce or visitor's bureau). Another variation might
be to ask students to look at historical postcards to determine what they can
tell about the place and time as it is communicated in the text of the card.
Juniors and seniors might get postcards from college visits and complete the
assignment as Dànielle described it.
