Jun 20
tengrrlBedford Bits, composition, social media collaboration, digital writing, poetry, QR codes, transmedia
Just published last week, Troy Hicks’ collection on Reading and Writing Transmedia on the National Writing Project’s Digital Is site explores how digital writing is evolving.
The collection of texts “primarily authored by Laura Fleming represents one educator’s vision of what transmedia is, and what it can be, for teachers and students learning to read and write in a digital age.” You’ll find an explanation and history of transmedia as well as example texts and pedagogical reflections.
Also out last week are these posts from Bedford Bits posts:
A Few Extra Links
For regular updates from Bedford Bits, be sure to like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter. Have a great week!
—Traci Gardner
[Photo: Gunter Somerfeld, Transmedia Development & The New World Model by Gulltaggen, on Flickr]
Jun 05
tengrrlassessment, Bedford Bits, composition, social media assessment, Facebook, grading, plagiarism, reading, response, social networking, technology
It’s that time when many of us size up the list of texts we’ve been thinking of all year and choose the few that we’ll try to get through during the all-too-short summer months.
If you’re struggling a bit with your choices, take a look at Lifehacker’s How to Create an Awesome Summer Reading List for some tips on where to find books, ways to track your progress, and recommendations from other bookworms.
While you’re looking for great texts to read, be sure you’ve read the great ideas for the classroom or professional development in these Bedford Bits posts from last week:
A Few Extra Links
For regular updates from Bedford Bits, be sure to like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter. Have a great week!
[Photo: Summer reading list by soundfromwayout, on Flickr]
May 30
tengrrlBedford Bits, composition, social media blogging, research, syllabus, teacher evaluations, twitter, Visual Rhetoric, writing
In honor of Memorial Day, I wanted to point back to an entry I wrote last October on writing about photos. The image I used to illustrate it was the one that came to mind when I thought about Memorial Day this year.
Look back to that entry for some ideas for writing or discussion, and for more ideas for the classroom or professional development, look back to these Bedford Bits posts from last week:
A Few Extra Links
Let us know what you want to know about teaching writing or about using digital tools in the composition classroom by leaving a comment. Your response will help shape upcoming posts.
[Photo: Always Faithful, Doberman, Military Working Dog, MWD, World War II Memorial, War Dog Cemetery located on Navel Base Guam by Beverly & Pack, on Flickr]
May 23
tengrrlBedford Bits, composition, social media
The LearnStreaming blog posted 50 Quotes About Learning last week. The quotations are sometimes familiar or predictable: “You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.”~Clay P. Bedford. That’s just an ambling restatement of the “give a man a fish” aphorism.
I disagree with some: “You aren’t learning anything when you’re talking.” ~Lyndon B. Johnson. Fiddlesticks. Learning while talking is sometimes the point, especially in the socially collaborative classroom. I smiled at others: “If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.” ~ Mark Twain. Yes. Absolutely true. A life lesson is described right there.
As I reviewed the list, I began wondering how I might use the quotations in class. I admit that I didn’t fact-check or authenticate the quotations, so one activity might be doing so and hypothesizing where errors came from. Another activity could be arranging the quotations into categories (e.g., those about experience) and then comparing all the quotations in a specific category. The simplest activity perhaps is asking students to each choose a quotation that fits some experience from their lives, and then tell that story so that the quotation is the conclusion—a sort of moral at the end of the fable.
According to the site list, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. said, “Man’s mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions.” Consider expanding the dimensions of your mind by checking out the ideas in these Bedford Bits posts from last week:
A Few Extra Links
Let us know what you want to know about teaching writing or about using digital tools in the composition classroom by leaving a comment. Your response will help shape upcoming posts.
[Photo: cat tail by blhphotography, on Flickr]
May 16
tengrrlBedford Bits, composition, social media efficacy, end of the term, reflection, texting, twitter, writing
A severe thunderstorm brought graduation ceremonies at Virginia Tech to an abrupt and very early conclusion here in Blacksburg on Friday night. The keynote speaker never even made it to the podium. Fortunately, students were able to pick up their diplomas on Saturday morning during college and departmental ceremonies. It may not have been the original plan, but everything worked out.
As you reach the end of the term where you teach, I hope the ceremonies and celebrations go well (even if they aren’t what you originally expect them to be). As move on to the second half of the month, take a few minutes to check out these Bedford Bits posts from last week:
- Now that testing is finished for the year, High School Bits blogger Jesse Tangen-Mills shares some classroom activities that work well for Treating Post-Test Syndrome
- Andrea Lunsford argues that Texting IS Writing, and that we need to pay very close attention to it and learn from our students how they use this new way to communicate.
- Mary Tripp discusses Self-Efficacy in the WAW Classroom: Preliminary Research Results. Her report includes interesting student visualizations of themselves as writers.
- Want to create a super-mobile, super-light virtual classroom? Barclay Barrios describes the system he is adopting for his class this summer in Twitter Me This.
- Are students doing Long Writing vs. Hard Writing? Traci Gardner explains the difference (and why it matters).
- Nancy Sommers reflects on her year of teaching and shares some plans for the summer in Looking Back, Looking Forward.
- Susan Naomi Bernstein reminds students what is important to them—where they come from, what and whom they love, why they have succeeded in the past—in Writing Beyond Stereotypes.
A Few Extra Links
Let us know what you want to know about teaching writing or about using digital tools in the composition classroom by leaving a comment. Your response will help shape upcoming posts.
[Photo: Lightning!! by aresauburn™, on Flickr]
May 09
tengrrlBedford Bits, classroom activity, composition assignments, cell phones, computers, engagement, Facebook, Literature, narrative, technology, writing
On Saturday, Black College Wire posted an article on a composition assignment that had consequences the teacher never expected. The teacher, Lisa Carl, asked students to write “either a first-person autobiographical account of a significant event in their lives or an analysis of a graphic novel or anthropological classic.”
In response, student Jessica Martin wrote the essay “I had an affair with my high school teacher,” which was later published in the N.C. Central University’s newspaper, the Campus Echo, as part of an annual collection of first-person narratives. The student’s account has resulted in campus scrutiny of her decision to write the essay and the newspaper’s decision to publish it—as well as the arrest of the high school teacher she wrote about.
As I read about the aftermath of the essay’s publication, I thought immediately of Holly Pappas’s Trauma Narrative post last month and how pertinent all the questions she raises are in this situation. It’s worth rereading Holly’s piece and thinking about how it applies and the new questions that it raises.
While you’re looking at past entries, also check out these Bedford Bits posts from last week:
A Few Extra Links
Let us know what you want to know about teaching writing or about using digital tools in the composition classroom by leaving a comment. Your response will help shape upcoming posts.
[Photo: Keyboard by cheetah100, on Flickr]
May 02
tengrrlBedford Bits, composition, social media reading, storytelling, style, twitter, writing
Did you stay up late last night watching the developing news (or maybe grading papers)? If so, it’s possible “Parts of your brain could be sleeping right now,” according to a recent study.
The NIH-funded study of the brain activity in rats found that “if you deprive them of sleep (aah, sleep), parts of their brains take a nap anyway. Even though they appear awake and active, brainwave measures show that scattered groups of neurons in the cortex are nodding off on their own.” Okay, so there may be questions about the research that readers bring up in the comments, but if you need an excuse for not getting enough done today, it’s a handy study to be able to mention.
Before you head off for a nap though, head on over to Bedford Bits for classroom activities and teaching strategies, which were posted last week:
A Few Extra Links
Let us know what you want to know about teaching writing or about using digital tools in the composition classroom by leaving a comment. Your response will help shape upcoming posts.
[Photo: Day 4: Truffle sleeping on the job again (and browsing dogster.com)! by star5112, on Flickr]
Apr 24
tengrrlBedford Bits, composition, social media accomodation, CCCC2011, class, diction, disability, movies, peer tutoring, tutors, twitter, writing center
I have a weakness for bunny rabbits. I encourage them to visit my yard and exclaim happily when they comply. Not so for the folks at Long Beach City College. Their campus was so overrun with cute, fluffy-tailed bunnies that they embarked on a bunny-reduction campaign. The campus is now down to 70 bunnies from an all-time high of 300 rabbits, according to the head of the college’s Rabbit Population Management Task Force.
You think I’m making this all up, don’t you? That’s why I think it would make the beginning of some interesting classroom projects. How do you write about “Rabbit Population Management” persuasively? What strategies will convince readers to take your story seriously? How would you talk about the project with students, faculty, staff, and the public? This one little story from the Chronicle of Higher Ed has so many possibilities for discussing persuasion, business reports, and technical writing!
If you’re looking for other classroom activities and teaching strategies, hop on over to Bedford Bits for more on these entries, which were posted last week:
- Holly Pappas considers the many concerns teachers face when they assign the personal narrative and wonders how teachers can best respond when students write about intimate or painful topics in The Trauma Narrative.
- Andrea Lunsford describes the peer tutoring program at Stanford in Writing Tutors Save the World!
- Jack Solomon explains why educating students about the complex operations of social class is one of our most important tasks in the teaching of cultural studies in The Middle Class Goes to the Movies.
- Barclay Barrios discusses the difference between Ideas and Examples and shares a response worksheet and some teaching strategies.
- Steve Bernhardt reflects on thirty years of attending the CCCC Convention and describes the highlights of the convention in What’s up at CCCC?
- Traci Gardner reviews a free, online resource classes can use to share student work and discuss current events or pop culture in Paper.li in the Classroom: The Basics.
- Jay Dolmage explores what Disability Accommodations look like in the writing classroom with some specific examples.
A Few Extra Links
Let us know what you want to know about teaching writing or about using digital tools in the composition classroom by leaving a comment. Your response will help shape upcoming posts.
[Photo: Bunny Rabbit by wwarby, on Flickr]
Apr 18
tengrrlBedford Bits, composition, social media
I’m late! I’m late for a very important date! No time to say “Hello,” “Goodbye.” I’m late, I’m late, I’m late, I’m late!
There’s no way around it. I’m late on posting last week’s summary of posts from Bedford Bits. Fortunately the posts are still fresh and ready for readers. No stale or moldy content here! Read on for details on all of the new entries posted last week:
A Few Extra Links
Let us know what you want to know about teaching writing or about using digital tools in the composition classroom by leaving a comment. Your response will help shape upcoming posts.
[Photo: Rabbit Clock by chuckyeager, on Flickr]
Apr 11
tengrrlBedford Bits, composition, social media
Thanks for helping us celebrate our 30th anniversary publishing books and media for the composition classroom. We had a great time in Atlanta and enjoyed seeing so many of you at our party at Turner Field.
Now we have a present for you. Sign up for email updates about what we do for teachers and request our free professional resources today.
Read on for details on all of the new entries posted on Bedford Bits last week:
A Few Extra Links
- Check out our #CCCC11 roundups to find links and resources shared in Atlanta:
- For those of you who didn’t attend CCCC in Atlanta this year, we missed you at our party at Turner Field, but we invite you to browse our latest offerings online, and request your exam copies today!
- Picked up an exam copy you’ve realized you don’t need? Download pre-paid mailing labels and return items free of charge.
We’re always looking for suggestions. Tell me what you want to know about teaching writing or about using digital tools in the composition classroom by leaving a comment. Your response will help shape upcoming posts.
[Photo: "30" by Lincolnian (Brian) - BUSY, on Flickr]
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