In case you're wondering

I've moved some stuff, specifically my "Online Utilities and Courseware Test Page" stuff, to a Wiki. I'm hoping someone will want to help me organize and test out stuff, so, if you're interested, let me know! I THINK it's all at http://mywabbit.pbwiki.com/, but if that doesn't work, well, then, your guess is as good as mine! Oh, yeah, and there is a long list of stuff that still needs to be added. See http://mywabbit.blogspot.com/2005_11_01_archive.html for more.

Final Thoughts from 2008 NCTE in San Antonio, TX

We finished the Executive Committee at NCTE a bit early (Thanks to Cheryl Glenn for keeping us on our toes!)., so Michael Day and I decided to take a boat ride down the river. As I was waiting for him in the lobby of the Marriott RiverCenter (remember, this is San Antonio—TEXAS for Pete's sake!), someone walks by wearing a t-shirt that says:

1/20/09: The end of an error!

Hmmm, sounds like a "bush-ism" to me!

Anyway, it was a beautiful day for sightseeing and listening to our narrator/boat-driver/steersperson (whatever you call him) in an almost surrealistic/Disney-esque ride. Michael got some GREAT pics (I'll just post one here. If you want more, well, you'll have to ask my twin!).

Then, after a bit of shopping at the River Center Mall (where we all kept running into each other!), I joined Michael, Mike Palmquist and Carolyn Handa for dinner. The guacamole was made to order right at our table! And I decided to enjoy my first ever mojito. Hey, good friends, good conversation, good eats (and drinks). What can I say??

The next morning it was back to the real world. On the way to the "real world," however, I noticed one of the flight attendants who—I SWEAR this is true—was a Sarah Palin look-alike! (Or maybe it WAS Sarah Palin? After all, since she can't be president…). Anyway, I had a very scary thought: is her hairdo and "look" now "in" with republican women? I'm old enough to remember the Kennedy era, when women throughout the country began sporting Jackie's hairdo and style of dress. And of course Hilary Clinton has made pantsuit-wearing an art. So… Eeek.

Well, my students are waiting for their final exam, so I guess it's time to get to work. Until next time….

More Notes from NCTE 2008

Hmmm, my twin, Michael Day, and I must make quite a pair. Someone at the conference likened us to the character "Day Walker" from the movie Blade. Ok, so now I have to admit I have never seen the movie, but I think I need to see it now so I will know whether this "likening" is, well, something I like or not!

While Blade didn't win any awards from NCTE, President George W. Bush most certainly did! He won the 2008 "Double Speak" Award for (are you ready?): "aspirational goal." Go, Bush!

Oh, yeah, and Paul Matsuda, editor of Research in the Teaching of English, told the group that they needed submissions. So, if you're considering where to send your work for publication, don't forget this very important journal! (Hmmm, ok, so I need to get my LILAC paper in order and submit it!!).

The Executive Committee Retreat began at 1pm Sunday, led by none other than our own Chuck Bazerman. For strategic planning, he said, we need to identify issues we (may?) be able to make headway on in the current climate (political, professional, economic, personal).

We spent about 30 minutes (or so) on the first question: What are longstanding or emergent concerns of our organization (or subgroups thereof)? What needs need to be met?

My group (Group #3) came up with the following list of concerns (in no particular order):

• Technology for presenters/attendees at conferences should be assumed
  
• Assessment and accredition: "outcomes-based" decision making
  
• Mandates for such things as dual enrollment/credit, e.g., high school-to-college
  
• Research, research, research! We need research on just about everything, especially longitudinal studies on assessment, etc. Of course, we also need funding for such studies…
  
• Internationalization—pressure to internationalize, but often without sufficient knowledge and greater awareness/change to writing programs in this country as well as directing writing programs in other countries.
  
• Public discourse—what place does it have in our classrooms and in our lives and in our scholarship and beyond?
  

So, other groups composed their lists as well, and we used GIANT sticky notes to list them all on the walls of the room. Here are some of the lists from other groups:

Group #1

1. Economics
   
   1. Equity – space, technology
      
   2. dual credit/enrollment
      
   3. adjunct and hiring issues
      
   4. course load/workload issues
      
2. Defining the field
   
   1. basic writing "issue"
      
   2. defining first year course
      
   3. under siege (for instance, dual credit enrollment)
      
   4. how to make ourselves relevant (avoid business model)
      
   5. authority issues
      
   6. globalization/internationalization
      
   7. building our credibility as a field.
      
3. access
   
   1. Tuition
      
   2. access to higher education
      

Group #2

1. Conditions are eroding
   
   1. Adjuncts
      
   2. "Master" core syllabi (standardization of courses)
      
   3. Raising course caps
      
   4. We need research (longitudinal studies) to convince the "powers that be" to do X (public discourse)
      
2. Dual enrollment issues
   
   1. Integrity
      
   2. Research
      
   3. Etc.
      
3. Conferencing strategies to meet the needs of younger or "poorer" or whatever members
   
   1. Equitable professional development for all (not just for those who can afford to come to our annual conferences)
      

Group #4

1. Relationship between comp/rhet and English as a language
   
   1. Mono-linguistic assumptions
      
   2. Where is comp/rhet located?
      
      1. Organizational chart
         
         1. Contingenet/adjunct labor
            
2. Working conditions
   
   1. Adjunct faculty
      
   2. Workload issues
      
   3. (Research – impact on student learning?)
      
3. Assessment/accreditation
   
   1. Teacher preparation
      
   2. Second language learners
      
   3. Dual credit
      

Everyone there pretty much agreed that we need to do a better job representing "us" to the public. PR – public (mis)perception(s). Makes this a good time for:

1. Research: because of mandates that affect US: our teaching, our courses, our field. Era of outcomes-based decision making. Public climate that (may) be willing to engage in rational conversations? Public funding for research?
   
2. Conferencing, professional development, access, etc.: Economic situation; "green"; ubiquitous technology (the technology is here NOW to make it happen)
   
3. 2^nd language issues
   
4. Globalization: 3 and 4 go together. Because of the global nature of our population and the internationalization of business, we need to be more concerned and better prepared.
   
5. The first-year course as a "sub-prime mortgage" idea – d ual credit/enrollment/AP score exemptions; adjunct faculty reliance; class size; workloads; freezes on new hires; research on effectiveness, definition, etc.
   
6. PR – why NOW?
   

 

NCTE will be sponsoring The National Day on Writing, October 20, 2009 (see http://www.ncte.org/action/dayonwriting for more information!). NCTE will host 21^st century literacies, local as well as national spaces.

 

[Don't ask me why I thought of this as we were discussing the Day on Writing, but it's in my notes: I thought about doing a "how to write a FaceBook profile" project with my 1101 class in the Fall 2009 – the next time I'll be teaching first-semester comp. I could invite my students to pick a theme/topic and write about it. For instance:

 

    ENGL 1101 Fall 2009

    How to Write a FaceBook Profile

• Technological how-to
  
• What kinds of things to include/exclude. Why?
  
• How to attract…? (what does your profile say about you?)
  
• Lots more things to think about here!]
  

Anyway, that was all I wrote down about the retreat, but it was a lively afternoon!!

 

NCTE Sunday General Session, November 23, 2008

Kathleen Yancey, Presidential Address "The Impulse to Compose and the Age of Composition: Four Quartets"

From the Declaration of Independence drafted by "thirteen white men" to the election of Barack Obama (and his many writings from books to text messages) "by a landslide," writing is an important part of the political landscape, as Yancey makes eminently clear. Yancey used a split screen for her presentation, and I couldn't help but notice that the Declaration of the Independence was on the screen to the audience's left, while Obama was on the screen to the audience's right. (I actually mentioned this to her after the presentation, suggesting that perhaps many of us would think this was a reversal of the "proper" order! She responded that she always found it interesting to consider the multiple ways the audience "reads" these kinds of things; while she was presenting it as chronological, some of us were intent on "reading" it as political. Heh.)

At any rate, Yancey presented the forecast of English composition as a social problem: "We are literacy educators," she asserted in four quartets:

1. An impulse to write, tested
   
2. An impulse to write, scaled and experienced
   
3. An impulse to write, processed, and
   
4. An impulse to write, electrified, networked
   

In Quartet 1, then, she discussed the history of "writing," from an emphasis on teaching children penmanship, with the focus on children as readers and listeners. As Deborah Brandt notes, writing was labor intensive (messy ink smudges, penmanship, manual typewriters that took LOTS of muscle to pound).

Citing Mark Richardson's recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i11/11a04701.htm if you have an account), Yancey discussed the old Harvard writing exams and the birth of our current writing curriculum, which was note even based on anything to do with writing per se, but instead of ensuring that students could discuss literature in a "paper."

Thus we come to Quartet 2 (okay, okay, I'm leaving out so MUCH good stuff, but these are notes, for goodness' sake!). Science and progressivism reared their heads and "writing became a phenomenon to be measured," beginning, says Yancey, in 1909 with measuring ratings of, what else—handwriting! At any rate, the tests "tested pupils, but they also tested teachers." (Sound familiar??). In 1935, NCTE developed a proposed curriculum, and there was something about a "Report: Testing Unfair, Unwise" by Robert C. Small, Jr., Assoc. Press. (Okay, these are ROUGH notes. Whaddya want? You should have been there in person to hear Yancey speak for yourself!)

The 1930s-40s saw the influence of science and the absence of theory in composition. "Teaching behavior and responsibility through composition" rather than creativity and critical thinking. Hmmm, this reminds me of the many, many, many texts that were used in my old typing class in high school (as well as the many typing tests that were administered to job applicants) WAY back in the 60s and 70s) that didn't just provide text for typing practice/testing, but that actually were about writing business letters or business etiquette or other "professional" practices in the work place.

In response, of course, we later began to see research in the field (for instance, research into composing processes leading to the process movement, NCTE's statement on student's use of language in 1974, etc. And of course, portfolios…. (now genre, activity theory, situated learning).

So, what was left? Teacher as examiner—a model still in effect today.

Transformative: personal computer (even before the Internet) as desktop publishing can inspire creativity, visual composing, etc.

So, Kathleen Yancey included "Beebo" in her list. I was seated next to Michael Day and neither of us had ever heard of this term, so I looked it up in Wikipedia:

Bebo is a popular social networking website, founded in January 2005. It can be used in many countries including Ireland, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia. A Polish version was launched recently, which uses a different user database. There are plans for French, German and other versions. Founded by husband and wife Michael and Xochi Birch, Bebo had a major relaunch in July 2005.^]

It was bought by AOL on March 13, 2008 for $850 m (£417 m).

"Bebo" is an acronym for "Blog early, blog often".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bebo

So, now we've come to Quartet 4: Enter digital technology and Web 2.0 – and writers are everywhere. Students are sharing; they are both creators and recipients for news. We have what Deborah Brandt terms "self-sponsored writing" and what Kathleen Yancey terms the "Age of Composition." A new era – digital technology.

Yancey makes it clear that students now want to have at least some control over their learning: she tells the story of the AP exams where students used social networking sites to join forces (over 30,000 strong) to write "This is Sparta!" (crossed out so it wouldn't count against them) somewhere in their AP exams! Posted to Wikipedia (but removed about a month later), this story deftly illustrates the power of social networking (among other things!). So, asks Yancey, "How can we build on" students' knowledge of composing in a digital, connected era? Web 2.0 allows for "communication, conversation, connecting, and community," she says (is this, I wonder, a possible new meaning for CCCC?).

"Today," says Yancey, "if you're writing at the screen, you're writing on the network." Noone is writing alone anymore. "Through writing, we are." This brings us, then, to

 

"A New Agenda, A New Composition" – a new kind of citizenship – with

1. New models of composing and composition (apart from testing!)
   
2. New audiences
   
3. New definitions of "writing" (is it a verb or a noun?)
   
4. And new models for teaching (heh, she used a "wordle" for her slide!)
   

In conclusion, she stressed, "We need to become serious about helping students become (citizen) writers instead of good test takers." Amen (or is it "ah women?") to that!