I never went to school for this

I never went to school to be a teacher. I went to college to get an education. I didn’t even apparently care about the degree. My stats for the BA:

• 6-7 majors
• 9 years
• 7 schools
• 3 states
• 11-12 moves

There was no part of my MA or PhD experiences that were “normal” either. And though I eventually trained to be a university teacher (sort of), nothing I ever learned in school prepared me for the work you all pulled off at the end of this term in the poster presentation sessions (and on your blogs with case studies and more).

No one ever said these were the things I would feel about teaching or experience as a teacher:

1. I was miserable when we were on f2f hiatus because I knew how challenging the writing requirements were and how hard you all would have to work, pretty much without me being around all the time, and perhaps in an environment you hadn’t worked in much.
2. Hybrid classes are supposed to be hip, but I missed being in class with you all (I heard what y’all said about how it could be better next time).
3. And I missed talking with you–in person.
4. But I learned so much from your blogs, it was remarkable–every day I had some new incredibly insightful thing to read from one or more of you.
5. AND having class when we weren’t supposed to have class at Panera was actually a great class.
6. I was so nervous the night before the poster session I could hardly sleep–did you know I was a wreck with worrying? I hope not.
7. I was so elated at and after the first poster session, I couldn’t imagine being happier.
8. Until the next poster session (when y’all brought food–brilliant!).
9. I was so uptight about the way I structured the class because it was a real loopy trip to get from point A to point B (I mean recursive with a lot of curves, too). It had to be experienced, and y’all had to find your own ways to point B, though I knew where it was. If I’d just told you one thing or another to push you to point B, it would have been like giving you a great mystery novel to read and saying the butler did it as I handed over the book.
10. You got to point B in 15 different ways, and I felt like we stopped Time.

I have never required a final presentation project like we did, but it was amazing how each of you found a way to express what you had done or experienced (and even came up with a hilarious Girl Talk possible final poster project which would have been great but an F–or maybe not…). You got what you needed from everything you read and did in order to do the last part of the work for the class–just like I dreamed. You studied a program and then used what you learned to create your own thing. You read about open things and found ways to own that concept that worked for each of you. You read essays of your own choosing that sparked great conversation. You reviewed books that you got to pick–and used that to help you craft blog entries, think about the case study, and create a course or program. Righteous. Just like you were supposed to do–mashing up the readings, the ideas, the videos, the concepts–remixing for your own purposes–and just simply and utterly getting the rhetorical velocity of what we were doing. Everything you did had an impact on each other. There is no better illustration of rhetorical velocity than the writing you did this summer and its effect on everyone in this class. You rocked it.

I think teaching can’t keep getting better, but it does. When I decided to come back to this profession, I wasn’t sure it was for me, nor was I convinced that I could do it. Well, I knew I could do it, but my fear was I couldn’t do it very well. I still have uncertainty and doubt–every single term. I regularly wonder if I’ve said or done the right thing, planned the right way, whether this day or that day was the day I needed to plan to the finest detail or wing it and see where discussion might take us. I always worry that my approach is too uncomfortable for too many students, that I’m not present enough to be a good teacher (administration is a huge pull on my mental energy and actual time). I don’t think that my worries about my worthiness or ability will ever go away. And maybe that’s what makes it such a breathtaking journey. If I got too comfy, too sure I was right, maybe I’d stop having fun.

And despite that, I’m going to say something I know is right: you are why I teach. You are the reason I get up in the morning and can’t wait to come to work. You are the reason I keep learning. You are the reason why I want to keep learning. You are the reason I will never teach the same class twice. You are the reason I love writing in a whole new way. You are it.

You’re better than a quad venti white chocolate mocha with raspberry and extra whip.

Like any human, I have done things I didn’t like, consequently regretted, and found I couldn’t take back or change, but my decision in 2007 to walk back in a college classroom to teach writing and British literature–the best professional decision of my life.

Thank you for your commitment to this course, your intellectual curiosity, your openness to new ideas and ways of working, and your kindness to each other. Oscar Wilde wrote this: “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” That’s a bit grim but better than Thomas Hobbes’s vision of life as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (The Leviathan). Wilde knew better than many how hard life could be, even for a writer whose genius regularly showed up for work. You’ll be challenged by events in your life and by those around you, not always in good ways. You’re going to cry some and laugh some. Through all of it, keep looking at the stars. That’s the one thing you can always own: your focus, your attitude, your decision to act rather than only react. You may be in the gutter, but you get to choose what you see while you’re there.

And sometimes we just doggedly crawl right out of the gutter, shake off the muck and grime, and change the world while we’re doing it–as part of the Learning Revolution, as part of the WAC movement, as part of the Open movement, as part of a learning commons, along with our geniuses who sometimes show up to help us do our dance, and with each other.

I wish you depth in your learning, breadth in your friendships, unlimited reach for your dreams, and rhetorical velocity for your writing. Always.

Do your dance

As you are all coming to the point of panic, don’t let it make you crazy. Watch Elizabeth Gilbert again and let her words wash over you; allow the genius in your wall to come out and help you through the last week of class; or not. I mean, your genius might be on vacation. Regardless, do your dance, and you will be find that you can have transcendent moments all by your own self, even if transcendence isn’t happening right this very moment.

Don’t be afraid of “the work you were put on the earth to do.” In this case, that is learning. Ask yourself these questions as you come to the end of your Summer 2001 WAC Survivor show. Spend a bit of time celebrating what you got–not just what you got to produce. It may make the rush to production less painful.

• Did I learn about WAC (and all its permutations)?
• What?
• Does it matter to me as a writer?
• Why?
• Will I be a better writer after this is over?
• Why?
• Will I be a better teacher (whether you are in a classroom, tutoring, or sharing with others in a mentorship capacity) after this class?
• Did I write a TON?
• Did I love it?
• Did I do my best?
• How do I know?
• And if I didn’t, what happened to me and how will I deal with that?
• Did I try new things (like blogging)?
• Do I see new ways of communicating in the future that I can use that will make my life better?
• What are those?
• What resources did I learn about?
• How will I use those in the future?
• Who can I share that information with to keep the rhetorical velocity of my learning moving forward and influencing others?
• How did I collaborate with others?
• How did I learn about my peers in new and wonderful ways?
• Did I flourish as a human being?
• Did I find comfort in my own writing?
• Did my genius show up to work at all?
• Did I do my dance with or without collaboration with my genius?
• Did I do my dance?

The pressure of being a genius, or getting that A, is like asking someone to “swallow the sun.” Don’t fall into one of those “pits of despair.” Don’t. Take that pressure off the table and think about what you’re going to take away from the class and why that matters.

And then… do your dance.

Stealing from me and learning a thing or two

In comedy, stealing jokes is not an anomaly. It happens. You see, you laugh, you steal, you use, you may remix, but there it is–you emulate, you copy, you may transform and combine–or you may outright steal. I would like to be a comedian today, or if I can’t be one, then I’ll just act like one–I’m going to steal from myself.

I wrote the below for another blog on July 3 and meant to take this subject further and stretch it out here to be specific about WAC and attribution, but stuff happened: root canal, two classes, a workshop, an institute, two conference presentations. So I’m cheating. If I go by academic standards: I cannot re-use writing from another place for my credit in a course. It’s not plagiarism, but considered dishonest. As a student for each course, I need to create a unique text (see the AUM student honesty/dishonesty policy). But a few things, I think, save me: 1) I’m not taking this class for credit, I’m teaching it; 2) the blog post does actually reference this class and is entirely appropriate for discussion here; 3) I love the name of the blog I write about: Daring Fireball. Really. It’s so perfection. (And that blog is sponsored sometimes–we can all dream, right?) And I’m doing something professors do all the time when they work: they create, they present, they teach, they publish, and recombine to publish again. It happens. And it’s not a bad thing as long as it’s a new direction, a new combination of ideas. Not so much here. But sort of. You’ll see.

So here I am on July 23 thinking about the me who was productive on July 3, ripping me, remixing me, copying me, transforming me, combining me into something slightly different. I wanted to recapture whatever it was I was thinking on July 3, but I feel like I look (don’t ask).

In those 20 days, I did a lot I am happy about; I even announced on the other blog that I’m going to write about Daring Fireball’s post on this blog (how daringly positive of me), but does it happen? No. And why not? Because there was a lot of stuff going on in those 20 days ,and not all of it was good. For example, the only free couple of hours I had in Baton Rouge, I spent laying on the hotel bed in a daze watching Couples Retreat because I was too tired to do anything else for two hours (and couldn’t find the remote). And it turned out that this may be the worst movie in the history of comedy film, no, in the history of all film. It’s an insult to “comedy” everywhere to even call it a comedy; it’s a horror film–no, saying that would denigrate the horror film genre. And while I’m bashing this dismal viewing experience, I’ll say this: how nice that the “actors” got to visit Bora Bora. I want a job where I can work in Bora Bora, do a lousy job, and get paid for it. I’d rather have watched either of these films as it turns out: Brian Bosworth in Stone Cold (1991) or From Justin to Kelly (2003)–two awful films that shame the terms action and musical, respectively, but which are so bad, they are laughable… So there went two hours of my life. I didn’t want to move to change the channel and couldn’t find the remote and my computer was on the other side of the room. Triple whammy.

That is how writing does not get done, and that is why writers steal from themselves. [My comments from today are in square brackets.]

Learning to live with linkage issues [That’s the title of that post; not exactly a title that inspires, is it? Yuck.]

I don’t like what’s happening with the links in this blog. Some are gorgeous and blue like the stuff in the right column and underlined to indicate some linkage; some are just black like the text, though still underlined so readers know what’s going on and that they can travel somewhere else that might be relevant to what I’ve written. I don’t really want to investigate this appearance issue right now because: 1) I know it’s a code thing (I know I could fix it now that I’m not totally afraid of code); 2) I know it will continue to bug me, but; 3) I’m tired (and I have a tooth issue, too–getting bitter over that). [Do I always whine in my blogs? I really need to get over myself.]

My willingness to allow this appearance issue to slide is partly due to what I stated, but it’s also part of my learning process. I am fairly new to blogging, and I’m learning a lot from many folks I know and from watching people think through/on listservs. (As I wrote about before–I don’t do everything as I should in web writing, though I know folks who know how to do it right: Writing Spaces, and I value their expertise to the point of employing some strategies in my own work as I can, where I can. I used to have only one link in the Blogroll, but I added multiple places I love or visit regularly–that feels like great progress at the moment).

A perfect example of how I learn from others on a listserv is this: I’d been thinking about linkage (not just appearance but when and how and why) and a listserver happened to share a link that inspired this post. Recently, on the techrhet listserv, Charles Nelson shared this link to John Gruber’s blog: Daring Fireball, a post about attribution and credit in web writing. I was wondering about this issue because it was a topic of conversation in a class I’m teaching about writing across the curriculum (WAC) and OER and open things in general, how being open can lead to great things for writers and teachers.

But how does being open work in terms of attribution? We need to attribute, but how is this changing from traditional academic papers? “Cite, cite, cite.” That’s what we tell students. And if they don’t, some folks trot out the “P” word and condemn the lack of citation as cheating. But citing, attribution, plagiarism, cheating–so complicated. We can say: don’t do bad things or you’ll be in trouble with your professor but maybe the university, too. Might cost you a job later (I just saw this happen last year.) [I was on the other end of the phone call that made a person cry who had cheated and couldn’t get employed… It was hard to hear, and I felt rotten for that person, but not a thing I could do to fix it.] Really, it’s our questions that need to change: why aren’t students comfortable with credit where credit is due? What aren’t we saying or teaching; what about our teaching needs to change? The Citation Project has done incredible work on this issue. How we teach citation, or attribution, must change. And whatever we do, it must be adaptable to web writing; it’s not your daddy’s academic paper anymore. You know that’s right.

Of course, the business of writing and teaching writing is changing. Of course, we’re talking about this in my class because serendipity is the core of my teaching style, and part of our talking has revolved around creativity, collaboration, and openness, as information comes to us, as we do research. It’s organic and dynamic for us, not linear, though I had a plan for a trajectory of learning that got us started. Part of our talking has been about licensing available through Creative Commons because we have also just read The Power of Open together and have been talking about that document on our blogs. Really an inspiring text. I love the profile genre personally and professionally (one of the reasons I like and use this essay by Catherine Ramsdell in Writing Spaces, Vol. 2 to teach–a lot: “Storytelling, Narration, and the Who I Am Story“–this is not about the profile, but it values the same storytelling idea behind the profile–a good alignment for teaching the art of telling a story whether it’s an “I” story or a profile).

Now, after reading Daring Fireball’s take on attribution and credit, I’m wondering if I haven’t been guilty of less than respectful links and attributions. Probably. But like the linkage appearance issue, I won’t probably go back to find and fix everything at this point. (Teaching two classes this summer–a WAC class and a writing class for scientists/engineers, writing a LOT, a tooth thing this week, a conference coming up, it’s hot and humid here… blah blah blah.) [I do really like to be sure everyone knows I’m working hard, don’t I? I wonder if I secretly like it when my emails are stamped with 5:30 am or 11:42 pm–sort of an information age oneupsmanship thing. Am I really that shallow? I hope not. Or if it works, okay.]

But this attribution issue is a big one for me (much bigger than how my links look), and I’m deeply grateful for this specific information. I’ve now read Gruber’s post twice and clicked around in his links to see exactly what he’s talking about. I didn’t really have a concrete way to talk about this issue or to teach it that referenced an authentic professional situation (though I had this terrific part of the Web Writing Style Guide by Writing Spaces on hyperlinks to work with). I haven’t taught respectful linkage before, though I’ve taught smart linkage–but these are two different things. Respectful linkage is about attribution; smart linkage is about the placement of the link (both about understanding the rhetorical situation). Now, thanks to Gruber’s attention to the subject, I have a particular instance to share with students. And thanks to Nelson for sharing the link because Daring Fireball is NOT on my radar.

I’m going to write a post about Daring Fireball on my class blog because: 1) what a cool name, and 2) my WAC students need to know that a professional writer feels this way and took the time to write about this in some detail (so do the scientists, for that matter). (Number 3 would have been that Gruber’s blog includes footnotes–oh, how I dream of being able to do that one day–but that’s not a professional issue I need to share with students; it’s a personal desire.) I will also tell my students about my choice to take more time to craft attributions in my web writing in the future–how I deal with various different kinds of authors, whether I have essentially re-posted a concept (consumed it as Gruber states) or whether I have ripped, then remixed and shared; I’ll be much more aware of what I’m doing as a writer regarding attribution that is respectful to other authors and smart for readers.

[Okay, this is where I really hate my writing. I’m so perky and happy and determined and sure I’ll do this or that, and when I don’t, I loathe going back to see that I slacked. Sigh. But I was DELIGHTED to remember Daring Fireball’s footnotes. Nice.]

My post and Gruber’s thinking will dovetail so nicely with what we’ve read in the Web Writing Style Guide on hyperlinks and with other readings we’ve undertaken and must cite according to class performance criteria. (In my class for science writers, the tutor working with me, who is also a grad student in the WAC class and writing teacher, Sarah Fish, suggested we have a whole week named, “Attribution Week,” to tackle these issues with our science writers. I’m quite hopeful we’re laying the ground work for a group of young writers to re-conceive what research and citation should be and can be. Collaboration rocks. Ahem. That’s if the collaborator is the right one, as Sarah pointed out.)

[Bummer that I couldn’t have said this to anyone in the last 20 days, like y’all or my other students who might have really like to know about this… Good heavens–I really dropped ball, the daring fireball.]

Gruber’s post is not about whether sharing is right or wrong, nor about where to place links for maximum ease for readers. It’s a question of writers sharing where they got their inspiration or information from, how they arrived at their thinking, when that’s appropriate to mention, and what the appropriate attribution practices are for the rhetorical situation. As a writer who has moved from mostly print to mostly web, I’ll be more aware of making visible the shoulders I stand upon, whether those shoulders belong to giants or peers.

(And here’s where I wish I could have put a footnote citing Kirby Ferguson’s film project, Everything is a Remix, for reminding me of Isaac Newton’s quote about this standing-on-shoulders business and that Newton probably got the idea from Bernard of Chartres. And I’m 100% sure that I found Ferguson’s project through a listserv post. Nice.)

[Good heavens. How many times have I used “Nice” to end a paragraph? (or use “good heavens” in this post alone?) I wish I could take “nice” out, but I need to leave it and make a point. I think I like one word punches in text because they can be “heard” so many ways: like nice (that looks good), or nice (you really blew it), or nice (thank you for your goodness and kindness and I adore you), or nice (perfect, how did you know I needed a lemonade at this moment). I bet I do this sort of thing pretty regularly. Right. Great. Bummer. Sure. Super. That’s what I get for borrowing from myself–I have to confront my words–be accountable to myself. I’ve learned a thing or two about my writing. That sucks a little bit. Yep.]

When bloggers see shiny objects

While I have been not blogging here, I was at a conference in Baton Rouge, LA (and more). What happens in Baton Rouge, unfortunately, does not stay in Baton Rouge, and my behindedness followed me all the way home to Montgomery like a stalker.

The conference was for the Council of Writing Program Administrators (began in the late 1970s with the first conference in 1982). It’s a great organization–if you have any interest at all in writing program administration, check them out.

First I attended three days of intensive training for WPAs and met wonderful folks from around the country and had my brain imploded from all the information I processed. Then I attended a one-day institute on basic writing, “Tectonic Shifts in Basic Writing,” and again brain implosion happened. Or rather, I loved it. I learned and listened and was silent a lot–so lovely to learn from and with experts (I have so much more to share with my fall class on basic writing pedagogy now!). It was good to listen to teachers talking about what they loved, what they cared about, and what they worried about.

I presented two times. One paper was a collaborative effort on open education resources with Charles E. Lowe, writing professor at Grand Valley State University and co-editor of Writing Spaces. (What fun I had–43 slides in 12 minutes–ask me about this some time, it was breathtaking, literally. It was like a relay race as we handed a remote controller every few slides: “stick” and talked through the points of our presentation.) What a great conversation we had after two other scholars presented. It was terrific. I loved it. I wish our class were meeting again so I could do the presentation for you–you’d LOVE it.

In lieu of that, please check out Garr Reynolds to see where Charlie got his inspiration. And make no mistake about this, it was all Charlie’s idea–I would have stuck with a standard text-heavy presentation for three reasons: 1) I’m tired; 2) I’m tired; 3) I’m tired. But this made me untired. And I’m looking forward to the next PPTX I create to try out some of the ideas Reynolds has about presentation theory. (Actually, when I get to the next part, you’ll also see another shiny object that has been keeping me from writing–and I did try out the Reynold’s theory on those folks who are related to that shiny object–and it was way cool.) Our panel was titled: “Technology and the Future of Sustainable Composition.” The other two presenters were: Margaret Munson (ASU) “Administrative Tensions: Textbooks and Sustainability” and Julia Voss (OSU) “Is it Time to Rethink Composition’s Technology Ecology.” I couldn’t have asked for a better experience, esp. as I contemplate my book review about a text on comp and books and sustainability–though the review is only half completed. (It’s not like I baked half a cake and still get to eat the first half, is it? I just have a big bowl of goo at this point.)

I also presented on another panel with Michelle Sidler from Auburn University (she’s the director of programs on writing), Karen Gardiner and Jessica Kidd from University of Alabama (Karen’s the comp director there and Jessica is the associate comp director), and Robert Cummings from the University of Mississippi (he’s the director of the Center for Writing and Rhetoric). Our panel title: “Choosing to Succeed: Themed Approaches to Second-Semester Comp.” I was much impressed with my colleagues’ presentations which included substantial information about program development, teacher training, assessment measures, future plans. They all had charts, and deep, rich information. I was impressed every minute of each presentation about the work they were doing–and inspired.

Here’s my first slide:

I want to teach a section of comp 2 on spies.

And from this point I showed pictures of Edward Cullen, Cartman on South Park, tattooed body parts, Amy Winehouse, James T. Kirk, social media landscape maps, and so on. The last slide was a representation of the Justice League and a heartfelt “thank you” message to my fellow panelists for their support in the last three years. Well, it was pretty. I may have redeemed myself during the after-panel discussion. Truly, it was a blast and my presentation really did hit the high points of why we have themed comp 2 classes, the rationale, the assessment measures, and more–but it was really, really, really design–visual-rhetoric-heavy and very text-light.

I attended sessions on open education resources, writing with iPads, and a session on writing and problem solving. It was so cold in that last particular meeting room that even I was cold. Y’all know that was cold. I had to go outside to warm up. Egads.

The OTHER shiny object: The Center for Writing Excellence at the Air War College.

And here is another shiny object: The AUM Writing Extravaganza class which is funded by the National Science Foundation. You’ll see that I was inspired by our own Sarah Fish’s most recent entry on that blog (she’s the tutor of record for the course–her second year running–and doing a fine job, too–and so not always easy with me as the teacher… oooo, is that a shiny object? I must go see what it is and then make it mine, mine, mine…).

Ahem. So do you think I overextended this summer? I do. But here’s what I learned: you are remarkably resilient and amazing learners. So am I. I’m really worn out and frazzled and panicked about: the fall schedule, the budget, books, training, blackboard, teacher contracts, four unstaffed comp classes, the carton of bad cottage cheese in my fridge, and my dry cleaning–where did I take it again? And yet. I’ve learned so much–in the last 6-7 weeks. Freaky, isn’t it?

So y’all are writing warriors. Not everyone is. Students new to college are not as resilient or determined as you are. You have a lot of solid ground under you that shifts very little. You have fear when you’re standing on the fence reaching for the perfect peach and could topple into the neighbor’s yard at any moment, because they have a big, mean dog, but you breath deep and keep on reaching until you get the peach you want. You know you can do it. It’s brilliant to watch.

And I wouldn’t give up one second of our work together despite my being, always, too busy. I am as impressed and inspired by you as I am with my colleagues at the conference last week. In fact, the thing I realized while melting, and alternately freezing, in Baton Rouge–it’s all about the learning. Mine, theirs, and yours.

Thank you for teaching me, for letting me learn how you think, for showing me so much about who you are as writers. I’m not finished reading blogs by any means, in fact, my weekend is booked with 18,432 things I need to do to catch up–but the only thing I’m really looking forward to is reading what you wrote while I was not blogging.