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.

Write acrostic this______

Willingness to get on the big scary ride at the carnival, no fear, no whining, all guts.

Righteous fists raised to convey the dazzling power we grab through learning.

It only makes sense that the commons we create, creates us back.

Teaching. It happens even when we don’t know it or understand it.

I‘m a teacher. I teach. I’m into teaching thinking and stretching and breathing.

Not making connections across academic boundaries–that sucks.

Good to know I’m not alone–I got my commons, and my commons has got my back.

 

Alone no more because I have no borders; I’m surrounded by no seas; I feel no disconnection; I am no island.

Commons-base peer production. I’m into it.

Reading across the curriculum is as important as writing across the curriculum. I mean it.

One. Singular sensation. Every little step she takes. One. Thrilling combination. Every move that she makes. One smile and suddenly nobody else will do. You know you’ll never be lonely with you know who. One moment in her presence, and you can forget the rest, for the girl is second best to none, son. Oooh. Sigh. Give her your attention. Do I really have to mention? She’s the one. Elizabeth Gilbert.

Students.

Students.

 

Taking our words and freely letting go of our hold of them so they may see their true potentials.

Helping bridge disciplinary gaps–oh yeah–that’s what we’re all about: dancing smoothly around in every discipline we can imagine–just to spread the word, and the word is an acronym: WAC.

Exhausted by working too much, too long, too hard trying to see how everything is connected; maybe, perhaps, occasionally, once in awhile, sometimes fission is better than fusion.

 

Communicating across the curriculum. That matters, too.

Uhriah Heep is the best worst villain ever. (Sorry, you know how I feel about Dickens.)

Reiterative processes happen a lot, in writing, in decision-making, in learning.

Right. I mean: write.

Inquiry across disciplines–what couldn’t be done weaving through disciplines?

Crossing borders, boundaries, disciplinary lines.

Under pressure always, but we can dream of being graceful despite that, right?

Like this. (Or is it wrong to like one’s own text?!)

Unusual growth happened to me this summer because I was part of this course on writing across the curriculum–8 weeks of insane growth–mind imploding, soul soaring, spirit stirring, attitude adjusting.

My gratitude knows no bounds–thank you, students and friends, all of you who made this one of the best eight weeks of teaching/learning I’ve ever had.

Writing, writing, writing: Writing machine

And so it all comes back to the Jackson Five. You knew I’d get there eventually. Please just substitute “writing” for “dancing,” and for the pronoun “she,” please substitute “they”–meaning, of course, us. (There will be some trouble when we get to “sexy lady,” but I’m sure we’ll figure it out.)

And you knew I’d eventually get back to boy bands: MJ and NSync. Not sure pop gets better than this.

My favorite might be the “Soul Train“* performance, but if you watch enough of the videos of “Dancing Machine” on Youtube, you could join in with the dancing, er, uh, I mean, writing, or do I mean singing?

*I watched a retrospective on “Soul Train” recently; if you are unfamiliar with this phenomenal show, you should change that. (I think it was on VH1.) So much I learned about dancing came from watching this show and its dancers when I was very very very young. I never went to a party in high school that didn’t have a line dance, not the Country/Western kind of line dance, though (not that there’s anything wrong with that–did a few in my day)–and by the by, all this line dancing is very Victorian and pre-Victorian–it probably comes from the ancient Egyptians or the Xia Dynasty. I had a mad crush on Don Cornelius (it was a lot like my crush on Frank Sinatra–I really needed to forget his personal life to keep loving what he did for a living). And, since I’m in the confession mode, I always thought Al Green was singing just to me. Still do (just look at him–he’s singing to you, too–he’s a master).

Is dancing text? Maybe. It’s meant to convey meaning and can often do that–emotion, argument, desire, worry, hope, sheer abandon.

Singing is certainly text because, well, it’s writing, but dancing? I think it could be, if we say communication is text or text is communication… if one is illiterate, do the cave paintings become text? Do cathedral windows become text? Do coins become text? If you can’t read words, and pictures are how you learn, maybe text is visual, maybe text is musical, maybe text is about how we connect, not what we use to connect. Hmmm.

Posts by a few of our bloggers have connected dancing to WAC and fascinated me, of course, because I’m a huge fan of dance and WAC and open and learning… and making connections. This one on moving across the curriculum, and this one referencing being wrong and dancing, and this one on connections and SYTYCD, and any one you choose about Sir Ken Robinson and Gillian Lynne.

Many of you have linked science and WAC, learning and WAC, and the connections are stunning. Wordsometimescapeme has mentioned in comments about how reading each blog and our postings on Bb is an incredible way to connect to each other and to learn. We’ve been making connections between blogs like crazy–and making intellectual connections like there’s no tomorrow (loved the one on cliches.)

We are part of a movement of people exploring WAC–and that makes us part of that movement altogether. It does. You might not have thought of it that way before, but we’re in it now.

Movement, of course, is a relevant word for us: we are studying a movement–more than one actually, and we are part of more than one movement. We are WAC. We are OER. We’re moving forward.

Move on, move over, move out, move up. And perhaps, mash up.

As writing machines, we do all those things.

Stop and smell the chlorine

It’s summer. We need to have some relaxing moments. And while I wish I had access to a salt water pool still, I will not dismiss the good of any water I can plunge into, even if it’s chlorinated. I need photosynthesis in the spring, summer, and fall to make it through the winter. Not sure how I managed when I lived on the 43rd parallel in Boise, Idaho. I didn’t last long there, though. I appreciate the lakes and rivers I could dip into and raft on, but the water was pretty cold until July and August, and then, still chilled a bit more than I’d prefer. I’m in love with the South and the warm waters of the South: fresh, salted, or chemically altered.

Periodic Table of Elements & Cl, Chlorine

You’ll see here that chlorine is a chemical on the Periodic Table of Elements (PTE)–upper right in yellow, second down from the top, “Cl” is just a bit more bold than the others. I love this stuff: charts, categories. I memorized the PTE when I was in high school chemistry. Why? Because I was one of those kids–I counted everything. In church on Sundays, I could tell you how many light bulbs were in the whole church, how many squares in the barrel-vaulted ceiling, how many railings at the alter, the number of pews. And when I couldn’t pay attention in school, I counted things and memorized them. Mrs. Frye sat me right next to the PT chart (which was smaller then, by the by), and so that’s what I did.

I love what the web has done for the PTE. There are dynamic PTEs (linked above) and entirely new ways of looking at this information that makes up the guts of our world. Data visualization makes me so happy. I love this sort of thing (visual learner). This is one of my favorite alternate models of the PTE:

Periodic Spiral of Elements: Wheeeee

In just a few minutes, I’m going to go out and smell the chlorine as I swim for a bit. It’s summer, we have to have some moments when we stop thinking, writing, working, dusting, cooking, managing, fretting. My moments include photosynthesis–hence, the photo that will be my theme this summer: a corner of a pool.

I would stop and smell the roses, but the chlorine sort of takes over. Sometimes, it’s best to just give into “better living through chemicals.” At least I can see to the bottom of the pool and don’t have to worry about creatures from the deep coming up to snatch at my legs. EEEK.

In the rush and fuss of working and school and family, it’s good to find a time to rejuvenate. Don’t forget why you’re doing what you’re doing and give yourself a break now and then.

Or find something fun to occupy your brain for awhile…

If you like data visualization, like I do, then you’ll want to visit this guy’s site: David McCandless’s Information is Beautiful. He’s got a Ted.com talk, too. If we do writing across the curriculum, then this guy does visualization across the curriculum.

Stop and smell the chlorine whenever you can. But not too much–it’s toxic to humans.