Pictured from Left to Right: Emma, Emily, Kirsi, Jeff, Tom, Mackenzie, (not picture, John)The blog has been a way to take these really scary theoretical concepts and reframe them in our own language, perhaps supplementing with our own experiences as TAs. Remember back to Melissa’s first post on ecocomp? Not only was her post a bajillion times more interesting to read than the original article because she used the words of “real people” but she also pointed out key ideas, like the distinction between ecocomp and ecocrit and when and where they were getting lumped together. I see the value of the blog as a tool to help connect the theoretical aspects of the WRIT540 curriculum with the practical learning we are doing in WRIT101 and begin to vocalize them.
My involvement in the blog has been has more focused on my teaching experiences as they relate to the readings than my ideas on the readings themselves, for better or worse. I have a difficult time keeping things in the realm of theory and usually I have many thoughts about one or two things, rather than a few thoughts about many things. This can be good, but I also think it’s the obligation of the poster to, in some way, speak to the reading as a whole rather than break it into parts and point to only one.
I remember when we had our conversation on the blog, I kept wondering exactly what the blog was supposed to be. To me, initially it did not have much of a community feel—it did not take advantage of the technology that was present. Something about the public nature of the blog was very daunting for me—it wasn’t responding to the readings, but trying to have a conversation where we all wrote long paragraphs was not much of a conversation at all. I think the rhetorical definition of the blog, ideally, should be a place that we as writers have ownership of. We respond to the readings and to one another. I think we have done a better job later in the semester doing this. Sometimes I felt like the blog got totally off track, like just a pile of meaningless text that I didn’t know what to do with. I think adding the idea of response questions helped. I also thought that some readings demanded more of a response than others, and it was hard to respond as much to some of them. I think the blogging helped to jumpstart a discussion before class that then would continue, whereas with simply reading we might not remember as well or have a framework yet. I always thought about my contributions to the blog, but I also always just wanted to say what I wanted to say, and so I had a hard time responding, especially when I needed to contribute to the discussion by a specific time frame. I am really proud of some of my blog posts, but I would rather talk about my experience teaching and how that related to the reading.
ReplyDeleteI feel like the rhetoric of our blog has been consistent throughout the semester. My understanding of it is that it is meant to be professional but casual at the same time, and I feel like as a whole we’ve been able to stick to that model all semester. The blog posts people put up were extremely articulate and well thought-out. One interesting thing that has perhaps changed as the semester has progressed is the amount to which blog posts are meant to engage the rest of the class in a discourse, to be the launching point for a conversation about whatever a given week’s topic might have been. Looking through the posts, one can observe a higher awareness as time progressed of the purpose of the blog posts, in the way that they often pose questions to the rest of the class in order to spark conversation.
ReplyDeleteIn order to address the nature of my contributions to the blog I’ll have to address the two different types of contributions I have had experience with on this blog: posting and commenting.
As a poster, my goal was to create an environment in which my fellow classmates might be able to engage in lively discussion about whatever topic we were talking about that week. I tried to keep it concise while trying to maintain a wide enough aperture for others to branch off and discuss something related to what I was discussing.
My life as a commenter evolved quite heavily. My first few weeks I was under the severe misimpression that the purpose of the blog was to demonstrate that you had in fact done the reading. But as time went on it became clear that what was most important was discourse. This discourse was obviously connected to and inspired by the reading of that week, but the idea that we were actually engaged in a conversation did not occur to me until a few weeks into the semester. Now when I comment, I don’t do so simply to prove my knowledge of the reading, but to discuss with my peers new ideas in pedagogy.
1.The genre of the blog, as I think of it, is a place for us to examine and bounce around ideas and reading about theory, pedagogy, and our positions as writ101 instructors. As such, the space is a little playful but we get to serious topics and application. Like all blogs, there's the potential for outside readers might pop up and have something to say or be interested in our topic (Roskelly was an example of this) but the reader ship is primarily each other. Ideas on teaching, interpretations and applications of the reading are all up for grabs and debate, but mostly we're convinced or not by virtue of forming our stances on the blog. Argumentation, as far as I've seen, has never been war. Still, there's rules. We try to respond to the poster, be clear about our responses, and recently I've been trying to be clear about picking a previous point of dicussion to flush out, rather than champion my own reading or interest. For evidence we mostly appeal to the text or our experience in the class. So our blog is a place to get together and explore lower case theory as we read and live it.
ReplyDelete2. I've tried to keep things inside the situation of the blog as I understand it. For the most part I've tried to both measure our readings by my experience (by asking do I see this in my class, do you in your yours) or proponet some strategy with in the reading (listen people, we just need year long groups).
1. Rhetoric of the blog.
ReplyDeleteThe direct, yet informal nature of the comments was, I think, a good standard for the 'rhetorical' mode that the blog wanted. Or, to use Bitzer's term the informal, yet direct comments 'fit' the blog. Additionally, the actual posts, while varying between a more formal academic tone and a more laid-back thoughtful tone was also apropos. The blog demanded that you read the 'readings' read the post, and read any comments that got in before you. This was especially true of the week recently where we had to post multiple comments.
2. How would you describe the nature of your contributions to the blog?
I'll quote Samuel Beckett, "James Joyce was a synthesizer, trying to bring in as much as he could. I am an analyzer, trying to leave out as much as I can." I really tried in my posts and comments to analyze the texts for simple points, in order to elucidate them more fully. I didn't really try to synthesize much, i.e. didn't try to apply it in an abstract way, but rather tried to interrogate and tease out the finer points of the readings. I don't know if this was helpful or not, but I got a few responses...
This began with Purdy and went from there. I attempted to spell out the implications of his writing as a means of generating discussion...though I suppose I also attempted to generate ideas about how to use Purdy in the classroom, etc. I'm no pure analytic philosopher, but I don't feel like I contributed in the way that folks like Melissa and Mackenzie did...really generative posts, those.
One thing that I don't like about the blog is everyone agrees too much! FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT
ReplyDeleteOur blog is interesting, because it is simultaneously a space for conversation and for monologue. We have goals when blogging – to get our points across, to share ideas, to explore the texts, but also, of course, to prove we read the texts and are engaging in the class. We are writing to and for each other, but also for Kate, our Grand Vizier.
ReplyDeleteThe moments when the blog is weakest are when we all come to the blog knowing what we want to say before we read the comments – when this happens, it’s a series of thinly-disguised monologues positioned under one main monologue. It is still always interesting to see everyone’s ideas, but to me those moments were not as interesting or as useful as the moments when we came together in true conversation.
My contributions to the blog were a mixture of personal experience and neurotic questions that the readings provoked. I think my interest in “power” is evident in my posts and comments – I seem to continuously question where the power lies in the classroom, and what light the readings shed on any power struggles/imbalances.
Hi I'm Kirsi la la la la
ReplyDelete