Community College English

Two-Year College English Association (TYCA): Attending regional conferences

2007-10-28T09:35:00.000-04:00

Two-Year College English Association (TYCA): Attending regional conferences

I'm also back from attending two TYCA regionals: TYCA Midwest in Chicago at the beginning of the month and TYCA Northeast in Philadelphia a week ago. They were both exciting and stimulating conferences with lots of energetic and interesting presentations.

But I attend all conferences now differently than I did in the past: as editor of TETYC I'm there in a role I can only describe as "talent scout." I arrive with a bunch of sample issues and a ton of my business cards, and then I try to "sign up" presenters to convert their presentations into article submissions to the journal.

And here's what I'm interested in hearing more about: I sense a reluctance to take the plunge and submit an article. Why? I know how busy two-year campus English faculty are, but these are folks who have carved out the spare hour before the sun comes up (or after the kids go down in the evening) and have created a conference presentation. One more step, and it's an article. So I don't think it's the time element.

At both conferences, I chaired panels called "How to Publish in TETYC (Or at least enhance your chances)." I borrowed a great panel idea that Sharon Mitchler created for last year's 4Cs when she, I, Greg Shafer (Michigan), and Alexis Nelson (Washington) spoke on the same subject. Not to bore you with the details, but Martine Courant Rife, in Chicago, and Barbara Morris, in Philadelphia, both on the panels as recent first-time authors in the journal, made the same point: they had submitted manuscripts in order to put themselves on the line, to experience the evaluation process just as their composition students were doing in their own writing classes. Both Martine and Barbara received feedback, revised, and ultimately published, but their message was that the experience paid off in their teaching. They could empathize anew with anxious students, and, better yet, they could share their own ups and downs as writers with their students.

That's what initially got me into submitting my own work --the desire to gain legitimacy in discussing writing with my classes. Sort of a "been there, done that" which I could share with them. And students do listen to those stories of anxiety and success and, yes, rejection. Martine and Barbara urged the participants at our sessions to give it a try. Sounds about right to me.

Jeff Sommers

The New CCE Site

2006-02-05T01:18:00.000-05:00

Join us at the new space!

Okay, So The Dog Ate The New Blog, and My Grandfather Died Repeatedly

2006-01-29T20:07:00.000-05:00

Can I have an extension until next Saturday? I promise that the new CCE will be up and running. Honest.

ON THE MOVE: CCE

2006-01-10T12:33:00.000-05:00

Happy New Semester!

As the semester begins, CCE will be moving to a new platform--Typepad, to be exact--where contributors will still be able to contribute freely and at whim, and where readers will be able to browse comments left by other readers. New link categories include technology and intellectual property. We hope that past and current contributors will join us there, and that, perhaps, new contributors will post. As always, we're grateful to our readers for their continuing participation.

The new version will go up on January 28th. If you have any suggestions for links or blogs to be linked, why not post a reply below?

Happy Holidays

2005-12-22T13:24:00.000-05:00

Fun Finals Activity

2005-12-14T21:35:00.000-05:00

Today, I tried out a new finals activity that may not be so new for some of you: we had a reading similar to what writers have when they are about to publish a book. I called it the "Winter Reading" for the class, and it included having students choose a short writing or a small part of a longer writing to read to the class. To make the mood more like a real writer reading, I brought some snacks, and I introduced each student with anecdotes from the semester and what not. This last part was my favorite as I have been thinking for some time about ways to say something personal and individual to students at the end of the semester, a practice that comes from a teaching mentor of mine who used to recite "nuggets" about our class during the final period. Students seemed to enjoy the activity, and the realistic treatment made it meaningful yet enjoyable, I think.

I only did the activity in developmental and first-level comp classes, though. For my second-level comp students, who have to write all source-supported papers, I'm thinking about having a mini-conference in lieu of a final in future semesters. That is another topic for another day, though--back to the papers.

The Season of Old Saint Paint

2005-12-11T00:23:00.000-05:00

So, How'd It Go? PowerPoint Update

2005-12-05T11:46:00.000-05:00

It went very well. Just about every group did a much better job of organizing and presenting the information this time: people had defined roles; speakers spoke to the class instead of the screen; everyone grasped the idea of ppt. as a outlining tool and not a sheet of paper waiting to be filled with words; and they were all relaxed and content.

Yes, it went well. Why?

It was the second presentation.

It was a much more structured activity than the first.

They had plenty of prewriting assignments to pull from.

They were writing from experience.

I was pleased to see that they pulled together as teams: working together on the ppt.; discussing which items to use in each category; sending each other drafts via email outside of class; and arranging to meet each other outside of class.

The grades were largely C's, with a few B's and even fewer A's. In the few cases where a person was left in the lurch by a partner who didn't even bother to contact her, I gave separate grades so as not to penalize the one who did do the job, alone.

So, if the grades were C's, then why am I so happy? Remember that this is the first level of Basic Writing, and that for many of the students, adjusting to being a responsible student has been the biggest accomplishment that they've made this semester. In order to earn the C, each student has had to focus, write, collaborate, edit and finalize a project as well as make sure that it was presented in a lively and instructive way. Again, doing all of this and not frittering away the time allocated to group work is a big maturing point for many of my students, who begin the semester wanting to be told exactly what to write and think every step of the way.

I'm proud of them.

Field Trip Photos: The Smithsonian, November 19

2005-11-20T15:10:00.000-05:00

It was a beautiful day yesterday, and a few of my Developmental Writing students and I went downtown to the Smithsonian to view the Retratos (portraits) exhibit at the Ripley Center.

I'll write more about the actual assignment that goes with the trip, but for now, enjoy the pictures of the castle, the Ripley, the mall and the metro.

Ppt. and Developmental Writers

2005-11-20T12:26:00.000-05:00

11/15: This week: a project in which the class develops a presentation for high school seniors and their parents. Although the situation is hypothetical, a college open house, the work isn't, and by next Monday, each duo will present its project to the class. I've been pretty strict about format, insisting that it be coherent rather than varied, and that the students remember that they are presenting on behalf of the college. They'll have ten minutes to present about eight slides' worth of information; moreover, the students may not read off of the slides (as was the case with the last round of group work), but must use them as, well, PowerPoint slides. I'll be taking points away from those who turn their backs to the audience and read the slides out loud.

Here's a summary version of the plans:

Weekend Homework: Brainstorm ideas in each of these categories: What Every Student Should Know About College; What I Wish I'd Known About College; and, What I Like About College. Picking two ideas from each category, draft a speech of no more than two pages.

Monday: Discuss ppt. as the outline, or key points, of their presentation. Students work with a partner and merge ideas: start ppt. draft.

Wednesday: Discuss parallel structure and how it helps structure ppt. information. Students continue to work on presentation, dowloading graphic.

Friday: Prof. H goes over ppt. structure, groups rehearse presentation in order to embellish ppt. with detail and to present to a group rather than read off of the slide.

Tomorrow:Show time.

It's a good exercise in both extracting information and outlining along with drafting a fuller presentation. Moreover, there's practice in categorizing and parallel structure and in using ppt. (as a tool and not as an electronic sheet of paper). Lastly, the presentation must include a works cited page for their graphics: a thumbnail and a URL.

Why am I being conservative about content? Well, two reasons: not every student knows how to use ppt. and would be overwhelmed with the choices; and two, the students are acting as college representatives speaking to prospective students and their parents, so I wanted them to create something intelligible for both generations. In freshman comp or a higher level lit class, I would be far more liberal about creativity, but frankly, I wanted something that was doable within the week.

A final note: this assignment came about after I'd been thinking about the attrition rate in this course, and I wanted to hear from the class what they saw as impediments to adjusting to college. Moreover, I wanted them to begin to reflect on their changes over the semester--on the student level with this assignment, and on the writer level with the next.

Extreme Apathy

2005-11-14T21:29:00.000-05:00

Last week, my frustration level reached a boiling point in my two pre-credit (developmental/basic) composition classes. Though I've taught such classes before, I had not taught at this particular school, and I have been discouraged by how difficult it has been to engage the students. Even with tried and true assignments and activities, I felt myself digging a hole of apathy on the part of the students and righteous anger on my part. I talked to other instructors, who echoed my sentiments about the students in this particular class, but none had any suggestions for change.

Finally, after having two students complain (independently and unprovoked by me or the assignment) about their classmates' apathy and having an unusually unproductive workshop, I opted to go to an extreme and change the schedule for the rest of the semester to incorporate a new paper into the class.

This final paper was where I felt like I needed to do something different. I thought about all of the writing assignments I have ever given and knew none would work: I have already given these students opportunities to write about various personally significant aspects of their lives, I've done the "you and your world" assignments to get them thinking about their place in the world, I did some traditional modes assignments, and I did fun, creative assignments. Students did them. Whatever.

Instead, I wanted to light a little fire. Be a little controversial. See what would happen if I called them on my perception of their attitude.

I printed out a copy of an article called "My Experience Teaching Apathetic Students at a School with Open Admissions" by a history professor named Thomas Reeves. I don't agree with every point the man makes, but complete agreement isn't my goal. Because he describes behaviors I have come to associate with many of my students, I wanted to see how students would react to seeing these behaviors described--and condemned--in print. Then, for their final essay assignment, I would ask them to write a paper where they discuss the degree to which they agree with Reeves using a couple of sources and anecdotal evidence. Part of the paper would also entail discussing whether perceptions of student apathy matter and why.

Today, I introduced the new schedule and assignment. I then read most of Reeves' article out loud and asked students to respond in writing to the article. It was an amazing day in class: both classes took off into discussions that went completely different directions. One class agreed completely with Reeves and heatedly discussed how they noticed such apathy in themselves. In fact, they had long recognized the problematic nature of what they felt were low expectations from others but did not want to say or do anything to change those situations--"Who wants to do more work?" one student said. My second class ran far and wide with their discussion, condemning Reeves, the education system, policy-makers, and American culture on many counts. When pressed with conflicting views and questions, these same students had difficulty seeing themselves as agents within these systems who could act in addition to being acted upon.

I feel guilty saying that I feel overjoyed about the results; after all, this tactic is tantamount to passive-aggressive name-calling on my part. However, the students seemed to realize this. They knew I was unhappy with class last week, my unhappiness created tension, this article brought this tension and conflict into open discussion, and students reacted. Now, I'm hoping they'll be at least a little more engaged in the writing, as they seem to have something to gain, something to critique: how others interpret them. As much as I know I took liberties with my power over students by reading this article in class, I feel like it may be worth it in the end because perhaps, they will feel motivated to empower themselves through their writing . . . I don't know, though. In a way, I feel like I had to call students' identify into question--even label them negatively--to engage them, and I don't feel completely comfortable with that. I would very be interested in feedback of all kinds.

Tonin'

2005-11-09T12:46:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow we discuss tone in my developmental reading class. Voice, authorial choice, purpose and audience also figure in to the mix. So how to teach it without losing my voice while I imitate different tones (and pitches)?

How about reading Peter Rabbit (the unabridged version, no less)in small groups, and ask each group to identify and discuss voice, choice and so on?

But that's too easy. And how many of your students will be engaged in a discussion of a pastel bunny?

Okay, it may be a stretch, but it ain't over yet. Let's move to step 2: listen to Lambert, Hendricks and Ross singing "Cottontail." We'll read the lyrics and do some C/C about the differences, of which there are many.

And we all know how much you love C/C, Prof H.

Yeah, I know. I just don't like looking at the "similarities and differences of two things that are essentially the same--something everybody throughout history has pondered before realizing how much better we all are for having learned this valuable lesson in life."

Not tracking with that.

I'm saying that I don't like easy answers and pat comparisons (even of bunnies). So we'll round out the hour with another tune, "The Book Report," from "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown," in which a carnival (or team) of discordant voices engage in the metacognitive and meta-emotional dynamics of writing a book report on Peter Rabbit, which, to quote Lucy Van Pelt, is "a stupid book about a stupid rabbit who steals vegetables from other people's gardens." It won a Tony.

The Tale of The Half-Remembered Rules, or, What My High School Teacher Always Told Me

2005-10-31T13:31:00.000-05:00

Gather round kids, and I'll tell you stories that will raise the hackles of the hairs on your neck. All of what I am about to relate is true and told to me by writers of papers past.

1. Never begin a sentence with the word "because." Never. Ever. Don't do it. Because.

2. Always put a comma before the word ",and." ,And don't you ever up ,and forget, pal. Because.

3. Thar be Dragons! Don't write too much. Not even if your prof suggests that you develop an idea by adding more information ,and details. Don't do it. Because.

Now, these rules are half remembered, right? That means that the high school teacher no doubt explained why she said what she did. Or that somewhere, perhaps in a musty volume of Warriner's Grammar, bricked up ,and sealed in an old, forgotten supply closet in a high school somewhere, are the rest of the rules. . . .

You Know it's Midterm When. . .

2005-10-20T11:43:00.000-04:00

You announce to the class that a large part of next week's exam will based on an essay that they are to take home and highlight, annotate and study. . . .

And then you get back to your office and discover said essay tucked neatly in your canvas bag. All 24 copies.

Salutations!

2005-10-18T07:44:00.000-04:00

Good morning! I'm new to the blog and excited to be here; for the last year or so, I've been looking for ways to communicate with community college folk, and this blog seems like a great way to participate. I'm getting ready for the International Writing Centers Association 2005 conference in Minneapolis, so I won't have much time to write this week. If you're in the Minneapolis area, though, I'd love to connect with you: I'm very interested in writing center work in the community college setting. I'll be presenting Saturday at 3:00 about the Greater Kansas City Writing Center Project, a city-wide group of writing center people in the KC metropolitan area. Even if you aren't overtly involved in writing center/learning center work at your institution, I'd like to connect because I'm very interested in how different schools handle writing tutoring. In the mean time, have a great week.

New Link

2005-10-17T19:26:00.000-04:00

A future contributor suggested that the following link be added to our sidebar: Friends of Writing Center Journal. Done!

The NOTBOOK: Brainstorming

2005-10-15T14:10:00.000-04:00

CCC Online: Fabulo.us!

2005-10-13T13:03:00.000-04:00

I'm very remiss not to have posted anything about the new CCC Online site created this summer by Collin Brooke, Derek Mueller and Madeline Yonker, all of Syracuse University. This new site doesn't replace the NCTE/CCC site, where journal articles are password protected, but instead, provides a site where the "metadata" (bibliographical information, from works cited to keywords and more)of the articles is available. What CCC Online does do is to function as a reader-researcher's companion, inviting us to locate and network ideas via tags and feeds and so on.

Frankly, I'm still at that Gomer Pyle level of technolearning, where I tend to stand back from the thing, big -eyed and exclaiming "Gawwwleee." Not particularly critical or professorial,so I'd appreciate hearing from readers who are far more advanced and, therefore, articulate, and can give this site its due. What I can say is that this undertaking no doubt involved a great deal of painstaking work and thought, and though the creators write modestly of CCC Online's being one journal's worth of work, the site is no less impressive because of it.

About Rebuilding Louisiana: Calling All Creatives

2005-10-10T14:44:00.000-04:00

This post has little to do with community college English, except as an example of the path that ideas now traverse across the disciplines.

A blog friend of mine, Kimberly McKittrick, an architect on the West Coast, has been blogging about efforts to rebuild NOLA. Yesterday, she happened to read an editorial written by her father, a Houston-based architect, on specific things happening and needing to happen in order to rebuild. Specifically, Mr. McKittrick discusses charettes , or community groups convened to give input on the rebuilding efforts. It appears that the School of Architecture and Design at the University of Louisiana has expanded the notion of the charetteto include anyone with any ideas expressed in any form. "A Call for Odes and Ideas, Proposals and Strategies, and Everything in Between," is exactly that: a chance for anyone to offer suggestions in any any medium she wishes.

According to the official blogsite Rebuild@Louisiana:

The goal of this competition is to project strategies and ideas to ease the distress of the evacuees, aid the rescuers and relief workers and preserve, rebuild, redesign and re-imagine and protect the post-Katrina/Rita environment of the Gulf Coast.

So the charette moves beyond a local sphere and embraces input from people outside the usual groups associated with urban planning and relief. And in rebuilding the city, these architects and designers hope to rebuild the hearts as well as the homes of the people who live there.

I'm passing the link on to my colleagues in graphic design and am thinking about turning it into an assignment for my developmental reading students as we move towards starting to blog. Who know what will come of the Call? Let's see.

Outsourcing: A Spirited View , a Sunday Meander

2005-09-29T13:49:00.000-04:00

Clancy asked us to respond to this article on outsourcing paper-grading, which concerns the pilot project at a Kentucky CC. There, papers written by DL students will be graded by SmartThinking graders rather than the instructor of record.

What do I think about such a service? I've not yet shaped my reaction into something easier on the brain, so stroll with me down this winding path of an answer.

Well, I used to be a paper grader/classroom assistant in the public schools, but I was always assigned to a particular class with whom I worked for the semester, so my comments, though different from the teacher's at times, came from something more than a disembodied voice marking up the page. The students knew me, the teacher knew me and vice-versa. Equally important, I knew how the instructor taught and where she or he was heading with a particular assignment. So, as an in-class composition assistant, I was part of the process, not off in seclusion somewhere, grading all day. (Unfortunately, given curricular changes and whatnot, the CA position has reverted to the seclusion model, from what I hear).

Now that I'm teaching, I can understand the appeal such a service offers. It appeals to my practical spirit, which is always wondering when I'll have time to grade all the many assignments that I create. It appeals to my compassionate spirit, which sees how overwhelming grading can be and wants to balm our fatigue with the finest unguent, in this case, having fewer papers to grade-- especially in a DL situation, where so much more writing seems to take place since there are no face-to-face discussions to rely on.

But darn my pedagogical spirit--it strides womanfully through the unguent- balmed field of papers and to-do lists, and in a sharp, no -nonsense voice much like Caroline Myss's, says "Now,wait a minute. This outsourcing sounds like teachers are being given all of the responsibility and none of the authority. Or very little. "

Well, as long as the teacher of record gets the last say on the grade, then is it really so bad? Are we helping writing teachers or is the next step or two to develop writing courses that are graded by committee? And who exactly, is grading the papers? Just because someone is qualified on paper does not mean that she or he will be any good at it, will the teachers have a choice or will they be assigned a grader? What if you're stuck with someone who creates more problems than solutions during the semester?

What bothers me the most is the idea of the outsider in the class. ( True, grad assistants have graded papers for years, but they are, if not part of the actual class, then part of the college at least!) It just strikes me as ludicrous that one would design and implement a lesson/paper/webproject and then send out for it to be graded. Part of the pleasure of grading is that one can see how the student has made choices and how those choices have worked with the assignment. That's part of the pleasure of teaching. I enjoy the dialogue I have with my students which extends to what I write on their papers and say in emails or in class. Very often, through working on a set of papers, I discover trends that I want to address with the whole class. The work becomes a grind when one has too many papers to grade, but in and of itself, paper grading is not the enemy.

It seems to me that a better idea is to hire more teachers. There, I've said it. Keep the numbers of comp students low. Hire more comp teachers. Give us time to grade student papers in a meaningful way. We don't need the intrusion of another party in the classroom, whether it be paper-graders or Turnitin (don't get me started on that!).

And what about the DL classes, which the original pilot in Kentucky is all about? Unless the community college wants to pay the grader more money to become more of a presence in the classroom, like an assistant, then I think that two problems will occur. One is that having a grader will reinforce the fragmentation of the class--perhaps "depersonalization," is a better word for it. If DL classes have to work harder at developing a community of scholars, then having to send one's papers out to be graded will undercut the effort.

The second problem is that I see a gradual move towards some universal rubric of writing that will be a spectacular flop though it appeals mightily to those who watch the dollar signs. I see the complexity of thought reduced to a national check-off sheet that forces conformity and unoriginal thinking. I see the teacher's role becoming like that of a factory worker, doing a piece and then moving it down the line, with no sense of what it will look like in the end, and no desire to find out, since his or her authority has been removed.

But you know, what I also see is that if we are arguing about paper grading and are defining papers as the linear construct of the twentieth century and not the web-based dynamic creation that the new century brings, then maybe we should be asking "What paper?"

The Image of the English Teacher

2005-09-24T15:58:00.000-04:00

"Robert Frost. Asshole!"

This, or something close to this, is what AJ, the son of New Jersey crime boss Tony Soprano says in a well-earned moment of exasperation in season three of The Sopranos. In the scene, poor AJ is laboring over an essay due the next day on, what else, "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening." Soon, AJ's older sister Meadow walks in and offers her help. Meadow is in her first year at Columbia. (In a later episode, in response to her mother's complaint that she's getting a C average, she quips, "You try taking Intro to Semiotics.") Armed with a ready hermeneutic, Meadow quickly explains that the snow equals death. It's a death poem, she explains. With answer in hand, AJ goes on to write his essay.

I read the scene as a pretty accurate representation of what the public thinks about English courses. There is the idea that the poem can't simply be literal. Along with this assumption is the idea that it is then the critic's (or poor student's) job to unearth what the poem is "really" about, to fill in the other side of the equation. Snow=death. Most importantly, though, the scene dramatizes the student's subservience to the text. English courses are about the reading and interpretation of texts rather than getting students to produce writing.

Meadow is a sophisticated reader and writer, but she isn't really interested in thinking about the questions the poem invites readers to ask--questions that can't be met by plugging answers into some preset scheme. Nor is she interested in understanding how a poem (perhaps unlike any other genre) can embody a problem in language. Finally, she doesn't want to help AJ join a dialogue about Robert Frost, where there is something at stake beyond a narrow reading of the poem. But, hey, Meadow has got other stuff on her plate. I don't know that I could concentrate on Robert Frost if I had Tony Soprano for a father.

I'm not interested in offering an extended explication of "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening." Rather, I want to think about how the public thinks about English. How do we do a better job of explaining what we do--both as scholars and teachers? The Sopranos scene led me to think about other popular representations of English instructors in film or television. I think they can be boiled down to two basic types: the anti-institutional Romantic (think Robin Williams in The Dead Poets Society) or the severe, rule-governed teacher who stands as an obstacle to the student's true love of literature and writing. As English teachers we are hopelessly outmatched. How can we compete against film and television?

I am reminded of Kathleen Blake Yancey's argument in her book Teaching Literature as Reflective Practice. She draws a distinction between the delivered curriculum and the lived curriculum. A mistake instructors often make is to think that what they deliver corresponds with what students are hearing. I wonder to what degree popular images of the English teacher that circulate in our culture serve to obstruct our efforts. A colleague recently had a student drop her course because she claimed it ruined her love of literature. This fits perfectly with the second image of the English teacher I described: the teacher as institutional obstacle to the student's love of language.

So how do we do a better job of explaining what we do? How do we compete with The Sopranos and The Dead Poets Society? Do we need our own television show? (Math has one, the show Numbers.) Because the public often fails to understand what we do, it makes it very easy to misrepresent our efforts to move beyond a current-traditional paradigm of teaching literature and writing. The public can cry, "We need to get back to basics, back to standards" without any sense of what we've been talking about for the last thirty years.

The Thing About Blogging Is. . .

2005-09-22T09:59:00.000-04:00

I get lazy. I don't put links in. I don't engage in a discussion so much as I participate in a digital version of call and response. I'm still wondering why Blogger and Typepad don't have the word blogin their spellcheck programs.

Here's what I'd like to be able to do--

have an instalink to places that I link to often.

Here's where my ignorance comes into play: is that what permalink is for?

At any rate, I'd like to be able to type in the site name or the writer, say, Timna or Mike, highlight it, click an icon and be done with it.

If there is a way to do this already, let me know.

In the meantime, I'll work on being more of a blogversational participant and respond to more than what's listed in the post.

That's a promise.

Joanna

Welcome!

2005-09-21T21:49:00.000-04:00

We have two new contributors here at CCE, Jason and Timna. Can't wait to hear what they have to say!

I'm Writing A Text-Not- book

2005-09-16T18:24:00.000-04:00

This summer I hemmed and hawed and wondered about this textbook project I had been announcing to everyone. I knew what I didn't want: when I circled the book displays at the 4 C's, I saw nothing but the same old, same old, even when it was accompanied by a disk of exercises. BW textbooks tend to be of two major ilk:
the first ilk being the Evergreen model, which is divided into two sections, writing and grammar. The other ilk is made up of books that combine grammar and writing into each chapter.

But it's still grammar and it's still a textbook, and I teach in a networked lab. I have a great deal to say about all of this, and I'll be posting my thoughts throughout the year.

Right now, though, I want to discuss what my project isn't. It isn't a textbook and it shouldn't cost much. I haven't talked with the college yet about publishing and copyrights in this technological age, but I will and soon.

Instead of a textbook, I want to create an interactive CD (memory stick, whatever) that would be connected to an online site. Or maybe I simply want a site which I can pack with things specific to my course and be interactive rather than static.

When I say that I want it to be specific to my course, I mean that I don't want to publish with the big boys. I don't care if I'm not the next big name in the Basic Writing publishing world. What I do want is to be able to create a space where all of my assignments, explanations, links, exercises and outside readings can exist, be revised and change all the time. I want these spaces to be far more interactive than I've seen (cursorily, I'll admit). I want it to be cheap. I want my students not to have to spend too much on a book-- especially since I've yet to ever teach an entire book in any class and subsequently feel there's a lot of wasted paper being lugged around. So I want to be efficiently economical, too.

One of my first steps is to really look at the platforms out there as they exist now and see if any don't already do what I want, or if a combination of things would work.

In the hazy land of brainstorming, I can start to see what I mean when I say that I want to use some of Elbow's ideas but bring them down to a BW level--that is, instead of taking BW student through a 5-paragraph template or a single process model, I want something that will help the students arrive at what their best writing processes are--something that would work intuitively with them or for them, and I can see concept mapping being of some use here ("here" as in right now, here, and "here" as in the kind of thing I want the students to use.)--and I want there to be links say, on that concept mapping page, so that the student who is finding mapping frustrating, can use a different kind of invention process.

So, another first step is to begin to outline (or map) what I want to see in terms of writing online--inventing online--moving through possibilities online--getting away from any lockstep procedure that dictates how a student must write.

As I do that, I think that what I want will be come clearer to me. But I suspect that I'm going to be taking a year to figure out what I want and how I want to express it or provide it, and then, I'll knock out a far more coherent plan than I am capable of articulating right now.

One of the places I'm heading to is, via Kairosnews, the Next\Text Project where I can investigate similar projects. here's how they explain it:

In this networked age, the printed textbook has likely reached the end of its useful life cycle, but a robust digital competitor has yet to emerge. The next\text project seeks to encourage the creation of born-digital learning materials that enhance, expand, and ultimately replace the printed textbook.

A New Year at CCE

2005-09-13T17:47:00.000-04:00

CCE begins its second year around now, and I'm making my usual appeal to all of you to think about submitting something to this blog.

It's so easy. All you have to do is contact clc, and she'll set you up so that you can post your work here.

If you don't want to submit posts, perhaps you'd like to volunteer for our first annual "Clean The Links" event, in which you send me, via a response here, either new links to new sites or new links to sites that just aren't working from here.

And include yourself if we haven't linked to you. When Jocalo, Styles, clc and I began this blog last year, we weren't aware of the many community college blogs out there. Now it seems like a full and growing fuller collection. Please send us your links.

Finally, if you use a site that has pedagogical, technological, or theoretical use, and you think it should be displayed here, please let me know.

Howdy!