Random Thoughts

I really want to start posting here weekly at a minimum. I don't really feel like writing, but I suppose now is as good of a time as any to start up again. I miss the great feedback from my students. So here are some random thoughts...

I registered for the Computers & Writing Conference today. It's exciting to see my name in the presentation schedule. I booked my room and the flight and a rental car. I signed up for a couple of very compelling pre-conference workshops. "Screencap Your Feedback" is a hands-on workshop demonstrating how to use screen capture to respond to student writing. This sounds very time consuming, but I'm thinking that expanding that to screen recording could be an innovative way to "discuss" my students' writing with them instead of writing my comments in the margins with Word's comment feature. It would definitely be something none of their other teachers are doing. My hope would be to engage them more in the revision process. They would all get mini conferences with me (granted, they wouldn't be able to respond immediately) for every essay. Maybe the tone of comments would come through better too. This could be a great tool if I ever decide to try teaching online again.

The other workshop I signed up for scares me a little, but I owe it to my students that are terrified of the new ways I ask them to think about writing to go to this workshop. Hell, I owe it to myself to face the fear. "The Sights and Sounds of ArchiTEXTure: Modeling Multimodal Composition" is another hands-on workshop teaching teachers to compose with audio, video, and images. We'll be experimenting with Google Draw and something called DoInk. I feel lost just thinking about it, but this too offers exciting possibilities for the future of my composition courses. I want my courses to be cutting edge. I may teach at a community college, but that doesn't mean students should be cheated out of cutting edge education. If I want my students to extend themselves beyond their comfort zones in their educations, then I must do the same.

Overall I'm very excited about the conference. I still have a lot of research to do before I even start putting my presentation together, but I'll pull it off. I always do. If you're interested in my presentation "iWrite Cool: Teaching Academic Writing through Conventions of Social Media Discourse," my proposal is just a few entries back. The center of my research is work by Jeff Rice who conceptualized the idea of the "rhetoric of cool." I'm hoping to extend his definition of that in some way.

On another note, I have three applications out for full-time positions. With gas prices rising the way they are, I don't know if I could take two of them, which would require me to drive 40-90 minutes to work everyday. I'm putting all my hope into the one at LLCC. I love that school, I love my students, and I really think I can make (have been making) a positive impact around campus.

I have a few teaching observations coming up--two in COM, one in LIT. I've never been observed in LIT before, so I'm a little nervous, but I'm really happy with the way that class is going. A couple students who were performing below expectations dropped, which means almost everyone left is in the A/B range or should be by the end of the semester.

COM is going well too. I think most everyone is still nervous about my system, but if they just invest themselves in doing the best they can, they should all be fine. So many are so resistant to radical new ideas about teaching and learning. How can they just want more of the same education they've been bitching about since grade school? I try to share things with them that catch my attention. I read part of an article from The Chronicle to them before spring break about Jeff Groom's digital storytelling class where the students really drive the course by writing the assignments each other will complete. A few students thought that was an awesome idea. The others sat in silence and would barely even raise their hands to vote on yes/no questions.

How do I get them excited? How do I get them to care? How do I get them to see how important their educations are to their futures? How do I get them to see that they're wasting it? How do I get them to see that the system itself is wasting their hard-earned tuition dollars on outdated, meaningless education? How do I get them to demand more of themselves, more of their teachers, more of their educations?

Maybe one day I'll figure it out, the secret formula to make the drones our public schools turn out wake up and give a damn that they're being programmed to not care. I know, I know, it's easy not to care. I'm asking them to work, and not just work, but work hard. Someday. Until then, I'll just keep trying every possible thing I can think of. A few get it, and that's enough...for now.

I'm thinking of giving my COM 111 students choices from a variety of assignments I've done in the past. Two essays for the entire semester, but they have to revise once a week until each essay is at least a B. I would think that could be very motivating to get students to invest themselves if the reward is they can finish the course early. I'd miss the better-prepared writers, but it would allow me to focus more attention on the less experienced writers who need more feedback. Something to think about anyway.

While spring break has all but killed my drive, I do look forward to getting back in the classroom. There's an energy in teaching, in reaching to the bottom of myself to put everything I've got into trying to motivate my students that I feed off of. There's no momentum to spring break. I feel drained, not rested. Maybe it's just because my daughter broke my heart for the first time today. Ah, teenagers. :/