Out of WAC Newsletter
WAC at PSU publishes its Out of WAC Newsletter in the fall and spring. PSU faculty members are invited to share their experiences, tips, and methods for teaching and responding to student writing. Archive issues are available for most editions at the Writing & Reading Center.
The following article appeared in the Faculty Voice column of the Fall 2005 Out of WAC Newsletter.
Blogging Across the Curriculum
by Evelyn Stiller and Cathie LeBlanc
A web log (also known as a blog) is a new mode of electronic communication that has recently taken off in popular culture. A blog is a specialized web page that contains periodic entries by the owner of the blog. It resembles a public electronic diary in which the reader views the dated entries in reverse chronological order, with the latest entry first. Blog entries differ from traditional diaries because they are web pages, and, therefore, they accommodate a variety of electronic elements, such as links to other web sites, images, sounds, and animations. Blogs have become an important media force and we are embracing the use of blogs to facilitate written communication in two courses in the Computer Science and Technology Department. We also feel that blogs could be a useful resource to promote writing in a variety of other educational situations.
Why is blogging (the act of creating blog entries) a noteworthy phenomenon? From a technological perspective, blogs allow people with limited technical experience to communicate thoughts and ideas to a world-wide audience with ease. Other easy-to-use communications technologies, like email and instant messaging, limit communication to a small number of predetermined people. From a sociological perspective, blogs and their variants (pod-casts and video logs) are shaking up the otherwise corporate-dominated media outlets. Blogs allow information to be disseminated in a decentralized, personalized manner. A recent example of bloggers forcing a news item into the limelight occurred when bloggers expressed their outrage at Trent Lott’s racist remarks during Strom Thurmond’s 100 th Birthday celebration. While the traditional media initially let the remark go unnoticed, the attention given to Lott’s remark by bloggers forced conventional media outlets to report on the incident as well. The subsequent outcry forced Lott’s resignation as Senate majority leader.
Blogs also have several features that can be exploited to positive effect in an educational environment. The software for creating blog entries facilitates periodic entries containing text, images, links, animations and sounds which allow bloggers to create multimedia content. Another relatively standard feature allows readers to post comments on specific blog entries. Individuals may post comments on comments as well, and, thus, a conversation may grow out of a blog entry. Typically, the blog author will respond to any comments by commenting on the reader’s comment. Another feature of most blogs is trackbacks, which provide links to other blogs entries that reference the blog entry. Using trackbacks, a global dialog can occur between interconnected blogs. Another feature that poses a vulnerability (discussed later) is a top referrers list, which enumerates web servers which have the most references to one’s blog.
There are a number of different types of blogs and all are potentially useful for educational purposes. Blog categories include editorial, journal, commentary, technical, geographic, informational, photography, and special interest. The best known blogs are editorial in nature, typically commenting on current political events. Some examples of this type of blog are wonkette.com in which Ana Marie Cox spoofs political events by characterizing key political figures as though they were characters in a soap opera. Another well-known editorial blog is the DailyKos (www.dailykos.com), which has become prominent because of the many other blogs that reference it. The least discussed form of blog is the journal blog. These blogs are essentially electronic diaries and are the most common blog format for women and young people to engage in. They are probably the easiest form of blog to start with as a new blogger, because the author is writing about his or her life experience, and, therefore, does not need to a great deal of background research to post an entry.
Why is blogging an appropriate topic for the Out of WAC newsletter? Clearly, blogging requires some amount of writing, but is this form of writing something we should cultivate in our students? We would argue that blogging encourages blog authors to create well-written, well-reasoned, and concise entries. Editorial blog entries are particularly conducive to being crafted into highly persuasive, yet small, pieces of writing. When writing an editorial blog entry, the author can use links to provide background information, definitions, and supporting evidence, and use the majority of the blog entry space to make a well-reasoned argument for his or her perspective. Blog readers tend not to be attracted to long, wordy entries, so an author who wants to create a popular blog site is encouraged to be concise. In addition, because the perspectives espoused in blog entries are frequently challenged by readers around the world via comment links, blog authors are motivated to ensure all statements have sufficient supporting evidence. Finally, the public nature of the blog entry encourages correct spelling and grammar. For example, one of us (Stiller) once made a typo in a blog entry and was quickly reminded to spell correctly and use proper grammar by the world-wide blog grammar police. Thus, many forces exist to motivate blog authors to craft their entries very carefully. If we use blogs in our classrooms, this form of writing will encourage increased thoughtfulness about their writing among our students.
Blogs can be useful in a variety of university-level courses. For example, poetry students might create a poetry blog, which could serve either as a place to post finished pieces or, through the comment mechanism, as an electronic workshop facility. Literature students might have journal blogs, in which they respond to course readings. Political science students might create editorial blogs commenting on current events. Psychology students might engage in self-reflection using journal blogs. Communications studies students might create blogs to comment on mass media. We are sure that many other possibilities exist.
At this time, two courses offered by the Computer Science and Technology Department use blogging as a mode of writing expression for students. One course, called Web Expressions, is a general education Creative Thought Direction course. The other course, called CyberEthics, is an ethics course for our majors that also fulfills the Writing connection in the new general education program. Blogging is used for different educational objectives in these two courses, which serve as useful examples of the pedagogical power of blogging.
In Web Expressions, students are allowed to pick their own blog genre and topic so that they are motivated to blog by having a sincere interest in the content. Our educational objectives for the students in this course include:
- Depending on the blog genre chosen by the student, either,
- Read and synthesize information from at least one media source, or
- Reflect on and analyze information or experiences, or
- Organize information or artistic artifacts; and,
- Communicate perspectives, information, or artwork; and,
- Identify evidence and background information to support ideas; and,
- Develop a distinctive voice on the Internet.
Students are initially instructed on the use of the Computer Science and Technology Department’s blogging tool, which is called Serendipity. After having created a small number of prescribed blog entries, the students are then directed to select their own topic and genre and to post blog entries at least twice a week. The criteria that students’ blogs are evaluated against include the clarity of the blog entry, the entry’s adherence to student’s specified theme, the quality of writing, the initiative and originality displayed in the entry, the visual appeal of the entry, how interesting the post is to other readers, and whether the author responds to comments. So far feedback has been positive by most Web Expressions instructors, indicating that students are enjoying blogging and finding it to be a useful mechanism for expression on the World Wide Web.
The students in CyberEthics are typically very sophisticated users of technology and, therefore, much less time is spent on explaining how to set up the blog and how to add an entry. In fact, without help from the instructor of the course, many students customize the look and feel of the blog space to create a unique home for their writings. This step is one of the first toward getting students to develop a distinctive voice on the Internet.
In addition to the students being different, the goals for blogging use in CyberEthics are different than those for Web Expressions. In past semesters, the papers written for CyberEthics have had the feel of work written for an audience of one, namely, the instructor of the course. Therefore, the primary goal for the use of blog entries in place of traditional papers is to get students to begin to think of a larger audience for their work and, we hope, to take the work more seriously. Rather than being read and graded by a single instructor, the students are acutely aware of the fact that others will be reading their work. In fact, some of the writing assignments require students to read and respond to their classmates’ blog entries. Getting students to write for readers other than the instructor seems to be working well as the quality of many of the entries seems to be higher than the quality of the traditional papers used in past semesters. We have not noticed outside responses to the blog entries yet but perhaps future writing assignments can be more carefully crafted to try to elicit such response.
Although there are many benefits to using blogs in the classroom, there are some dangers as well. As soon as someone develops a new means to communicate over the Internet, someone else figures out a way to exploit it for commercial gain. In particular, the pornography and the spam industries have programs that look for blogs. When a blog is found, the programs place links to the porn or spam site in either the comments section of the blog or the top referrers list. The blog then has a direct link to pornography or spam, which is typically not desirable. Faculty and students should keep this in mind when setting up new blogs and use a variety of mechanisms to prevent this activity. These mechanisms usually require customization of the blog. For example, the top referrers feature may have to be removed.
We have described two examples of how blogging is currently being used on campus, but many other possibilities exist. Providing students with a new technology for engaging in the writing process just might be a creative spark that brings new energy to that process. Additionally, PSU’s Information Technology Services group is working on campus-wide blogging support, so that students and faculty will have easy-to-use blogging tools readily available to them.
Blogging Links
The following article appeared in the Faculty Voice column of the Spring 2005 Out of WAC Newsletter.
Grammar As a Rancher's Chore
by Lynn Rudmin-Chong
Here I stand, at the second meeting of Advanced Composition, spring term 2005. My plans include a handout compiling seven sentences gleaned from students' writing samples. Because I require the Little, Brown Compact Handbook among their texts, I'll have them practice using it. Another handout is sunny yellow and shares their self-described writing challenges, divulged that first class.
"I have trouble wording things, and a little bit of trouble with grammar mistakes"; "I write fragmented sentences and run-ons, and could use more diverse vocabulary"; "paragraphing, starting new paragraphs instead of running them together as I do. I am bad with proof-reading"; and "(Editing) getting past dependence on others - I'd like to have more confidence in my abilities to discern what is strong and what is weak in my writing"; and "I am a writing major but am uncomfortable with mechanics, spelling, punctuation."
The gate is open; they worry enough about writing mechanics -- and most of them are third-, fourth-, fifth-year English majors, many in the writing option -- that I can go ahead confidently and review with them their seven sentences. I've marked the sentences with the number/letter "codes" used to organize the examples and explanations in the Little, Brown Compact Handbook.
I share with the class that in my just-finished Winterim Advanced Composition class of sixteen students, probably two actually worked on improving their writing to meet standard English requirements. "We had only three weeks together," I tell this new class. I understand; I forgive. English mechanics can be only remotely -- if at all -- interesting to most. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him or her drink.
"You've a whole term before you. Of you twenty here, it may be three of you who work consistently on correct usage and mechanics. It is up to you. Your choice." I have their attention even more when I say, "Last year I had a student who calculated that each hour and fifteen minutes of Advanced Composition cost him $86.72. That's before the interest on his loans. He never missed class, and he wanted to do everything he could to make his money well spent. He did this work on his mechanics and grammar."
"Some of you will want to use your writing professionally. This may be the last time you have a chance to conform, really learn English -- standard English. Not knowing why you use a comma, or what pronoun to use before that gerund might be the equivalent, sometime, of wearing the wrong kind of clothes to work. Embarrassing." Heads are nodding, male as well as female. I put green Expo pen to white board and give them a visual lesson about gerunds, and how they can require possessive pronouns. His running. My skiing. I tell them, "Many of you are such avid and observant readers that you already know this and do it, but may not know why." I see agreement on their faces, also relief. Some of what they do correctly is safe, just unconscious.
I have them open their handbooks, pointing out that inside the front cover in short form are all the concerns of the book. To know reasons behind their choices, however, they really need to use the colored page-edge tabs and look at samples, read explanations. This book is an oasis. I have them look at the index in the back. Picky, picky! Everything is here. Not just gerunds, but "gerund phrases defined," "grammar/style checkers for," "possessives before," and "after verbs."
They work in pairs on the seven needy sentences, and I am satisfied to overhear the conversations when they collaboratively puzzle. The Little, Brown Compact Handbook does a fine section on wordiness, and the instances in the seven sentences I've marked 16 or 16e (for general wordiness, for wordiness involving there is /there are forms) inspire conversation all around the room. Never before have I mentioned Caleb's calculation of $86.72 per class or wearing wrong clothes to work. Is that it?
We have such an enthusiastic coming together over the corrections that I wonder why it is in my sixtieth year, my maybe thirty-third year of teaching, that I've finally done this well? Is it the era? The room? These particular students? The seven sentences themselves which, I've told them, probably encompass what most students are prone to for stumbling? I tell them, "I will mark your sentences, this first homework, with the numbers and letters. I will do it once more with your mid-term portfolio essays, but that's all. It adds about a half hour per paper for me to do this. Maybe three of you will actually use my hard work." They laugh. I do too.
Another semester I expressed to students that I am "probably weird." In seventh and eighth grade in New York State, where the teachers prepared us for the Regents Examinations, I paid devoted attention to Mrs. Allen. I loved learning everything she had to teach about English. We had two English classes each of those junior high years: English - reading to do, and Language Arts - mechanics and grammar. Both of them suited my brain to a T. I had a long list of favorite books. I wanted to diagram sentences, as we did in Language Arts, and I remember most of us did plunge in and enjoy that. It was puzzle-solving. We looked for complex sentences, thinking we could stump Mrs. Allen or at least each other. We understood exactly what was lacking in "graduating high school" or "graduating college," heard or read these days everywhere, even on National Public Radio. You couldn't join high school or college to the sentence, diagrammed, without the preposition from. Imagine speaking that way, writing that way! We loved our drills with gerunds and other participles.
Something else: when I told that particular class, "I am probably weird, but.," a couple of women and men signaled with facial expressions that they, too, like standard English's challenges. Later I discovered that they planned to go into teaching.
Shouldn't university graduates feel comfortable with standard English? Don't we owe them this corralling and rounding up, which we programmatically promise when we take charge of them in a writing class or a class designated to have a writing focus? Yet, it's mildly embarrassing for some teachers to pay attention to what may seem flourishes, no more than that, because punctuation is off or grammar is not standard. It feels so much more positive to regard imagination. Yet, I maintain it can be done with a good handbook and with the weather on our side: the students who improve are people putting in extra time, puzzling.
The following article appeared in the Faculty Voice column of the Fall 2004 Out of WAC Newsletter.
Breaking the Ice: Using personal narrative, personification and visual metaphors to access art
By Elizabeth D'Amico, Art Department
Exploration of the Visual Arts is a course offered for non-art majors by the Plymouth State University art department. Some of the students taking this course have not practiced art since elementary or middle school, but most have taken a basic art course in high school. While many of the students don't feel comfortable using the language of art, everyone feels comfortable in a free write situation that will not be graded. I begin the semester with a writing activity that exposes students to a variety of artists and artistic styles, which also serves as a way to discover how art communicates through visual metaphor. This exercise is originally from an article in Art Education, but, long before I had read that article, I had used visuals as writing prompts.
I display approximately 50 postcards or calendar size prints of portraits including paintings, sculptures and photographs from a variety of different art styles and periods. Students are instructed to quickly select one of the portraits on the basis of feeling an immediate connection with the portrait. It doesn't matter whether the individual in the portrait is male or female, just as long as there is a strong connection.
After selecting a portrait, students begin a free write using first person narrative as if they are the person in the portrait. They write the first thoughts that enter their heads with no worry about syntax or audience. They answer the basic question of how it feels to be the person in the portrait. Writing should continue for five to eight minutes and is usually very vivid and personal - often including metaphors.
The second step is to select an inanimate object found within the portrait such as the hat the person is wearing, the bench they are sitting on or a tree in the background landscape. This object is then personified and answers the question of how it feels to be in this image. Students use their imaginations in a playful way where anything goes. Humor is often part of this step, and students begin to see new relationships within the work as well as becoming more keenly aware of the entire image. Once again, writing usually continues for about five minutes.
The third step is a bit more personal, and students need a reminder that most of the writing will be for their eyes only. This step goes back to the initial reasons for selecting a particular portrait: what was the immediate connection they first felt with the portrait? This time, they write first person narrative, candidly answering the question of how they personally are like the portrait. This step often brings up surprising memories that may have been long forgotten, but it specifically establishes a strong bond between the viewer and the portrait. This step often continues a few minutes longer than the previous steps.
The fourth step usually comes as a surprise and has surprising results. Students are told to exchange portraits with someone else in class and write what it would feel like to be the person in their partner's portrait. There should be no discussion. This step is often not as easy at first because there was no immediate connection between the viewer and the portrait. This step often continues a few minutes longer than the other steps.
After students finish writing, I ask them to carefully read through all they have written and underline any statements that are too personal to share. Once this is done, students are instructed to take turns reading aloud everything that was not underlined to their partners. I emphasize that they must read rather than paraphrase since this is less subjective. Students may at first feel awkward about this activity, but they soon discover there is much to be learned from the exercise. To their surprise, some find their partner's interpretations dramatically different from their own interpretation.
When all students have had a chance to finish reading aloud, we have a large group discussion to share similarities and surprise differences. Most see that each viewer brings his own unique set of experiences to a work of art and that his interpretation may be dramatically different from others.
Students are then asked to write a metaphor for the portrait they have chosen. Some examples of metaphor are usually necessary, and a few students need a bit more time to think of an appropriate metaphor. Given time for reflective writing, such as a homework assignment, students write fascinating metaphors:
- “Determination is a raging fire burning under control.” - Michael Neveln, ‘05
In reference to Junge mit Ball by Karl Hofer - “I am a bird, wishing to be free.” - Joe Goss, graduate student
In reference to a self portrait by Frida Kahlo - “Deep thought is hundreds of waves mixing the sand on the ocean floor.” - Tina Ernst, ‘05
In reference to The Blue Eyes by Henri Matisse - “A broken heart is an endless dark sky overhead.” - Alexandra Tuttle, ‘07
In reference to The White Girl by James McNeill Whistler
The reflective writing homework assignment is a participation grade only. Students include as much or as little from their free write as they wish. Reflective writing reveals the importance and depth of this activity:
“For the same [portrait], one [student] perceived a weary man who had been working all day in the sun, while another saw a tranquil man relaxing while the world bustled around him. [My partner] ... twice saw the image of an oppressed unhappy woman in two distinct images, which lead me to question if she were releasing some part of her own inner struggle.... We can see how past experiences have shaped thinking and how personalities take hold of judgment. The portraits seemed to have the same affects as ink blots might have, revealing inner emotions that we might not be able to discover through different measures.” - Ben Conte, ‘07
“I really wasn't sure why I had chosen the portrait Young Girl Writing (Vermeer) until I started to write. I found that I liked the brightness of the painting and the smile of the girl, but there was something else. As I thought more about it, I found myself wondering who I would write to. Then the story became filled with details related to my life... During the discussion process, I discovered that my partner began by describing the girl too. Although, from then on, her story was completely different. She added her own unique life experiences. I learned that everyone has individual experiences and memories that influence their outlook on art.” - Jamie Roy, ‘05
“I learned from [this experience] that I enjoy art. I look back now and see that I always have, but was too worried about my skill level to attempt any art work. My goal is to continue working and seeing where I might be able to go from what I have already learned in the first week.” Mike Neveln, ‘05
I find this opening session of free writing, one-on-one sharing, group discussion and reflective writing to be a valuable tool in breaking the ice for non-art students. I also get to know them better almost immediately. Within just one class period, students are already becoming more comfortable with each other, discussing art on a more sophisticated and tangible level, and most importantly, looking forward to better understanding their own art as well as works from art history. Hopefully, they will take this experience with them for future forays into the art world of museums or any other art-related endeavors they may have in the future.
Elizabeth D'Amico is an adjunct faculty member of the Art Department at Plymouth State University.
The original source of this activity is from the article “I Am the Dark Forest”: Personal Analogy as a Way to Understand Metaphor by Patricia James in the September 2000 issue of Art Education.
