Compositional Enlightenment Revisited

I don't know how many of you will read this since the class is practically complete.  However, I just wanted to make a final post that you may catch when nostalgically revisiting the blog someday.  If you don't want to read what I learned from blogging in Eng 529a, then just go to the bottom.  I have a list of thank yous to each person associated with the class (that I can remember).  If I skipped your name, let me know.  I'll put in a thank you :)  So now on to how I've been enlightened in this class...

Things I Learned From This Class 

(This is my enlightenment inspired font choice. Classy looking, huh? )

I find communicating on blogs difficult.

• There's just too much time to think.  I second guess myself in ways that I do not verbally.  If I say something off-putting (as I have been known to do), I know immediately and can try to diffuse it.  However, if I type it into a blog, not only do my colleagues and faculty know I say foolish things, but so does whoever chooses to mosey into our blog.
• When I did write on the blog, I tried to synthesize or compare a couple of readings, all of which were brand new to me.  Perhaps that was engaging well, or perhaps it was overcommitment.  Regardless, it made that part of the blogging process take concerted effort, and thus limited how much I posted.
• In the comments section I had some trepidation too.  Many (though not all) of the people in the class are from the same school. When they talked, there was a familiarity that I knew I did not have.  I felt like I might be intruding on a conversation between friends.

• I do think that writing on blogs has use in that it makes students creatively interact with the readings.  It certainly forced me to read deeply.  I might include it in a class on interpersonal communication to allow students to evaluate the differences between face to face and mediated communication.

Foucault is not always depressing--just usually.  He also looks like Christopher Lloyd

•  Discourses of power own me in my class.  It wasn't until after reading Foucault (again) that I realized how unquestioningly I follow argumentative structures in my classes.  Seriously.  I never even questioned it.

The concept of "voice" is as volatile here as in other disciplines.

•  Voice in composition is analogous to agency in the communication world.  Marx's ideas of structure and superstructure didn't allow enough space for people to choose.  Theorists Burke granted much greater agency to the rhetor.  Giddens created structuration as kind of a middle ground between the two (an extreme oversimplification, I know).
• Interestingly, one of the biggest debates in Theology is Arminianism, vs. Calvinism.  Arminianism states that we choose our faith and we choose our destiny.  Calvinism is much more deterministic.
• All these perspectives ask "Do we make ourselves, or do our surroundings make us"?  The arguments about the maker and the made transcend discipline.  I've come to the conclusion that the made or being made is just a question about the human condition that we will never solve.  I also believe that voice, structure/agency, nature/nurture, Calvinism/Arminianism might just be false binaries.

Bob Flannagan.  Wow.
 

•  Personal, painful performance art in my composition class?  Crip theory?  I found this section to be the most challenging in the class and the most personally condemning.  Why don't I want to use these pedagogical tools in my class?  It has nothing to do with composition and everything to do with me.  I'm too uncomfortable with the human body and all it's variations to do this.  Maybe I will improve in the future.

 The language I use in my syllabus says more about me than about the class I'm designing.  Scary. 

• I will never look at a syllabus the same way again. Personal pronouns are more revealing than I had ever considered.  I wonder if the theory by which I structure my classes is undermined by the very was I position myself in writing in relation to my students.  I just had not questioned this at all either.

The Division between English Composition and Communication had political underpinnings that have only made the division even greater.

• I find it humorous that if you wanted to teach public speaking, or I wanted to teach composition, we would be viewed as interdisciplinary.  The divisions we have made are being proven more and more arbitrary, but the political structure, rhetoric, and economics of the University demonstrate that there will be no reuniting anytime soon.

 The English department has some pretty good folks in it.

• So, looking back on the class and the blog, I think I've discovered much about the theory that is out there, and what I am doing wrong.  So I'll finish with a round of thanks to everyone in class.  If I skip anyone, I apologize, I'm going on memory here, and my brain is full.

 

The Official Thank You List

Thanks, Dr. Rouzie, for reeling me in when I went adrift, and for directing me to WAC.  I think this discourse will inform my scholarship for years.

Thanks Dede, for working with me on my late draft.

Thanks Brianna, for letting me know when I'm not funny and being nice to me anyway.  Also, thanks for your website.  I plan to actually use it to figure out that Twitter thingee.

Thanks Matt squared.  The double Matt powerhouse kept the conversation interesting, and gave me someone to commiserate on living with grad school and young kids.

Thanks Amanda, for promoting Appalachia, and for directing my emails to the appropriate people.

Thanks Sarah, for always asking the questions that I couldn't pretend to answer.

Thanks Ashley, for letting me know I did not make you (entirely) angry 

Thanks DC for writing about topics that I am utterly uninformed about.  Bifflebonk my friend.

Thanks Kate, for voicing your opinion about what needs to be treated with caution.  Just because an analogy works, does not mean it is wise or helpful.

Thanks Hillery, for always excellent and clear presentations.  You know what you think and why you think it.  That level of articulation never ceases to amaze me.

Thanks, Jonathan, for showing me how blogging is done.  I am impressed with how you use this medium.

Thanks Simone, for commenting on my blog posts and identifying with my concerns.  It made me feel more a part of the class, and I really appreciate it!

Thanks, James for introducing me to Postman.  I know its hard to believe, but I'd previously read nothing from Postman.  My future in argumentation will be drawing a bit upon him.

Yours Truly…

(The Now Enlightened) Aaron Duncan

Post class discussion :P

Hey, I just realized I never posted a post class discussion...

I wanted to (belatedly) thank everyone for participating in two really heavy readings in one class period.  We'll just say that since the session title was "Post Everything"  I decided to delay the discussion to when we'd completed everything because I'm that witty.  It isn't true, but we'll go with it. 

Sarah, I hope your date sacrifice will not be in vain.  Critical rhetoric does have much to offer, but, as Dr. Rouzie pointed out after my original post, maybe the direct desire to connect theory and pedagogy together is itself problematic.  Regardless, the fact that so many of you read it, and interacted on specific points of interest moved the conversation forward.  I really did not expect the volatility with the discussion on plagiarism, so I wish I'd spent more time linking it to critical rhetoric.  Maybe it could inform our understanding of plagiarism to some degree.  Sarah's question about doxa an kairos, and where voice rests in critical rhetoric made me think.  I had no idea where voice would be.  I've come to the conclusion that voice rests with the critic's agency to continue questioning.  Even though meaning arrives collectively, the ability to continue to question it gives voice to the individual "calling in the wilderness".  Or, at least that's a thought.

Also, Dr. Rouzie dismissed one of my arguments concerning postmodernism as "old" and not necessarily worthy of consideration.  We will meet again Dr. Rouzie!  :)  Actually, I'd like to engage it further some day, because I think it's a rather valid argument (but I'm of course the learner here).

Thanks again everybody!

Aaron

Finals Week + Caffeine Crash + The Doors = Blog Reflection

This is the End,

my only friend, the End.

I'm going to take a page from Amanda's book/blog and begin with some background concerning my own experience with them that, I hope, will provide some insight (to at least me) about my own work in the 592 blog this quarter.  I have always been intrigued by the concept of blogs, but have found that every time I attempt my own I fail miserably.  I had the same problem with diaries and journals as a child.  I do so thoroughly love freewriting though -- that to me is always a liberating experience.  So I wonder, why am I okay with freewriting and not so much with blogging?  I think a lot of it has to do with structure.  The posts I've done this quarter have all taken me about and hour and a half to two hours to compose, and they weren't even that structured.  

And yet I had incredible anxiety writing them the entire time, just as I'm having incredible anxiety writing this one.  Blogs are public, too.  Oh so public.  Not that I'm opposed to public sharing (I have a Facebook, after all) but I guess I just get extra nervous when I know I have to write something as intelligent as the posts of my peers and that is a daunting, unpleasant task for me.  Whereas freewriting is pretty private and requires no structure.

I guess I'm bringing a different perspective to the "blog as a good way to continue the discussions of class" perspective in that while yes, I do believe it functions as that for some people, I don't feel like it really functions that way for me as I would like it to.  For example, I've noticed that what I like about in-class discussion is the opportunity to process out loud.  I don't feel like I have to come to class with a definite, structured thing to say about the readings.  Rather, I like that I can come with vague ideas, throw them out there, and get different perspectives on it.  Whereas in the blogosphere, I feel like I have to be structurally and logically sound before I post anything.  Does any of this make sense or is it purely idiosyncratic?  Is it just that old devil resistance?

So maybe blogging is good after all, because it forces me to engage in a way I don't necessarily want to -- maybe it's good because I have to beat resistance to do it.  But at the same time, I personally have felt largely disconnected when moving within the space of the blog.  I guess it's a perspective thing, and I'm not quite sure how to go about changing mine to match others'.  We had to blog in Victorian Lit and I felt the same way about it as I do now.  I did, however, enjoy creating the wiki in that class for my final project, so I don't know what that's all about. Maybe because it was clearly rooted in my final, and therefore I felt the urgency of the situation that helped me compose.  Just speculations, really.  

I also want to say that even though I myself haven't had the most positive experience blogging doesn't mean I haven't thoroughly enjoyed reading everyone's posts.  It gives me great hope to read everything you guys write because so far I haven't seen anything unsophisticated aside from my own ruminations.  My personal favorite aspect of the blog has been the ever-shifting background image, videos, memes, and picture sharing that you all have used to demonstrate your intellectual connections to pop culture and your senses of humor -- sides of you I have enjoyed creeping on.

I'll just leave this here :)

Placing Theory

My suspicion is that my whole sense of what it means to blog will forever be influenced by the first essay I read on the subject, which coincided with the first blogging I ever did in my life , and which, coincidentally, was also the first real online posting I had ever done in any way shape or form.

The first kind of research or work on blogging I had ever done was, like Matthew, in the Computers and Composition course, where I read Tim Lindgren’s Kairos article, “Blogging Places: Locating Pedagogy in the Whereness of Weblogs.” Overall, Lindgren looks at blogging as a way of building and sharing place- connections on a potentially global scale…blogging our localized “places” builds those relationships for ourselves, and potentially gives readers around the world examples of place-connection that they can utilize or modify for their own locales. The underlying effect of reading this essay so early in my experience with blogs is that I tend to look at all blogging as a place-building process. My sense is that, perhaps not wholly consciously, I’ve been looking at my blog entries as a way to dig me a nice little niche in theory land where I can live out my days (maybe with a dog and a nice garden out back). So it’s possible that my mental susceptibility has actually crystallized into a definition of “blogging” that I can’t shake, for better or worse.

I’m not sure this is entirely the best thing, depending on how you look at it. I can certainly see the danger of theoretical entrenchment, or entrenchment of any kind, as a potential negative. But looking back at the blogging I’ve done, I do see a themes emerging, and I’m not sure how to feel about that. Is there anything necessarily bad about establishing particular interests? Must it follow that, in forming interests or ideas, we somehow—even unknowingly—shut out others? Ultimately, I think what this has done for my sense of blogging and academic writing is to influence my approach to blogging as still somewhat solitary—I use it to build a sense within and for myself, more perhaps than to converse directly with others. Whether or not this becomes a problem depends, I suppose, on the blog in question and its wider purpose. Case in point: could anyone other than me possibly get much from this particular entry?

Blogging About Blogging

Before this quarter, the only other time I had to write on a blog was the last time I took a class with Dr. Rouzie. (Computers and Composition course). At the time (Winter 2011), I realized that not only was I not particularly good at design or bringing in images, video, links, etc to my posts. As I reviewed my posts for this quarter, I see that that is still the case. The only time I used images or links was when I posted my introductory and reflective posts for our discussion on Gee’s article. All of my other posts were just text. So, to avoid the “just text” post again, I think I’ll bring in some images:

Here, of course, I’m mainly bringing in images because I found them funny, I wanted to be multi-modal, and because my medium allows it. Of course, as I started getting at in my post on Yancey, sometimes I wonder about the necessity of being multi-modal.

Certainly others in the class have demonstrated a wonderful ability to use images, videos, etc very effectively. I applaud everyone’s efforts in making this blog multi-modal. The multi-modal features have greatly increased my enjoyment of many others’ posts. Generally, others’ multi-modal components had a pretty clear purpose.

Beyond the multi-modal components and capabilities, however, I found the function and use of the blog this quarter to be very important for me in both reading others’ posts and adding my own. The main advantage in my view is that on the blog I’ve read others’ great contributions to our discussion and application of the readings that we did not get to in class discussion. This considerably increased my understanding of some of the readings.

One disadvantage to the in-class discussion (which is always the case): With the way conversation and discussion goes in class, we just can’t cover all the readings as thoroughly as we might like. So, some readings are left with little attention. Additionally, as discussion moves in one direction, people usually only add something that is related to what is being discussed, and so those random unrelated things some of us would like to add or discuss from the readings might be left unsaid.

This is where I think the blog helped make up for some of the disadvantages of the discussion. For a couple of my posts, I wrote about readings that I thought hadn’t been discussed very much in class but that I had something to say about. Others in class did the same thing. I’m sure most of us know that feeling of frustration when in other classes we’ve read 4 or 5 articles for each class and then only discussed 2 of them, never returning to the neglected articles. This is one reason I liked the blog. We had a space to discuss the articles we didn’t have much time for in class.

Feeling Peculiar. Peculiar!?

First, I would like to echo others’ sentiments of weariness from writing finals. For me, this post comes in-between finishing a 20 page essay for History of the English Language and restarting my final essay. So, if this post isn’t very eloquent or insightful, I apologize.

I was considering posting Mr. Harding’s therapy session from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest as front material for this post, but the video is somewhat offensive, and I thought, unproductive in this setting. Nevertheless, if you’d like to laugh along with me while your reading, feel free to Google.

It was interesting to read some posts, which found this space to be more perfunctory than productive. My “approach” to this writing space has been to wait to post until I felt as if I had to write something (not in the sense that I waited until the deadline to post, although that might have happened on once occasion, but rather I felt that if I my writing and thinking would be better if I waited until I couldn’t not write). For me, then, at least, I felt like my writing in this space was engaging for me as a writer. Of course, I don’t assume that it as was engaging for any readers.

Like many of you, I think that a “required” move, when using a blog space in a classroom setting is critiquing the blog, yes, in terms of its affordances, but also in terms of what it expects from us as writers. If we don’t do this, inevitably, the space becomes a remediation of that kind of writing we all hate doing, something akin to the weekly reading reflection, which exists more for accountability purposes than it does to encourage engagement with the reading (or, at least, this has been my experience). So, I think that this final blog posting is, potentially, the most useful to me personally, because it gives us space to reflect upon the material constraints of the space, and the way such a space has acted upon us, has generated certain outcomes and responses.

In another way, because this writing comes at such a difficult (physically, mentally, emotionally) time in the year, the writing seems to be influenced and predominated by those factors, so that this writing (any writing) feels almost hollow.

What I most enjoy(ed) about the blog space—getting a sense for all of your writing, and seeing how our online discussions are influencing each other’s thought processes, areas of interest, scholarship. Even if we weren’t all as engaged with the space as I found myself being, I enjoyed getting a feel for others’ writing, and this is something that we almost never get to do in a graduate seminar. For example, I found myself increasingly drawn to Matt Vetter’s posts because his approaches always seem well thought out, interesting, and vetted (hehehe) in theory. Similarly, Ashley’s engaged posts almost always seemed to take a different approach to the material than I typically would, so it was interesting to get a layered reading of our canon of texts. 

In any case, I found that this experience was challenging and fulfilling, but I don’t expect everyone to feel the same way. I enjoyed learning from everyone in this space and throughout this quarter, and I hope that my utilization of this space has, likewise, been at least somewhat beneficial as well.

Late(ly) I've Been Thinking...

First, my apologies for being a little late on this. I thought that we'd moved the due date for the self-reflection posts back to the 7th, but I'm guessing since everyone has already posted, that I wrote that down wrong.  And I was putting this off, because I'm actually really uncomfortable with doing this self-reflection in a public space. I asked Dr. Rouzie about sending this to him as an email instead of posting it here, but that was a no-go.  So, I'm struggling with how to modify my self-reflection with an awareness of how that reflection may deepen some of the divides that shaped my blog participation.

It's been obvious all quarter that we came into the classroom with different expectations from the seminar format, and with different levels of dis/comfort with the way that we each enacted those expectations.  Here, I'm going to borrow from Ashley to discuss how that difference appeared to me.

Ashely writes:

What I'm arguing is that we should [be forced to] engage with the material we read. Class discussion doesn't really cut it because this is what discussion is actually like:

Someone: blahblahblah what I think

Someone: *cuts them off* blahblah this is what I study and it's great

Someone: well I do this with my students and it's always been great

Someone: FOUCAULT

Someone: blahblah unrelated 12-minute ranting

Someone: name droppers be droppin'

Someone: I disagree *cries* 

Dr. Rouzie: let's talk about the article? thanks for coming. 

 How I see the seminar discussion:

Someone: I read Article X or Theorist Y as saying Z" and that makes me wonder about Z+something else.

Someone: *jumps in* Hey, what if we look at it through the lens of this other theorist/y?

Someone: offers an example from his own classroom experience, helping to ground the theory and deepen our understanding of it

Someone: FOUCAULT

Someone: synthesizes the class discussion with his own work and discusses possible intersections that would otherwise not be available to the members of the seminar, thus increasing everyone's breadth of understanding about the larger academic discussion.

Someone: engages theory/ist Y and theorists/ies A, B, and C and identifies useful tensions/agreements/confusions between and among them.

Someone: disagrees, which is often the most useful part of the discussion because it lets the other someones know when they've gone off the rails about X, Y, or Z... and isn't the point of seminar to float ideas that we might later develop into conference papers/journal articles/dissertation chapters/etc.?

The tension between those of us who are the someones who experience seminar discussion the way that Ashley has experienced it, and those of us who experience it as useful, generative discourse, was really palpable in this seminar, and it's a tension that I don't think I've felt so keenly since I was an undergraduate. I was deeply aware of the ways in which my own participation exacerbated the frustration that others were feeling, and spent a lot of time this quarter reflecting on how to mitigate that without losing what is the most valuable part of the academic process for me, exactly that intense engagement with peers that is how I experience seminar discussion.

I was also keenly aware of failing to do a good job mitigating my role in frustrating others, of being someone who Ashley has described as a "name-dropper'" and whose contributions she heard as rants or as blahblahblah.  So I had many stern conversations with myself about whether or not I should just shut the fuck up.  They went something like this:

Self: Just shut the fuck up in class tomorrow, Self, okay?  Really.  Give it a rest.
Self: But the only way I understand this material is by engaging in the conversation, and I really need to understand this stuff if I'm going to do anything in the field.
Self: Seriously.  Just shut the fuck up.
Self: It's seminar.  That's like saying "just don't turn in the final paper" or "don't prepare for your presentation." Self, you're essentially telling me not to do the work of the class.
Self: No, I'm not. I'm telling you to shut the fuck up.
Self: How about if I just say less?
Self: Good luck with that.

I made an effort to say less, and to identify when was I was saying was boring/angering/frustrating someone(s) else. I moved to the back of the classroom.  I bought an iPad and took more notes on what other people had to say as a way to synthesize the material.

It never felt like it made very much of a difference, largely because I don't understand why the conversation is frustrating to other people and so it's hard to know how to modify my behavior to meet needs that I don't understand and which were never made clear to me.

All of which gets, finally, to self-reflecting on my participation on the blog.  I used it as a space to practice shutting the fuck up most of the time.  So my responses were limited.  I understood that I was making it difficult for some people to speak in the classroom, and didn't want to replicate that experience on the blog. I didn't want to extend the discomfort of the classroom to this medium.

So, before I close, I want to say that in quoting Ashley, I am not trying to "call her out" or criticize her; only to respond to her post.  I'm thankful to her for addressing this tension so openly, because it gave me a place of entry into the conversation for my ow self-reflection. Which, again, I am really uncomfortable with now having done.

Sarah