I am going to try to “lower the bar” a little from “Golden Glova” and “Laude Lisa” so the rest of our scribes won’t have such a high standard to meet!
First, before delving into the afternoon activities of our Writing and Technology’s class, I have a powerful need to acknowledge that our class’s premier scribe, Sarah Glova, has placed the proverbial bar very high in her first record of our class’s morning activities. Thus, I am feeling the equivalent of a Napoleon complex, except that I’m almost 5’10—it’s some kind of envy that I’m mislabeling, I’m sure. Given this current onslaught of insecurity, here is a tragically less inspired account of how the W&T class spent the rest of our first day together . . . After Dr. Engel’s rousing lecture on the vast historical and literary importance of the delightful and apparently saint-like Jane Austen, the class relaxed and enjoyed tasty sandwiches, chips and cookies. After this Honey-Baked repast, we began our afternoon work with a syllabus review led by Kevin Oliver (of the aforementioned banger conspiracy). Kevin started his speech by steadily and clearly summarizing the technical requirements of the Writing and Technology course, and by reminding all that this is a graduate level class.
Some immediate details: Students will receive an adapter for use in England; we can ask more about voltage, etc. as we approach lift-off to the UK. Ruie then interjected that students will also be supplied with digital cameras—sweet! Many students murmured appreciatively over this unforeseen boon. Kevin continued that there will be Wi-Fi on the Guilford campus and suggested that for the most efficient communication with folks back home, students should set up a Skype account before leaving the U.S. Everyone--please be sure to turn your cell phone off before arrival in the UK—not doing so could cost you big bucks. Next, Kevin covered the major assignments for the W&T class, emphasizing academic rigor, but also encouraging everyone that the assignments are all very doable. He also touched a bit on grading and rubrics; students perused these tools in the syllabus as Kevin explained the details. Much of the student grade for the Writing and Tech course is driven by participation, a participation that includes an enthusiastic use of technology. Students will save projects at Weebly.com in our personal Weebly portfolios. During this, our first class, students began small writing assignments, and these assignments along with all of our writing will ultimately be collected and stored on our respective Weebly portfolio pages. Again, please refer to rubrics to understand the details of how assignments will be scored. Schedule: Currently, the schedule for our trip is as detailed as instructors can make it. While in the States, students should pay attention to post-class assignments, including surveys, reading, discussion boards, and more. For every class we will complete follow-up reading and subsequent discussion—both online and in the physical classroom at Poe Hall. Upon arrival in the UK, Kevin recommends not eating out too much because of price; however, we will have a pub-walk our first? day in England The first weekend overseas will be free, (unscheduled), and train passes will be provided to students. Many people will probably want to visit London; possibilities there include the Market—shopping with Kevin—or the Globe—standing in awe of Shakespeare. Kevin continued to discuss highlights of past and future trips, and explained that the class is designed so as to align technology with our outings; thus, we will merge writing and images in creative tech projects using fun tech tools. We will both collect and employ media throughout the entirety of this course. Please note the class’s scheduled free days and free attractions—museums, etc. Furthermore, the class will meet with international students and travel to Oxford with these other students on their buses. Each of us will be paired with another international student. Later, we will employ Xtranormal or Toondoo to illustrate this experience. Pay attention to your assignments; the first major one will be the expository assignment. This afternoon we will craft a “Where I’m From” poem and later will use Prezi to display the work. Again, the pub on campus has WiFi for both work and pleasure. If you are interested in the Royal Family, there are many places to visit, and given the summer schedule, Buckingham Palace may be open. We have many other options to travel about the country on our free days. Post-trip, we will meet on a Saturday to share our final project, and some students may also receive a grant to go to Salter Path in the spring for another Writing and Technology meeting. On a side-note, if you have any information that needs to be changed on the class roster list, let Sara know and she will take care of it. Thus endeth the syllabus review. Where We’re From Mike, another class instructor, rose to warmly introduce the “Where I’m From” poem, our first writing assignment. He began his teaching time with us by outlining his varied academic and professional experience and by instilling general trust. Mike stated that the “Where I’m From” poem is a cool way to introduce poetry about the self. Teachers often ruin the poetic experience for students by shutting kids down for misinterpreting a poem. Instead, Mike suggested that we give students multiple reading models, prompt them, allow for imitations, and simultaneously celebrate diversity and individuality. However, Mike stated that as teachers, we should probably emphasize how we are the same more than how we’re different, thus valuing similarities and making positive interpersonal connections. Using details from childhood settings and experience, the “Where I’m From” poems are a fast way to learn more about your students and what they bring in/to the classroom. WIF poems also help with writing apprehension, and Mike stressed the importance of building up writer confidence, student confidence, and making students feel safe in the classroom and beyond. After classmate Curtis eloquently delivered an original “Where I’m From” poem by George Ella Lyon, Mike modeled how to make reader connections to specifics details, images or nouns from the poem. Next, in guided practice, the class spent about half an hour brainstorming individual background information for our own “Where I’m From” creation, and Mike shared his WIF poem as well as other examples of “Where I’m From” work in music and spoken word. Once we’d all gathered a good page of personal history, (details from childhood homes, yards, neighborhoods, family sayings, etc.) class members began to create individual WIF poems . . . For about twenty minutes students and instructors drafted “Where I’m From” poems, and then each student shared his work with his peers. We learned more about each other during this brief exercise than we did throughout the rest of the day. WEEBLY.COM After a break, Megan Poole took the floor and introduced Weebly. Whoo! Go Weebly! We can go to SurreyTeachers.weebly.com anytime we want access to notes from or about this class. The Blog at Weebly is where we post our scribe reports, and students can review the main ideas of each class session. For posting scribe notes, login to the weebly (www.weebly.com). Click on the "blog", choose New Post, title it, and cut and paste your scribe notes (which is what Sarah and I will do after today’s session). If you’ve never been on a Weebly account, you need to accept the initial email invitation and subsequently create your own Weebly site. Megan showed the class the sundry tools at the site as well as the different locations at Weebly.com, and she further demonstrated the “drag and drop” method. Quote: “It’s very easy; it’s drag-n-drop.” When Megan drag-n-dropped, the technique certainly looked very easy, but the devil is often in the details . . . when one is alone . . . without tech support . . . To edit our Weebly sites, we must go to www.weebly.com and log in. That’s the only way/place to edit, but in order to see what other teachers have posted, you need to visit the surreyteachers.weebly.com location. If you’re still working on a post, and don’t want folks to see any errors, don’t “publish” the work—just “save” it and click “publish” when you’re ready to show your stuff. After this information, the students became busy accessing their Weebly page, adding pictures, etc. in an attempt to catch up with May Chung, the morning’s “signature winner” and the only student who had already posted photos on her Weebly site. If you’ve got a competitive streak, you need to keep an eye on Miss May, student of linguistics and self-declared “daughter of a Tiger mother.” ISSUU Kevin returned, sharing a writing template and ISSUU, which is where we will keep all of our writing assignments. Students can cache all of their writing in one place, embed videos, etc. through use of Issuu. To move material to Weebly from Issuu (lord, it’s a foreign language for me) one must “grab an embed code from the bottom of the ISSUU page, and then go to the Weebly and use the custom HTML block, pasting the code.” Writing and Tech students must learn to use both Weebly and ISSUU—a website editor site and publishing platform, respectively. Whew. Assignment! Post your own “Where I’m From” poem by April 30th, and read everyone else’s work as well. Write at least one sentence regarding each poem created by your classmates for feedback and future discussion. And lastly, don’t forget to read the assigned chapter prior to our next meeting. Respectfully submitted, Lisa Covington On the morning of April 20th, the gray slate of the NC State clock tower faded quietly into a similarly gray sky. The uncharacteristic windy chill and the light drizzle of rain both seemed to say: soon, you will all be in England – so here is a taste of that famous English weather. A warm and brightly lit room met the newest students of ECI 509: Integrating Writing and Technology. We took seats at festively decorated tables that featured small Union Jack flags and maps of the University of Surrey campus. A few participants found comrades from past classes, happily sharing recognition hugs or handshakes. Others sat amongst all strangers but quietly and slowly made acquaintances with neighbors. As group members continued to trail in and collect their nametags, the small space in Poe Hall filled with nervous but excited chatter. In the backdrop, pictures and video from the 2011 class scrolled across the smart boards and projection screens that wallpapered the room. The purpose of the morning was to meet one another and review course basics, but the underscore was a theme of resources and advantages. The following review summarizes the main points of the morning under this theme: our unique course is a wealth of benefits set against unmatched value. Stretching the Borchardt Dollar (or, pound!) In every discussion of processes and policies, the value of this trip became increasingly apparent.
In one discussion, Dr. Ruie Pritchard compared our program to another Borchardt program, one that takes fewer students for less time. Clearly, our program is able to accomplish so much more with the same funding because the directors have ensured that every dollar—or pound!—spent provides a rich but affordable learning experience. Diversity amongst Participants The day one meet-and-greet activity was a “Signature Hunt,” requiring participants to meet students that fit one of many criteria (ex. “I have green eyes” or “I have a motorcycle license” were two examples, but my favorite criterion was the slightly personal "I am available for dates.") This activity was a great way for us to get out of our seats and meet one another, but more important, it was a way to highlight our many different experiences. The program is well balanced, despite the relatively short period it was advertised. A huge pool of applicants had to be reduced by half, and the results included:
May won the timed Signature Hunt challenge, securing 14 signatures. The class mean was 10 signatures, and the “deepest” participants (named such because these participants were obviously more in-depth conversationalists) collected 8 signatures. This activity, along with other activities during our first day, helped to highlight the immense value behind the diversity of our participants. I look forward to learning from everyone, with their different background and experiences, as we complete this adventure together. Measurements Another added value of this course is that the directors have spent time planning how to study the impact of the course on us, the students. We briefly reviewed a series of assessments during the morning session, talking in detail about The Technology Assessment, the Writing Apprehension Instrument, and the Intercultural Development Inventory:
Our First Lecture: Jane Austen, by Dr. Elliot Engel Another example of amazing value is the speaker on the very first day of class. If Dr. Elliot Engel is any indication of the in-depth, brought-to-life author discussions we'll be having through this class, we're all in for a bargin of a rich scholastic adventure. Dr. Engel was an engaging, provocative speaker who brought Jane Austen to life by reviewing her history, the context of her time period, and her overall impact as, “Absolutely the first great author in the English language who was not a man.” It was a fantastic way to begin our academic journey together. The following summary attempts to review Dr. Engel's main points. Dr. Engel began by reviewing why women did not become great authors until Jane Austen. His thesis was this: men controlled the field of literature. He supported this argument with these main points:
So, Dr. Engel argued, not until the novel was created in England in the 1740s and 50s was there a space where women could write successfully. Of course, as he points out, Jane Austen was not immediately successful. She tried to write an epic poem at age 13, but it was—in a word—unimpressive. (“She got up and went to dinner. After which, she wasn’t thinner,” Dr. Engel quoted.) Next, she tried to become the first female historian of England, but as Dr. Engel pointed out with the example of her quipping chapter on Henry the VIII, she did not thrive at that, either. Finally, at 17 years old, she starts and then finishes her first novel in 21 months: Sense and Sensibility (a nice title change from Eleanor and MaryAnne). Dr. Engel reviewed the timeline of her next two novels, Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey, revealing that she published them all before 23. This is a stark contrast from what others are doing at 22. Austen’s life was forever changed by two later events: first, her family moves from the small city of Steventon to the big city of Bath; next, her father dies, and her family’s fortune is spread to distant relatives. Austen, her sister, and her mother experience eight years of homeless house-hoping from brother to brother. Finally, her brother Edward secures a small fortune from an adopted family, which includes an extra house that he gives (rather than rents, luckily) to his mother and sisters. It’s not until Jane has this house to live in safely that she can write again. She will almost immediately write what most English professors consider her masterpiece, Emma. In 1811, Austen is finally published. The title page of first published novel, Sense and Sensibility, reads: Dr. Engel commented on the byline "By a Lady," but noted the change in her next publication. In 1812, Pride and Prejudice was published. This time, the title page read: Dr. Engel pointed out that the title page was just one reflection of how women, even women as successful as Jane Austen, were not accepted as authors. When Austen died in the hospital of Addison’s Disease, she was far too young; yet, she was a very accomplished author. Still, on the monument by her grave, the inscription sings of her piety, her care for the less fortunate, her love for her family… but it says nothing of her written works. Despite her accomplishments, Dr. Engel pointed out that Austen’s writing life was not easy. She kept a parlor door unfixed on purpose, inviting the squeaky hinge to alert her of visitors when she was writing in the parlor. When she heard the squeaky warning, she would quickly hide her writing and then pretend to be knitting or sewing. (Hopefully, we’ll all get to hear the door squeak during a visit!) Additionally, Austen had to write on whatever she could find—backs of envelopes and scrap pieces of paper—because, “Women weren’t allowed to write on regulation paper. She would sew [scraps] together on the end and hold it together in her hand to see how much she had written.” Just one more example of how Austen was a female author in the age of no female authors. Dr. Engel’s closing argument was this: Austen was “the greatest comic ironist in the English language” who wrote what she was good at, which was following a few families through the adventures of marrying their daughters. Dr. Engel helped us review basic irony (ex. “The fire station is unsafe”) and great irony (ex. “The fire station burnt down”), using the famous first line of Pride and Prejudice as a prime example. If Dr. Engel’s book A Dab of Dickens & A Touch of Twain is anything like his live talk, it will be an interesting, funny, real-life portrayal of the great authors of that age, with provocative commentary and sharp literary points. Added fun is when we all get to decide: Are we warm and fuzzy Dickensians, or sharp, irony-loving Janeites? More about Dr. Engel: http://www.authorsink.com/about-dr-elliot-engel/ Sense of Humor To close my summary, I’d like to recap some of the funnier moments in the morning session.
Seize the day! This is our class blog where we will record summaries of each day. On the date you selected for your scribe report, post it here. If you are not the scribe, you may still post impressions of the day such as things that made you laugh, things you learned, etc.
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AuthorStudents of Writing and Technology Class Archives
August 2013
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