...some developments...

This weekend I took on an anthropology assignment, and did some participant observation at a local blues/honkytonk jam session. It was...not GREAT, but fine enough that it made me rethink what I've been planning for the course so far. I wanted to get a start on the student ecology project, in the case that I end up there, but it seems like focusing more closely on social-rhetorical projects make sense.

I recently presented the Captain America (a Burkean influenced reading of identification) paper at the Folklore conference in Indiana. If I think of IT as a chapter, as I had originally planned, and manage another chapter in an ethnomusicology direction with this "rhetoric of the jam session" (god that's awful titling) idea...it seems both easier, and more interesting to the final project.

We'll see....

Real live thoughts on chapters and work

I feel like I've got a few chapters of academic work in me. Whether it's a real live dissertation or not is still to be determined, but the thoughts are there.

I'm thinking lately about how we create and define our social selves. I'm thinking in the social ecology sense, where everything somehow interacts to make us who we are. This is coming out of the paper I'm currently working on, which traces the changing ethos, and therefore connection to "people" of Captain America. Don't laugh. My brother said, "I guess you write what you know". I hope he's right.

I've been in love with comics for a long time. I've also come to love the way people work together (or don't). It's what I think is, as grad schoolers are saying, is "so interesting". This course on Rhetoric and Poetics is making me see that these things can go together, with problems of their own, sure, but together nonetheless. So I want this project to end up as a chapter, I think, in a tentatively titled, continually revised, dissertation about the way we revise and reform our ideas about the social and our place in it through different conduits.

Some of these are what I've recently seen coded as "Imaginary Worlds". And it's all rhetorical--which I think means I can talk about it in rhetorical terms. Captain America changes with our culture, but never ceases to be connected to what Americans (a problematic term..but) see as patriotic. In some of the same ways, people (real ones) interact in MMORPGs in ways they never could in real life. Our newly found connectivity via new technologies means that it's a very different world (an imaginary one, in some cases) that we have to interact in.... and I think there's plenty to be said about the (rhetorical) choices that folks make when they log in to a game next to someone from across the world.

Changing courses slightly, I also want to write about music--my students have trouble doing so, but I'd like it to get easier for them. I'd also like to write about the pedal steel--not only an overlooked instrument, but an overlooked topic in academe, as far as I can see. The pedal steel's been synonymous with what "folks" would refer to as "real country" music for a long time. As "country" moves away from the twang of Hank Williams, et al, though, the instruments (IMO) are still being used to sort of "namecheck" the old styles, so as not to lose fans. No one's going to argue that country radio has and will continue to change--and I don't have a particular beef with that. I do, however, take note that the steel guitar still pops here and there where it really doesn't, for lack of better word, "fit" in the more rock sounds of present country radio.


All of these topics trace networks of association, which while I may be joining the bandwagon too late, as least I'm still on it....and they all link back to what I would consider my main research interest, "how can i get my students to learn"? I taught a class on what it means to be a student, and it seems like looking at the ways that the social (community?) can be created could certainly link up with how to create those communities in the classroom, for better learning, better etc etc.

Now, though...it's off to actually doing it.

Aa...

And crastination yet again

I don't write enough. I keep things in my head too long.

Maybe "representations of the social"... that's what I'm thinking now.

Procrastination...

My writing class this semester has a different population than before. I do, to some extent, miss the younger students, but having the insights of students who have been here for awhile helps a lot. I haven't been thinking dissertation in a while, and I'm still nagging at myself to bite the proverbial bullet and start work on a "the social" vs. "mmorpg's" work.

More work later.

Discussion posts...

Purged from the lovely land of Blackboard, these are the posts that, for better or worse, I asked students to respond to this semester. Always room for improvement, yeah?

"Im a gud riter becus I rite gud seds"
--This bit came home from my son's Kindergarten class. Properly translated, it reads:
"I'm a good writer because I write good sentences."
--Well? True? Yes? No? (a more nuanced answer perhaps?) Some places you can go with this discussion--

What makes good writing? What is it? Have you done it? How do you know when it's not? What makes a good sentence? Take these things as far as you can--respond to your classmates, or start your own thread. Feel free to link us to examples, if you find it useful in making your point.

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This week is the Peer Review for the first paper. In honor of that, I'm going to ask for your thoughts on the social aspects of writing.
First things first: Is writing a social act(ion) or is it purely an individual task? How, why, or why not?
Second: What sort of issues does either of these views bring up? If writing IS social, how do we deal with issues like ownership, grades, etc.? If it's individual, how do we justify things like peer review, or co-authored books, movies, songs, etc.?

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Rhetoric.

From the little discussion on Friday, it seems like some defining is necessary. So, for this post, find (re: Google, etc) a definition that seems to apply to rhetoric as a term. Copy the link in your post, but put the definition in your own words as well. It, like several of the ideas we'll encounter this semester, is a pretty abstract concept, so it will also help to ground your definition in some concrete action or issue.

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he paper we're currently working on deals primarily with using outside sources. In fact, today (Wednesday) in the library, the reference folks gave you presentations on some sources--we'll talk about that later.

But what makes a good source? What makes it useful? When do you cite it? When do you not "have" to? All of these questions we can answer in class, actually, but what I want to focus on is a particular source.

Wikipedia. The name alone brings tremors to the college instructor.

So, what do you know about it already? What have you used it for? Why should you use it? (if you think you should) Why should you not? What have you heard? Good? Bad? etc.

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o, your task for this week is to discuss the meaning(s) of, and sort out the fallout from a term which tends to rear its head in my courses every semester. I'm not going to push you in any direction (at first). You may choose to use online resources, as well as your own opinions (pun--you'll get it in a sec), as well as each other's responses. You should consider what the term means, what it might possibly mean to others, what connotations (or rhetorical meanings and usages) it might have. And finally, what does it have to do with composition, argumentation, etc?

That term is "opinion". See? Pun.

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I've heard the following from old and somewhat crotchety teachers: "It's hard to get students to look at popular culture in critical ways".

So A: is it true, for you as students? When we think about advertising fads, television shows, movies, songs, etc... is it harder to look at these items in the same way that we might dissect a more formal argument? If so, what prevents us from doing so?

And B: a possible issue is that once you begin to dissect popular culture issues, you can no longer "enjoy" them in the same way. As in, because I know enough about music to write it, I hear the songs differently. (or) As a film critic, I "see" films in much different ways. Is this really a problem that you see?

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The Writing Center.

So, once you meet with them, use a post to "process" what happened. What did you do? Was it helpful? Did you hate it? Were you so impressed that you couldn't believe I haven't sent you there already? THEN, tell me why. What happened that was helpful, unhelpful, good, sucky, boring, stupid, etc?

Good luck. I'm actually very interested in what you have to say, as we just hired a new director over there, and I've only worked for the old one. Oh, and if I share anything you say (which I might) I will of course not mention names or identify you in any way.

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Course Retrospective.

As you might remember, this response should be a page long retrospective of the course. You'll print it off and add it to the process folder which is due Tuesday, before 3pm, on my desk. It will replace the lowest grade that you received on a Style response.

Option A: Just like the Style responses, produce a Summary, Analysis, and Personal Response paragraph. Feel free to be critical in the analysis, as it gives me feedback on what could be done to better the course.

Option B: Still a page long, but dealing with 3 issues that the class brought up, and their importance (or lack of importance) to your upcoming courses and career.

Option 3: A page long, dealing with something that you personally learned (or hated) from each of the 3 paper cycles.

Good luck.

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Lessons learned? Yep.

Sometimes things go poorly.

Suffering from stress, sickness, and the time suck of thinking.

Also, thanks to some brilliant advice, this dissertation appears to be headed in the multi-disciplinary direction. I hope things work out like I hope they do.

titles.

Towards a Social Pedagogy: Student Ecologies and Why You Should Give a Crap.


hmmm... I think there's still something needed. Too much work to worry about such things.