Final Reflections

I'm always tremendously impressed with Banks works, and his ways of writing and thinking, respectively. Banks, both in his keynote at CCCCs and in this written piece on Digital Griots, has a skillful way of considering print, orality and digital media as all important components of literate activities as well rhetorical practices. His take on how the DJ can be re-imagined in a new century, mixing and remixing, and as part of a digital story, and how DJs act as key players in making connections in narratives and mastering a range of techniques and technologies was a compelling argument.

Furthermore, I heed Banks' appeal that Rhet/Comp needs to value cultural diversity while investigating social contexts. At the same time, it is true that writing is an active performance and that if you want to understand a writer then you must understand the culture, not only the individual. I had never really reflected on that. Instead, I really have only emphasized the importance of understanding the self, as a writer, to my students. However, I never paused to really consider the effects and impacts of culture on writing habits and practices. An important point for me to consider and to work into my own reflexivity, as well as important when urging students to consider their own cultures and influences on their writing practices.

Lastly, Bowen pushed me to think about my own ageist bias and the ways in which I regard certain literacies as more valuable than others. I enjoy reading pieces like these, narratives, as I find them more personal and engaging. Yet, at the same time, I found it interesting how Bowen explored and wove together the themes of a literacy narratives with adaptations to digital media and technology, to tell Bev's story and to suggest how individuals "innovate to make meaning in their daily lives." To end, this piece made me pause and smile, reflecting on how embodied rhetoric is, especially recalling Bev's insistence that the chair be upright when she used the computer to allow her to type properly.

Weekly Response: November 10, 2015

Danielle Donelson

This week's readings complicated the notions of what constitutes a hybrid classroom, especially in exploring the MOOC (Massively Open Online Class). I confess that I had previously understood hybrids to be exactly 50/50 in terms of providing a curriculum focused on online classroom and a traditional face to face classroom setting. In that way, these readings challenged me to reconsider how the degrees of online activity versus face to face activity, may exist in varying degrees, depending on the nature of the classroom, the curriculum, the instructor's individual pedagogy, etc.

I found Graff's (2009) point that teachers must connect and move away from "hermetically sealed classroom" that are private and isolated to be a key point, one that I intend to (and must) consider as someone who will need support, especially in incorporating technology and multimedia into my composition classroom. Additionally, I think that this point corresponds nicely to some of the difficulties educators now face--such as how there is a push to use technology within composition classroom; however, though that urge is there, many instructors still lack training and educational institutions fail to provide adequate instruction in how to incorporate technology into writing classrooms. What's more, as Blair points out, even when there is a push to incorporate multimodality and digital media in the classroom, too often the focus becomes on migration rather than on transformation. Indeed the shift from alphabetic text to multimodality (including but not limited to digital media) is not one can be merely transported to the online realm. At least, it ought not to be. If it is, I concur with Blair, that we do a disservice to all that digital media and technology may offer twenty first composition classroom (as well as further extend the gap between practice and theory).  For this reason, I see that failing to incorporate digital media and technology into the writing classroom is not the only way that composition curriculums may become antiquated and left behind. Rather, I see the limitations of our own dichomotous mindsets to be the barriers or imprisoning walls that we placed around ourselves. I say this humbly and without judgment, for I am one of the people often trapped within the confines of my own binary thinking.

Lastly, as a novice OWI, I appreciate the practical tips provided by Blair, Warnock and the MOOC. piece. The rubrics, points to consider, ways to incorporate various multi-modes (including blogs and audio essays, ones of which I may be more familiar) as well the realistic, first step implementations, I think are all important first steps for techno-phobic individuals, like myself, to consider and work towards implementing in my composition courses.

Weekly Response: November 3

Danielle Donelson

Weekly Response for 11/2/15

            I appreciate the idea that students engage in instruction and in creating assessment forms, whether for alphabetic texts or multi-modal ones or digital ones. I remember, as a student, being asked to brainstorm how to construct a rubric for a composition assignment. This activity affected and altered the way that I thought about composition instruction, especially as a producer. Therefore, I completely understand how engaging students in that process of creating a rubric for digital media and multimodal assignments would assist students in re-conceptualizing the composing process.

The rubrics provided in both texts offered some concrete examples of how I may assess students’ multimodal, and perhaps, more specifically, digital compositions. In Alexander’s piece, I especially appreciated the tips that were provided to assist instructors in assessing multimodal assignments. Having some concrete tips, and reflecting on how they are ones that have been used in this class, make me feel a bit more competent to begin introducing multimodal assignments in my composition class. I understand that I must keep in mind that I don’t need to be the expert on everything related to composition; rather, that both instructors and students may learn together, as the process can be daunting and each may bring different strengths to the proverbial table. I think relinquishing that control and admitting to not being the expert (in fact, admitting oneself to also be a novice in one area, even if it is in technology) is an extremely difficult thing for veteran Composition Instructors, those who feel like they are not digital natives.

To end, I appreciate the point made that composing digital texts is just as nuanced as composing alphabetic texts, if not more. Additionally, the composing process ought to be considered, emphasized, and learned from. In this way, we may also understand the digital composing process to be as recursive and just as need of meta-awareness and reflection as the alphabetic text composing process.