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Eva Fernández of Queens College recently shared this interesting article with us on Facebook. I thought it might be of interest to many of you. It’s funny that I am forwarding this as it is almost like the article virtually traveled across the ocean and back!

Perhaps it’s generational, as Eva also wonders. I have an impression that whereas some adults are very tech savvy enjoying playing with iPhone, Facebook, twitter, etc. there are many others who are very resistant and proud to ignore it altogether. On the other hand, for many (or most) students, technology seems to be something that is woven into their lives much more closely. I would love to hear what your thoughts are.

That said, where I work in Japan there isn’t much technology implemented in classroom teaching yet, and I am yet to hear of somebody who uses social-networking tools in their teaching. There are some online education tools that we use over here for students to self-study (outside of classes), about which I am hoping to write soon.

Last June, Hillary wrote a post on zines that led several of us here at cac.ophony to “come out” as ex-zinesters.  To continue the conversation about zines, I’d like to point out to folks the most recent issue of SIGNS: Journal of Women in Culture and Society.  They’ve devoted a whopping 74 pages to a comparative symposium on feminist zines, featuring both essays and full-page reprints. (Full disclosure here: some of my old zines are cited, including in Barnard Zine Librarian Jenna Freedman’s essay, in which she discusses a zine I edited when I was an angst-ridden teenager. I find this both flattering and terribly embarrassing.)

Over the summer, Jenna invited me and several other people who had donated our zine collections to the Barnard Zine Library for tea (how Seven Sisters!), and we all spent a lot of time in the stacks flipping through the zines that were in circulation. This was certainly a nostalgia trip down memory lane, and a quite physical one at that, as we were literally looking at and holding the very photocopied and stapled pieces of paper that we may have once kept stashed in boxes and bins under our beds and in our closets. Seeing zines in their original form now archived in a college library is quite a different experience from seeing them discussed or reprinted in a fancy academic journal, however. The attention is nice, but one’s interaction with the zines feels at least one step removed. Even if you read the print version of SIGNS rather than online, the reprinted zine excerpts don’t look or feel like the original. (And, in this case, reading this issue of SIGNS online instead of print allows you to see the zine reprints in color).

I am fascinated by the “afterlife” of those objects that were once considered to be—or were created to be—ephemeral. They live on in discussions by critics and historians, and in historical archives, libraries, and museums. These days, they are also being revived digitally, including on Google Books. You know, in the pre-blogging era, when we were sixteen and pouring our angsty hearts out on paper, did any of us have any idea that the words and images we created would still be in circulation? If we did, would that have changed what we produced, how we presented ourselves, or who we considered our audience to be? I wonder.

In a recent Business Policy rehearsal, we were discussing anxieties about public speaking when one group member made the following statement:

“I’m concerned about my accent. The only way to get a good job in the U.S., is to not have an accent.”

I was stunned…. firstly, because this student did not have an accent that was impeding her ability to communicate effectively; and secondly, because I had never heard that this attribute would prevent someone from getting a “good” job.

The Baruch Campus is incredibly diverse, multilingual campus. Everyone has an accent of some sort, right? In this global economy, could this attribute truly prevent one from getting a job?

I bring this issue up again, link it to previous Cac.ophony thread discussions, the Baruch Teaching Blog, and Baruch resources…

• Accent Reduction (3 May 2006)
• Accent Reduction: Take 2 (5 June 2007)
• Teaching Blog at Baruch: A+…despite heavy accent (11 March 2009)
• Link to Baruch ESL Language Lab

A pertinent and persistent student issue!

Now seems like as good a time as any to reflect on something that’s been on my mind for a while: assessment. While maybe not the most exciting topic, I think it’s a really important and prevalent one. To be clear I’m referring to program assessment here, not assessment of student writing. Until last year my only experience with and training in assessment was through working at community-based organizations, specifically programs for youth that incorporated education and work readiness as well as several other elements. While this experience had its ups and downs, last year I figured out pretty quickly that assessment means something very different in the university context. I, of course, saw assessment and the implementation of Writing Across the Curriculum at CUNY as a great marriage. Faculty in different disciplines trying out different pedagogical tools? Lots of written products, i.e. data? Opportunities for different people to get together and talk about their teaching experiences, what works and what doesn’t? Great! I really did not expect the resentment and lack of cooperation I received when I began to talk to faculty about these issues.

Rather than focusing on all of the problems and tensions around these issues within some (not all) universities, I thought I might mention a few basic elements often emphasized by community-based organizations:

First, assessment should be truly collaborative or it can quickly become extremely divisive. Transparency seems really important here. Asking for all kinds of information about someone’s classroom, students, and teaching without being clear about how that information will be used can be a great way to alienate faculty members.

This leads to the second point, which is that assessment should serve as a means of improving the overall quality of education in a particular department or discipline or university rather than as a policing mechanism. While it’s important to be aware of areas that need improvement, highlighting best practices is equally, if not more, important.

Finally it seems important to start and finish with the people actually doing the work, in this case, faculty members teaching writing and using writing as a teaching tool. Being aware of the needs of these folks allows the assessment to be more than charts and graphs. This way the information gleaned from this assessment project can be put to practical use. This is also a good incentive for faculty members to cooperate and provide useful data. It can even make it possible to enlist their help more directly. While faculty and administration often have different priorities, they don’t have to conflict. I think both groups have some stake in assessment and, if designed and implemented properly, it can help both meet their goals.

“Everyone is reading short-form text. Literature has not made that jump.” This is a key line from a recent NYT article “Serving Literature by the Tweet” which concerns a new literary magazine Electric Literature. The name of the magazine startled me at first, as I’m a big believer in the old fashioned way of reading literature precisely as a long-form text printed on a page where I can make notes in the margins. The editors of this new magazine, Andy Hunter and Scott Lindenbaum, make their texts available in multiple mediums: print, Kindle, e-book, iPhone, Twitter, and even audio books. They publish such well-known authors as Michael Cunningham, Colson Whitehead, Lydia Davis, Jim Shepard.

As I continued reading the article, I realized, despite my initial reservations, how promising this project really is. For instance, the authors are asked to select a line from their work to be animated and posted on YouTube. This is a new and very creative form of literary expression that allows for imaginative possibilities and, as Michael Cunningham pointed out, “maintain[s] the integrity of the written word and extend[s] its range.”

I was reminded of a few students in our in-class workshops in the past few weeks whose eyes were constantly on their iPhones. The same happens on the subway, in gym classes, etc. As much as I’m reluctant to accept the pervasive presence of the electronic world, I must admit that it can indeed create what Rick Moody has called “new envelopes for [literature’s] message.”

I had a consultation with a faculty member today on how to help students develop thesis statements. We ended up talking about how her semester is going overall, and she expressed tremendous frustration with one of her classes.

She frequently uses many writing across the curriculum techniques — in-class writing, small groups, staged assignments, etc. But nothing seems to be working. Students don’t answer basic questions that she poses and won’t participate in discussions. It feels like they are not engaged with the material or the course on any level, and some are openly resistant.

I have worked with this professor before and can attest that she is a very talented teacher. She hasn’t encountered this problem with her other classes.

I found myself at a loss as to how help her. She’s doing everything “right” and nothing seems to work. What suggestions, words of encouragement, or advice would you give this professor?

A few weeks ago, I logged on to VOCAT for the first time, and as watched the video of a student’s rehearsal for their presentation, I was surprised to hear my own voice. I was sitting near the camera, and focused on the students as they went through their Powerpoint slides. Maybe because the camera was pointed towards them, at the time of the recording I was unaware that I was also recording myself.

And this made for a kind of unexpected self-assessment, along with the student assessment I was prepared to do. I’ve often wondered if my voice is too low, if I repeat myself too much, if what I’m saying makes any sense, if what I’m saying is more helpful than confusing to my students. And I realized, listening to myself talk to a student on the VOCAT video, that I’ve spent six years of graduate school trying to get better at absorbing what I read, and better at writing clearly. But I haven’t put any sustained or rigorous effort into getting better at speaking.

For me, the VOCAT incident, the unexpected switch of the assessment tool back on the assessor, made me realize how alone I have felt with this part of teaching. The first day of your adjunct job: the door shuts behind you, it is just you and students. A professor visits my class for one session during the semester, sometimes they don’t stay for the whole class. Their written assessment is usually generous and they’ve all talked with me after the class to offer encouragement and the wisdom of their experience. But, you know, the rest of the time, it is just you in there. Talking and talking. Wondering if the students are falling asleep because they’ve just eaten lunch, or is it the lulling drone of my voice? I know there are books and articles out there I could be reading on how to effectively engage a class. And I’ve sat in on other professor’s classes to see what I pick up from the way they engage a class. George Shulman at NYU Gallatin showed me how effective it is to value every student’s contribution, repeating it, rephrasing it, writing it on the board. Heidi Kruger at the New School held me spellbound with her intense, low whisper. Sekou Sundiata at the New School moved around the class like we were the orchestra and he was conducting us.

But, what works for me, and for my students, on this particular subject? I hadn’t really focused on that so much. Which is weird, given how, you know, important oral communication skills are in teaching.  Should the VOCAT assessment tool be turned on teachers? Well, I wouldn’t volunteer. But, when confronted with it, I thought it showed me some things that I should be aware of.

This brings me to the connection between writing and speaking. At the recent WAC conference, several people brought up the fact that writing often, in different forms, helps people become better writers. Speaking about writing also improves writing.  We talk about students ‘finding their own voice.’ One impediment to that might be that students are reading authors whose voices are quite different than their own. Often when I’m working with students on their presentation, I’ll ask them to summarize or draw a conclusion from their research. They articulate clear, original, logically organized claims aloud. But, when it comes to the formal work, they leave this out. Why? The answer I’ve heard more than once was, “But, that is just my opinion.”

What I want students to do, what I’ve heard other teachers say they want students to do, is enter a conversation with the authors they cite. What I’ve seen happen too often is a student articulating their own view, then summarizing an author’s view, using the author’s own style. How can we yoke them together?

One possible way might be to value thought when it is articulated aloud, not just in print. And one way to do this might be to film it, to actually turn the light and focus on recording speaking a thought, the way writing records a thought.

At the WAC meeting, Thomas Meechum and Karen Gregory’s documentary about the writing process in professor Michele Pacht’s class showed students responding to questions about their opinions about graffiti. I wondered if the heightened attention of the camera on the spoken thoughts helped the students to value their thoughts enough to commit them to print. I wonder if I should review the recording of my voice, talking to my students, as many times as I am reviewing the drafts of my dissertation proposal. I kind of think I should.

After a remarkable confluence of events and serendipitous circumstances over the last two weeks, I am happy to announce that WordCampNYC 2009, the flagship WordPress event on the East Coast, will be held here at Baruch College on November 14th and 15th. The Schwartz Institute has been asked to facilitate this event on behalf of the College and we are working hard to make sure all the various pieces come together as they should.

WordPress, for those of you who don’t know, is the open-source online publishing platform on which this blog is built. Blogs@Baruch and runs on WordPress MU (multi-user), a version of WP that allows any number of blogs to be generated from a single install. WordPress, in its various incarnations, is widely regarded to be the best-of-breed blogging software and is getting quite a bit of use throughout CUNY (the Journalism School, Macaulay Honors College, and the CUNY Academic Commons also rely on it to great effect.)

This is really exciting news for Baruch and CUNY, more generally, as we have always been big supporters of open source projects like WordPress and are thrilled to be involved in WordCampNYC. Because of the interest in open source instructional technologies throughout CUNY (as evidenced at last May’s CUNY WordCampEd which brought together about 100 people from across most, if not all, CUNY campuses), we expect quite a bit of interest in the education track at the conference which promises to be rich and varied. For example, we’re currently organizing an open roundtable discussion between Matt Mullenweg, the founding developer of WordPress, and a number of prominent educators and instructional technologists to consider on the future of WordPress and other open-source tools in education. You can expect lots of conversation about the various WordPress projects at CUNY and at other institutiions, local and otherwise. We’re especially looking forward to catching up with the folks from the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University who have been working on a ScholarPress, a set of plugins that add all sorts of course management functionality to WordPress.

Once the schedule is set, we’ll link to it here. In the meantime, some details about the event are available here.

Several semesters in a row, I taught Dante’s Inferno as part of a broad humanities survey.  In case you’re not familiar with the epic, the protagonist (also named Dante) travels through the Catholic hell and describes the excruciating torture experienced by the many sinners he sees there.

photo credit: country_boy_shane

My writing assignment asked students to analyze how the punishments match the sins committed.  It was so tedious.  I quickly realized I was sucking all the interest and fun out of an actually interesting and fun text.

So the next semester I made the writing assignment a bit more transgressive: “Have you ever told someone to ‘go to hell’ (or wanted to tell someone that)?  Describe the scenario.  What did the person do wrong?  Use quotes and interpretations of Dante’s Inferno to describe what their punishment would be and why.”  The assignment still met my pedagogical goals (to have the students think critically about the text and articulate connections between its parts), but the students’ answers were so much more engaged, and reading the essays was much less a chore for me.  Plus, as an accidental sort of value-added bonus, I think the assignment allowed the students to experience the cathartic, semi-therapeutic effects of imaginatively punishing people who’ve wronged them—an effect that Dante himself certainly relished in imagining his hell, which is littered with his personal enemies.

In later semesters I expanded this assignment to ask students to consign various historical and contemporary figures to the appropriate circles of Dante’s hell.  This added a component that I hadn’t originally considered, because it turned into a mini-lesson on both current events and notorious “sinners” from history.  It was also fun!

My only problem is, not every text I teach seems to lend itself to writing assignments that both achieve my goals (for them to become sharper critical thinkers and analytical writers) and engage students creatively.  Any ideas?  Anybody else trying to design these double-duty writing assignments?

It’s been ten years since I worked in book publishing, but I still sometimes miss it, and still follow the industry news a bit via daily emails from Publishers Weekly (PW). Today begins the biggest annual book publishing event, the Frankfurt Book Fair, and the show started with a Tools of Change keynote address by Sara Lloyd of Pan Macmillan that revisited the topic of publishing’s future. PW wrote about the event and how in a blog post a year ago Lloyd had chastised her audience for focusing too much on this worry about the future and not on what was happening right now. In the Frankfurt address this week, she talked about the extent to which that future is now and how much has changed in the past year. For example, the Kindle edition of Dan Brown’s latest bestseller, The Lost Symbol, outsold the print version on the book’s release date. That is not to say that she thinks devices will lead the way for digital publishing, as one of her predictions was that it will be platform-led.

I myself read Kindle editions on my iPhone (if only I could afford a Kindle DX!), but I also like those on the eReader platform I had first used on my old Palm Pilot. That one works not only on my iPhone but also on any computer, and allows me to customize the view on my Mac or PC in a way that makes the book very readable. I like being able to read the book either at my desk on my computer or on the move on my iPhone. But the Kindle app has a lot more books (and a more up-to-date selection), so I am plowing through novels on the subway in the Kindle format, too. Both platforms, Kindle and eReader, have a problem that Lloyd didn’t mention: in the rush to get books out, they’re missing some really basic copyediting steps. I’ve bought several books that had major typos and formatting errors, from blocks of text out of place or repeated, to text being spread across the page like an e.e. cummings poem. An author friend notified me that his backlist was now available on Kindle, so I happily bought some of them. I was embarrassed to tell him that they were full of typos, so I hashed it out with Amazon instead.

The Frankfurt speech ended with the following admonition against complacency in the industry (in any industry?):

Lloyd closed with the following quote from Seth Godin, which stands as both cautionary and a call-to-action: “Things you can learn from the music business (as it falls apart): The first rule is so important, it’s rule 0: 0. The new thing is never as good as the old thing, at least right now. Soon, the new thing will be better than the old thing will be. But if you wait until then, it’s going to be too late. Feel free to wax nostalgic about the old thing, but don’t fool yourself into believing it’s going to be here forever. It won’t.”
from PW