at 4:30am this morning we "finished" our projects. When you have time we would be interested to hear your feedback. Here is the url for the website:
http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~wzeitz/activists%20network/anmain.htm
Also you might be interested in the "featured protest multimedia." The file is about 15mb (saved in qt) and you will need a computer with sound.
wendy & juliette
I want to post a quote from a work that a student in my class did this semester.
I don't think I betray any ethics issues in quoting her in/citation.
What I might say is that when the student came across this quote that she was surprised as anyone else. I did not "assign" this reading, but students found interesting fragments here and there throughout the semester.
In some ways, the texts they dis/engaged may seem more suitable for a "graduate class," but I find that we're all un/just "gradual" students in our own ways.
Anyway, I am interested in the example ... the story ... the surprise that happens ... happenings ...
All this talk ABOUT Sirc, for me, is less an effort at intellectual confrontation, and more of an opportunity for reading-writing instructors to share examples and tell stories ... to quote students and to quote the quotes students are making and un-making for themselves ...
Sirc is good at this, of course. Bartholomae, it might be said, is also exemplary in this regard. The former is more local and suggests a sense, we might say, of "Inventing the Classroom," whereas Bartholomae --following in the steps perhaps of E.D. Hirsch, Allan Bloom, and R. Proctor-- has a, perhaps, broader conception in terms of "Inventing the University."
But, this local-broad binary is much too simplistic. Where Sirc takes us that Bartholomae does not is to a sense of writing, following Duchamp, that is "stripped bare" (ECH 66). Sirc's writing is shot-through in this sense with a sense of being itself. If Bartholomae is concerned with the pragmatics of the institution, Sirc --via the example-- is interested in the libidinal ... or as he says something that "kicks in all genres" and is revealed as "sexual chocolate" (ECH 67).
Yes! Here's a sense of KICKING! But notice that what he is after is something SENSUAL ... if there are NUTS it is to be found in the "sexual chocolate" ...
Punk music isn't reducible to violence ... Punk might be said to play Love Songs ...
***
Well, anyway ... what I want to share is something of a sampling from a student this semester. It's a first year student quoting Roland Barthes in George Landow's -Hypertext: The Convergence of Critical Theory and Technology-:
"Ronald [sic] Barthes describes ... text composed of BLOCKS [caps student's] of words (or images) linked electronically my [sic] mulitiple paths, chains, or trails in an open-ended, perpetually unfinished textuality described by the terms link, node, network, web, and path. 'In this ideal text,' says Barthes, 'the networks are many and interact, without one of them being able to surpass the rest; this text is a galaxy of signifiers, not a structure of signifieds; it has not beginning; it is reversible; we gain access to it by several entrances, none of which can be authoritatively declared to be the main one; the codes it mobilizes extend as far as the eye can reach, they are indeterminable."
***
I love the little SPELLING inflections in this student typing in this quote. There was an urgency to do so because there was much to say once this was moved from one text to the next.
I'd be interested in hearing about the quotes from students this semester ... Not their "individual" quotes, necessarily --need to follow IRB protocol for that, probably-- but their in/citations that lent themselves to excitations.
You know, the sexual chocolate ...
Enjoyed your Great Expectation presentation ... it lives up to its name!
And what a boon this document will be insofar as the job-market is concerned ... pop this thing in your pocket and let it do it's thing ... you'll wow 'em.
(Actually, I wish we would have spent more time on some of the technical issues that you confronted in putting it all together. No matter, I am sure I'll have time to pick up all these FTPing skills at some point.less ... ! )
Hey, one thing I wanted to pose as a question, as it's something that came up in my own class blog. What can be said about the sense of "have a great summer and see you in the fall" when it comes to technology?
I mean, doesn't New Media complicate this sense that there is even a sense of "summer break" or "see you later"?
Seems to me that emails and exchanges easily keep hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmming along and that the very idea that a class is "over" or that things will be "picked up again" in late August misses something insofar as the boundlessness and interconnectiveness of all this ...
Why, in some sense, doesn't new media make it difficult to know when a class is "over" when the participants can go right on doing what they do in the forum that continues in Internet space?
Great Expections that keep expecting ...
Hey Everyone!
I've posted my projects on a very simplistic webpage: http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~wagnerj/newmedia/newmedia.html
I spent so much time on the Great Expectations project that I didn't have a ton of time to create a lovely host page. The Great Expectations webpage is my pride and joy and perhaps one of my most exciting projects of my graduate career. It was fun, interesting, and definitely a challenge.
The recycling project reflects on the waste problems I see at Purdue. That project was relatively simple in comparison to the first project b/c I made the movie in Movie maker and not Premiere.
My flickr account was a fun way to show my pictures to my friends and family. If you want an invite to that, let me know.
Anyway, it was a fun and exciting semester. I hope everyone has a great summer. See you in the fall!
Hi all,
I wanted to follow up my presentation with the web address to The Friends of Cary Home for Children's URL. Its www.caryhome.org. It feels good to have contributed something that extends beyond a classroom into the community (who else is working on a CCCC's proposal?)
Also, a few people asked where Meg and I are registered:
Filenes
Crate and Barrel
Linen N Things
Hope everyone finishes up strong and sane,
Santos
Wanted to respond to the last class today ...
I was dismayed at the joking suggestion of "kicking Sirc in the nuts."
This, of course, was something a joke, and it was greeted by everyone in class as a joke.
I didn't find it funny, and I feel the call to say so.
**
Also, I wanted to note that there was no discussion Sirc's stuff in any detail here.
Why, I wonder?
**
The sense of consensus is easy to achieve in a classroom.
It's harder once the discussion comes down to details in of a reading or writing.
**
I don't know ...
It sounds like I am bagging, but in other ways I'm cool ... whatever ...
This, after all, is probably my last *required* academic course.
What I am saying here is just a little spasm, a left over twitch jolt from being conditioned by the institution to "make my voice heard" when I disagree ... (Yes, I know that when all is said and undone that the sense of "voice" is difficult ...cuz it's wilderness all the way down ...)
Sheesh, it almost sounds like an "argument," but I don't think it is. I'm just saying that I think Sirc's stuff is cool, and that my body wasn't moved to laughter when the idea of "kicking him in the nuts" was suggested ...
But now--can I say this?--I am starting to laugh a writing "kicking him in the nuts" again, and so ... okay, it's funny.
Heck, maybe this wasn't even what was said, after all ...
Geez, come to think of it, maybe it's just a word that's getting me ...
What is that word?
Nuts.
Ya, that must be what it is ...
Nuts
It's a word that, everybody'll agree, is a lot of
Stun
All,
I always feel weird when people listen to my music in front of me, so here's a link to my 680 project page in case you wanted to hear what I recorded for this class. A quick review: the first song, "Joy," was recorded in a series of complete takes. I lost the master session track and could not edit the material as much as I liked. The second song, "Love," is my least favorite. I recorded it in bits and pieces and used as much of the digital features as I could. I definately went overboard, I really hate the chorus I put on the outro solo (but once you have saved it, there is no going back... oops). The third song, "Commitment," was the second song I recorded and I think came out the best of the three.
Anyway, here's the link: Projects Page
See everyone in class tomorrow,
Santos
Unfotunately, plasq is a mac program, but some of you might be interested in it.
The Italian journal Neural is right up the class's alley. It even has "new media" in the subtitle. There's an interview with DJ Spooky, as well.
Returning to complete a more responsible read, particularly the “Arcades Project” assignment portion of his writing in Writing New Media, leaves me wanting to retract a number of the impassioned comments I made in Thursday’s class in reference to Sirc. Though now thinking myself mistaken to believe his coursework framed more as “encouragement” than as “instruction,” I am left wondering to what degree the innovation of this classroom exercise escapes the gravity of codification Marc as captures in his class notes for us here.
Though I recognize an “urban walkabout” in the topic of rap/hip hop and note the reach of sources accessed/recognized/legitimized that might not otherwise receive validation, the work itself seems pointedly anchored in what might be considered very traditional requirements. Note that a formal proposal is required five weeks before the final work is due (144); that the project as a whole is “designed to culminate in a research paper” – not project (142); that instructors are advised to incorporate their “best practices for introducing solid academic research writing,” which should include instruction on the research question, hypothesis, evaluating sources, paraphrase, summary, and other pertinent topics (143); and, that as the due date approaches, the focus of instruction turns “to show in detail the movement from notes to more specifically-styled formal prose” (144). Any student I’ve taught would consider this a difficult class before I mentioned the two pages of required weekly record of notes, so I ask myself if the topic and the significant investment of the instructor can make the difference that would have students lining up for a year just to get into his class.
Sirc plainly declares his dismissal of any responsibility to teach students to process the “serious writing” of the academy - a responsibility with which Bartholomae would charge the composition instructor (143), instead putting emphasis on the preservation and integrity of voice and informed awareness: “I don’t want student voices to be changed, re-shaped, or made over; rather I focus on helping students with a better sense of awareness and language, voice and content, and an appreciation of information” (146), work indicative of a scholar.
In the end I see less of a binary than I do of a blending of what we referred to in class as the codified space and the innovative space, a blending most carried by the innovation of the choice of topic honored in the classroom. Multi-directional discourse is valued while student voice is given place on par with academic discourse, and the subjective stance of the writer invokes an environment conducive of shared and/or sampled texts – the archive, the curator, the collected record. Yet, while these forms invite an air of innovation, the work itself seems solidly anchored in standardized practices which progress linearly, are empirically anchored, and in the end value paper over project – a move that, frankly, confused me inasmuch as it seemed out of character for Sirc as I recall his work from previous readings.
With thoughts toward Jeremy's post, the problem I have here is less that something worth protecting in the university classroom could be lost: I don’t think Sirc is putting the core work of writing at risk here, certainly not with the Arcades Project, but I do think significant assumptions are being made with regard to the real and difficult work of teaching research. A seasoned scholar may have the command of skills to engage tantalizing topics while remaining consistent and well-applied in research disciplines, but the value of those disciplines are difficult to realize in practice for freshman writers and even more difficult to teach as each a distinctly contributive element to the work of discovery in a universe of information, especially when the topic studied carries hefty street knowledge and voice that can legitimately “trump” the table. I’m drawn to the “romance” of a seductive topic and the promise of popularity that has students lining up to be in my class, but my imagination stalls at the thought of actually teaching the skills Sirc seems to put in place as a “given.” THAT’s the part I don’t get. How do you stay “cool” and still teach the question-hypothesis skills, source evaluation skills, notation skills, stylistic concerns, forms of documentation, etc. that are being asked of the students as they progress through a work of this kind? Is a "really cool topic" powerful enough to charm students into wanting to do this kind of academic scholarship? Is there enough time in a semester to teach these skills to those who may be meeting them for the first time?
One last thought, Marc, as it relates to the notes you’ve recorded for us: I might suggest that “standardized” approaches to composition are less “process oriented” than they are “outcome oriented,” but I would agree that your language for the innovative side of this binary is well addressed as “post-process orientation” – again, a space I’m not sure Sirc achieves with his Arcades Project. I think you make a great point in noting "ownership" as an aspect of writing that can vary with perspective, a point I have probably taught to without noticing. As to evidence, it seems to me that claims can be made from all camps on the "empirical" nature of evidence, a fact that may only mean the word is being recognized for its slippery nature, but I think your contrast of quantified arguments on the one hand with arguments that acknowledge the situatedness of any claim on the other is a strong observation, one I see as definitive of the contrast between the two positions.
We were discussing Sirc's pedagogy in class and I wanted to return to it a bit. This chapter and some of Sirc's other works, such as "Never Mine the Tagmemics" and "Writing Classroom as A & P Parking Lot," raise a certain question, which is would embracing the avant-garde in the classroom actually deny students an experience they can get nowhere else? That is to say, learning and education take place in an almost infinite number of locations other than the classroom. Does Sirc's work overlook this notion, and imply that the avant-garde must be brought into the institution because students would otherwise not be exposed to it? Certainly this claim is dubious.
Let me be concrete, so as not just to make a straw man of Sirc and his contentions. Sirc talks explicitly about the incorporation of rap music into his classroom. Now, many people learn about, explore, and utilize rap in many different ways outside of the classroom: for example, students who listen to rap music, produce rap music, live in the culture that rap music documents, and so forth. These people are steeped in rap music, as, indeed, all students are to an extent, in that rap music has had an effect on culture at large.
People can encounter rap music in many different forums, inside and outside of the classroom. However, an experience that they cannot get many places is a dedicated classroom experience. As unpopular as it is to say it, the experience of the regimented, stogy old classroom can be as valuable, rigorous, interesting, fun, and rich as exploring rap, playing video games, visiting museums, doing ethnographic research, writing poetry, dropping acid, making democratic social change, furious Wednesday night masturbation, making a short film, documenting the rhetoric of Fraternity functions, scripting a Flash animation, and so on and so on and so on. Breaking the distinction between high and low culture does not mean inverting the hierarchy; it means that the formerly "high" culture still gets to play on an even field with the formerly "low."
As such, I ask myself where else can students get the classroom experience other than in the classroom? In what other situation will they have a network of people who know a thing or two about composition and the institution invested in their writing, studying their writing, thinking about their writing? What is a better place to have a traditional academic experience than the institution historically devoted to such things? Are we denying our students an experience they can have nowhere else if we follow culture and chase the avant-garde? Perhaps the only way to remain vital is to change with culture (THIS ISN'T YOUR DADDY'S COMPOSITION CLASS! ROCK ON! PARTY PARTY PARTY ON THE FLIP SIDE), but does that mean we should do it? Why don't we just train people for the cubicle farms then? That's current and it's what is wanted.
Let's end this farce with a hamfisted analogy: when you go to Idaho, do you get carrots? I'm sure there are some pretty good carrots in Idaho, but where else are you going to get a fresh Idaho potato (I said fresh; you can get them anywhere, but they've been warehoused)? Yes, the institution changes, as it must and should. Yes, the institution will be affected by elements of culture. But do we, should we, believe in creating a panoply of experiences in life (yes, even including boring old school), or should we homogenize? Lumping and splitting will happen, but should we explicitly try and consolidate, preserve, or keep stirring the mix? I don't know, but I keep asking myself, If the classroom becomes the carnival, what does the carnival become? What will become of the A&P parking lot without the A&P?
