Ranty Mc Reader response for 9/21

Notes on reading for September 21, 2010
From “Teaching Digital Rhetoric” article
I used to work at a newspaper, and one of my jobs was printing the nightly bundle-tops. Our small paper went through about 6 reams of paper for the Monday through Saturday editions and 10 for the Sunday paper. The tops printed from two printers, and I had to manually collate the pages into one tower of paper. If I fell behind, the printers jammed, and they jammed all the time. The purpose of this discursion into memory? I’m feeling a lot of sympathy for those printers. I’m getting info from many metaphorical printers and I can’t keep up collating. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this. Excuse me a minute while I play a few songs on my guitar and take the dog for a walk.
Okay, I’m back. Digital Rhetoric! Woo! Here are some semi-collated thoughts from the week’s reading. One of the struggles I face when writing (mostly when writing fiction, but also academic work) is that I try to edit as I write the first draft, and many MANY of my students have the same problem. We all want to believe that thoughts spring golden from our head to the page, much like Athena’s leap from Zeus’s ol’ brain box. Not so, alas. We all of us write what Anne Lamott called in Bird by Bird “shitty first drafts.” In a workshop I once attended, first drafts were toasted with this ditty: Here’s to the garbage, / here’s to the shit. / Here’s to the garden / that grows out of it.
I needed to change how I wrote in order to become a more effective writer. After all, houses are built from the ground up, in dirt and concrete and wood; they do not spring full formed from the IKEA catalogue. A few years ago, I found a marvelous website, Dr. Wicked’s Writing Lab. On the site, you enter a word or time goal, set your grace period and then you write. If your hands are idle for a certain time, the screen behind the textbox in which you write slowly turns from pink to red, and when it’s fire-red, an annoying sound, like Rick Astley or Hanson’s “Mmm Bop” or screaming babies, blares at you until you begin to type again. When you reach your goal, triumphal horns herald your victory. I wrote the bulk of my first novel draft using Dr. Wicked’s free site, and I bought the desk top version this semester and wrote my first paper with its assistance.
At first I thought it was a fun gimmick, but after reading the teaching digital rhetoric article, I realized that I was engaging in digital writing. I have a file full of story starts composed with Dr. Wicked’s aid – most of them have not been printed. I do like to print my story drafts, but increasingly, my writing has become digital. Last year, my friend Nikki and I decided to give self-publishing a try. Then we started school, I developed crippling writer’s block, and the site has languished. But we’re bringing Stranger Things Press back, slowly but surely. Take a look if you have time.
The main thing I took away from this article is that as a teacher, it needs to be my responsibility to engage students through multiple means, particularly digital. I asked my friend Jenn, who works in city planning if, after college, she has even ONCE been asked to write up a paper all on her own and present it in all its double spaced, 12 point Times New Roman fonted glory. Not once, she said. Then I asked if she’d been asked to collaborate on a team project, put together a PowerPoint slide show or other digital presentation, pull together maps and charts and graphs, maybe videos. All the time, she said. And I’m sure she’s not alone. I’m embarrassed when I think of the time I spent harping on freaking MLA format, as if it mattered more than content. In my defense I did bring in some opportunities for digital writing and, more importantly, collaboration as I gained more confidence as a teacher. Now, when I go back to the classroom, I will be armed not with cool ideas, but with some research to back up the importance of these shifting methods of instruction and assessment.
As to Manovich. Christ, I read the damn thing, but mostly I don’t know what the hell I’m reading (and this is totally reader error, not author incomprehensibility), and I’m finding it really frustrating. Beyond not understanding, I can’t even formulate the questions. Maybe I should draw a picture. Bluh. I did a little leap of joy (metaphorically – puppy was sleeping on my lap) when I started to recognize shades of Weinberger (pg 35 for one), but I still can’t put it together in my head. And at the risk of being Debbie Downer, the Prosumer video was almost too distracting. The sound underneath the narrative was really irritating – I’m reasonably certain my students wouldn’t be as bothered, but I still have to figure out how to bring this stuff to the classroom. I can’t just throw fancy digital stuff out there to be fancy and new. I have to carefully balance the aims of my teaching with the modes of bringing it to my students, and there is a gap between me and them that I’m not sure how to address.
Sorry for the ranty nature of the post. I’m going to hope a nap will help.