This I Believe Brainstorm

I Believe

1. that education is the key to our future.
2. that education doesn't only occur in the classroom.
3. in the comfort of a good book.
4. that music can save your sanity.
5. in dads, not fathers.
6. the least important thing about me is how I look.
7. that I will always be insecure about my looks.
8. in being early.
9. that fear is the worst ailment a person can have.
10. that a purr is the most beautiful sound.
11. in the power of words.
12. in vegetarianism.
13. in equal pay for equal work.
14. that the only boundaries between countries are created by humanity--that border doesn't really exist.
15. in the power of holding hands.
16. that cell phones isolate instead of bring people together.
17. that unwrapping a present is one of the greatest joys in life.
18. in sleep.
19. the children are our future.
20. I can fly.

Okay, the last two are a joke.

The Kindle

This post is in response to both the article "Electronic Book Stirs Unease at Book Fair," by Edward Wyatt of the International Herald Tribune and Heather Nowak's response on her blog. I have been intrigued by Amazon's Kindle for awhile now. I like the idea of a portable library and its screen is supposed to be "paper like," without the glare associated with most electronics. But for me, a device like the Kindle could never replace my real library. I am a bibliophile and LOVE the feel, smell, experience of the physical book. Heather also discusses the physical sensation of the book in her post:

I think the nostalgic aspect of reading a hard copy book is what disturbs people that are opposed to all-online books. The article mentions that, "anything that lasts 500 years is not easily improved upon. Books are so good you can't out-book the book." I tend to agree because I am myself a collector of old, leather-bound books. And I love the smell of old musty books :).

However, the ease of this technology (which I think is similar to the audiobook and its ease of use on the iPod) can't be bad. I will always believe that the more we can encourage people to read, the better.

Heather also brings up an interesting point in terms of ecology. Is an electronic book device like the Kindle better for the environment than the paper-based book:

However, what about saving paper? What about the whole "going green" move? I'm serious here. We would save so much paper and energy moving books to online databases. It seems that the positives of moving to online-only formats are great....

This is an interesting idea. I recently read something (I know...this sounds real reliable--I wish I could remember where I read this) that actually said the opposite. The carbon footprint created by the energy to run electronics (like the Kindle) outweighs the motives to save trees (at least as we get our energy now).

Finally, I think this article addresses many of the issues we discussed at the beginning of this course. Are we the last generation that will care about the physical book, or what Heather already calls "nostalgic?" Will future generations (and even the younger ones of today) understand the love of the physical reading experience? If digital forms do take over the book industry, will composition teachers (like Heather and myself in the future years) be able to make this switch?

Jacqueline

In honor of our professor (and in retaliation for all of the Starship and Fleetwood Mac).

Virtual Field Trips

Laurel Rosenhall's article for sacbee.com details the use of virtual field trips (via video screens, etc) as a replacement for the lack of real field trips due to funding. While I agree that "virtual visits are...better than no visits at all," I don't think virtual field trips are the answer. The emphasis on standardized testing and budget cuts has all but eliminated the elements that made school great and interesting (music class, art, drama, after school activities, electives, field trips). Instead of giving in to this decline and finding substitutes, we should be fighting for their return.

However, this doesn't mean that I don't see any good in virtual field trips. The JASON Project is a good use of this technology. In these field trips, students were able to "visit" places that would be completely out of reach for the average person, such as the depths of the sea, the Amazon, or outer space. The video conferencing field trips allowed students to ask scientists questions, see areas that most people would never experience on their own, and delve deep into scientific issues. This type of field trip adds to their curriculum and experience--it does not replace the other types of field trips. But the field trips featured in Rosenhall's article deprive students of the multi-sensory experience and sense of fun that local field trips provide.

A Rape in Cyberspace

Jillian Dibbell's essay on cyberspace rape deeply disturbed me. Dibbell recounts a series of events that occurred on LambdaMOO: a character brutally rapes others in a virtual world and the community reacts by "toading" the attacker. But the boundary between reality and virtuality is extremely murky here.

Without diminishing how awful it must have been for those virtual characters, I have to admit a disdain for the tossing around of the word "rape." The overgeneralization of this word worries me. People now use it to imply any type of violation, which minimizes the word's import in its original form. If "rape" can mean both an economic action (as in a student's proclamation that the Cal State system is "raping" him) and the physical and sexual assault on a human being, then the one type of "rape" is no worse than the other. Sexual assault and its psychological and physical effects become minimized.

So is an assault in cyberspace really rape? I have to say no. Is it a violation--the removal of safety in an environment that should be free of anxiety (especially since you are actually in your own home)? Yes. But the use of the word "rape" here is polarizing and diminishes rape in the real world.

Similarly is "toading" akin to the death penalty? Again, I understand the worries over this issue, but I cannot link toading with the death penalty--especially since users are able to "come back from the dead" and reregister under different e-mails and screen names.

I think the more important issue here is the idea of toading as censorship. My understanding is that under a democracy (and our Constitution), actions can be restricted, but words fall under freedom of expression. Since the cyberspace "rape" occurs through words (and command keys), isn't toading censoring this user's ideas and words? While there are restrictions on freedom of expression (in that threats are restricted, etc), are the "actions" directed by key strokes aimed at virtual characters really threats? I don't know. I'm sure that the more someone is involved in the virtual world, the more these threats seem real. So as our world becomes more virtual (and the virtual world becomes more "real"), the blurring of our real selves with our virtual selves will complicate these questions (and the answers that we have already offered).

The Virtual Classroom

Luis Zaragoza's article for the OrlandoSentinel.com discusses the use of a virtual classroom to train teachers to deal with disciplinary issues and practice classroom management.
In a virtual classroom, five computers are programmed with distinct personalities, many of which would be considered discipline issues in the real world. The teacher must deal with the issue (rather than send the student for a "time out"). Administrators can also infiltrate the computers to make them "act up" in a certain way.
While the idea of allowing teachers to develop strategies without using real students as guinea pigs is intriguing, this virtual classroom frustrates me. Without seeing this program in action, I believe this virtual classroom has some pitfalls. One of the amazing dynamics in the classroom is how eye contact, personal contact, and rapport works both between students and teacher, and students with other students. I do not think this can be simulated. Hence, the strategies that might work with real students may not work with virtual ones. Also, this simulation appears to be much more difficult than an actual classroom in that administrators can prevent the virtual student from responding to the teacher's management. Is the purpose just to frustrate the beginner teacher and scare him/her into thinking that these strategies won't work? One of the originators of the program (Dieker) states, "Kids remember for a long time when things go wrong." My answer to that is, "So do teachers."

The Rhetoric of Design

In reading this section, I found myself making notes and connections based on prior class discussions, especially Thursday night's humdinger of a conversation. So here is a sampling of those notes.

The Rules of Typography According to Experts

• Keedy begins with a discussion of "the rules" of typography. I instantly thought about our discussion of writing's rules vs. genre expectations vs. throwing out all the rules. Keedy states that all typographers know the rules. They also know that rules are to be broken. Lastly, breaking the rules is one of the rules. I can't help thinking how this is true for all writing. When a writer breaks the rules for a rhetorical purpose, then we all find that perfectly acceptable (as comp teachers). But if a student breaks the rule out of ignorance, without knowledge of its rhetorical effect, then most of us can agreee that this would be "bad writing."
• The fear of new technology is that it will signal the end of "traditional typographic standards" (274). Instead, Keedy argues that the new technology will "reaffirm what works and modify what is outdated" (274). Again, this is true of all writing. In class discussions the "fear" can be palpable--if we aren't teaching "writing," then what are we teaching? But new media will not make "writing" obsolete. Instead, it will reaffirm what works and modify what is outdated.
• Zwart states that "the more uninteresting the letter, the more useful it is to the typographer" (274). Keedy interprets this to mean that Zwart was "for expression in composition" (274). What we write will always be of more importance than how we write it. Fancy technology cannot be a substitute for meaningful content, but it can enhance what a writer is attempting to communicate.
• Keedy writes, "Rejection or ignorance of the rich and varied history and traditions of typography are inexcusable; however, adherence to traditional concepts without regard to contemporary context is intellectually lazy and a threat to typography today" (275). Again, I will tie this to Thursday's discussion. Gina wants "writing" to mean the act of putting pen to paper; the generation of ideas in some type of "essay form." I agreed that there is a difference between writing and composing. While we need to respect this type of writing and its history, we also cannot ignore that the composition landscape is changing. If we don't recognize new media as a form of composition, composition itself is in jeopardy. I think this is the middle road that many of us were pushing for during the discussion.

The Power of Punctuation

If punctuation is used to clarify meaning, then we must pay attention to not only the mark itelf, but also the way it looks in a particular font. Solomon examines, for example, how the period looks different (and signifies a difference) when in different fonts. I think about this every time I type our emoticon. There are some fonts that do not translate the image properly.

• :l>2 This is Arial. I like this version because the mouth is straight and the hand is "unfancy."
• :I>2 This is Courier. There is no good representation of the mouth in this font.
• :l>2 This is Georgia. The lower case l or the upper case I both change the look of the mouth. The other symbols are also too low in relation to the mouth.

Solomon also discourages the use of punctuation for "the sake of design." This reminded me of Frances's rant against the prolific use of the exclamation point. When the punctuation is overused, it loses its meaning.

Repetition and the Rhetoric of Visual Design

I found Porter and Sullivan's discussion of the use of repetition in design very interesting (especially for a topic that I myself never think of). I wonder how many of us read the box on p. 293 before reading the page before it, and if so, why. I did read the box as soon as I turned to page 292. It was the first element that looked different, so it caught my eye. The *WARNING!* also begs to be noticed.

Rhetoric, Humanism, and Design

And just to highlight how connections are made in our brains, I have had "Bella Lugosi's Dead" stuck in my head for days now due to the mere mention of Bauhaus (the school of design, not the band) in this article.

The Visual Representation of My Literacy

As I'm struggling to complete the visual essay by Tuesday's class, I am reminded of what Rhodes said on Tuesday--our discomfort with this essay mirrors how many of our students feel in our composition classrooms with the traditional essay.

Why is this project so difficult for me? I think it's because I am having both a "composition" issue and a "technology" issue.

Even if we were allowed to write a traditional essay regarding our literacy, I would still be having trouble. In fact, I had the choice to write to a very similar prompt for another class a few weeks ago and immediately chose to write to the other prompt (about our individual writing processes). If I think about this like a box (kind of like the box logic), my literacy is in a HUGE box--but the lid is closed. I'm trying to find ways into the box and instead, I just keep knocking the box over. So the topic itself is a struggle for me.

That difficulty has been compounded by my realization that I know nothing about computers--at least not enough to do what I want to do. When a theme comes to me that would unify my visual essay in a much cooler way than it is now, I quickly see that I don't have the software to do what I want, or I've never used the software that I end up using so the learning curve seems insurmountable. And these two aspects of the essay (the composition and the technology) exacerbate each other--they both cause writer's block for the other component. The technology is of no use if I don't know what to write; the writing doesn't make it onto a page because I don't know how to use the technology.

The "Feeling" of Literacy

Okay, I've decided to be brave and post my freewrite from last night's class. My hope is that someone will offer suggestions for incorporating these thoughts into my visual essay project:

I think of my grandmother. She's in her chair with newspapers, magazines, Maeve Binchy, Truman Capote, Steinbeck fluttered all around her. Light streams in from the window to alight her in a glow.
I think of the public library, the rush and excitement of the wonder: What world will I get to enter into today?
I smell the new book and feel the first bend in the spine. These books were mine-not the library's.
I remember books and stories that made me laugh, cry, think, and ponder.
I feel protective of my mom as I read Gone with the Wind to her at night. She'd fall asleep, but I'd continue reading.
I remember the exhilaration of knowing all the words to something: the movie Grease or "Take Me Home Country Roads."
I feel connection with my mom and friends (Luanne/ Joy) as we discuss our favorite or current books. The gift of allowing someone else into that book's world..."Did you get to the part where...?"
Writing a paper I feel proud of and being willing to share those words with others. Books/reading/writing is the one area of my life in which I feel smart.
Books comfort me when I'm sick, send me to sleep at night through my iPod, and challenge the way I think (on a good day).
I remember the circle--reading to my grandmother as she died. I read the Bible to her (to calm her) and Circle of Friends (to remind her of home). Although I talked with her often in those days, books allowed me to say some of the things I couldn't. I know exactly what line I was reading as she died. The last voice she heard was mine, reading from her favorite book.

"The Vocabulary of Comics"

Scott McCloud's essay intrigued me, but I'm not sure I totally buy into it. I followed him until the very end. He uses icon "to mean any image used to represent a person, place, thing or idea" (198). He discusses the various types of icons:

• symbols that represent "concepts, ideas and philosphies" (198)
• practical symbols (such as math, shapes, typing symbols, etc)
• and pictures that "resemble their subjects" (198).

McCloud then addresses the various types of pictures, from realistic to cartoon. He claims that comics allow for "amplification through simplification" (201).

However, in the last section, he explains how we are able to see a face just based on the presence of a circle, two dots, and a line: "We humans are a self-centered race" (203). How self-centered? With a realistic picture we see another human, but with a cartoon, we are able to see oursevles (207). Essentially, McCloud claims, we are able to see a little part of ourselves in every cartoon--that explains their effect on our culture and our fascination with them.

But I wonder :l>2

Why does seeing a face where none really exists make us self-centered? Can we really jump to McCloud's conclusion that we are seeing ourselves in these comic characters? I really thought about this, and, no, I did not view the "man" in this comic as me. But I did view him as another human, just as I always viewed both Calvin and Hobbes as human from the comic above. I don't think it's that we are able to see ourselves; it's that we are able to see someone like ourselves. Humans have a tendency to anthropomorphize and to personify non-living objects--it's our way of understanding the world around us. But I don't think that makes us self-centered; it makes us human-centered.

The Theory of Visual Argument

StudioBendib.com

Birdsell and Groarke quote David Fleming's claims that "visual images ('pictures') cannot, he claims, be arguments" (309). My first reaction: Really?! Someone actually believes this?!!! (Exclamation points just for Frances) Secondly, I remembered the cartoon that Jeanne brought into class recently--an expression of her disbelief that some still consider the visual as unable to argue.

Of course, Birdsell and Groarke also disbelieve this notion and come to the conclusion that any discussion of visual argumentation must do the following:

1. identify the internal elements of a visual image
2. understand the contexts of the image
3. establish a consistency of an interpretation of the image
4. indicate the changes in visual perspectives over time (318).

The above example meets this criteria in the same that the "hooked" fish does in the chapter--through a mixture of verbal and visual rhetoric that depend on each other equally for effect.

Selfe's "Toward New Media Texts"

"If our profession continues to focus solely on teaching alphabetic composition--either online or in print--we run the risk of making composition studies increasingly irrelevant to students engaging in contemporary practices of communication."

--Cynthia Selfe

Here, for me, Selfe verbalizes the "thesis" of ENG 658. Instead of degrading visual texts "as the less-important and less-intellectual sidekicks of alphabetic texts," composition instructors need to recognize visual text as equal to "conventional" text (70). As composition courses continue solely to devote instruction to the "essay," students will increasingly wonder how this type of writing will help them in the "real world."

While I think many reasons exist for traditional compositionists to clutch to alphabetic texts and devalue new media, Selfe asserts that much of this stems from our own fears. Fears of being discovered as ignorant in a particular area. Fears of being deemed irrelevant.

The remainder of Selfe's chapter provides guidelines for teachers to integrate the study of visual rhetoric into their classrooms and specific assignments which reach that aim. I especially gravitated toward Activity 2 "Visual Argument Assignment," since much of what we read in Visual Rhetoric in a Digital World for this week discussed the validity of the visual as argumentation.

Seeing the Text: Selfe's "Students Who Teach Us"

Bernhardt's "Seeing the Text" acts as a "visual rhetoric"al analysis of two documents. He writes, "The manner in which visually informative texts achieve rhetorical control differs in important ways from that in the non-visually informative text, at all levels of organization: in the whole discourse, in the paragraph, and in the sentence" (95). To understand how an author achieves rhetorical control, he discusses how the work's intended audience and purpose dictate its visual look.

As I read Selfe's "Students Who Teach Us: A Case Study of a New Media Text Designer" directly after reading Bernhardt's essay, I found myself analyzing her visual rhetorical moves. Each chapter's title in the book is accompanied by a picture (already a melding of two genres). This chapter has surfboards, conjuring up images of both the California that her case study resides in and the "surfing" of the internet. Although this picture grounds the chapter since it is related to its content, it also appeals to the reader. Most readers of this text are, or will be, teachers. Let's face it, many of these kinds of texts have no pictures or graphics at all. Hence, any incorporation of visual imagery is appealing to this audience.

Selfe makes use of various font sizes and elements to set both her headings and some of her statements apart. The title of the piece is the largest font and in all capital letters. But it is also in gray-scale, allowing it to be part of the picture decribed above and less jarring. Her subtitle is in black bold type, drawing the reader's eye towards the subtitle instead of the actual title itself. Since the subtitle is a more descriptive phrase of the chapter's contents, this allows the busy reader to decide quickly if the chapter is worth reading.

Self makes quite a few moves to enable her audience to read the chapter quickly (as a grad student, as Rhodes would say). She numbers the important points of the chapter at the beginning. She also bold types the phrase "This chapter argues...." The combination of these two design elements allows the audience to read just these sections and "get the gist" of the entire argument. After reading these sections, a reader can then decide to finish the article with a slower eye.

Selfe also bold-types particular statements throughout the article, but only sparingly. The reader understands that these statements are particularly important, and in fact, usually contain the conclusions she made based on her observations.

The last technique she uses is the outlined box (I don't know the real term for this). Self creates a box around two of the sections from her article. They are not set apart from the rest of the text, but they stand out in a somewhat jarring manner. If she had boldfaced these sections, they would have seemed as if they were on an equal footing as the other boldfaced statements. By implementing a new visual element, Selfe highlights these two statements, which are actually the lead-in to the next sections of the chapter.

I was just thinking. :l>2
You know how once you learn or discover something, you start seeing it everywhere? Well, I won't say that I was ignorant of how visual rhetoric impacts the reader before, but there is something about recently reading an article on a topic that makes it so that I CAN'T stop noticing it. I guess instead of this being an "ear worm," it would be an "eye worm." Ewww!

Deep Thoughts by Sarah Antinora

Mark, does this help answer your question as to how

early our children should be using the internet?

Thoughts Regarding Last Week's Discussions

Many of us expressed our distrust of the internet during Thursday's class discussion. Yes, there is much to be explored and learned from the internet, but we also understand that images and information are much too easy to manipulate. While we, as children of books, find the internet suspect, our students often have not developed the skill of reading with a critical eye. The below picture, for me, exemplifies the suspect nature of the internet and visual media in general. This photo has been disproven as valid by many sources, and yet it is still quite easy to not only find on the internet, but found on fairly "credible" sights.

If you're not familiar with this photo, the airliner

in the background is supposed to be one of the

hijacked planes on 9/11. The man is assumed to be

a visitor to the WTC.

Although the above example disgusts me due to the emotions it plays on, I have to admit the ability to create such a believable image is pretty intriguing. While this example supports our natural inclinations to distrust multi-media (especially from the internet), these types of "hoaxes" are not new or restricted to new media.

Traditional written texts are just as susceptible to fooling the public with intentionally inaccurate information. Has anyone ever read Letter from a Nut? Hysterically true letters to corporations, but its author doesn't exist. Sure, this book is intended as entertainment. So how about mistruths delivered by the medical community? Several medical conferences have had presenters mention the "fact" that Jamie Lee Curtis is an hermaphrodite. Any proof for this? Nope--it's an urban legend.

The fact that information comes from print media or respectable sources does not excuse us from reading critically. So my point is this: One of our responsibilities as teachers is to provide students with the tools to think and read critically. That skill and the strategies used are no different for new media than they are for print text.

Greg Niemeyer's Podcasts

These two podcasts are actually the first two class sessions for Niemeyer's course at UC Berkley. The first forty-five minute session acts as an introduction to the course, which Niemeyer states will focus on "new media," and in particular the ways in which race/gender/diversity inform or are informed by media. The second class session traces some of the beginnings of media and transmission of information, starting with the connection of the continental railroads and telegraph wiring in Utah. The class then begins looking at how media and technology is portrayed in film.

Since the podcasts total an hour and a half, I took notes on points of Niemeyer's that either surprised me or provoked thoughts. Here is a sampling:

• I did not realize that "media" derives from in media res. The etymology here allows for the definition of media to include so much more than what we commonly envision (such as the computer). It also made the notion of "media" a lot less daunting for me personally.
• During the discussion of the students' homework assignments, Niemeyer explains that their work will be anonymous, through a use of personal ID numbers instead of names, due to legalities in making homework public. This issue reminded me of the discussion from Tuesday's class when Rhodes pointed out that our methods of controlling media and new technology always begin with the constructs and expectations that governed earlier technology. Should legalities concerning "homework" still apply when the work is intended to be in the public sphere, such as with the homepage assignment from Niemeyer's class?
• The "love story" between the two telegraph operators was interesting to me since it emphasizes how our ability to "read" applies even without a traditional text. Similarly, I found myself "reading" the music from the movie clips that were played towards the end of the second podcast. Since I was not familiar with the some of the movies, and one had no dialogue (only music), I read the music to hypothesize as to what the visuals might be. That this music accompanied a visual that feminized technology was not surprising to me.

Week One's Readings

Lanham's "The Implications of Electronic Information for the Sociology of Knowledge"

Lanham's essay details the implications of moving from book to screen--word to media--linear to hypertextual. Our conventional ideas of authorship are based on the permanency of the written word, and, yet, with current technology the reader can easily become an author (456). A recurrent theme of this essay is the way in which technology has allowed for the democratization of publishing (459). With the basic programs that come with many of our computers upon purchase, we now each have the ability to create our own text, and that text can now take many forms other than just ink and page. Lantham contends that the creation of this mixture of voice, written word, image, and movies is a new form of "writing." In example, he discusses the use of computer programs to create digital music, claiming that musicianship no longer requires true physical talent. Instead, it rests on the ability to "collage" sounds together (462). The process of writing and performing music has changed. He then extends this example to discuss how the process of writing in general has changed and how that must alter what and how we teach our students to write. Similarly, we must teach our students to read differently, since literacy now is not restricted to making meaning from words on a page. Our classrooms, textbooks, and curriculum will all change.

I don't dispute any of Lanham's conclusions. Our "digital world" requires that we not only learn to interpret the visual, auditory, and traditional rhetoric of texts but to be aware of how our own choices influence how others will read the texts we create. However, Lanham's example of digital music production set off a little alarm bell in my head. While it may seem that the average, musically-unlearned person can produce music alongside gifted musicians using this technology, I don't believe it to be so. My husband has been a musician for over thirty years. He was trained in brass instruments, bass guitar, and music composition. He also plays drums, electric guitar, and keyboards. His knowledge and background in how music works allow him to create much better music on Cakewalk than I ever could. Although the program provides everything I would need, it doesn't provide talent or musical sensibility. While this probably sounds like I've gone off on a tangent, I think this "sensibility" translates to the writing process also. Our students will come to class with a knowledge of texting, internet surfing, web design, etc. Programs exist that will allow writers to blend all types of text in one document with the click of a button. But without the sensibility of what creates "good writing," they will never reach the potential that those programs allow.

Question: If we "reinvent" composition studies in the way Lanham advocates in his article, are we not ignoring the core of writing?

Introduction

Far in the stillness a cat
Languishes loudly.
--William Ernest Henley 1888

Welcome to my first ever blog. While I have kept a journal off and on for my entire life, it has never occurred to me that others would want to read daily updates of my life or current ramblings of my brain. However, I am currently enrolled in ENG 658 Computers & Composition at CSUSB, which requires each of us to respond to weekly readings in a blog.

First, about me. My hope is to graduate this quarter with an MA in English Composition: Dual Concentration and begin a PhD program in the fall. Although I taught middle school for twelve years, I am now a full-time graduate student. My loves are reading, my cats, and my husband (not sure of the order here, though).

I am fairly adept at using the technology required of me, but I am not adventurous in trying new things. Word processing, e-mailing, internet surfing, photo imaging, creating home movies, iPod usage, and playing with my husband's Cakewalk program (for music) are all second-nature now. But if I am put in front of a different program, it can throw me for a loop. As I loathe the cell phone, I don't engage in texting, and people attempting to IM me while I am having fun on the computer are just a nuisance. I guess I like the solitary nature of much of our technology.