writing chart / web-circle

Detailed chart - (here)

Ok, so I'm going to give you a link because, for whatever reason, I couldn't get my map to work the way I wanted. The only "mind-mapping" software I had any experience with is apparently from 2004 and therefore won't save a digital copy -- you can only choose to print it out.

So I made a copy of my desktop image, uploaded it to picassa, and am hoping that this link is sufficient. I tried auto-uploading it to blogger, but it messed with the formatting of the blog.

I only was able to make it visible after swearing unreasonably at my poor computer and switching all these privacy settings I put in place years ago.

Hopefully I can fix it all and make my blog look pretty. (I don't think it will ever look pretty).

Anyway, a few words about how I approached the chart --

I don't do well with charts. For whatever reason, seeing everything all at once does something to me, and I can't quite get keep everything straight. I want to say that it's too organized, that it doesn't quite fit with how I think, but I'm not sure what I would mean by that. So visual representations of ideas sort of give me a headache, and I'm going to do my best to explain what I have.

--

I have "Writing" in the center circle, and branching off of there I had the three ways I can really think about writing -- that is, what utility they have / why anyone might write something down / the audience the writing is designed for. I divided them into the personal/private writing, mass consumption writing, and correspondence, which is somewhere between those previous two.

When thinking about personal / private writing, I consider truly private journals, task lists, grocery lists, little encouragement notes to yourself, little notes to yourself containing nasty names when you aren't doing everything the way you want to, and class notes. I think the central thing here is that the only audience in mind is the self -- that is, these writings should work towards being useful to the writer, and possibly not toward anyone else.

Mass consumption - These writings are meant to inform, entertain, or otherwise reach a mass audience, whether they reach that audience or not. In this circle, I place public blog postings, twitter / FB / other public social media updates, writing for TV, radio, newspaper, or other sorts of media geared towards mass consumption by an unknowable audience.

Correspondence - I think that correspondence sits somewhere between self-writing and mass-writing. I don't think it necessarily has to be a small group, but I think the audience has to be known, or at least knowable. Here, I count things like locked blog-journals, "private" social media postings, e-mail, letters, and other things like that.

--

I'm sure I missed categories, examples, and probably produced too much writing for an assignment that was primarily a visual representation.

Tech and Writing all twisted together

It doesn't seem possible to divorce technology from writing because the form that writing takes depends on the technology of the community in a large way.

--

In class, we discussed the possibility of how literacy can alter the consciousness of a human person, allowing that individual to engage with the text, and perhaps even develop an "inner voice." While I'm not sure how convincing that argument is,when technology changes, writing changes along with it. In a primarily oral culture, characters have to be representational of an idea because holding a full, complex character without any sort of record-permanence, is incredibly difficult. Adding more than one might be impossible to remember. By making marks, the task of "memory" is left up to something inanimate, freeing up headspace to develop more complex characters and situations.

--

I think that I would like to focus on the access that new technology seems to allow in writing. New technology, at least in the way I understand it, has made reading and writing more accessible to the general public. Whether computers or simple changes in the paper making process, advances in technology seem to open writing up for those who might not have been able to access it.

And it seems like there has to be some sort of symbiotic relationship here, right? Like sharks and remoras? Writing depends on and shifts with technology, but does technology depend on writing? Maybe not necessarily (so maybe writing is the remora, and technology is the shark?), but if we shift writing out to mean some sort of non-oral communication, I think we can make that sort of conclusion.

New technology doesn't just kind of appear from the shadows, and then we adapt our lives to use the tech. But usually it seems that tech rises to fill some sort of want or need. We need to communicate faster, so we "find" the telegraph. The telephone doesn't let us anonymously write hateful comments at celebrities / friends / family / coworkers. So we started using the internet, right?

--

I keep thinking about it, and I can't separate tech and writing. And I'm still struggling to try and figure out how technology affects how I want to teach and write. The way technology seems to keep everything brief seems important. A few months ago, my friend L. and I were discussing Twitter and how she used it in a business sense. At the time, she was interviewing people to take over a business communications / media writing job, and one of her talking points was Twitter. She needed to know if they could use Twitter in an effective way. Not just because she thought that the program / site / utility was that important, but it was an easy, relevant way to judge whether or not a candidate could communicate effectively while still being incredibly brief -- because people tend not to pay attention to large blocks of text of they can help it. "TL:DR" gets slapped on to any comment / story that goes on for more than a few paragraphs.

(I realize that this is probably starting to approach the TL:DR category, so I'll wrap it up in a second.)

Technology shifts allow readers to dismiss an article if it's simply too much work to read. Consumers want bite-sized summaries that outline what they need to know quickly. And if the source they have doesn't give it to them, there are thousands of other easy-to-access sources they can navigate to in seconds.

Radiolab: Words

http://www.radiolab.org/2010/aug/09/

Why am I in this class?

To answer the question in a broad, fairly uninteresting way: because I'm interested. I'm fascinated with technology and how it transforms the way we interact with the world. Combining tech with writing is something I'm considering pursuing academically, so taking this class was a pretty obvious step in that direction.
--

What do I want to get out of this class?

So, despite being enamored with technology, gadgetry, and things like that, I'm running my two 101 sections fairly tech light. I'm forcing my students to hand in hard copies of all their work. I asked that they refrain from using laptops, and I teach in a pretty bare bones room. I requested a laptop and projector for tomorrow, but I might have put it in too late.

So I don't really understand how to use technology in a meaningful way in a writing classroom. I have ideas about using computers and tablets to enhance revision, collaboration, and peer review, but I also can't figure out how to put it all together. I have students that approach me concerned about affording the books for the class, how can I require them to bring tablets or laptops to our meetings?

--

Beyond the practicality of using technology, I'm worried that adding in tech will serve only as a distraction instead of as learning tool. I created the anti-laptop policy based on my own experience as an undergrad. When I would observe my classmates using their laptops, it was primarily as a way to divert attention from the class. They would have multiple tabs open, flipping between facebook, espn, and their email, and be completely disengaged from the class. As 101 is discussion-focused, this lack of attention not only hurts the distracted student, but also his or her classmates who will not get to consider a differing opinion. I couldn't figure out a way to reconcile this, so I asked them to leave their computers in their backpacks. Which, admittedly, isn't the best option.

--

I hope that this class gives me an opportunity to address these concerns and to develop strategies toward a more technology-focused classroom. New students are getting more and more used to a multimodal approach toward education. If composition classes are to remain relevant, the way we teach them should shift as well. But I'm not sure how.

--

I also have very little experience with teaching in general. So instead of figuring out how to integrate technology with my own philosophy of teaching, I need to develop a philosophy of teaching that hopefully can integrate technology in a meaningful way. I hope that the pedagogical aspects of this class will help me formulate something that I can take into a classroom and make an impact.

Writing definition

As it all runs together, I need to think about what writing is.

--

Writing as marks on a screen or a page:

The scribble on paper or the seemingly meaningless assortment of marks isn't really writing, but more the evidence of writing. The proof that some sort of writing took place. So writing must predate the documentation of writing, which is confusing to me, but I'm going to keep going with it.

So if the marks on a computer screen, paper, rock tablet, aren't writing, just the evidence of writing, then writing itself must be some sort of internal process. Even an oral pronunciation of writing is still just an account of the process of writing.
--

Writing as an internal process:

So maybe writing is a dialogue that occurs within a person's mind. A sequencing of ideas put in an order cohesive with their own understanding. In this way, we make writing something that happens solely in the mind. An author composing a story in her mind. A poet swirling lines together to form a poem. An article shaping up in imaginary columns.

There's a problem with this. Writing also seems to need some sort of communication. It needs an audience, and perhaps a possible external audience. But if we require an external audience, diary writing can't count as writing. Note taking can't count as writing. So there must be some sort of audience, and writing must include a communication with that audience.

--

So writing can't be simply be thought, nor can it simply be markings / audible proof. But it has to include both of those things. So maybe we can think of writing as a relationship between writer and audience, even if the audience is the writer in the future.

Ok. Let's take a shot.

Working definition:

Writing is the relationship and communication between a writer and his or her audience. In this definition, the writer is one who produces a text and the audience is the person or persons who consume the text. Writing is the means that text is transported from the mind of the writer to the minds of the audience. Note that text does not need to be on paper, stone, sheepskin, cardboard, or any tangible material. It can be auditory, communicated through sign language, or experienced by touch. Maybe we can throw smell and balance in there somehow.

--

Shortened definition: Writing is the means that a text is transported from the mind of the composer to the mind/minds of the audience.