The Inaugural Address

Today in my writing courses, we began class with a discussion about genre, audience, purpose, and style as preparation for viewing this historical inaugural address.


Then we conversed about it on our class blog -- rather than having a f2f vocal discussion. This activity worked: in the writing about it afterwards, students expressed a range of opinions they probably wouldn't want to share in class. I've still got so many hard-core Republican students who just can't acknowledge the actual content of this speech; instead, they fall back on the "he won't be able to fulfill his promises" bumper stickers instead of listening to what he actually said.

Many, many lessons are embedded in today's historic events and in my students' responses to these events.

Good first day

A couple of innovations worked well:

1) With introductions, for years I have asked students to "interview" each other and then introduce that interviewee to the whole class. Typically, I ask a question about the student's course goals/objectives, but I get tired of hearing, "My goal is to get an A in this class." So this year, I asked, "What do you hope to get out of *and give to* this class?"

The second part of the question solicited answers like, "I hope to give time and determination to this class." Yep, much better.

2) For a first-day writing exercise, I handed out a couple of cartoons about writing: next to each cartoon was blank space, and I asked students to think about the cartoons and put something in the space.

I deliberately used the word "put" to see who would write, who would draw, etc. One student drew an excellent extension of the first cartoon, and almost all students wrote something of interest. All were completely absorbed with the assignment. I'll definitely do it again.

Budget Analysis

My son pointed me to this website, The Budget Graph: A Visual Guide to Your Federal Taxes, which contains a poster representing the U.S. federal budget.

As a technical writing teacher, I'm fascinated by the visual design of this poster. I'm reminded of Edward Tufte's work, especially The Visual Display of Quantitative Information and Envisioning Information. (Equally important is his critique of PowerPoint, a version of it here:"PowerPoint is Evil" reprinted at Wired online.)

The graphic designer who created this poster, Jess Bachman, is a 26-year-old who invites folks to "spread the word" about his creation. Please do!

Art

I attended an excellent art opening this evening - my friend Mary Hark, formerly professor at Macalester College in St. Paul and currently professor at UW-Madison.

Her recent work comes out of her year in Kumasi, Ghana, on a Fulbright.

Need a class discussion?

Then watch this video:

"The Story of Stuff" is a 20-minute video argument that needs to be seen by everyone!

It's great for many, many reasons. For one thing, it'll explain to you why our government wants to send some citizens/taxpayers an "economic stimulus" check of a few hundred dollars but doesn't want to contribute an equal amount to things like education, health care, transportation infrastructure, etc. It'll also help understand something behind the partisan wrangling about the economic stimulus package.

Watch it until the end, too, to see ways to act.

More new finds

I'm not sure what to call the paths I've been taking lately to find new and interesting information on the web: following hyperlinks? trails? serendipity? ADHD?

At any rate, I've found a blog called CyberEnglish today, which is written by an English teacher who's also interested in technology.

I've also watched "Text & Technologies," a talking-head lecture on YouTube. Very odd experience, but I've learned something, I think.

And finally, a person can find TONS of educational stuff online. Try this site "Free Video Lectures" for short courses in everything from Anatomy to Electronics to Philosophy to Web Design.

Just in Time

The guy who made this YouTube video, "The Machine is Us/ing Us," is Dr. Michael Wesch from Kansas State University. He will be at St. Thomas University tomorrow, and I just registered to hear his presentation called “Human Futures for Technology and Education.”

Another cool thing I've just been reading about on my techrhet list is a website tool called "Late Night Writer." It's a fabulous series of prompts to help reluctant writers (and who hasn't been one of those?) compose either a review or a report. Aimed at junior high and high school students (I think), it looks useful for community college composition students, too!