Grammar Resources From Other Universities' Writing Centers
The University of Texas, of course, has fantastic online writing resources available through the UWC, but other university writing centers also offer sites worth a look. Undergraduates might find The Writer’s Handbook for the Writing Center of the University of Wisconsin, Madison (http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/index.html) particularly useful.
The Topoi
If you use your class website a lot, you might wan to take a look at the Topoi page that Mark Marino has put together for the USC writing program (www.pageflakes.com/markcmarino) This page is full of interactive tools for pre-writing. The widgets are meant to be copied and used on your own site to help your students. Here is Marino's post discussing the Topoi page: http://writerresponsetheory.org/wordpress/2008/08/23/widget-based-education/
The Topoi - www.pageflakes.com/markcmarino
Writer Response Theory (Marino's blog)- http://writerresponsetheory.org/wordpress/
Elements of Style
This week I've been taking a look at printed grammar handbooks available for free online. One of the best I've come across so far is William J. Strunk's The Elements of Style, available from Bartleby.com.
http://www.bartleby.com/141/index.html
I’ve known many professors who think highly of Strunk and White’s Elements of Style. This is actually an earlier version (before E.B. White got involved), but students can get the full text for free. Though definitely dated, the handbook provides basic writing information still essential for students today.
Today is Veteran's Day
Whatever our politics, whether we had a good election or a bad last week, that we had an election to get excited about at all is due in large part to the millions who have served in our nation's Armed Forces. We honor the 653,000 who have given their lives in defense of our country on Memorial Day. Today, Veteran's Day, is our day to honor the nearly 24 million who came home to us alive: our nation's Veterans.
Deconstructing and Reconstructing Media and Messages
The Living Newspaper Project Meets Multimedia Technology
For those of you looking to invite students to interact with different media, you might consider adopting and adapting the lesson plans conveniently provided as part of the Humanities Institute’s Living Newspaper Project. In this case, the four kinds of media are printed news reports, play script, oral reading, and theater performance.
Grading Question: What do you do if a student does the wrong assignment?
I'm trying a new grading strategy this year. I use a table with two columns. The first column lists the grading criteria and how much each aspect of the paper is worth, for example:
1. Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the evidence in the essay (this may include a discussion of statistics). 25 points.
2. Write a concise, relevant introduction. 5 points.
The second column includes my comments on that aspect of the paper as well as the total points the student received.
Call for Chapter Proposals: Collaborative Writing in Virtual Workplaces
A book edited by Dr. Beth L. Hewett and Dr. Charlotte A. Robidoux
University Maryland, UC
Hewlett-Packard Company Deadline for submission: November 30, 2008 Introduction
Collaborative writing, a process that has often occurred both asynchronously by sharing a document, as well as synchronously in face-to-face or telephone settings, increasingly occurs in virtual settings. When authors write virtually, their processes are distributed across geographic locations, but also within the co-located space of an office or institutional setting. Unlike traditional document sharing and face-to-face or telephone interactions, virtual writing requires participants to communicate using computer-mediated communication (CMC) technologies, which include everything from instant messaging and email to interactions that take place via web pages and webcasts and through the use of graphical user interfaces. This book will investigate the use of CMC technology to facilitate effective interdependent collaboration in writing projects, especially in virtual workplace settings.
Transformative Works and Cultures: Special Issue
Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol. 2 (Spring 2009)
Guest Editor: Rebecca Carlson Deadline for submission: November 15, 2008
Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC) invites essays on gaming and gaming culture as transformative work. We are interested in game studies in all its theoretical and practical breadth, but even more so in the way fan culture shapes itself around and through gaming interfaces. Potential topics include but are not limited to game audiences as fan cultures; anthropological approaches to game design and game engagement; on- and off-line game experiences; textual and cultural analysis of games; fan appropriations and manipulations of games; and intersections between games and other fan artifacts.
Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations: Digital Humanities 2009
University of Maryland Deadline for submission: November 15, 2008
From the CFP:
The international Programme Committee invites submissions of abstracts of between 750 and 1500 words on any aspect of digital humanities, broadly defined to encompass the common ground between information technology and problems in humanities research and teaching. As always, we welcome submissions in any area of the humanities, particularly interdisciplinary work. We especially encourage submissions on the current state of the art in digital humanities, and on recent new developments and expected future developments in the field.
Encouraging Risk Averse Student?
I'm looking for suggestions from my fellow teachers, regarding encouraging a risk-averse student to make mistakes. Read on for full details ...
Grammar Girl
In my search for useful grammar websites, I've also explored those not specifically designed for classroom use.
English Club for ESL Students English Grammar
I've been reviewing various grammar websites for the CWRL Pedagogy group, and I've discovered that English Club offers a very useful site for ESL students struggling with grammar issues an instructor may not have time to address in class.
http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/index.htm
The web contains numerous sites directed at ESL students, but English Club’s page is one of the most comprehensive and complete. It provides clear and correct information in a straight-forward, easily accessible manner to students at various stages of English mastery.
Seeking Data and Publications: Teaching Composition Online
A colleague and I are developing a training workshop for teachers (GTAs) at our university interested in teaching our Composition classes online. We have each taught online ourselves, with the benefit of the College's brief introductory training in my case, and we feel that additional preparation is utterly crucial. To get there from here, we need to secure funding, and to get the funding we need information from other institutions/programs.
Times Higher Ed: Margins Aren't Meant to be Written In
The London Times Higher Education Supplement has an editorial up on the practice of marginal annotation in paper grading. Here's the link:
Margins Aren't Meant to be Written In
My comments after the break ...
Backward Design
A couple of years ago, my CWRL project group set out to determine how Second Life could be used in the rhetoric classroom. Starting with the tool, we tried to imagine an assignment that would fit--somehow--into our curriculum. Only one person in the group tried the assignment we developed. It was irrelevant to the rest of our courses.
The Tenth Annual Convention of the Media Ecology Association
Saint Louis University
St. Louis, Missouri Deadline for submission: January 15, 2009
From the CFP:
“Ecology”: a word derived from the Greek words meaning “household knowledge.” For the 2009 MEA convention, we seek papers on any aspect of media ecology. Special interest in the places and spaces of media interactions: Silicon Valley or St. Louis; screen, studio, library, or street. Does place matter? Local systems, larger systems, and changing relationships in the ecology of media. The role(s) of media in different ecological systems. The changing geography of media: Why do some forms emerge and others recede? The ethics of (not) setting boundaries. Living in information systems: Are we the center, the web, the flaneur? What is the I in the culture of iPods, iPhones, and iGames? Because the 2009 MEA Convention will meet at Saint Louis University, where Walter J. Ong was a faculty member, papers on any aspect of his work are especially welcome.
Helpful and Educational Online Press Release Services
As writers, we often have to be versatile and flexible in order to gain new clients - or to keep old ones. Good writers are seldom one-dimensional; we often wear many hats, functioning now as a feature writer, then as a publicist, and at another time as a sort of media communications specialist. We are sometimes called on to write ad copy; at others times we are needed to write biographies or brochures. We are asked to edit or proofread academic essays, and at other times we are summoned to write a speech for a local politician.
Digital Media and Learning Competition 2008
From the proposal description:
Drawing upon the innovative winning projects from the first Digital Media and Learning Competition, the theme for this year’s Competition is Participatory Learning. There are two award categories: Innovation in Participatory Learning and Young Innovators. All proposals submitted to the Digital Media and Learning Competition, in either category, should be for support of digital projects that engage participatory learning in an integral way.
Participatory Learning includes the ways in which new technologies enable learners (of any age) to contribute in diverse ways to individual and shared learning goals. Through games, wikis, blogs, virtual environments, social network sites, cell phones, mobile devices, and other digital platforms, learners can participate in virtual communities where they share ideas, comment upon one another's projects, and plan, design, advance, implement, or simply discuss their goals and ideas together. Participatory learners come together to aggregate their ideas and experiences in a way that makes the whole ultimately greater than the sum of the parts.
A new way to comment on Microsoft Word Documents
Thanks to a tip from someone over at the Blogora, I've started testing out a new tool called Annotate (check out their website for a 30 day trial). Annotate is an add-in for Microsoft Word 2007 (a version for Word 2003 is forthcoming) that gives you many more options for commenting on student work. There are a lot of stock comments for things like comma splices or transitions.