Critical Need

We live in contentious times, though I'm not asserting this as a statement of exceptionalism in favor of the early 21st century.  No doubt contentious times have come before and, should we keep from eradicating our species, will come again (or, failing that, will come for the newly evolved cockroach-people millions of years from now).   

Before I launch into a tirade about the importance of research and critical thinking, I'm going to rattle off two bits of homespun which probably makes the point a whole lot better:

1) We've got two ears and one mouth for a reason. 

2) It's awfully hard to hear anything when your lips are moving. 

In the last 24 hours I've had two of those delightfully disgusting internet encounters wherein someone reads an offensive headline or sees a challenging image and decides to speak out rather than to dig deeper.  

In the first case, it was Michael Hariot's article "White People are Cowards" over at The Root.  It's a provocative title, for sure, and the content addresses how it's probably not the smoothest rhetorical move, but the reader in question decided to fire off a string of personal opinion attended as rebuttal to the author directly in the article's comments (it was a late comment, and as of yet hasn't gained any traction, so no sense really looking for it).  The respondent's allegation primarily hinged upon some shopworn whataboutisms (what about black-on-black crime?  What about Obama? etc.) which, had this person actually bothered to read the article generously and thoughtfully, they would have seen were addressed.  Failing that, ongoing scholarship and journalism also addresses these points.   

The second case was pretty similar - it was in response to pictures of newly erected detainment centers along the southern US border side-by-side with pictures of the Auschwitz concentration camp, remarking on the similarities and the apparent historic inevitability of murderous escalation. The respondent in this case "sealioned" their way through a comment thread before being dismissed from the conversation. The answers to any and all of their questions were just a short Google search away, but instead they wasted their energy in an unproductive attempt to insult and derail. 

But if you're too busy typing up angry screeds on the internet, you won't bother to go do supportive reading.  If you're too busy running your (figurative) mouth (by which I mean fingers on a keyboard) you won't use your (again figurative) ears to listen (by which I mean eyes to read...really could have thought this through). 

Our job as educators is to teach active reading and cautious response.  It's not about being nice or polite (although that's pleasant), but about acknowledging the sticky, liquid work of knowledge-making.  It's about taking time and walking cautiously to a conclusion rather than jumping.  

It's about listening about twice as much as we speak. 

Share and Share Alike

Never underestimate the power of a good conversation. 

I ran into a colleague today who has been having a bit of trouble teaching technical communication.  This is a topic well within my wheelhouse--not so much for my colleague.  

We talked shop for a few moments and I passed along a few pointers, tips, and tricks.  Later that day I sent along some class notes as well.  Hopefully that's useful for them, but here's the kicker:  It was really useful for me! 

To be frank, I wasn't really feeling my oats today.  I had a late start, I didn't feel particularly focused, and I mostly just wanted to slack off for the afternoon.  On top of that, I forgot the text I'd been annotating for my own reference (Wysocki, Johnson-Eilola, Selfe & Sirc's Writing New Media - highly recommended).  It looked like a real washout session. 

But talking about the craft of writing and our involvement in the classroom recharged me.  It was a warm-up.  With the relatively easy task of recounting what had worked in the classroom, I was able to push ahead and make something interesting and useful (in this case: assignment sheets).  

The lesson today, then, is to take the little opportunities to discuss the work, because that is also in its own way the work that needs to be done. 

New Media Literacy

Starting in 2018, I will be teaching a course in Writing for New Media.  I'm excited because it's an opportunity to push past the obvious utterances like "new media = web" and "short paragraphs, use 'you' a lot," and to actually dig in to what we mean by all of the terms in the title.

For example, when we say "new," do we mean the 21st century?  Because the tools and techniques of 2001 have already been pushed aside in favor of emerging practices and loci.  Don't believe me?  Go update your LiveJournal and tell your buddies on Friendster.  Do we mean the 20th century?  Shall we challenge our conventions of telegraphy?  And do old mediums ever really die?  Do they evolve? 

The Ship of Theseus:  Take the telegraph, keep the tele, remove the graph, add a phone, drop the phone, pour in bits, drop the tele (Greek:  far off / far away), make it immediate...is it still the same ship? 

As for media, that term implies a middle -- something in between (media - medium...something between the observer and the thing) and of course in the postmodern we know that everything is itself a thing.  There is nothing BUT media such that the thing itself is media. 

So given this mind-boggling weirdness, what will it mean to write? 

I am challenged to theorize my praxis like never before. I have written for the web, for television, and of course for "traditional" (whose traditions?) publications, but now I will be looking for consistent threads, recursive tropes, a persistent zeitgeist, and simultaenously points of departure and fragmentation.

The ecology of new media, teaming with life - let's dive in!

Introduction

Hi! I'm Dr. Vytautas Malesh, and this is my teaching blog!

Most instructors / professors / teachers keep some sort of running log of their ups and downs in the classroom. They keep track of notable students, reflect on lesson plans which really worked, and toss links and other ephemera onto the page to save for later.

My own teaching journals in the past have been pretty jumbled -- quite literally shoeboxes full of notes, old bank boxes stuffed with forgotten portfolios, salvaged emails downloaded into word docs...you get the idea.

I was inspired by one of my high school teachers, Ms. Anne Gautreau, who in 2017 recounted to me a story of one of my own eureka moments over twenty years ago brought into the present through her excellent sense of posterity and commitment to record keeping.  That is to say that she bothered to write down something remarkable shortly after it happened in the classroom, and carried that story forward to improve her own teaching.

And so I'm following the lead of a very, very good teacher in the hopes that I will be called the same. 

So who is this blog for? 

FOR ME:  This is an ongoing record of success and failure, of what works and what doesn't.  It's a place to brainstorm, to recollect, and to review.

FOR STUDENTS:  You can see through these pages that your instructors are, in fact, human beings with feet of clay who (often) err, and who adapt and learn from our shared classroom time just the same as you do.  If you happen to read this blog, you might get a little context and color for our classroom work and assignments, and you might find that missing idea or two which will help you make it all click. 

FOR TEACHERS:  We're all in this together - I can't meet every other instructor of writing for coffee, crullers, and commiseration - this is the next best thing, and in some ways an even better thing since here we have assembled notes, comments, fresh impressions, and even a link to a lesson plan or two. 

So if you're reading this far, thanks!  I can't promise this blog will be of interest to anyone but myself (and not even always that), but I can promise to be honest and to try to make something good.