Sequential Smarts
Wednesday, March 31, 2004
By Kaylan's own admission, she is an HTML goddess. Is this related to the fact that Kelly is a sun goddess? Is my class a minor pantheon?
Thursday, March 25, 2004
For those of you who are still a little unsure about what the journal question for tomorrow is talking about, Jeremy's journal from Wednesday and Jen's for Friday are both top-notch demonstrations of how we might respond to scholarly articles.
We'll be spending about fifteen minutes tomorrow (between two outlining exercises) discussing ways we could respond to the Kannenberg essay and in particular how we might expand our responses into a fully-fledged essay of our own.
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
It's not a flame war or anything, but at least we have our first online conversation! Alison Z.'s not particularly blinded by the glare of Zak's argument.
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
This week, my freshman comp class at UW-Madison is beginning to post their triweekly composition excercises online. This project has several goals:
- To teach subtle lessons about writing in a public voice, as our most important written work is definitionally public in nature. I'm thinking not just about the memoranda and project proposals of the professional world but the scholarly articles of academics and even the cover letters of our resumes.
- To give students a chance to read and respond to one another's work. Heretofore students have been emailing me their journals privately, which has given me a chance to help manipulate their efforts in service of each student's particular need. However, now that students have had a chance to identify their particular weaknesses, they can try to bulk up their skills at argumentation by sparring intellectually with each other. In my pedagogical dreams I'd like to see the public discourse taking place in my students' journals as a sort of scrimmage, where students try their powers of persuasion against one another.
- Finally, my dorkiest hope is that the students become accustomed to writing publically, perhaps eventually inviting friends and family members to read their blogs. (I know, I know.) In any case, public discourse lies near the foundation of the modern democracy and its practice only strengthens the American community.
