Bill Grabe outlined twelve ideas for future research in second language/ESL writing during his plenary talk at the Symposium on Second Language Writing today. His list included:

1. The importance of summary writing
2. The importance of exploring lexical, grammatical, and textual features contributing (or not contributing) to writing development
3. The need to move beyond the t-unit as a measure of writing complexity
4. The need to carry out more training studies with larger groups of students—the need to build a repository of controlled results across and within student groups, tasks, and topics
5. The need to build principled and controlled student writing corpora that multiple researchers can access for multiple issues and multiple studies (ICLE is not good enough)
6. The need to carry out (near) replications of highly-cited (and other) studies and have the replications published regularly
7. The need to study in more depth the linkages between vocabulary knowledge (both receptive and productive) and writing abilities
8. The need to study writing variability due to L1 language transfer factors, linguistic or textual
9. The need to expand research on writing assessment practices, particularly in classroom settings, and particularly with respect to “assessment for learning”
10. The need for controlled research on the impact of different media on writing, or using different media as part of writing development
11. The need to expand research on effective ways to carry out teacher training for more effective writing instruction (action research)
12. The need to examine relations between writing abilities (& development) and brain functioning

Admittedly empirically-focused. But thought-provoking. I’m interested, of course, in the implications of #10. What might such research look like? What kinds of questions should we be asking about the impact of different media on writing and writing development? So often administrators still ask whether or not computers are beneficial to students’ language learning and writing development. I’m just not convinced anymore that it’s interesting to ask whether or not the use of computers in the classroom is beneficial to teaching students to write. To me, that’s like asking 50 years ago whether or not it would be beneficial to students’ long-term writing to give them pencils. But what kinds of questions should we ask, especially in relation to L2 writers?

There are so many great web-based tools for teaching students argument and research, but I wanted to share two that I found via Alan Levine’s blog: aMap (short for “argument map”) and debategraph. Students can use these tools to visually map complex arguments–very useful for first-year writing classes!

I don’t think I’ve ever had an article written about anything I’ve done before. But, lo and behold, this morning Shelley and I made the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and–I guess–several other papers. Who would have thought that research in college writing classes would be interesting outside of the academy?

I haven’t posted to my blog lately because I self-edit too much. I’ve started dozens of blog entries and then deleted them because I didn’t think that I had anything relevant to add to the blogosphere. Why clutter it up anymore than it already is? And then sometimes I wonder what others will think about what I have to say. Blogging and social networking can bring back tons of self-absorbed middle-school neuroses.

But seriously, why should I care? How many people really find one lonely little blog? And of those who do read it, does it matter whether or not they find what I write to be enlightening? That’s the beauty of the internet, isn’t it? We vote with our mouse. If we don’t like something, we go elsewhere.

This has made me wonder, though: How does blogging cause us to rethink what we write about, who we share it with, how we represent ourselves, and how others might perceive what they read? Why do people blog? What’s appropriate to blog about? Are there things that should just be kept private? But then there are private blogs for that, right? I guess I just don’t get the point of those. Perhaps someone else can help me understand?

In my graduate class, I require my students to keep blogs. But I can’t decide how I feel about the educational potential of blogging–is it inappropriate to coerce someone into blogging? Is there a unique potential learning experience that can only be found through blogging? Maybe I’m overthinking it. Or maybe I’m just too darn skeptical.

On May 30th, I attended the North Carolina Scholarship of Teaching and Learning day at UNC-Greensboro with my colleagues Wanda Lloyd and Kate Hagopian. It was a great day to network with people from around the state, and I felt like I had one day that was completely dedicated to thinking about new directions for my own research on teaching and learning. I co-presented on “Going Public with SoTL” with Laura Cruz, from Western Carolina University, and her fabulous slides made me look well-prepared. I don’t mean to be too touchy-feely, but I think that for the first time in the two years I’ve been in NC, I felt like I had found a community of teacher-scholars who spoke my language. AND, I felt like we discovered a community that could be a catalyst for designing some innovative initiatives in our writing program at NC State. One idea I had: a mini-fellowship for lecturers in the writing program based on the Carnegie Scholars and Maricopa Institute for Learning models. What do you think?

Attending the conference also raised my awareness about several other opportunities around the state that will be coming up soon for those interested in professional development. The Carolinas Writing Program Administrators will be holding their annual conference in September in Little Switzerland, NC. The North Carolina English Teachers Association will host their annual conference in Winston-Salem in October, and UNC-Greensboro will hold the Lilly Conference on College and University Teaching in February, 2009. I also can’t resist plugging the first North Carolina Symposium on Teaching Writing that we’ll be hosting at NC State October 17 and 18 of this year. More info soon!

I presented at the Carolinas Writing Program Administrators’ meeting in Charlotte last Friday with my good friend, Tony Atkins. (We were also scheduled to present with Paula Rosinski, but her baby is due any day now and she was ordered by her doctor to stay close to home. We missed you, Paula!) Tony and I talked about using new media for teaching writing–Tony focused on visual arguments and using Facebook, and I talked about using new media to help students conduct research (drawing on much of the work I’ve been doing with Shelley Rodrigo that is posted on this month’s Teaching Composition blog).

Tony’s resource website for his talk includes some wonderful assignments for video composition and some great resources for incorporating multimedia into a writing classroom. Great stuff!

Right now I feel like I spend an awful lot of my time learning to use technologies instead of having them save me the time I think they will because of how efficient I’ll (eventually?) become.

I don’t think I can say it any better than Alan Levine did, so I’ll point you to his blog. Now THAT saves me time.

This weekend I went to Kansas City to visit my mother. I took Sam, which means that I also took all of the things that have to travel with Sam (diapers, toys, many changes of clothes, food, bottles, stroller, car seat, etc.). As I was packing, I laid everything out on the bed so that I could figure out how many bags I would have to take. Once I had everything neatly tucked into suitcases, I realized that there was one major item missing–my laptop. Although my laptop doesn’t take up much space (it’s a cute little Sony Vaio), it’s hard to travel with a baby, a stroller, and a computer that has to be removed from its carrying case in order to go through airport security. So I considered the idea of traveling without my computer.

And then I realized that I haven’t traveled without my computer in a very, very long time.

Granted, I have a Blackberry, so I can check email without my computer. And I have access to web-based tools like Google docs and Todoist, so I can work on my own stuff on my mother’s computer. But the idea of traveling without my own little laptop really freaked me out. And then I realized that I needed to do it. Plenty of students I have worked with (especially at Mesa Community College) did not have access to the kind of personal, customized technology that I have, and I thought it might be good–even if only for 72 hours–to experience what it is like to have to get work done on a computer that is not my own. My students tend to use computers available in the library or a lab, but my mom’s computer would work, too. I couldn’t download new software on her computer, and I couldn’t change her settings and configurations. I would just need to work within a “generic” space and rely on the tools available to me online.

It’s been challenging, but I’ve noticed a few patterns in my work this weekend.

First, I don’t do as much of it. I spend less time on the computer because I’m limited in what I can do. I don’t have access to my own software and desktop, so I don’t experiment as much. I don’t play around with new technologies, and I’m afraid that I’ll be taking up time that my mother needs to have on the computer. I have to share work space with someone else, which alters that amount of time that I spend in that space and the amount of connection I feel to it. (I’ll be the first to admit, though, that spending a little less time on my computer could be a good thing.)

Second, it takes longer for me to accomplish simple tasks. My mom has an unfamiliar version of Microsoft Word (yes, my own mother got Word 2007 before I did), and so inserting comments on a rather simple document took me at least twice as long as it would have on my own computer. At first I couldn’t figure out how to change the user information so that the comments were labeled with my name instead of my mom’s. And then I had to locate simple commands such as “Save as…” and “Track Changes.”

The up-side is that some tasks really are the same on my mom’s computer–such as writing in my blog. Web-based applications that I use on a regular basis function the same regardless of where I am, and I’m finding myself thinking of new ways to incorporate these technologies into my teaching. I can’t assume that students have access to technologies that I can’t provide for them or point them to, and that makes me rethink the ways in which I use technology in my own classes. For example, I’ve spent time in previous classes teaching students how to insert comments into a Word doc, but if they don’t have the same version of Word (or any version of Word), then that time might have been better spent doing something else. I’m rethinking my entire philosophy on which technologies I use in the classroom, and I’m thinking more and more about how I can introduce my students to open source tools that might help them accomplish what they need to do.

But now–because I didn’t do as much work and it took me longer to do what I did–I’m further behind than ever. My Vaio will look like an old friend when I see it tomorrow, and I’ll have a renewed appreciation for how much I rely on it, and how much I take that access for granted. I challenge you to give it a try–live without your personal computer for 48 hours. What would change in your own work habits?

In my graduate seminar on Technology and Pedagogy last week, we read the CCCC Position Statement on Teaching, Learning, and Assessing Writing in Digital Environments. Although it was just adopted 3 1/2 years ago (in February 2004), I found myself questioning some of the assumptions and statements in the document. And I also found myself thinking about position statements more generally.

When I taught at Mesa Community College, my colleague Richard Felnagle used to adamantly resist any attempts to write mission or position statements of any kind. I’m sure that on several levels his concerns were justified–in an English department we could go round and round for months about whether to place a comma in the opening clause of the mission statement without ever accomplishing anything. The writing of mission statements can sometimes get in the way of actually doing. But there can be a purpose in clarifying the position of a group, especially when the group is as large and diverse as CCCC.

Another potential frustration of mission statements, though, is that they are often read as acontextual, even though they are, of course, written in a particular context. A statement is representative of the circumstance in which it was written–the time and place of its writing and the people who drafted it–yet position statements can be read as somewhat “timeless” documents. They do, after all, represent the positions of their respective organizations unless they are changed or repealed.

As I read the position statement on digital environments for class last Tuesday, I found myself questioning the need for such a statement. Maybe circumstances have shifted so much in the past 3-4 years that such statements are no longer necessary. Or, maybe more precisely, I’m beginning to think that the positions that we take on teaching in digital environments are also positions that we should take on teaching in general–regardless of the medium of instruction.

The CCCC position statement has some wonderful stuff to say about teaching writing, especially in the section that articulates “Assumptions” about writing digitally:

Assumptions

Courses that engage students in writing digitally may have many features, but all of them should

(a) introduce students to the epistemic (knowledge-constructing) characteristics of information technology, some of which are generic to information technology and some of which are specific to the fields in which the information technology is used;

(b) provide students with opportunities to apply digital technologies to solve substantial problems common to the academic, professional, civic, and/or personal realm of their lives;

(c) include much hands-on use of technologies;

(d) engage students in the critical evaluation of information (see American Library Association, “Information Literacy”); and

(e) prepare students to be reflective practitioners.

As I read these assumptions, though, I realized that I could consistently substitute the word “writing” for “technology/information technology/digital technologies,” and the assumptions would still ring true. The last two assumptions don’t even mention technology at all. Do we still need to separate discussions about teaching writing in general from discussions about teaching writing with technology? Can we begin to assume that writing should be taught in a technology-rich environment because that’s where writing happens? Has our focus shifted too much to the technology itself?

Just before the section on assumptions, the position statement articulates a distinction between “two literacies: a literacy of print and a literacy of the screen.” I’m not sure I agree with this clear-cut distinction. Are these literacies really so easily distinguishable? Don’t they overlap and intersect with each other (or can we even separate these literacies at all)?

Perhaps this distinction is representative of how we thought of and talked about teaching (digital) writing before, but maybe it’s time for CCCC to take another look at this position statement and rethink our stated position and assumptions.

Well, I figured out one way to force myself to blog…I assigned blogged reading/technology responses in my graduate seminar and then told the students that I would blog along with them. So, I have no more excuses.

I’m trying to decide how I feel about forced blogging, or compelled public writing of any kind. NC State has a pretty conservative policy on the issue, and students who blog or write in a wiki in class must sign a FERPA disclaimer before participating. What kind of ethical responsibilities does a teacher have when asking students to write, or communicate in any way, in a public forum? Is that a potential violation of student privacy? Is it an integral part of education? I can think of arguments for both, and for many possibilities in between.

For now, I’m going to just try to get in the habit of blogging myself. I can theorize about privacy issues and writing in the public sphere, but with very little personal experience in this medium, I don’t have much ethos on which to base any argument or theory I might come up with.

So, let the blogging begin!