Getting used to public writing means getting comfortable with idea sharing. Hard task, given that the currency of communication is built upon ideas, including the foundational original idea. Amplify that with mythologies of owning insights, and the call for claiming, collecting, and guarding ideas sounds clearly over the realms of academia and culture. Dragons with hoards, we protect our mental wealth, waiting for challengers and watchful for opportunity.

But private writers also suffer under the delusions of unique ideas. Take the textbook I’m beginning. I’ve decided to stop looking at other textbooks for a while, because I want to express my vision without having it gravitate too far toward the conceptions others have developed for teaching writing. How wrong is that? The question for me is not just rhetorical. Clearly it makes little sense to propose a complex system without looking at, even building from, what has already been done. And, the impulse to express a personal perspective merely places me in the mythology, finds me further retreating into the metaphysical cave of ideas.

So, yes, it’s wrong. But at the same time, I ask for the counterpoints. Duplication of ideas makes little sense without identifying those worth trying to emulate. And, it’s likely that I’ll have great difficulty escaping the constraints of the existing idea system for teaching writing, so the least I can do is make a strong effort to break away, to resist with the knowledge that the forces of inertia will pull the project back in the direction of the already known. So, for now, I write alone in avoiding the models that shape the field of first year composition texts.

But, of course, I write here publicly and welcome the thoughts of others. And, I write having spent plenty of time studying books meant to teach writing. Further, it’s clear that such conventions are fixed enough to influence the text, regardless of my intentions. Through the lenses of argument, the rhetorical situation, critical thinking, and the writing process come projected images of what writing looks like and of which instructional templates are needed to teach composition.

The question becomes even more pressing, then: how can I send out my message, given this institutional structure? I should admit I’m jumping straight to vowing to work within the institutions to try to evoke change. I like the more radical, overturn-the-system camps, and I know a leap is needed to assume I can have an impact within these constraints. But, I believe I can work with many of these structures, use the constraints, sonnet-like, pushing my ideas and teaching even as I borrow from existing forms. (I do know this is not an unfraught proposition.)

I really want to focus on the new media and the old media texts. To ask students, What are you making? In part, I think the technology-based writing I prefer necessitates this kind of foregrounding of projects, of texts, genres, and media. Working with code or cropping tools casts composition as construction, foregrounding files, tags, shapes. Really what’s needed is a strong focus on products. Of course, few compositionists would advocate for a product-based pedagogy in a writing text. But, I’ll figure out a way to help students focus on the physical aspects of the projects they will be making.

Similarly, I want to write expressively, and I want students to do the same. I want to invite students to identify personally with their writing projects. It’s not just that topics should be connected to interests, but projects should be relevant in form as well. Images. Sounds. Essays. Playlists. Enjoyable. I want students to have a sense that they can be insightful. I want them to be unsure about their tasks, to test and learn about new techniques and materials. I’d much rather err on the side of making things fun and creative, than on the side of making them familiar and formal.

And, I want students to know that, while it’s right to write the personal, much of what they say will be radically public. They will be buffeted by the media maelstrom. They will read and build upon the writings of others. And, they will address an audience. They will pass their compositions through a medium, feel it shape the writing, send the work through channels to be shared with others. They’ll project through space and time. They’ll project to people. Pitch. Sway. Entertain. Write.

So, the question again: How can I emphasize texts, advocate for expression from authors, and champion public writing given the constraints of educational and rhetorical institutions? My response is to build upon familiar ideas. The image here represents notes I’ve taken on my proposal for the writing guide. My notes pull out the time-worn rhetorical triangle, a structure handed down since Aristotle and featuring ethos, pathos, and logos (or author, audience, and text in other constructions).

I’d like to restate this three part structure with terms more in line with my goals for the project—identify (ethos, author), connect (pathos, audience), and construct (logos, text). I’m similarly thinking through how to respond to terms and structures like argument and critical thinking; more on that later. My hope is that this template and others will emphasize aspects of writing that matter to me. I also hope that this represents more of a building from than a capitulation to traditional structures and the status quo. In fact, I see a possible broadening of the current structures of writing instruction through terms like identify and connect, terms which not only derive from familiar conceptions like author and audience, but which, I hope, also urge writers to express their own ideas.

Posted by Daniel Anderson at 11:07 AM
Taged as >> planting pivots and shouldering forward | Permalink

For the past few months I've tried to write new media pieces when making posts on this blog. It's oddly fitting, then, that this post (the first installment of many) consists of all prose, since it is here that I'll finalize the manifesto for my future writing projects, projects that, I hope, strengthen the bridge between new media and printed texts. I've sketched out ideas for such a manifesto once or twice in the past, but now I need to further develop my approach as I begin two writing textbooks. I'm calling the project Write Now. It will consist of two books, a writing guide and a handbook, each with extensive new media emphasis and content.

Both books will involve a good deal of public composing and social networking in their development. In fact, a key aspect of the project will be the way the development is opened up to public participation. I'll gladly build from the models so well developed by the Institute for the Future of the Book. The open and public composition processes they have set up for both the GAM3R 7H30RY and Without Gods books represents the kind of shared or moderated writing I'd like to accomplish. I'll also point to Collin's Rhetworks, Jeff's Digital Detroit, and Jenny's Auditory Epideictic as paving the way for actualizing the social possibilities for scholarship. I'd like to do something similar with my next textbooks.

I hunkered alone for two years recently writing a literature textbook and CD. I just don't have a taste for such isolated writing right now, and I'd like Write Now to have the benefit of online feedback and development. Conceptually and logistically, conflicts will surely arise. I'd like to implement a personal vision and produce published books for profit. But I'd also like to see a shared process of development within an interested community of readers and contributors. I'd like to make materials freely available to the public through an open source model that will help the community and make the materials stronger. But I know the commercial nature of the project will limit a good deal of this outreach potential. My intent for addressing these conflicts is to be honest, to admit that the context of commercial publishing will shape the work, to strive to be reflective and progressive in working with and against the grain of publishing pressures, and to ask for and facilitate the giving of help.

I should begin with a brief reflection on the process of finding a publisher for the project. For the past year I've spoken with every major publisher for college writing. Interactions have ranged from informal conversations about the project, to extended face-to-face meetings with officers, editors, development teams, media teams, marketing teams, and sales teams. In all of these interactions I have found the publishers to be genuinely interested in the future of writing. I'm not naive enough to overlook economics in their motivations, but, in the face of frequent criticisms of publishers as unresponsive to and exploitive of college writing, I'd be remiss in not observing that I found every publisher to be eager to listen, open to new possibilities, and, in instances, more tuned-in to student needs and desires than many instructors. Publishers seem ahead of the field in acknowledging that Web 2.0, portable devices, and new media will create profound changes for writers in the next decade. We talked about these developments at an If:book meeting in April and I was pleased to see that publishers, although approaching from different standpoints, were absolutely ready to participate in similar conversations.

I also should say I've learned a lot through the process of looking for a commercial venue for Write Now, and for the most part what I've learned makes me happy. Publishers take seriously the process of discovering what students and instructors want. Hierarchies between signing, developing, marketing, and selling textbooks are breaking down; instead information and decisions are shared, in part necessitated by the increasing risk factors associated with the investment costs of new editions. Publishers are more focused on a holistic approach to fewer texts, which hedges investments and limits options beyond the main stream, but also has the potential to result in better books, provided the vertical flow of information makes its way into the development process.

Publishers are also keenly aware of the price concerns regarding textbooks. Across companies, it's clear that publishers are ready with shorter versions of books should instructors and textbook committees request them. Publishers also are financially motivated to respond to the pressures that prevent students from buying and keeping books; no surprises here. What's promising, though, is the trend toward customization. Again, without any exceptions I could see, publishers are moving toward providing custom versions of texts and media that will help instructors, textbook adoption committees, and students identify and create texts that meet specific needs.

And, publishers are ready to push technology and social writing both in the production and distribution of their products and in the content of the texts. I proposed playlist, podcast, photo essay, collage, video collage, online profile, and dozens of other technology-based assignments for Write Now. Everyone I talked to welcomed those projects and wanted to keep the media and technology focus of the books. And, not one publisher balked at the notion of shifting the production model of the book to one consistent with the second Web. I proposed adding a public dimension to the writing through social software. I suggested participation from a broad community, and asked that publishers fund and facilitate that participation. I asked that some of the materials be released for the community to use and modify. We all had questions about logistics and boundaries, but every publisher was eager to implement these processes in the development of the books.

In fact, my eventual selection of Prentice Hall as a home for the project was based mainly on their eagerness to figure out together how we might transform the development process by opening it up. I started with an admission that I felt like I was straddling two worlds: one the open source, communal knowledge sphere I admire and participate with online, and two the world where I wanted to publish textbooks that challenge the state of writing but reach mainstream writing classes. We sat down and started brainstorming about how that might happen. The results will evolve over the next several years, but I wouldn't have committed to the process if I didn't believe it would offer opportunities for future students, for publishers, and for me to push writing.

So, I'm going public with this writing project. Look for more reflections, links to resources, and calls for participation here. If it works, look for those materials to develop into a shape recognizable as some form of open publishing. I'm not sure what to expect if it doesn't work. Either way, the process will play out in this and the other public spaces that make up the social Web.

Posted by Daniel Anderson at 01:02 PM
Taged as >> writing push coming from the inside out | Permalink

The Institute for the Future of the Book posted an announcement of the MediaCommons project today. It's worth taking a look at, as it represents a number of the movements underway regarding online scholarship and publication. I'll highlight two points for now. One:

Moreover, publishing within such a network seems increasingly crucial to media scholars, who need the ability to quote from the multi-mediated materials they write about, and for whom form needs to be able to follow content, allowing not just for writing about mediation but writing in a mediated environment.

I agree wholeheartedly. At the same time, I don't like the claim that media studies people are either best suited or more appropriate for this task. First, my gut sense is that often media practitioners are not the ones writing the books about media studies. Second, and more important, if this gesture matters, then it matters for all writers, especially those not already layering and key-framing in the choir.

Point two:

The move from the discrete, proprietary, market-driven press to an open access scholarly network became in our conversations both a logical way of meeting the multiple mandates that academics operate within and a necessary intervention for the academy, allowing it to forge a more inclusive community of scholars who challenge opaque forms of traditional scholarship by foregrounding process and emphasizing critical dialogue. Such dialogue will foster new scholarship that operates in modes that are collaborative, interactive, multimediated, networked, nonlinear, and multi-accented. In the process, an open access scholarly network will also build bridges with diverse non-academic communities, allowing the academy to regain its credibility with these constituencies who have come to equate scholarly critical discourse with ivory tower elitism.

Again, yes. I'm behind the move. I worry, though, about regaining credibility with these constituents if the nature of the scholarly discourse remains more or less unchanged. I guess my questions boil down to will a venue shift be enough? Or, will it be a drastic enough venue shift? Or, is the nature of the academic mind such that it is likely to alienate a general public in any venue?

I don't want to come of as hyper-critical. I'm eager to see this play out. There is also a pedagogical dimension that is really worth a look. I'm excited about such moves and want to plug them.

Posted by Daniel Anderson at 07:54 AM
Taged as >> new venues and process may mean new ideas and relationships | Permalink

Open the image to see the first page of Crystal Borne's profile of Ernest Hemingway. I'm still processing my thoughts on the profile assignment we completed yesterday, but already I can feel some of the constraints wrought by thinking about textbook publishing and its genres. The textbook favors the essay profile, of which I received many that seem good. But Crystal's improvisation engages me more.

My thinking is that writing is many times about trade-offs, having to compose what's required. The key is to push it at least until it becomes something that sustains your interest. A textbook that features profiles must have essays in it, but why not also projects like Crystal's? Today we'll make voice-mail messages as a final gesture in capturing the essence of a person, and then we'll try to sort out what works best and what compromises might be required to create a textbook section on profiles. The bigger questions about why the compromises must be made will probably remain open.

Posted by Daniel Anderson at 06:34 AM
Taged as >> profiling profile assignments | Permalink

I thought I'd send my ping into the echo chamber amplifying recent pronouncements regarding electronic books. Today a posting at the Future of the Book links to some of the resonances, and just yesterday a message came across two e-mail lists pointing to "Digital Publishing Is Scrambling the Industry's Rules" in the New York Times. The postings pick up on recent conversations spawned by Kevin Kelly and a speech given by John Updike at the BookExpo (more on those below). I'll highlight three frequencies in these discussions. First, the key dimension for me of "Scrambling" is the analogy between book publishing and music:

Hovering above the discussion of all these technologies is the fear that the publishing industry could be subject to the same upheaval that has plagued the music industry, where digitalization has started to displace the traditional artistic and economic model of the record album with 99-cent song downloads and personalized playlists. Total album sales are down 19 percent since 2001, while CD sales have dropped 16 percent during the same period, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Sales of single digital music tracks have jumped more than 1,700 percent in just two years.

Clearly, this move to sampling snippets evokes both concern and celebration. "Scrambling" cites author Jane Hamilton:

"Does that mean 'Anna Karenina' goes hand in hand with my niece's blog of her trip to Las Vegas?" asked Jane Hamilton, author of "The Book of Ruth" and a forthcoming novel, "When Madeline Was Young." "It sounds absolutely deadly." Reading books as isolated works is precisely what she wants to do, she said. "When I read someone like Willa Cather, I feel like I'm in the presence of the divine," Ms. Hamilton said. "I don't want her mixed up with anybody else. And I certainly don't want to go to her Web site."

Geoffrey Carter, though, e-mails to suggest,

Hamilton's refusal to allow Willa Catheter a re-mix across her niece's work might be expressed as the mainlining of Willa Cather.

And yet, like the coursings of her niece's journal, W.C's work along the Platte River, might be extended into a thousand different platte.aus ... A
million tiny plattes following the dashes of dis and dat, rather than a recipe.

So, frequency one in the swirl has to do with the status of the text and the authorial voice and might be simplified along a familiar unified, linear vs. fragmented, remixed split. The response: call it a continuum not a split and let people traverse the lines as they see fit. Nothing to see here, move along.

The second frequency in my mind relates to shifting economic models. Much of the recent conversation has rolled forward from Kevin Kelly's "Scan This Book!" (now ironically sealed behind the pay-for-view archives of the New York Times). Kelly also suggests that electronic books will matter because they shift the statuses of texts and authors:

Turning inked letters into electronic dots that can be read on a screen is simply the first essential step in creating this new [e-book] library. The real magic will come in the second act, as each word in each book is cross-linked, clustered, cited, extracted, indexed, analyzed, annotated, remixed, reassembled and woven deeper into the culture than before. In the world of books, every bit informs another; every page reads all the other pages.

What sets Kelly's premise apart from the continuum of fragmentation and unity is the way it is hard-coded into economics, technologies, and culture. The vision is not that different from earlier conceptions of docuverse, but is colored by its alignment with google books and search engines as its driving force. Kelly sees two competing business models, a prior model based on cheap but controlled copies (that could be sold) and an emerging model based on free copies (that must be extended with money-earning value-adds). What I find striking (and perhaps part of what worries others) about this otherwise sensible proposition is that it contains a sub-text that de-emphasizes autonomy and individuality. Yes, Kelly allows that individuals can release their remixed "bookshelves" into the network, but closes (and emphasizes) how "the technology of search will transform" what we think of as culture and knowledge.

The problem, really, is that one of the smaller transformations included among the four implications of e-books listed by Kelly--the suggestion that e-books "will cultivate a new sense of authority"-- is really one of the larger concerns for writers and teachers. Kelly aligns authority with a collective sense of complete knowledge--authority as increased truth value founded on access to a larger pool of information. For the writer, though, authority emerges in the complex of assessments, decisions, and manipulations that happen as we struggle to translate idea into expression; whether through remix or reflection, authority forms as we manage to place an identity behind the statements we create.

So, frequency three: John Updike responding to Kelly. In the podcast of Updike's speech, we catch something more than desire for economic control or exclusivity when it comes to identity and authorship (although those can be found in the file as well). As he recounts the many books stores from his past, Updike reveals a nostalgia for the concrete, for "his world of books, physical, handsome, nice-smelling books." All of these conversations about e-books touch at some point on the sense of loss that might accompany the physical engagement with the printed artifact. Too often, however, these concerns are dismissed as discussions reel toward economic or epistemologic paradigms. This early dismissal is a problem, though, because the tensions are not between "the conventions of the book and the protocols of the screen" as Kelly suggests in closing his argument.

The tensions are between reader browsing through (dusty) book store shelves and searcher googling electronic space, print and screen writ large as physical world and virtual space. It is telling that Updike misreads Kelly's contention that authors will begin interacting with readers as a physical act--more plane trips, coffee hours, late night signings. The misreading reveals the conundrum left unexplored so far in the conversation: how far are we willing to transform the self from a physical reader of tangible books, to a virtual patron of the electronic library.

Posted by Daniel Anderson at 10:43 AM
Taged as >> weighing in (heavy) on the virtual scale | Permalink

I’ve made a video of my presentation (23.6 mb) for Friday afternoon at the Computers and Writing Conference. It took a while to figure out that I wanted to riff off of something I had presented at my first computers and writing conference in Missouri. There I talked about MUDs and the constraints/transcendence of language, at least that’s what I thought I was talking about. I’m reminded of Colin’s recent post on dissertations now—thinking about that twelve-year-old presentation reveals to me how true it is that writers never realize their limitations until some time later. There is an old copy of that paper linked to a broken article back in Texas

But that presentation matters to me because I tried to weave in something personal, something expansive in the prose and metaphor. And it really matters because John Slatin afterward told me to trust my ideas, to do more with the metaphors and language play. It was a powerful suggestion that I had forgotten, and remaking the piece has helped me savor it once again.

In the video for this year’s conference I repurpose the bus stop metaphor and use less prose, more sound, and some images. The video itself simply makes the point that instructional materials need to emphasize composing over consuming new media. (I’m not sure how much longer one can get away with that angle in these presentations, but still it resurfaces for me.)

The video also hopes to open some questions, including,

Why is there so little collaboration between programmers and content providers in most electronic text production models?

Does the power of autonomy and individual authorship undermine collaborative paradigms?

How much new media composing practice must authors of instructional materials have?

What should be the role of familiar pedagogical terms and structures in new media instructional materials?

What limits and benefits derive from the print biases of current electronic materials?

How can publishers facilitate projects that enable more new media composition for authors and students?

These are all good questions, but more than anything I want to open a metaphor. A word. Door.

Posted by Daniel Anderson at 09:51 PM
Taged as >> looking back to find the next stop | Permalink | Comments (3)

I'd like to share this video collage that comes from Lauren Frohne and the Literature and New Media Class. What strikes me about Lauren's piece is the way it helps me visualize how a term like juxtaposition can be used creatively and become more than a concept, more of an activity. Lauren writes

I really liked playing with the words of Charles Bukowski, the way my friend Jeremy read it, and the images I could place over the top of it all. It was a good exploration into the juxtaposition of these elements, their overall effectiveness, and using some overlogic/nonsense to put it all together.

In thinking about skills and areas of focus for instructional texts, it's easy to latch on to argument, summary, comparison, etc. This piece helps me realize that something like juxtaposition can be folded into the set as well and covered with the same level of legitimacy.

Posted by Daniel Anderson at 07:59 AM
Taged as >> juxtaposition images rock poetry | Permalink

Jeff Rice posted a brief reflection on the Institute for the Future of the Book meeting we just attended. And Steve Krause posted a response with some further thoughts about book publishing. I have some comments and hope to keep talking about publishing textbooks in the field but wanted to journal some of my thoughts on the meeting before they dissipate:

In some ways I’m a bit surprised that a concrete way forward failed to materialize. I guess, though, I’m not that worried about it. Jeff makes a good point about the need to simply talk over things and also made a good point in the meeting regarding not trying to hit a home run when integrating technology into teaching for the first time. The morning blue sky session went well, with large concerns about creating a new “book” that allowed a hybrid model that blended scholarship with typical textbook instruction. The idea was to make pedagogical authorship easier to recognize in terms of promotion and provide an extra layer of information for teachers using the book or students wishing to take things to the next level. We also moved toward a model that includes folksonomy-based interaction and filtering. We wanted the ability to tag items already in the collection and to customize the materials based on key terms. A big focus was on developing something modular that would allow instructors to combine models as needed to construct a course. To my mind, the assignment or syllabus creation piece of a new book could serve as the main entry point (at least for thinking about how to create and organize the materials). This is something I’ve wanted for a long time and something Johndan mentioned trying to implement with publishers in the past—a course builder tool that operates on a semester-based timeline. Much as one can drag, drop, arrange, and edit video clips in something like iMovie, an instructor can compose a course based on these modules that come with layers like the pedagogical and scholarly component that might contextualize the work as she puts together the syllabus. We also spent time talking about how to integrate content-oriented resources into the project—a media archive, links to openly available online materials, possible functions for uploading sample projects and additional readings. So, the highlights for me that we came up with were the hybrid text that includes a scholarly layer, the folksonomy participation tools, the modular organization with syllabus composing tools, and the fluid access to rich resources in many modes—all terrific specifications for a next-generation teaching text.

Our afternoon session, however, was more remarkable (to my mind) for what it revealed about the readiness of the academy to implement such a project. After an initial attempt to think about the project modules that might go into the collection and the listing of a few possibilities we began to try to more carefully spec out the functionality, but quickly took up questions of how radically we were altering the existing model of knowledge creation and textbooks. This was a frustrating conversation to my mind as it ultimately hinged on terminology and priorities, Some members had problems with calling projects things like “audio essays” or the notion of the syllabus, the assignment, and assessment. Ultimately we ended up debating the pitfalls of replicating print logic and pedagogy in a discussion that centered on the inadequacy of these terms and of the project to capture a free-wheeling, remix-based composition that could not be addressed or assessed in conventional terms—at least that was the question under discussion as I heard it.

To me, however, this debate reduces to the familiar saw about the shape and certainty of language and the level of abstraction we should bring to our work. Wondering whether we might call the module an assignment rather than a project, doing away with assessment, or calling something a studio, or kitchen, or whatever instead of a syllabus builder is really a debate about the influence of language and culture and our ability to resist their control. Yes, we replicate when we work within the system or extend rather than tear down the system, but whether it’s even possible to escape such inevitabilities is also open to debate. Replace the essay with the mash up? Sure, but don’t imagine that will break the bonds of institutional and linguistic control or that everyone agrees about the nature of those bonds or that control. Arguing against a potential system because it falls prey to the vagaries of language, institutions, and culture is a bit disingenuous unless one recognizes that the debate boils down to the cracking of the epistemological walnut of knowledge status and creation. Sure, at some level the nut cracks revealing the fundamental uncertainty within its fragmented shell, but even the most radical dissolutionist recognizes the others may want to leave their walnut whole, or move forward using the leftover pieces, And here’s where taste comes in. I prefer my metaphysics with some certainty and pragmatics stirred in. I’m comfortable working with the existing structures of knowledge, trying to tweak them, build on familiar terms, even tradition. Bringing some inescapable printcentricity into the project poses no problems for me. I suppose it’s not surprising that questions about the status and shape of knowledge circulated a good deal in the meeting. For the most part the questions lead to helpful insights, but they also pulled attention away from how we might go about actually making something rather than talking about it.

Well, attach slash soapbox to the end of that paragraph. I’m excited about the demonstration of Sophie that we had. My experience using TK3 tells me that authorware offers great promise as a way of making multimedia publishing a viable option for teachers and students. I have worked on electronic accompaniments with the outsourced-production-team and content-provider model and can say they really miss the boat in terms of asking book authors to work as composers with new media. Every book now has gobs of media magic in its content. The next step is to get some into the production of the ideas and the book itself. My sense is that it will be slow going, but that since Sophie will be open source and extendable it may be one of the main avenues to go down in the next few years. I’ve resolved myself to compose some sample book stuff with it as soon as the beta version comes out and to see about working on the DRM and licensing issues as part of any project I take on with a publisher.

I’ll say more on that in the near future. I’m eager to open up the book and its production process to exactly the kinds of ideas we started hashing out in the meeting.

Posted by Daniel Anderson at 10:01 AM
Taged as >> textboook publishing reflections | Permalink

Commercial affiliations surround and pull at us all the time. Cars. Computers. Office phones. Like sounds that seep into daily routines, the corporate other and entity enfolds us. iTunes. Rhapsody. "Saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vics.” The question is not whether to participate, but which affiliations to make, which bargains to strike. And the moments of decision are not always transparent. When does google go from hip personal choice to economic force (see the Web)? Can one still google (Facebook, Office, Oracle) and not bleat with the flock?

This is to say, of course, we must and will consider and make countless choices about commercial education. The power. The power of making those choices intoxicates. And should. The idea is to imagine standing amid the swirl and shaping it, affecting its pieces and pitch ("not so fast"). So, textbook writers should ask not whether to be a part of commercial education, but how carefully/forcefully they might shape its production. Aim for?

[Bullets Now]

Relevant
Self-reflective
Classroom-generated
Thundering
Project-based
Multimodal
Public
Creative
Effective (add fraught tree—creative vs. effective)

Watch out for?

Replication
Pitch
Watering
Over-abstraction
Over-simplification
[in that order]

Now it’s got to be a project of love. However wrapped in excesses of deadlines and demographics, not so fast. It has to be a project of love. Rhetorical lights turned to journeys with others. Changes felt and offered. Motivated well, whenever misguided. Some projects tap along for work or money, but [shift the pronoun here] I (one, you) can’t hope to shape the swirl without an honest intent (tag as foundation) that stands behind the words. Without pretense, I can hope to affect.

Not so fast. The real projects must add jazz to the mind. They’ve got to move. Motivate. Make us puzzle thoughts and tweak them toward expression. (The feel-good premise of the year.) The phenomenology of message-making plied into a techno-teacherly process stopped in the shape of book and site. Yes, it’s not just the shape but the process we’re after. That mental change. That sustain.

Posted by Daniel Anderson at 10:55 AM
Taged as >> brainstorm textbook publishing redemption | Permalink

As I contemplate whether and perhaps how to embark on a new textbook project, I imagine how a new text might embody my current thinking about teaching and the pushing of writing. A new text would have to sing the social turn and new media. A new text would have to pour forth on the second Web. A new text would have to pour forth with headphones filling spaces between my ears. That’s the ticket to the new textbook ride, a rhythm bumping behind the concentrated raking forward of assignments, exercises, and texts. Work with it, the rhythm. The wetter pieces will be media layered over and into the instruction, the pieces themselves new media compositions to turn the crank on new media composition.

The book will be beautiful. It must be. Books are. But the shape’s the question. Moldy modes of discourse? Arguments? Topics? Themes? No matter. The rhythm will drive it. The book will flow and projects will shape it. Projects like the playlist or the collage. Projects brought forth on the second Web with lots of samples, ideas, and revisions of writers (students). Labels and categories must swirl colorfully into the mix. Making new things. The rhythm behind. No ideas but in tags? Rhythm things? Flowing always through the teaching surfaces of the project must be projects.

And it always must be ready to ask the audience, “How you feeling?” “Is this thing on?” Pfwhheeaaaa. Pfwhhuueaa. Not just while building the book, but while building from the book. Teach to build, and build to teach. The project is cranking on teaching, and that will happen outside of the three-year cycle of current textbook production. Dates must guide groups and mark time, but rolling out the teaching will pace with the rhythm of the years. Fall. Winter. Spring. Summer off? Summer off. This is a textbook manifesto from a writing pusher.

Don’t doubt that there will be some layering of deeply dabbled new media mixtures. Visual. Yes, very. Texts. Yes, the word. Yes, Yes, the word. Audio. Absolutely. Music matters more than we’ve realized in the classroom. Sing. Play. Listen and sing. And touch. Let's not forgot writing moves the body just as the body moves the word, even through cyberspace. Paintbrush. Shadow. Filter. Print. Push. Push. Push.

Posted by Daniel Anderson at 11:36 PM
Taged as >> seeking deeper texboook publishing rhythm | Permalink | Comments (2)

An e-mail I just recieved from Rich Rice with the line "me and bubbles you" tells me that it's probably time to train the producer/consumer mindset on the bubble phenomenon about to emerge with the release of Steven Soderbergh's Bubble on Friday. A piece called 'Bubble' Vision appeared in the Washington Post this morning that raised some questions teachers of new media writing might want to think about. On one level, the film and its "day-and-date" release strategy (offering the film in every form--theater, tv, DVD--at the same time) makes a gesture to be applauded by writing teachers championing audience choice over producer decisions. If you prefer the theater experience, fine; if you'd rather watch at home in pajamas, no problem. Similarly, champions of new media literacy could laud the production model--a work filmed with digital video cameras, "amateur actors and only the bare bones of a script" is something instructors thinking about having students create digital video projects can relate to. It's worth acknowledging the experimental and prosumer possibilities raised by the project.

But, here comes the however: beneath the surface my reaction is that the project also represents a clever attempt to capture the media market and diminishes the choices of consumers. It turns out the film represents a carefully timed flexing of the media muscles of 2929 entertainment--the conglomerate headed by Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner. It's not as if viewers can decide to finger the remote Friday night and take in the film--they first need to sign up for HD Net TV. Where the film will appear in theaters will also be controlled, no doubt, by 2929. Really there is no way to get to the film without going through the ladder of 2929's monopoly. If this vertical control of new media creation marks the release of the film, we may need to check our enthusiasm with the opening scene. It may turn turns out much of the motivation is economic:

In the 1940s, this kind of vertical integration was declared illegal by the federal government, and movie studios were ordered to divest themselves of the theaters they owned; since deregulation in the 1980s those strictures have largely disappeared. In today's media climate, Wagner insists, it's the only way to make a buck.

Not that there is anything wrong with that (*); it's just that pushing the piece through the "information wants to be free" filter of net culture seems a likely misreading. The real concern, I think, for new media teaching is how this might impact the evolving spaces where more genuine grass roots video composing and sharing is taking place. There is still a space and audience payoff for posting things like "The Real Shining" to spaces like Ourmedia or vSocial. I'm still more interested in saving my applause for that kind of composing.

Posted by Daniel Anderson at 09:50 AM
Taged as >> free digital video consumer bubble | Permalink | Comments (2)