And now for the fun post…
Okay, just ignore the last couple posts if you don't want to be bored stiff. I'll try to make this one a little more lively to offset the academic stuff spouted out earlier, but no promises since I'm still firmly ensconced (dear god, I'm still using words like ensconced) in the academic mindset. Let's shed that a little bit.
For one of the first times in my life, I'm securely ahead of the game. I've got my upcoming assignments mostly fleshed out, and I'm making good progress on this thesis. Right now I'm still in the research mode, but the blogs I'm creating are helping to solidify my thoughts on everything. I feel like it'll be a lot easier to write a lit review after summarizing the main resources I've encountered. And I'll be able to find what I'm looking for more easily. Yet, I still have this low level stress simmering in the background. This weekend I will be traveling to the University of Rhode Island for the Northern Precinct Meeting. That's going to be a long drive that I'm not really thrilled about, but it also essentially takes away my weekend. Now, typically my weekends wouldn't be that productive, but like I said, I've been getting stuff done early, and I still feel like I'm not quite far enough ahead.
The volunteer portion of my one course is beginning soon, and I've chosen to hopefully volunteer at the Lifelong Learning Institute. Overall, looking back at my experience, I suddenly feel pretty confident. Even if I don't get accepted into a PhD program, I have marketable skills. I can design and implement documentation and create content like no one's business. I find myself in an increasingly creative mood as I think about all the ways of utilizing multimedia suites to create projects for school and just for kicks. But really, all I can think about right now is my thesis, and how much I love the topic. I love it. It's amazing, and I wish I'd had exposure to the sorts of projects I've been reading about. Now I'm just trying to sponge up all this research. I've gotten through a LOT of articles so far, but I have a huge stack still in waiting, but I guess that's how it goes.
Also, and I"m stoked about this, I've still been cooking like crazy, and in terms of my social life, I'm happier than I've been for a long time. Now, I know it's kind of annoying to hear someone gush about good fortune, so I'll keep it to a minimum, but honestly, I'm so lucky in so many ways to have the family and friends that I do. And you know for me, a natural little pessimist, that's saying something. I want to start creating images to go along with this blog, doing something artistic a la my Flipperwick project that's fallen on hard times. I might try my hand at vlogs sometime soon, partially for fun, but mainly because I'm going to be working with those kind of technologies (and cooler stuff) for the digital portion of my thesis.
Oh yeah, my thesis is part print document and part online website, so you'll be able to see it eventually. The online portion is going to be amazing, I hope, and something I can build upon even after it's done. In my life, I feel like I have a few goals I want to achieve.
- Write a novel (already almost complete twice...)
- Write a piece of multimodal fiction
- Develop an expertise in composition pedagogy
- Improve my digital painting skills
- Build a computer
That's not really a totally comprehensive list, but it's something. I will get published. So many stories are crashing around in my mind right now, and I'm starting to feel like I have something worth saying about the human condition. However, rest assured, I'll continue my genre roots of sci-fi and fantasy. But, to put it simply: I'm excited. And scared. But mostly excited. I'm going to be stressed out for the rest of this semester, but whatever happens, it's going to end well.
Sooo, I'll try to report what happens this weekend in Rhode Island, but we'll see how much time I have to really reflect on any of that.
Revenge of the Image
Ever notice how elitist the printed word can be? Yeah, me neither. It's one of those characteristics that's easy to overlook due to a sheer inability to see outside the confines of our current paradigm. But really, in order to be serious or academic, knowledge needs to be in the form of the printed word. And not just any printed word, but the most pure form. In this form, images disappear, except for the most painfully soulless charts or diagrams. One look at the contrast between scholarly journals and popular magazine further shows us the disparity between credibility and images, with journals typically consisting of white pages full of nothing except tiny, single-spaced print.
A lot of popular sentiment from composition teachers of the past denounce the status (or ability) of image as a form of argument. They speak of visual arguments only in terms of advertisement campaigns, and image becomes only something to analyze verbally. Rarely are we ever told to develop an argument through the medium of image. At best, we might design something and then be forced to explicate it through spoken or written language.
Yet the power of image in some ways goes beyond that of language, closer to a true depiction of reality. Because (and gah, I'm not citing here because I'm lazy, but these aren't really my original thoughts) we're surrounded by a predominantly visual reality, images take away from some of the abstraction that language introduces. And just look at the metaphors of knowledge surrounding us. If you have an idea, you have a light that shines so that you can see. We bring concepts "into view," and when we discover something, it brings clarification. "I see," says the person who finally understands.
But, truly, the printed word has had a monopoly on meaning-making that feels all too natural. We rarely question it, but instead just assume that "this is the way things are." And lord forbid you offend a staunch academic who's built a career on publications. Of course, to them, writing must appear to be the most impressive of all human creations. After all, artists are relegated to the second-tier of knowledge, only ever acting in that fuzzy realm of "art."
Language is powerful, yes, but that doesn't mean it is the "most powerful," or the "most meaningful" form of meaning-making. Simply put, the access to technologies allowing for visual argumentation just hasn't been widespread enough until recently and we stand in the middle of this paradigmatic change, where the old Canon hasn't quite been replaced. But we're beginning to make our arguments through modes other than the printed word, incorporating images, sounds, animations, and representations that create additional layers of meaning and operate in separate rhetorical contexts.
I've heard the argument from multiples sources (both in print and in-person) that composition has always been multimodal. We've always been operating in different contexts, and the visual elements of the printed word do matter. The illustrations provided branch into the multimodal literacies. This goes hand in hand that the introduction of the internet hasn't really created a more "interactive" form of communication, as communicating knowledge has always involved creating a connection with your audience.
Yet until now, all of these properties of our compositions have been taken for granted or implemented without understanding the reasoning in place. Rather than declaring that multimodality is a fresh, new concept, I think we need to realize that it has been with us for a long time, but that we can no longer afford to take those elements for granted. They can no longer be the unseen, underlying properties put in place to support a printed text community of knowledge, but must be understood as crucial individual elements worthy of exploration independent of a relationship with the printed word.
Evaluation is a B****
In keeping with my current theme of ranting about my future profession, I thought I'd take a few moments to talk a little bit about evaluation in a writing course. Now, there are entire scholarly journal articles out there that concern this topic, but as with most other writing-based research, the results inevitably turn out to be like a magic 8-ball that only ever comes up with "Ask again later." Well, that's not true. Sometimes it lands on maybe...
Well, for those of you who aren't initiated into this community, let me tell you, evaluation is tricky. Unlike a great number of other subjects, writing can't make use of multiple choice exams or true and false. Well, it can, but that won't make anyone a better writer. Instead, instructors need to sit down and pore over each paper dealing with the concrete mechanisms of sentence-level error while still remaining aware of larger concerns, such as structure or organization.
Now, if you're dealing with one section of a course, like me, it isn't really that much of a problem. But as you pick up additional sections, the grading workload skyrockets to the point where you'd never not be grading. Typically in an essay paper, you'll be making fairly extensive comments along the margins, along with a summative end note that provides the grade.
So how much commenting do the students actually want or need? That's where the research gets fuzzy. All we really know is that students like comments, if only because it shows the teacher read the content. So...the more, the better, right?
Well, let's think about how students actually read a paper once it's handed back. I've observed that typically a student forgoes the margin comments and jumps to the final page of the paper, where you'll find the endnote and grade. Hell, I tend to do the same thing. In that context, then, the explanations the instructor has provided become an argument for the grade earned rather than suggestions that could be used to improve future work.
It just strikes me as interesting how this affects some evaluation. And no, I don't believe every professor sits down and writes comments strictly with the purpose of arguing a grade. But I wonder how students perceive the comments. Do they pay them much heed if there isn't another draft forthcoming? And if there isn't another draft, then are the comments worthwhile? Again, with one class it's not too painful to spend 15 minutes looking over a paper. But multiply a class of 20 by 3 and you'll be buried in papers, struggling to provide detailed feedback while having some semblance of a personal life.
Ghostly Documents from the Past
If you've been fortunate enough to avoid the dreaded massive system crashes that tend to take bits of your life into the Void, an interesting thing happens. You get to look back in time, in a lot of different contexts. But last night I was fortunate (or unfortunate [the jury is still out])enough to uncover a whole trove of old academic papers spanning most of my time in college. I'm not sure where all those old high school documents went, but...that's probably for the best.
In any case, I had some painful revelations about myself upon looking over those old time capsules. Namely, I underlined book titles. Maybe that doesn't mean much to all of you, but to anyone who's taken a research methodology course, there are few sins worse than underlining the title of a book in an academic paper. I spend so much time trying to get students to realize that we have italics for a reason now, and I find that I'm guilty of high hypocrisy.
The second realization I had was that I was a fluffer. I never sunk quite so far as to increase the size of individual periods to lengthen a text, but holy crap did I play with margins. And my font of choice? Arial. Why does someone use Arial? Well, it's not because it's such an elegant font, or beautiful in its simplicity. No. One uses Arial because one knows that it can take a paper written in 12pt Times New Roman and get you at least an extra half page of length.
Looking back at those wretched, disgusting creations made my stomach queasy, but it was an entertaining look at progression. By the time I passed through the fiery hells of ENGL599, my prose had been systematically beaten into a crisp, proper, serif-ed word file worthy of academia.
Of course, then I jumped ship and went into a field that looks toward multimodal possibilities rather than the rigidly defined system of printed-text media. Fitting. Or maybe I'm just regressing.
So, I can now answer another question. What discipline is it best for an English major to choose for a second major? Any major that requires written documents but doesn't typically produce writers. As a student of music, I remember that feeling when I was given a written assignment for a music class as opposed to an English class. The lack of restrictions was amazing. Citations didn't have to be absolutely perfect? No font requirements? No research limitations?
Oh, what a beautiful world that was.
Obstacles
This is my final semester as a graduate student at James Madison University. I bet half of you are thinking, "It's about time!" And yeah, I'm kind of thinking the same thing. However, this semester is proving to be a challenge on a few different levels. Today threw up yet another obstacle (not exactly a major one, but not a minor one either), and I'm just trying to get back to being focused. There's a lot to get done in the next few weeks, not the least of which is creating a thesis. However, I'm a bit relieved/excited/terrified to be doing a hybrid thesis now, which is only fitting as I'm talking about multimodal content. So instead of writing a solid 80-90 pages I'll be writing a decent lit review and creating a website that contains...about 60 pages worth of content. Yet, that's going to be fun. It's a project, and something I can devote serious downtime to completing. But every time I get in the "groove" to work on it, something weird happens. Like today.
But, I'll have some serious time to devote to it soon. I'm pulling at a lot of strings and trying to get everything wrapped up in the next few weeks. Along with that big question of "Where to next?" Well, things work out, don't they? I hope so.
On side notes, I feel like I need to sell some of my crap. I've accumulated so much stuff that it's hard just to sift through it all. I've been tossing junk, and setting stuff aside to try and sell, but I feel like there must be a way to get rid of more stuff. Well...yeah....this post turned a little bit more mundane than I would have hoped. I need to write something creative soon. But I feel so guilty about it!
On the Cusp of Multimodality
Okay, I came to this little realization the other day as I was writing in a physical journal. Yes, a quaint little black journal with a bookmark stripe and an elastic string that keeps it from flapping open when I take it on all those exciting adventures I embark upon. Or when it just sits on the shelf, looking homely. Okay...so mostly the shelf. But I got to thinking about a few separate things. First of all, I can't read my own damn handwriting. I take this to mean that I should definitely enter the arena of medical healthcare, or become a professor, since I feel that bad handwriting is a necessity in each career. Secondly, I just can't write in a physical journal any longer.
Oh, I can do it, yes, but looking back at what I wrote (the bits that were actually legible), there's an absence of style or voice in the words. Everything is terse and fragmented, and it feels as though I was just rushing to put thoughts down on paper. Now, this saddens me, because looking at a crisp, beautiful journal, I just ACHE to fill it with black ink, beautifully scribed and outlining the most elegant of phrases. I've taken to carry a little notebook in my back pocket to record all of the genius thoughts I encounter in my daily life. So, in short, it's filled with books I'd like to read, and not really any thoughts. But, getting back off this tangent... I always was in a rush to scribble down my thoughts into that journal, because for the life of me, I just couldn't write fast enough to capture everything I wanted to say. Even in the typical day to day events, I could never keep up with my thoughts, rambling as they are.
Now, I can't exactly keep up entirely on a keyboard, either, but I come a whole lot closer. In my mind, I can outline a sentence and see it to its completion. The words just bubble up to the surface and find themselves represented not on paper, but still on a blank slate (and is it strange that I find the soothing shaded edges of the wordpress composition box an elegant substitution?). It led me to thinking about the way we write, and the way we compose. What does it mean to be composers now? Writing surely has expanded to include such a variety of activities that it's almost beyond my scope. I've taken a liking to recorded literary histories, video or audio documents (or even video collages) that follow a person's journey with language. And then I come to this realization that there's so much more to learn. I've dabbled in all these arenas, but I've never really found a clear center of expertise.
Oh, I can quote back to you all the buzzwords of visual rhetoric, digital rhetoric, expressivist pedagogy, multimodal composition, and even give you explanations. But it still leaves me mystified at the ways in which some people are creating meaning by the mesh of words, music, and image. The YouTube generation is nothing new, but at the same time it's almost as though we've tried overlooking the importance of such expression. We staunchly defend the dignity of the written word, and the written word alone, as though ink scribed in books is the only pathway toward knowledge. It's a strange issue, because there are many who feel that culture has been in a process of degradation as our popular media outlets become television and the internet. It rots your brain, right?
And let me say that I love books, love reading, love the printed word, but at the same time, the thought of truly well crafted hypertext fictions and pieces of art that blend the modes of expression between the visual and aural leaves me so very breathless for what's to come. I want to be a part of that. I want to understand what it means to act as a composer. I can't help but thinking of Kuhn and his paradigm shifts. Right now, I think one is brewing beneath the surface of all the humanities that touch upon communication. It's nowhere near close to fruition, but the voices are making themselves heard through the low rumble of dissent from the "traditional" perspective. Literature isn't dead or dying, but the shape of it is growing, and honestly, why shouldn't we try to harness that in a way that showcases its strengths? Just as movies didn't replace books, the future of "composition" isn't going to erase the value of the printed word. Rather, it grants more power to those who've taken the time to experiment with the blending of each.
Off to let these thoughts percolate a bit and consider how I can create anything resembling what's in my mind.
What’s in a Title?
So, I got myself a little blue notebook. It's not an especially special notebook, but it is blue. The same brilliant blue as you might find adorning a TARDIS lying around somewhere. But in this brilliant blue notebook, I hope to record my brilliant thoughts.
Okay, so rarely are my thoughts brilliant. Even more rare is it that I remember to record anything in a notebook of any hue. But I thought that this might be a chance to really start organizing my mind. Change is coming. Oh, that dastardly fellow, change. Dastardly? Hmm, I feel as though my vocabulary has come unhinged today. It's wobbling a bit toward the British. Why the British? Well, after a certain number of Doctor Who episodes, one starts to wish one possessed the same vocal cadences. Or at least I do.
Now cadence is a fun word. It's rather elegant for something that is traditionally considered percussive. I have friends who named their child Cadence. Not the most ordinary, but I kind of like it. So, now, why the random word vomit? I suppose it's best if a writer writes. After all, if a writer doesn't write, then he isn't much of a writer, now is he? And lately the kind of writing I've been performing hasn't exactly ranged toward the creative.
But, as I said, change is coming. The end of graduate school is nigh, and what follows after that? Well, that depends a bit on luck, applications, and a few other pesky factors. In any case, as I wait to hear back from those various higher education institutions, I must wonder at all the time and energy that go into their admission processes. Well, okay, I don't really wonder. One doesn't spend 8 years in higher education without getting to know a little bit about the way it works...and I'll leave it at that.
But I find myself searching out jobs as well, trying to see what might come of this advanced degree I've attained. After all, it's always good to have backup plans in place. Right, who am I, you're wondering.
I've also found a lot of joy in cooking over the past few weeks, and found that, damn, I can put together some tasty meals. And now, I can truly say, despite what some friends might say, create perfect omelettes, seasoned and all. So what does all of this have to do with each other?
Rather little, I fear. Sometimes there's just a pressing need to commit word to paper. Or screen in this case. So, that's it for now. Let us all endeavour (I love the British 'u') to...well, I don't know quite what at the minute.
I have a thesis to write. So let's go fill up a few pages with that kind of stuff.
The False Ideal
It really bothers me when corporate entities try to make broad, sweeping generalizations about life. They try to plug a way of life that markets itself as non-conformity. But it's a static ideal. Something brainstormed in the corporate sky-rises in a powerpoint presentation and designed to sell a product. (In this case, Levis jeans). Once it fell to authors to miake those observations on life, but now it's the purview of marketing analysts?
I don't know. Something just really struck me in the moment. It's nothing new. I can't claim I'm the first to make such critiques, and I certainly don't think it "was better yesterday." But I think it's a sad observation. My jeans shouldn't tell me that there are still frontiers out there lying untouched and pristine. My jeans should simply provide the service of any clothing.
Lyrical Words
I won a poetry competition once. Which is a little odd since I've never considered myself that much of a poet.
I only really mention this because I'm currently at home in Northeast Pennsylvania, and I've been scouring through a lot of old papers. Most of them are barely legible scribblings, or pretty simplistic adventure stories. Okay, more often than not they're fragments of stories. But it's strange what you sometimes unearth. Scraps of thoughts, worries, fears from years ago. It fades from the mind, but the echoes still remain.
And some of it's painful. Not painful in a heart-wrenching sense, but painful in a "I can't believe I thought it all mattered so much." But I guess that's not entirely being fair. As kids we can live in the moment, where the most trivial occurrences seem life-changing. And not all that much changes with time. In a year, I can't imagine most of my current concerns seeming important.
Comprehensive exams won't matter. Papers won't matter. Perhaps research will still matter, but it won't be the same research or the same professors or the same university. It'll change and I'll be left in another "now," trying to make sense of it.
Maybe I'm too fast to jump to conclusions though. Maybe some things will still matter. The connections. The friendships. Yeah...those will matter, and even now crazy thoughts run through my mind and make me smile.
But yeah, it all goes back to poetry. I wish I had one book here with me. Ordinarily I'm not drawn much to verse, but I found a pretty strong connection to German poet Heinrich Heine. It's a book called, "Songs of Love and Sorrow."
I think the power of poetry comes from that ability to draw such vivid imagery and sensations from elegant language. Right now I'm plowing out my thoughts in prose, but a true poet can work a revelation into a single word. They can tear at the heart with a line and render a new interpretation of life. Part of me envies them that ability.
My poetry was always satire. It mocked conventions, made fun of love ballads and attacked tropes that have stood since we field wielded language for stories. Just because something is a stereotype, does that mean it lacks power?
Or does it fall to the cause of creating new metaphors?
Well, as is usual, my thoughts seem to sputter to a halt rather than reaching any great climax. Perhaps that will come later on.
Scrubs
I don't know quite when it began... Okay, that's a lie. I know right when it began. But, there was a good year where I fell in love with Scrubs. Why? Latent desires to enter the medical field? Eh, not really, except for that one point where I think I lost my mind trying to figure out just what one does with a B.A. in English... But let's not go back to that again. Scrubs hit a pretty resonant note in my life when I needed to escape the drudgeries of academia. Namely ENGL599. Ask anyone who's suffered through it and they'll be able to attest: The course is a bitch.
What made it so crazy? I look back and I can't even begin to recapture the sense of dread the filled me on a weekly basis. The hours in the library, and the hours outside of the library feeling guilty about being outside of the library, were enough to crack anyone. And I'm pretty sure I cracked. Okay, the fact I made my textbook into two volumes can attest to that cracking. I originally thought that I wouldn't even return after that first semester. Honestly, when I thought I was out of the program, I didn't know what the hell I would do, but I was so ecstatically happy that I can't even put it into words. It was as though heaven had granted my desire to escape.
How different would life had been then? What would I even be doing? Surely not pursuing my goal of becoming a professional student. Okay...so maybe I already qualify as a professional student. It's not that I'm proud of that fact, but at least I've got a direction now. Yup. I'm going to move to mexico, take up professional wrestling and become El Harnero de Muertes. Or maybe I'll take the time tested approach of backpacking through Europe in the attempt to broaden my horizons, when really I'm just collecting material to write a book and make money.
The possibilities are endless, right?
Wait...where was I? Scrubs, right? I can't really remember why I was talking about scrubs, other than the theme song came on and I tend to connect that with my early tortuous days at JMU. And now, instead I can escape to my two bastions -- El Charro and Panera.