Picturing Writing for NDOW 2010

admin — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 19:38:03 +0000

Photograph the same person, place, or thing every day for 12 days.
Enter your 12 pictures in the TN12 Everyday Photo Contest by 10/10/10.
The top 12 will display in Hodges Library for the National Day on Writing.

Contest Eligibility and Rules
• All current UT students, staff, and faculty are eligible to participate in TN12;
• Both individual and collaborative entries are welcome;
• Each entry must contain 12 pictures of the same subject, taken once per day over 12 consecutive days;
• All entries must be original works, meaning pictures taken and edited solely by contest participants;
• Each entry must include the photographer's or photographer's first and last names and UT affiliation plus one sentence identifying the subject of the photographs;
• Each picture within a set must be labeled with the photographer's or photographers' last name(s) and the date on which the picture was taken. For example, Sam Smith might label his photos of Neyland Stadium as follows: Smith_9.18.jpg, Smith_9.19.Jpg, etc.;
• Each person may submit up to three individual or collaborative entries;
• Entries must be sent (as an attachment) to utwrites@gmail.com.

Submission deadline: 11:59pm on Sunday, 10/10/10.
If you are enrolled in English 103 or 104, make sure you let us know!

Learn how to rent a camera—for free!—on campus.
Learn about the National Day on Writing.
Print a copy of contest rules.

Please note: By entering this contest, participants grant permission for their pictures to be displayed in Hodges Library on the National Day on Writing (10/20/2010) and archived in Trace, the Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange.

UT Writes 2010

admin — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 15:02:06 +0000

Download a flier for

UT Writes 2010 Information!

And visit Hodges Library on 10/20/2010
to celebrate the National Day on Writing!

Watching Teaching Writing

admin — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 20:18:53 +0000

Writing matters and like words, writing changes constantly. Today, everyone who teaches writing is responsible for helping students become not only capable writers, but also writers who are capable of change.

Watching Teaching Writing (WTW) is a video pedagogy project designed for teachers who also want to change—and to learn from other teachers about 21st-century literacies and technologies. Sponsored by the Office of Information Technology, WTW will begin collecting 30-second to 3-minute videos on relevant classroom activities, assignments, course designs, and teaching philosophies beginning Fall 2010. Videos will post to iTunesU and YouTube in Spring 2011.

Everyone who teaches writing at the University of Tennessee—in any course and in any capacity—is invited to contribute. For more information, download a project overview or a flier and participation form. You are also welcome to contact me directly with specific questions.

Writing@UTK: A Day-Long Conference on Composition Pedagogy (4/16/10)

admin — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 04:32:51 +0000

Join English and Education graduate students in the Commons at Hodges Library for a day-long conference on teaching writing at UTK—and beyond. Regular sessions will cover topics from teaching philosophies to teaching with different media and technologies. Interactive sessions will explore writing workshops and the role of play in writing classrooms. Dr. Lynée Gaillet from Georgia State University and Dr. Letizia Guglielmo from Kennesaw State University will be respondents, and Drs. Bump Halbritter and Julie Lindquist from Michigan State University’s Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures will deliver the plenary address, “A Pedagogy of Patience in a Time of Fast-Forward Education.” Students, faculty, staff, and members of the public are invited to attend. Click this link for a copy of the complete program.

Schedule in Brief:
9:00am /Session I: Teaching Rhetorical Canons, Appeals, and Figures
Presenters: Sean McDougle, Andrew Lallier, Steven Spratling

10:30am/Session II: Philosophies of Teaching
Presenters: Billy Phillips, Ajitpaul Mangat, Allison Hammell

11:45am/Session III: Writing Curricula and Conventions
Presenters: Jan Smith, Stephanie Metz, Bret Vukoder

1:15pm/Plenary Address: A Pedagogy of Patience
Presenters: Bump Halbritter and Julie Lindquist

2:30pm/Session IV: Writing With and In Different Media
Presenters: Jennifer Torrance, Jaron Birkan, Adam Coombs, Val Spence

3:45pm/Workshop A: The Composition Workshop led by Turner Bowling
3:45pm/Workshop B: Playing (with) Composition led by Kerri Considine and Ashley Lowry

Hosted by Dr. Jenn Fishman and Carolyn Wisniewski. Funded by the RWL Speaker Series/Hodges Better English Fund. With special thanks to Tina Goode, Michelle Brannen, and Judith Welch.

Jason Del Gandio@UTK February 22-26, 2010

admin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:04:20 +0000

Graduate students in the UTK Chapter of the Rhetoric Society of America and faculty in the English Department’s Division of Rhetoric, Writing, and Linguistics are pleased to be hosting Dr. Jason Del Gandio from Temple University’s School of Communications and Theater for a week of radical rhetorics.
Main events include the 2/23 film screening and 2/25 public talk listed below. Scroll down to learn about additional happenings, including a lunchtime workshop for teachers and an off-campus dinner with graduate students. To download a copy of this information, please click this link, and contact Jenn Fishman or Casie Fedukovich for more information.

Rhetoric and Performance Q & A

admin — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 07:37:50 +0000

These are my (slightly revised) answers to questions about rhetoric and performance that Stephanie Metz asked in Fall 2009 after I visited Dr. Russel Hirst’s section of English 585.
Hi Dr. Fishman,

Thanks for visiting our class today! I have a few follow-up questions to give us some more information for students who wish to pursue performative rhetoric as a topic for papers later in the semester. What are some of the major professional associations you would recommend in this field? Which journals could we look to for additional research? What seminal texts could we investigate to ground our understanding of performative rhetoric?

Thanks, Stephanie Metz

Hi Stephanie, thanks for having me to class, and thanks for writing.

First, I should say that I like to call the area or subfield I discussed yesterday “rhetoric and performance” rather than “performative rhetoric” or “rhetorical performance,” which both seem too narrow to me. The former sounds too much like a species or type of rhetoric, and the latter sounds too much like a species or type of performance. By contrast, I’m interested in that part of the Venn diagram where rhetoric and performance overlap in all kinds of different ways. I’m also tempted to say that “performative rhetoric” is a redundant term, although defending that claim—and the idea that rhetoric is always a signifying act that does something—might take more explanation than possible in the short space of this Q & A.

As I mentioned in class, there is no canon for this emerging subfield. At least not yet. It’s too new and it may be too diverse. As an alternative to reading a set core, then, I think it’s helpful to read key texts in rhetoric (e.g., selections from The Rhetorical Tradition edited by Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg, various selections from our exam reading lists) and core texts in performance (e.g., Performance by Marvin Carlson, Critical Theory and Performance, edited by Janelle Reinelt and Joseph Roach). After that, the best thing to do is to seek out archives, criticism, and theory relevant to particular subject areas within rhetoric and performance: history, theory, pedagogy, media (old and new), activism, gender and sexuality, race, language, etc.

Given all of the above, it’s hard—and it may be counterproductive—to suggest specific journals. Instead, I recommend consulting these two working bibliographies: writing and performance and rhetoric and performance. As you’ll see, they are both collaboratively constructed lists of (mainly) books and articles, and they reflect the breadth and depth of possibility for doing work in this area. They also reflect teachers’, scholars’, and practitioners’ refusal to settle for a single definition of terms or a single set of research methods. Instead, work in this subfield is highly situated, and organized in relation to the relationship of researchers, subject, and goals. In addition, I think these two highly varied lists reflect scholars’ ongoing commitment to working collaboratively to build knowledge through different kinds of teaching, research, and community-oriented practice.

As for conferences, there are talks on rhetoric and performance everywhere these days: CCCC, RSA, WPA, Computers and Writing, Feminist(s) Rhetoric(s), ASHR, NCA (where several performance studies groups also meet), NCTE-AR (Assembly for Research), etc.

Hopefully, all of the above information is helpful. For sure, if there’s anything else I can add or explain, I would be happy to do so. I’m also more than willing to talk with 585ers individually if anyone is interested in pursuing a rhetoric and performance project, whether for teaching, coursework, or a thesis.

Best, and thanks again to everyone for having me as a guest in your class,
Jenn/Dr. Fishman

Staging the Past, Present, and Future of Rhetoric and Composition

admin — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 22:45:12 +0000

As a rhet-comp historian, I am dedicated to researching the usable past. After American literature scholar Van Wyck Brooks, contributors to the 50th anniversary issues of 3Cs, and others, I study the past to improve the present and prepare for the future. My book-in-progress, Staging Education, examines the role British 18th-century public theater played in shaping the advent of modern rhetoric and modern rhetoric education. I’m writing this book for three reasons: 1) we can learn about the history of rhetoric as a teaching tradition by studying 18th-century theater’s contribution; 2) we can learn about the role performance plays in historical rhetorical formations; and 3) we can learn some of the back story we need to make sense of performance in all its contemporary prominence and importance within rhetoric and composition pedagogy today.

I am also a historian of contemporary composition. As a longitudinal writing researcher, I think about study design, data analysis, and data archiving as means of constructing histories of present-day writing, whether it’s by Stanford Study of Writing participants (2001-2006) or Embodied Literacies Project contributors (2005-6). I ask graduate students in composition pedagogy to think about how their own educational experiences inform their present-day pedagogical practices, and I ask undergraduates to consider when, how, and why the recent and distant past shape contemporary arguments.

Whether projects center on the archives, the classroom and the academy, or the community at large, historically-informed performance-oriented teaching and learning fosters what I term “citizen rhetoric.” A close cousin of citizen journalism and citizen criticism, citizen rhetoric engages students as active citizen-rhetors in the process of identifying rhetorical situations and using multiple modes of communication and multiple media to present well-sourced arguments to different audiences. To see recent examples of my citizen rhetoric, visit the examples linked to the images below.

Recently via listserv a colleague asked me why I was hosting a photo contest for NDOW and not even requiring an essay to go with the pictures. Here is my response, which I hope will spark further discussion about what writing and writing instruction are and should be in the second decade of the twenty-first century.

My short answer is that writing includes a great deal more than print forms and recorded strings of alphabetic language. Composing in various media (e.g., audio, photography, video) increasingly falls under the auspices of Composition or Writing Studies. Personally, I strongly believe in the importance, even the necessity of supporting what many scholars now refer to as “multiliteracies” (see New London Group), and with that in mind all UT Writes activities for NDOW recognize as well as encourage writing in all its various forms. From this point of view, a photo essay can stand alone just as videos can fulfill university WC requirements; there is no need to legitimate them by also assigning an essay.

The long answer: As you know, our FYC program emphasizes not only rhetoric and knowledge transfer, but also multiplicities. By “multiplicities” we mean more than encountering and writing about multiple mediums (ENG 101) and using multiple research methodologies (ENG 102). We also mean writing with a wide variety of genres, modes, and mediums. From this perspective, writing includes and is also more than strings of recorded alphabetic language arranged in conventional school genres and produced in one or another print form. As Marvin Diogens and Andrea Lunsford write:

Writing [is a] technology for creating conceptual frameworks and creating, sustaining, and performing lines of thought within those frameworks, drawing from and expanding on existing conventions and genres, utilizing signs and symbols, incorporating materials drawn from multiple sources, and taking advantage of the resources of a full range of media. (”Toward Delivering New Definitions of Writing”)

When I teach this definition of writing, as I have been doing for several years in English 495, my students quickly recognize its extremely twenty-first-century perspective. Noting the emphasis Diogenes and Lunsford place on situated thinking, negotiation with (as opposed to adherence to) conventions, and both collaboration and remixing, they also correctly read it as a direct counter to received Romantic notions of writing that emphasize the inspired single-authored man of original genius, great feeling, and high culture eloquence. The latter is largely incompatible with the logics and practices of multiliteracies. The former, while clunky, attempts to capture a working sense of what writing is and what writers do both in and beyond the academy in the present day.

I offer this background because I think many readers of this listserv are trying very hard to deliver writing instruction that either is or at least approaches a genuine engagement with the kinds of literacies that today’s students need not only (or necessarily) for school success but also (or mainly) to succeed in the lives they will lead after they earn their degrees. At the same time, ours is not a mutiliterate university, nor is it an institution ready for the kind of systemic shift to multiliteracies that Stuart Selber outlines in his book Multiliteracies for a Digital Age (see chapter 5).

NDOW was created not only to help communities celebrate writing but also to help different groups raise consciousness about writing. Both last year (working with Laurie Knox, Margaret Dean, Katy Chiles, and others) and this time around (working mainly with Michelle Brannen and colleagues in OIT and the University Libraries), I have chosen activities that I hope will help expand the UT community’s definition of writing to include photos, graffiti, tattoos, and spoken word poetry alongside manuscripts and published books from Special Collections, representative library holdings from different academic areas of study, and much, much more.

Hopefully, this info helps put the TN12 contest into better context, and hopefully, too, it will help many of you decide whether and how you can support it within the classes you are teaching this semester.

Best,
Jenn/Dr. Fishman

2010/11 OIT Faculty Fellow
http://tinyurl.com/oitfellow

Asst. Professor of English
Rhetoric and Composition
UT-Knoxville 37996-0430
http://jennfishmanphd.net
http://tinyurl.com/cccperf

FAQs about the National Day on Writing & UT Writes

admin — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 19:58:51 +0000

Click the images below to learn more about the National Day on Writing, UT Writes, and more.

Q: What is NDOW or the National Day on Writing?
A: According to the United States Senate:

• Whereas people in the 21 st century are writing more than ever before for personal, professional, and civic purposes;
• Whereas the social nature of writing invites people of every age, profession, and walk of life to create meaning through composing;
• Whereas more and more people in every occupation deem writing as essential and influential in their work;
• Whereas writers continue to learn how to write for different purposes, audiences, and occasions throughout their lifetimes;
• Whereas developing digital technologies expand the possibilities for composing in multiple media at a faster pace than ever before;
• Whereas young people are leading the way in developing new forms of composing by using different forms of digital media;
• Whereas effective communication contributes to building a global economy and a global community;
• Whereas the National Council of Teachers of English, in conjunction with its many national and local partners, honors and celebrates the importance of writing through the National Day on Writing;
• Whereas the National Day on Writing celebrates the foundational place of writing in the personal, professional, and civic lives of Americans;
• Whereas the National Day on Writing provides an opportunity for individuals across the United States to share and exhibit their written works through the National Gallery of Writing;
• Whereas the National Day on Writing highlights the importance of writing instruction and practice at every educational level and in every subject area;
• Whereas the National Day on Writing emphasizes the lifelong process of learning to write and compose for different audiences, purposes, and occasions;
• Whereas the National Day on Writing honors the use of the full range of media for composing, from traditional tools like print, audio, and video, to Web 2.0 tools like blogs, wikis, and podcasts; and

• Whereas the National Day on Writing encourages all Americans to write, as well as to enjoy and learn from the writing of others . . .

Resolved, October 20, 2009 became the very first National Day on Writing.

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Q: What is UT Writes?
A: UT Writes is the University of Tennessee’s campus-wide celebration of the National Day on Writing. In 2010, UT Writes will host a series of events from 9am to 5pm in Hodges Library. Highlights include a graffiti walk and a spoken word poetry open mic. For more information visit the 2010 UT Writes website.

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Q: What kinds of writing does UT Writes and NDOW celebrate?
A (short version): UT Writes and NDOW celebrate all kinds of twenty-first-century writing.
A (long version): UT Writes and NDOW recognize that twenty-first-century writing includes a great range of both alphabetic and nonalphabetic languages as well as a diversity of print and nonprint multimedia forms. Writing scholars Marvin Diogenes and Andrea A. Lunsford offer a useful definition of writing their essay “Toward Delivering New Definitions of Writing,” which appears in Delivering College Composition: The Fifth Canon edited by Kathleen Yancey:

Writing: A technology for creating conceptual frameworks and creating, sustaining, and performing lines of thought within those frameworks, drawing from and expanding on existing conventions and genres, utilizing signs and symbols, incorporating materials drawn from multiple sources, and taking advantage of the resources of a full range of media.

To learn more about twenty-first-century literacy, visit the NCTE page for Writing in the Twenty-First Century.

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Q: What is TN12, and how is it related to UT Writes and NDOW?
A: TN12 is a photo contest created in conjunction with UT Writes 2010. It invites students, faculty, staff, and alumni to write a photo essay by taking one picture of one person, place, or thing every day for 12 days. Entries in this contest are due 10/10/10 to utwrites@gmail.com. The top 12 entries will go on display in Hodges Library for the National Day on Writing, and there will be prizes for the top 3. More details including contest rules can be found on this site.

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Q: What is Trace and how is it related to UT Writes?
A: Trace or the Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange is UT’s recently established open-access digital archive. It includes the most ambitious UT Writes 2010 project of all: a community-wide collection of UT writing. A university first, UT Writes will be using Trace to collect one piece of writing with personal significance from as many UT community members as possible throughout the 2010-2011 academic year. To participate:

• First, think about the different kinds of writing you do and have been doing throughout your lifetime;
• Second, identify the writing you do that is most important to you;

• Third, out of all the writing you consider important, identify a piece that makes you especially proud.

For UT Writes, the writing you choose might be a copy of your first publication or Powerpoint slides from the best talk you have ever given. Your contribution might be the scan of an architectural drawing or a scrimmage plan, or it might be a copy of your latest musical composition. You might pick a string of code, a set of mathematical equations, or notation that represents your favorite choreography. Once you have chosen, you can send your contribution to the UT Writes Trace archive by emailing utwrites@gmail.com and following these instructions.

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UT Writes Invitation (2010-11)

admin — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 22:35:51 +0000

TN 12: An Everyday Photo Contest

admin — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 22:17:27 +0000

Read all about it in the TNJN, and visit Hodges Library on Wednesday, 10/20 to cast your vote for the winning entries!

Jenn Fishman, PhD

Picturing Writing for NDOW 2010

FAQs about the National Day on Writing & UT Writes

UT Writes Invitation (2010-11)

TN 12: An Everyday Photo Contest

UT Writes 2010

Download a flier for

UT Writes 2010 Information!

And visit Hodges Library on 10/20/2010 to celebrate the National Day on Writing!

to celebrate the National Day on Writing!

Watching Teaching Writing

Writing@UTK: A Day-Long Conference on Composition Pedagogy (4/16/10)

Jason Del Gandio@UTK February 22-26, 2010

Rhetoric and Performance Q & A

Staging the Past, Present, and Future of Rhetoric and Composition

And visit Hodges Library on 10/20/2010
to celebrate the National Day on Writing!