In the beginning, the situation was chaotic to say the least. No one knew what or where to write. We then began to verbally discuss the questions that were present in the focal paragraph. Once we all began to write though, text was popping up all over the place. The same questions were being answered by multiple people simultaneously on opposite ends of the document. Intelligently, someone listed out the questions in a numbered format, leaving space for us to answer each question all in one space. I took advantage of this and began to write in the allotted spaces. However, apparently not everyone took notice of this and many people continued to write their own paragraphs in random parts of the document, making it hard to link back to all the other answers to the same question. In addition, due to the fact that so many students were writing at the same time, I found it hard to come up with ideas that hadn’t already been written down. Rewording what had already been written would have just made the document even more redundant. If everyone had stuck to answering the same questions in the same spaces, it would have been a lot more coherent. I cannot, however, blame anyone who didn’t do so as there wasn’t too much communication between our group and it was very likely that they just hadn’t seen it.
My thoughts on Collaborative Writing (I was sick)
I was not able to attend the class because I was sick, not being able to contribute to the collaborative writing process during class. However, as an observer, I was able to identify some interesting points being made. As an example, I like how one pointed out about Vladek’s post-war personality compared to his personality before the war. Even after the war, it seems like Vladek is still living in the fear of war, characterizing his personality in the present life. This was made possible, as one pointed out in the assignment, by using the framed style of narrative, being able to switch back and forth between the past story and the present story.
“The Dangers of Certainty: A Lesson From Auschwitz”
I just read this article, “The Dangers of Certainty: A Lesson From Auschwitz” even though it was published a few days ago, but I think it’s subject is intimately connected to the question I posed to you in the Google doc on Tuesday.
He began the show with the words, “One aim of the physical sciences has been to give an actual picture of the material world. One achievement of physics in the 20th century has been to show that such an aim is unattainable.” For Dr. Bronowski, there was no absolute knowledge and anyone who claims it — whether a scientist, a politician or a religious believer — opens the door to tragedy. All scientific information is imperfect and we have to treat it with humility. Such, for him, was the human condition.
This is the condition for what we can know, but it is also, crucially, a moral lesson. It is the lesson of 20th-century painting from Cubism onwards, but also that of quantum physics. All we can do is to push deeper and deeper into better approximations of an ever-evasive reality. The goal of complete understanding seems to recede as we approach it.
There is no God’s eye view, Dr. Bronowski insisted, and the people who claim that there is and that they possess it are not just wrong, they are morally pernicious. Errors are inextricably bound up with pursuit of human knowledge, which requires not just mathematical calculation but insight, interpretation and a personal act of judgment for which we are responsible. The emphasis on the moral responsibility of knowledge was essential for all of Dr. Bronowski’s work. The acquisition of knowledge entails a responsibility for the integrity of what we are as ethical creatures.
Please try to read the article before class tomorrow (it’s an op-ed in the NYTimes, so not terribly long) and watch the 4-minute video clip embedded in it. Think about connections you see between this article and Maus. Let’s start our discussion tomorrow with the writing you did on Tuesday and this article.
My article and the conference I’m planning
I mentioned in class yesterday that I published an article last week, which I cowrote with my friend and colleague Pete Rorabaugh. It’s about the theoretical rationale behind Domain of One’s Own: “Building Community and Critical Literacies with the Domain of One’s Own Incubator.” You don’t have to read it, but I thought you might find it interesting. It’s published in a peer-reviewed online academic journal, but we kept it fairly short and tried our best to write it in such a way that it is accessible for a wide audience. I’m interested in any response you might have to offer if you do read it.
Pete and I wrote that article collaboratively in a Google doc. In fact, Pete and I collaborate in Google docs very frequently and we’ve both become more and more interested in how this sort of technology is reshaping the way we write. I’m not really intending to proselytize Google docs to you, but it is my sense that it does offer up some intriguing new ways to collaborate that can help you push past the sort of writing you became used to doing before coming to college. I’m purposely pushing it on you a little bit as a way of having you try it out–I found Google docs a little off-putting and awkward at first, but now I never open up MS Word unless I absolutely have to. (By the way, I agree that it’s time to give up on Microsoft’s word processor.)
There’s a link from that article to the website I’ve built for the Domain Incubator conference, which is now going on next week. (You might recognize the theme that I used for that site… shhh, don’t tell anyone I’m repeating myself. They all think I’m constantly innovating.) If you’re interested in coming to any part of the conference, you’re welcome to do so. Or if there’s anything there (or on the Twitter feed for the conference, which should really heat up next week), bring it up in class or talk to me in person. You might be interested to know that we’re using Google docs for every session of the conference, so people can participate in the event even if they can’t be there in person. Here’s a link to the index page that links out to all the other documents. Moderators will seed those pages with links to readings and resources and some questions to start off discussion and then while we’re discussing these issues in the session at the conference, people who are present and virtual attendees will all be collaborating inside the documents to collect notes, point to other resources, raise new questions, propose answers to problems, and so on. Even if you can’t make it to any part of the conference next week, feel free to jump in the documents and contribute wherever you would like to–it would be cool to have some undergraduate representation in the docs! You can be part of the academic conversation!
Homework for Thu 2/4
- Read UC chpt 7 & Maus II chpts 3-4
- Write a long paragraph or so on your blog in which you reflect on the process of writing the collaborative essay in the Google doc in class today. What roles did you play in the process? How did you feel while you were working? What sorts of behaviors did you observe in your classmates or yourself that seem interesting?
- Start thinking about which pages you will choose to trace for your first project. I will bring tracing paper to class on Thursday.
- I’ve installed the Subscribe2 plugin, which allows me to automatically update you via email when new content is posted to the site. If you haven’t already replied to the information form to give me your gmail address, then do so now. (The twelve of you who have, I’ve signed you up to receive notifications via gmail. If you don’t want notifications, let me know.)
Document for today’s class
We’ll be working inside a Google document for today’s class. Here’s the link you will need to get into that document.
Update on collaborative writing project (aka #allwrite)
I Google hungout last night with the other folks involved in the collaborative writing project, which we have now officially named All Write. Here are links to a pair of Google docs that students put together in a somewhat similar experiment last spring: Environmental Education: A Vision Statement and Technology and Nature: A Discussion. Take a look at them, see if you can get a sense of how those students used the Google docs to carry on the discussion.
Participants will include a class from SUNY in upstate New York, another first year writing class working on graphic novel memoirs at Agnes Scott, a group of students in Taiwan, a first year writing class at SPSU on digital writing, a graduate class on digital literacies at the U of Pennsylvania, and some others.
- We’ll take our first run at the collaborative writing on Feb 12 or 13. Janine’s students at SUNY-ESF will take the lead for that first document, which will be based around some sort of theme having to do with the food or education. We’ll talk about schedules post-snowpocalypse in class, but I had to reschedule my conference to Feb 13 & 14th, so won’t be in class on the 13th. I think I’ll require that your class time be spent working in the collaborative document that Janine’s students set up.
- Pete’s student will take the point the next week, with a document that takes up some issue of digital identity & social media.
- I’ve signed our class to take the lead on the following week, around Feb 25. You’ll have just finished your Maus projects and I said that we’ll do something on visual design and arguing with images. This kind of topic will lead really nicely into the other projects you’ll be completing this semester.
- On March 17 or 24, Jim Diedrick’s students at Agnes Scott will be the primary facilitators for a doc that revolves around graphic novel memoirs. He’s got some cool ideas about bringing in either Fun Home (which we will have just finished reading by then) or March, Book 1.
The SUNY students are running a photo contest through Twitter and would love it if some or all of you participated.
Badge Photo
I used this picture because I believe the tree represents myself. I always aim up towards the sky, and I have firm and strong roots in family and moral values.
“Building Community and Critical Literacies with the Domain of One’s Own Incubator”
My friend and colleague Pete Rorabaugh and I have published an article in the journal Hybrid Pedagogy, entitled “Building Community and Critical Literacies with the Domain of One’s Own Incubator.” Our objective is to offer a theoretical context for the Domain of One’s Own project and to explain the reasoning behind this conference that Emory is hosting here on Thursday and Friday.
You don’t need to read the article, but I thought that you might find it interesting given the work we’re doing in this classroom.
Badge
I created this using the photo editing tool Gimp. This is a photo that I took on a family vacation that I found aesthetically pleasing. I mostly just enjoyed playing with different fill tools until I liked the look of it and added my name.