Wool & Words

In case you were wondering how to categorize me:

You are Merino Wool.
You are very easygoing and sweet. People like to
keep you close because you are so softhearted.
You love to be comfortable and warm from your
head to your toes.


What kind of yarn are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Thanks Bethany for this fun quiz experience!

Where Have I Been?
I'd like to say that I've been sunning myself and lazily picking up stitches on a soft, jewel-toned fair isle cardi as hot Latin men bring me cool slushy drinks on a tropical isle. I'd like to say that I've been going pleasantly loopy working a delicate silk lace shawl while nestled in warm blankies in front of a roaring fire, waiting for my Nordic prince to bring me his most decadent hot chocolate. I'd like to say that I've been knitting.

But I can't say any of those things.

I've been at a conference in this dreary wintery rainy weather. The 6th Annual Student Success in First Year Composition, hosted by Georiga Southern University, was a good, day-long visit to the world of writing pedagogy. The conference was small and mainly regional, which made for a nice, relaxing environment.

I was part of a panel discussion/workshop put together by UGA's First Year Comp Program and the EMMA Working Group. EMMA is an XML editing environment that tries to capitalize on XML's extremely friendly and open markup capabilities to improve student writing and their interaction with their writing. I've been using EMMA for 3 semesters now, and the program has really challenged me to think about how students compose and the impact of the interface on their composition methods.

My part of the presentation was to show off the poetry explication project I'm currently doing with my students, as well as to discuss how I use EMMA in the 1101/1102 classroom. All of that in 5 minutes. It was pretty brutal, but rewarding in that I really had to think about how I was using it and to what pedagogical ends.

The rest of the conference was thought-provoking. I attended three other lectures/panels. The first was on the transition from high school to college writing courses; the presenters had done a survey of incoming students at several schools and the panel was a discussion of their findings. The second was the keynote address, the highlight of the day, by Cynthia Selfe. Her talk explored the changes in how we define literacy that are brought on by the advent of computing and Internet availability. She challenged us as teachers to really start reconsidering what we considered literacy and demonstrated the ways in which gaming and visual/textual writing had a place in the study of writing. The final talk was on web portfolios, and it got me thinking about the ways in which I might introduce portfolio grading in my classrooms. Thankfully, EMMA has a portfolio function/feature, so I wouldn't have to lug around 44 binders full of student work.

On the whole, an academically productive day. My companions on the journey were also delightful, and while we had to leave at 5 a.m., it was certainly worth the trip.