Effective Teaching in E-writing

Blair and Tulley
“The AAUW recommends that instructors respect multiple points of entry into the electronic writing environment. Every teaching approach will not work effectively with every student; thus, a variety of approaches are needed to address different learning styles, particularly those that have been identified as feminine by theorists…”
Addison and Hilligoss discusses whether e-writing is a safe haven or not.

It is not surprising that people would assume that e-writing would be an e-utopia—a heaven that is discrimination free. However, just like Blair and Tulley as well as Addisson and Hilligoss found e-writing was also impacted by race, gender and ethnicity etc. Then the question is: How can instructors create good activities that can effectively reduce such prejudice? How to subvert the traditional power structure where males and the instructor are the center? How can instructors create an entry for every student?

Feminist teaching pedagogy aims to create a fair learning atmosphere by destroying the old power structure and constructing a new power structure. Like Addisson and Hilligos says, instructors need to “recognize and respect differences among the students” and “endorsing collaboration rather than competition might ease some of the tension female students may be feeling in the classroom.” (Blair and Tulley) Apart from respect and collaboration, the instrutor needs to come up with actvities that are narrow enough to help the students formulate ideas but at the same time being broad enough to cover different interests. Another approach is having them develop their own projects. After the completion of the projects, students can peer review what the others have. When they do the peer review, instructors can purposefully ask students to see the stereotypes revealed in the projects. They can also work in pairs/groups and see the rules hidden under some similarities or differences. This will be an approach to help students be aware of the power structure in the classroom to redefine the power structure in the classroom.

If relating e-writing with the body theory in composition studies, I can see how the weak bodies (females, people of color, the poor etc.) might be oppressed in the online spaces. The only way to break through is to decenter the strong.

Other?

The story about the black mother and the complaints of some African American students in Blackman’s article reminds me of two international students I met. One of them is a Fulbright scholar from an African country. He has degree in his home country and he comes to the US as a scholar. I do not know how he is placed in a doctoral class here in BG. He came to the writing center for help. It was not difficult for me to find that he did not know what assignment sheet meant. I asked him “Does your instructor have particular rules about the online sources?” He did not know what I was talking about. I mentioned the library database and he excitedly shouted out “That is what the instructor wants.” He absolutely had no idea what an academic database was, let alone to use it. I went over the assignment with him and showed him how to use the library
resources. He told me he was so lost. I comforted him telling him I was equally lost when I first came. The blackboard was once a challenge to me. As an international student, I did not know what it was. I was just too scared to even think of using it. At that time I was supposed to use it to communicate with my students, which gave me more pressure. I know another white international student who almost quitted. Actually I just have two Chinese friends who asked for leave. Their difficulties are the same: too much academic pressure. Looks like I am digressing since I did not talk about the stereotypes at all. But I am addressing the problem of how international students are overlooked here. The culture change, fear of technology, different pedagogy even different foods can make life very difficult. If looking into this, I would consider this cultural oppression. When all my friends are so depressed, not so many people really care about them or show nay concern to them. It might be true in this culture that people will not help the others unless asked to. But I feel safe to say that the needs of the international students are not met. Everything is set up in a default way—what the native Americans might need.
Sometimes I would like to make my postings mor etheoretical but I think real life stories might examplify better.

Do Visuals Always Work Well?

Bolter’s writing is quite intriguing. I am quite interested in discussing the code and the interpretation of writing. The author might have his secret code when composing, but the interpretation is totally at the hand of the readers. When the author is composing, he might want to express his thoughts, or to inform people, or even to formulate an argument. The awareness of the audience probably helps the author to choose how to compose and help the readers to decode. This week’s readings reminds of the feminist readings for introduction to composition. We can be confined as well as inspired by our life experiences. Such experiences can determine the way we want to compose and decode. When I walked on this campus, I could not understand at least 80% of the posters. Usually we may assume that visuals help readers to understand but it is not always true. If the poster is text-heavy, I tend to understand it better compared with those that have more images. I do not know who those people in the posters are even if they are BIG people and what some of images symbolize. Therefore I cannot decode what the designer wants his audiences to get. It is easy to spot visuals in the modern world and people tend to rely on them but to read beyond these images is difficult. It is a painful experience but at least it shows visuals do not really work well everywhere anywhere.
Do you understand what the image on the left suggests?