school

acknowledgements

I’m at the end of my career as a student. Next week I defend my dissertation, and move on to my career as a professor. Through my time as a doctoral student and candidate, I was helped along the way by so many amazing people. This is the acknowledgements page from my dissertation. It doesn’t mention all of the amazing people who gave me support through social media, conferences, and emails. But they were there, too.

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This project has been in development for nearly five years, and would not have been possible without the support, assistance, and input of many people. My advisor, Laura J. Gurak, provided steady support and insight throughout all of my years at the University of Minnesota, not only as an advisor, but also as a friend. Her enthusiasm encouraged me even when I had grown tired of the topic, helping me to see it through a fresh lens and become enamored of it once again.

My committee, Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch, Tom Reynolds, and Michael Hancher have given me encouragement and feedback throughout all of the stages of this work. The Department of Writing Studies staff has been invaluable and has provided support throughout my degree process. I especially thank Mary Wrobel for introducing me to the department, Nan Nelson and Elizabeth Cahill-Dunens for their untiring support during the job search and dissertation completion, and Barb Jensen and Shannon Klug for making my classes run smoothly. This would not have been possible without their assistance.

My colleagues have provided consistent support and encouragement, helping me see the value of my work from a variety of perspectives. Tad Patterson offered friendship and encouragement in all the ways I needed it. I also want to thank Merry Rendahl, Stephen Brasher, Joe Weinberg, Drew Virtue, Josh Welsh, Trent M. Kays, and Kira Dreher for inviting me out of my home in order to be amongst the living. Those lunches and dinners made doctoral work much less lonely.

Anne Wysocki and Dennis Lynch, along with Susan Hilligoss, Karen Gocsik, Candice Rai, Erin Anderson, Heather Brook Adams, Robin Oswald, Tracy Ferrell, Martha Cheng, Kate Ryan, Susan Hagan, and Kuhio Walters, at their 2011 RSA summer seminar on Composing Multimodal Rhetorics, provided integral insights into my research topic.

Krista Kennedy became not only a friend and confidante during my doctoral work, but a mentor. She provided a space for me to think out loud, to vent, to question, and to get feedback.

My family has been the foundation upon which this project is built. Their joy and excitement, interest and collusion made it all possible. I especially am indebted to my brother, Shadow W. J. Armfield, for his patience throughout my studies, my exams, and my writing. He was my rock throughout. I thank his wife, Jennifer, who has also been working on her degrees and supported my need to spend hours talking with my brother about education, teaching and learning, technology, and writing. My nieces and nephews are my reasons for pursuing this work. I want to be a better role model for them at all stages of life.

a dissertating audience

While working on my dissertation, I’ve had severe bouts of dealing with impostor syndrome. I’ve had extremely difficult trouble getting over the hurdle of “I KNOW NOTHING.” I sit down in front of my computer and I try to write. ONE. WORD. It won’t come. I can sit for hours. NOTHING. HAPPENS. It’s all right there, in my head, but I just can’t force it out.

And I know so many colleagues and professors (both local and national whom I respect greatly) have written about this on blogs and talked about it in person. I know everyone gets it and has been there to some extent at some point in their academic careers. But when you’re in the middle of that whirling vortex of self-doubt, it can be the loneliest place in the world.

I don’t feel smart. I don’t feel intelligent. I don’t feel like I belong. I don’t feel like anything I’m doing really matters.

That’s when it’s bad.

Lately, I’ve been worried about not being an expert, not being well-versed enough in my study to be a person someone may want to engage with to discuss this. And all of this points to who I have been thinking of as my audience.

Was it my colleagues, fellow doctoral students and candidates who are working on amazing projects of their own? No.

Was it my family, who supports me and often tells me that even they, who, for the most part, are not academics, are interested in reading my dissertation because they think the topic is interesting? No.

Was it my committee, who wants to see me succeed and develop into a productive, mentoring professor in my own right? No.

Who was that audience I’ve been thinking about?

Anonymous.

No, no. Not ANONYMOUS. I’m not sure many of them would be interested in my research.

It’s that faceless, voiceless, apparition that I’ve built in my head. It’s an audience that is all-seeing, all-knowing. And that audience is the one that is going to rise up and strike me down the moment I utter, or type, a single word. It is that audience that is going to tell me that I’m a failure, that I’m stupid, that I’m not fit. It’s that audience that is going to call me out and shame me for trying to break out of the bonds that have held me for far too long.

That’s a dark place to dwell because it’s all in my head, all in the nooks and crannies of my cranium that have, for a lifetime, said “You’re not good enough.”

Then, when I think that I can’t go on because NOTHING is still happening and I’m beating myself up far worse than anyone has or could, along comes a wise person to help me out of my hole that I’ve dug for myself. The sage doesn’t have to do anything. This person will just say the right thing at the right time, and the clouds clear, and I can see the road again.

And I can write.

One. word. at. a. time.

it’s not brain surgery

Today, as I was dissertating, I began wondering what it is that I’m doing. Who will my work matter to, if anyone? I’m not doing brain surgery. I’m not finding a cure for cancer. I’m not even discovering a new mathematic formula that could resolve world debt.

A few hours later, I was on the phone with my brother discussing what I had written today. “I worked on my case narrative. But,” I said, “I realize that I’m not curing cancer so I’m starting to wonder why this is all important.”

Then he reminded me of something. This week is National Suicide Prevention Week in the U.S. And, he reminded me, people who send in postcards to PostSecret are often looking for someone to hear them — to understand their pain — so that they don’t commit suicide. And if I’m looking at those postcards (and I was looking at them today, all 251 of my data set), I see how many of them are about suicide. What does that say about how we communicate secrets and fears and hopes and love and anguish and pain and joy? And, he asked me, isn’t this what you do look at?

I study the human condition, I said. It’s a rhetorical perspective of it, but that’s what I do. And, he reminded me, we can do a lot of damage to our bodies with our minds, so even if you’re not curing cancer, you are giving us an insight into how and why we make the kinds of choices we do — and those are every bit as important as curing cancer.

While I won’t ever cure cancer, nor will I ever administer professional assistance to those who harbor suicidal thoughts, maybe my work is important. Even if it’s in some small way, it can be important. It can shed light on choices we make — even if it’s the language and imagery that is chosen to convey a message. Maybe. Just maybe, it can be important.

one is the loneliest

This is not meant to be a whining post. It’s more of a sharing of “what I’ve learned while in grad school” post, I hope.

Justification out of the way. Check.

I’ve always been a loner. Well, I don’t know if everyone would have seen that of me, but that’s how I’ve always felt. Sure, in high school I was in all of the right organizations and hung out with some really awesome people. But at the end of the day, I was happiest curled up with a book, losing myself in some other world (typically horror and/or fantasy). Maybe that came from moving around a lot as a child. I came to depend on my family for my social connections. I mean, they were always there; they typically got me (except for that time in my late teens when I shaved designs in my hair and my Dad definitely DID NOT GET ME). But overall, I had pretty cool parents and siblings I liked (despite the fighting).

That was a long time ago.

Insert domestic violence, geographic isolation, and aging through my teens, twenties, thirties, and forties here. These things affected my feelings of isolation even from the foundational support of my family. While somewhat pertinent to my state of mind, not at all interesting in this story. Check.

So I’m a loner. Add grad school in. Add in that I’m 1800 miles from the support foundation that I’ve relied on most of my life. Add in the lack of funds to travel home (unlike most of my fellow students who seem to be able to do this easily, or at least often). Add in the confusion about what “home” means anymore. Add in that I’m a 45-year-old woman without many relationships outside of family (I am lacking in the expertise to make this happen well). Check.

So my loneliness is not necessarily related to grad school, except that it is. I’m in dissertating mode, and I’ve become more of a hermit than I ever was. I have gone days without talking to a single person. I have gone weeks, especially during holidays and summer break, without seeing another person. And I don’t have my nieces and nephews (or even my parents and siblings) to call me up and ask me to come out for the day.

Add in the holidays. Since starting my PhD program, I hate the period from Thanksgiving (traditionally my family’s big holiday, but this seems to have waned) through New Year’s Day. There is Thanksgiving, my sister’s birthday, my birthday, my mom’s birthday, Solstmas (Solstice/Christmas/whatever), and New Year’s. Add in that my family is not really one for gift-giving, but we would go out for dinner on one’s birthday, so I don’t typically get anything on these days (and sometimes a phone call or card is even a miracle). (And really, I don’t care about gifts, I care more about knowing that someone took the time to think about me. And before you wonder if I give gifts, I do. When I’m able to go home, I go with gifts for everyone, and remember them all on their birthdays. It’s not because I’m better than them. I’m not. I just like to give gifts.)

And this has officially become a whining post. Argh. Check.

So I will end with one thought: pet-sitting has saved my life. Had it not been for the good fortune of meeting people who trust me with their homes and pets, I would have spent all of my holidays and birthday alone. Instead, I’ve spent this time (and during all of the previous years I’ve been here) with some really lovely furry critters who give me lots of unconditional love. And who make me smile. And who don’t mind that I’m a loner, because I do it with them.

Brought to you by the “This is all about me, belly-button gazing, lint pickers society of the Internet.”

On being skeptical

I’m often asked what I teach, and when I respond, it is often with “I teach thinking.” Some people nod, without asking what I mean, while others look at me quizzically, and still others engage. “What do you mean by that?” they may ask.

I teach thinking through the exercise of writing and reading. Ok, so officially I teach writing. But when a student walks into my class , I can guarantee that there is far more deep critical thinking going on than there is writing and even reading.

Why do I think this?

First, I’m interested in what students think about issues – and this means any issues. I’ve learned about the best places to buy vinyl (and why they are the best places) in Saint Paul. I’ve discovered that volunteerism means different things to different students and they can give strong arguments for their ideas. And just this week, I had discussions about why Ironman is better than Batman, why the 99% of the US is the 1% of the world, and why Ritalin is not a performance enhancing drug – all instigated by FYW students.

Second, I grew up in a blue collar household where skepticism was encouraged. We we encouraged to think differently than our peers, to think outside the box, and to question everything. While this has led to difficulty in fitting in with peers at times, it has also given my siblings and me the strength to not only believe in what we thought, but to be able to argue it effectively because we would know both sides of an argument and know them in depth. I grew up watching more news programs than anything else, and it showed when I wrote papers or engaged in formalized debate on the various debate teams I was on. What all of this means is that I encourage the same in students I work with. If we watch a documentary, we spend far more time on what we didn’t see than what we did because it’s as important to the story as what was included.

Third, while I am skeptical, I also give the benefit of the doubt when it comes to students exploring their ideas. I want the classroom to be a safe place to explore all kinds of ideas, not just the comfortable ones. While I may not agree with them, I work hard to assist them in thinking through their ideas and their arguments. I throw opposition at them while giving them ideas on how to bolster their own arguments.

All of this sounds so simple and matter of fact when I read it, but I think that anyone who teaches knows that this is often much more difficult than it would appear. And if I wasn’t skeptical when reading back through this, I would be disappointed in myself. The skepticism forces me to think more critically and challenge myself more stringently in each class period. I hope that never ends.

identity in fyw

photo courtesy of a sea snow (http://photozou.jp/photo/show/240326/29485488)

Recently a colleague asked me to share some ideas on how to present on identity to a first year writing class. I told her that during the time I was teaching fyw (I’m currently teaching rhetoric, technology, and the internet), I approached it through a very multimodal pop culture focus: Lady Gaga.

In order to reach a variety of people (I had a returning vet, a high school student, foreign language students, and traditional students), I needed to set this concept up in ways that the students could all relate.

  • We read the NYTimes article “Text Generation Gap: U R 2 Old (JK)” and discussed how relevant this was to the people in the class. Did it define anyone? Was it indicative of a generation? Was it important?
  • Next, we read the ever-controversial Camille Paglia and her article (Lady Gaga and the Death of Sex) about Lady Gaga in relation to other iconic figures like Madonna and Gwen Stefani.
  • Then we read Jack Halberstam’s What’s Paglia Got to do with it? We also discussed who Paglia and Halberstam are, why their opinions might matter, and how they could be focused to reach specific audiences.
  • We then watched several videos:

    After these, we discussed how the articles and the videos add to the idea of who Lady Gaga is, how we, the general public, might view her, and if this is a strategic identity construction. We also discussed how some of the gestures in Poker Face are similar to Madonna’s in “Material Girl” and how artists often “remix” or “reuse” iconic symbols as their own.

  • Finally, we looked at images of Lady Gaga on Google Images. What do images of her with or without makeup, in a meat dress, in various forms of dress or undress, mean? How do these construct identity?

What was really interesting about this form of discussion is that because it was held early in the semester, it gave a baseline of inquiry into the topics we tackled later in the semester. We (and usually this was the students) referenced the Paglia and Halberstam articles several times throughout the semester in relation to ideas of community, technology, and critical analysis.

The best outcome, though, was that we had fun. It was enjoyable to see the students get excited about the discussions.

the internet: then and now

Last week, students and I listened to a 1993 podcast from NPR’s Science Friday and watched a video from a 1994 NBC Today Show. Each of these was taking a look at the Internet at the time, forming questions around “what is this thing” to “what can this do for me?”

While the Today Show clip reminded us of a time when many people didn’t know what the Internet was or how it worked, the Science Friday showed us that some of the same issues that concerned issues then still concern issues today.

Some of the topics we found pertinent:

information
-ignore (usually advertisements)
-disinformation/misinformation
-trust
-amount of information
-size of information (files/streaming, etc.)
prime sources
-copyright
–direct contact between creator and consumer
commerce
media of the people (democratization)
-public access
–accessibility speed (modem)
synchronous/asynchronous communication
MUDs/MOOs/MMORPG
Machines know everything about you

This was not only a great exercise in listening, but in also assessing what the real issues were and are in understanding the Internet.

Writ3577 students & their projects

This semester Writ3577 (Rhetoric, Technology, and the Internet) students have created great projects that focus on helping others through volunteering and donations.

Group A

This group is collecting donations of CDs and DVDs to send to a local Minnesota National Guard troop stationed overseas.

OperationTroopDonation website

http://www.wix.com/operationtroopdonati/operationtroopdonation

UMN CD/DVD Drop boxes

Drop box set up now in office of Veteran Services in the Science Teaching and Student Services building.

Drop boxes at Coffman Union and St. Paul Student Center will be available March 28 – April 8th.

Group B

Postcards Anonymous and UMinnesotaNice

This group sends anonymous postcards to people who are doing good works throughout the world. Next week is Japan week (they are translating English to Japanese and mailing postcards to people in Japan) followed by Libya week (again, translated and sent to Libya). If you are interested in helping out, please let me know. Since this is an anonymous group, they have to give you permission to their site.

They have also set up a Twitter account for http://twitter.com/#!/UMinnesotaNice to send thanks yous, accolades, and appreciations to others, capitalizing on the idea of Minnesota Nice (and UMN).

Group C

This group has set up multiple sites to record, encourage, and initiate volunteerism at the U. They have participated in the Polar Plunge for Special Olympics and are participating in Meals on Wheels for National Volunteer Week. In addition, they want to know what others are doing to volunteer. They plan on taking pictures, interviewing volunteers, and posting the information to their sites.

Tumblr site: http://turnup-volumn.tumblr.com/

Facebook site: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=149449328449007

Twitter account: http://twitter.com/#!/TurnUpTheVolUMN

what has meaning

This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education, of learning how to be well-adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. You get to decide what to worship.
David Foster Wallace — Commencement Speech at Kenyon College

I’ve had a hard time being a fan of David Foster Wallace. I mean, I’m supposed to, right? He’s the intellectual’s intellectual. But I have a hard time with his writing, much in the same way I have trouble with theorists in my field. They go on and on and on, never quite reaching their point. They talk in circles about their ideas, and we are to bow down before the alter of this philosophy. Why? Well, because–these are brilliant philosophers (dead white men, most of them).

I can’t. I keep trying to believe that what I read is important, that maybe if I understood it more it would make more sense. It doesn’t. Not only do I not find so much of the theory incomprehensible, but I also find it steeped in a belief system that I don’t hold, don’t follow, and won’t be converted to.

Perhaps this is the real meaning of my college education. It’s to give me the voice to say I don’t like this person’s theories, or that I don’t believe in what this person has to say, and to stick to my guns.

It’s hard sometimes, especially when it seems that everyone around you worships this philosopher or that, and you haven’t bought in. Or maybe, just maybe, I trust my own instincts more than I do people who write to an audience that didn’t include me in the first place.