2, 4, 6, 8; our recruits are really great!

Last week, CRDM held its annual recruitment visit for students accepted into the program. It is a lot of work putting together the visit (which I learned first hand this year, as the student coordinator), but all the planning certainly paid off. Everything went off without a hitch — except of course for the Wednesday night thunderstorm that delayed some flights. Thanks a lot, weather.

Something that became very clear to me during recruitment is that the CRDM admissions committee is outstanding at picking people to join the program. All of the recruits were extremely intelligent, researching very current issues in digital media, and just all around great people. I think I can speak for everyone when I say we hope to see all of their faces here in Raleigh in the fall.

The visit would not have been as successful without the CRDM faculty (namely Jason Swarts and Steve Wiley) and all of the students who volunteered to help out. With the effort of all, the prospective students visited downtown (twice!) for dinner and drinks, went on tours of campus and housing options, visited the North Carolina Museum of Art, and had many opportunities to speak one-on-one with faculty and students who share their research interests.

The recruitment visit is one of the best things about CRDM as a program. Personally, it sealed my decision to accept my offer, and I know it factored into many current students’ PhD program decision as well. It is true that CRDM is a cutting edge program producing excellent scholarly work, and that Raleigh is just a fantastic city in which to live. However, as I was reminded last week, the best part about CRDM is the people. Supportive faculty, friendly colleagues, and brilliant conversations abound. And all of the prospective students who visited the program will certainly be great assets to CRDM. We hope the adoration is mutual.

Some current and prospective students downtown at Busy Bee restaurant on Friday.

~Lauren (CRDMSA, Vice-President)

Literacy isn’t going to hell in a handbasket: The NC Symposium on Teaching Writing

On February 4th and 5th, The First-Year Writing Program hosted the North Carolina Symposium on Teaching Writing. For a weekend one month into the semester, The CRDM showing was strong, both in audience members and presenters. Dana Gierdowski and Robin Oswald presented “Altering Our Assumptions: A Study of the Digital Literacy Skills of First-Year Writing Students.” The detailed their first round of very interesting quantitative results concerning (you guessed it) digital literacy of students in the composition classroom. Lauren Clark, Meagan Kittle Autry, Kate Maddalena, and Wendi Sierra presented a panel titled “The Hybrid Composition Classroom: Teaching from Two Platforms.” After one semester of hybrid teaching (a mix of face-to-face and online teaching) under their respective belts, the four discussed challenges, the roles of teachers and students in a hybrid environment, and strategies for effective hybrid teaching.

But one of the main highlights of the symposium was the keynote address, given by Dr. Andrea A. Lunsford who teaches at Stanford. Dr. Lunsford’s talk was titled “The Role of Rhetoric and (New Media) Writing in 21^st Century Universities.” She tackled an issue that often rears its head in contemporary discussions of composition teaching; how is new media successfully incorporated into traditional studies of rhetoric and writing?

Dr. Lunsford does not subscribe to the idea that the youth of today are less intelligent and more illiterate than in the past; she was vehemently against the idea that literacy is “going to hell in a handbasket.” Rather, she argued that students are writing more (and more frequently) than ever before and, additionally, they are learning that their writing has consequences. I hastily took this to mean the consequence of writing in public fora; blogging, Facebooking, and the like. But Dr. Lunsford instead focused on how students are using writing to create, shape, and change their world. “Good writing,” she said, “makes something happen in the world.” Moreover, she argued that the new forms of literacy are collaborative, participatory, performative, and less expert-centered. She cited Knobel & Lankshear to point out that new literacies are characterized by a “cyberspatial post-industrial mindset,” and thus that young people are thinking of traditional textual ownership (and writing in general) in new ways.

One of the best parts of Lunsford’s talk was that she followed up these assertions with cogent, timely examples of how her students engage directly with their world through the use of writing. One student created what Lunsford called an Invention Engine: a database of Shakespeare poems, Tupac lyrics, and his own poetry (which he viewed as being a part of a ”larger poetic commons”) to allow students to mix, and remix, to create new works of poetry. This particular example highlighted students’ evolved notion of authorship and ownership; the Invention Engine creator makes his own poetry available through the database he created, yet also included copyrighted works without batting an eye. Clearly — and thanks in large part to the Internet — students are thinking of copyright in different ways. This means composition instructors have to approach class discussions of plagiarism from new perspectives. As Lunsford said, “New literacies are not bound by traditional notions of intellectual property.”

Along the same line, Dr. Lunsford also discussed the need for instructors to figure out what is necessary to retain in the vein of traditional rhetoric. Rhetoric is a plastic art, she argued, and will have a place in society unless we evolve into a totalitarian regime [insert joke about Sarah Palin and literacy here]. However, she noted that instructors must decide what needs to be retained within the practices of “old” literacies, and in turn what we can learn from new literacies. The evolution of copyright is just one example of this shift from old to new. There are myriad other issues to work out, but the main point is that both new media and evolved understandings of rhetoric are playing major roles in teaching composition today. Dr. Lunsford closed with what she sees as the goal of rhetoric and writing: to “help us learn to live — and to live well and ethically and productively — in the world.”

The North Carolina Symposium on Teaching Writing was a great success; big thanks are in order to all those who helped put the symposium together. And I think it is clear that, by both the marvelous keynote address and the excellent panels I saw, that current college instructors are doing important, cutting-edge work in their writing classrooms. It is obvious that with teachers like these, the handbasket that houses literacy is miles away from hell.

In fact, one could argue that being in a first-year college writing course is simply heaven.

~Lauren

Kickballin’ with the MS students

In late September, Brandi, a Master’s student in Communication, challenged CRDM to a kickball match against her fellow MS colleagues. All it took was a simple “You may be smarter, but we’re younger” comment, and it was ON.

Most of the CRDM players, ready to throw down. (click to enlarge)

Much to the dismay of the young cohort, CRDM won not once, but twice. Some of our members even played for the other team, but we were unstoppable. Yet still those MS students put up a great fight, and there will certainly be a few rematches in the future.

The ever impressive kickball trophy. (click to enlarge)

Fortuitously, 4th year Shayne came equipped with his wonderful iPhone video camera, and 1st year Fernanda is never without her trusty DSLR. Thanks to the fact that CRDM is populated with tech geeks, we can bring to the blog some great photos and video of the kickball tournament. And of course, many thanks go to Dr. Jessica Moore for getting us a fantastic trophy.

A Nick kick, with silent encouragement in the background.

Matt is on the ball.

Brandi passing off the trophy to Dan.

Go CRDM!

The famous Kevin-Dan chest bump.

(Click through to YouTube for a bigger, better viewing experience.)

Thanks to Brandi and rest of the Master’s students for a fun, challenging game. Next up, we take on the faculty! No one is safe from CRDM’s kickballin’ skills.

What to Expect: 1st Year

The first post in our four-part series about the CRDM experience comes from Lauren Clark, who’s entering her second year and thinking about selecting her committee. (Right, Lauren?)

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Oh, the first year. I’m proud to say that my cohort members and I all survived year one of the CRDM program, which is proof that graduate school doesn’t actually kill you (well, it’s some favorable proof, anyway). But it wasn’t a cake-walk! Though I can’t speak for everyone (they can leave comments to confirm or deny my claims), I have some opinions about what it takes to rock your first year after having lived through it. This is all stuff I’ve heard before and I’m sure you, incoming first-years, have heard it as well. But there is a reason why suggestions such as these get reiterated so much they reach platitude status; it’s because following them really will help you succeed. I’ve gotten this advice, I’ve not followed some of it, and I’ve suffered setbacks as a result. Don’t let the same thing happen to you!

Suggestion #1 (this one’s important): Talk in class. You don’t always have to be the discussion-starter (though those people are fantastic), but you do have to participate. Why? Because if you don’t, your only chance to show your professor that you were actually paying attention all semester is through your seminar paper. And that doesn’t really cut it. I know it can be hard; it’s hard for me. I get shy and think I’m going to sound stupid. But no one has ever made me regret speaking up; CRDM is populated with smart, interesting, and seriously noncompetitive folks. In fact, chances are you’ll end up advancing the discussion, perhaps onto a new trajectory, and that’s always the point at which things start to get more interesting and fun to debate.

Suggestion #2: Read (at least some of) everything. Don’t bog yourself down trying to figure out what the hell Deleuze and Guattari are talking about while ignoring the other 200 pages of stuff you have to read for that week. If you’re slugging through an assigned reading, put it away for a while and move onto something else. I tend to take an all-or-nothing approach toward my reading, but when my workload reaches my eyeballs, that method isn’t advantageous. If you can take even just one measly thing away from a reading, you’ll be better off come class time. Being as prepared as you can be for each class is much better than being super prepared for one class and completely in the dark for another.

Procrastination cat ignores suggestion #3 at his own peril.

Suggestion #3: Sign up for presentations early. There are two benefits to this: the first is that you get your presentations out of the way, and you’re not stressing about them at the end of the semester when you should be focusing on your seminar papers. The second benefit is that if you present early, you get to help set the bar for the rest of the presentations in class. If you can be an early presenter, you’ll generally rock it, and then it’s done. One less little thing to worry about.

Suggestion #4 (maybe as important as suggestion #1): Make friends. Be social. Take breaks during the week and go out on the weekends to keep your sanity and stay refreshed in the face of your workload. And talk to each other. When you’re feeling down in the dumps and like you’re not going to get out of CRDM alive, tell someone. Chances are very good that your cohort members feel the same way. Knowing that helps you to recognize that the challenges you’re experiencing are par for the PhD-student course. Talking to someone a year or two further in the program is helpful, too, because they can empathize and then build you up again with reassurance that you’ll triumph and carry on to your next set of CRDM challenges. Also, go see your professors. Visit them during office hours and clarify what is expected of you. They won’t think you’re dumb; on the contrary, it’ll help you build an important rapport. I know this sounds like undergraduate advice, but when you’re feeling unsure of yourself, it can be easy to keep it hidden inside. Don’t let your apprehension get the better of you.

As with any academic program, I believe that breaking the CRDM program into chunks to master one at a time is the best way to manage your time at State. Don’t overwhelm yourself at the prospect of becoming a Doctor of Digital Awesomeness in four or five short years. Take your first year a semester (or a month) at a time, and take advantage of your resources; your cohort members, other CRDM students, and your professors. No matter how scared or intimidated you are, everyone does want to help you and see you succeed. I promise.

~Lauren Clark

Liveblogging the Carolina Rhetoric Conference: Panel 2

Lauren Clark’s turn to liveblog. Yikes.

2:59 Seth is up first. (he’s a first-year CRDM student.) His paper is called “Sonic Authority in State Power.” In this paper, he is attempting to map state power through the sonic realm.

3:01 How power functions auditory as a means of discipline is not often considered.

3:02 Arguing that the line between sound and noise is a political distinction. Sound is distinguished between noise because sound is desired, where noise is not. Music itself is constructed from this distinction. (Example: heavily distorted guitars in country music affecting the end product.)

3:04 Visualist Logic: The visual is the primary sensory modality with which we interact with the world. As such, we construct the sonic realm with a visualist logic.

3:05 Just realized I’m trying to write too much.

3:08 The fundamental way in which we can think of sound as power is by turning up the volume.

3:09 A torture playlist at Guantanamo Bay! Scary. Playing a song over and over at top volume until someone cracks (“breaks”) and confesses.

3:12 The state attempts to to colonize auditory space by using music as a torture device.

3:13 In one of his songs, KRS-One discusses how in poor neighborhoods, the police signal is an overarching signifier of power. His reaction to that is to put on a West Indian accent in order to create the effect of unity, that “we are all one,” in order to respond to the original power signifier.

3:14 I got distracted by my computer being slow and missed the closing remark about Brian Massumi. How convenient. Anyone who wants to comment on that, go right ahead.

_________

3:15 Kati’s turn. Kati is a seond-year CRDM student. Her paper is called “The Virtual World Soundscape as an Exigency for Auditory Rhetoric?”

3:18 Kati argues that there has been little to no discussion of how to compose with sound. Some scholars are attempting to put together an auditory epistemology. The aspects of this include temporality, plurality, and immersion, among other elements.

3:21 The Soundscape is proposed to keynotes of sound, consciously foregrounded sounds; signals, consciously foregrounded sounds; and soundmarks, sounds that tied in intertextually. Within Soundscape research, the argument is that with sound, environments come alive, with memories and emotion (citing Blesser and Salter).

3:25 Ineffective soundscapes in, e.g., virtual worlds can bring a user out of the experience can diminish the experience. Using soundscapes as a way to provide a sense of realness to virtual worlds, and this is becoming more popular (such as in virtual museums, I think was an example she used). The main point is to make sure that the soundscape is used with a rhetorical purpose in mind.

_________

3:30 Jason, also a second-year CRDM student, is up next. His presentation is called “Synthesizing Experience.” Public memory lives! And is often performed in ways that shape shared sense of past, present and future. Public memory creates a “horizon of expectations” within those involved.

3:32 Public memory, however, is not static, but always contested. We should ask who is remembered, and how? Official + Vernacular = Public Memory >= Digital images. The official and vernacular is often manifested in photography.

3:35 Images as material traces (especially on “the intarwebs”) are situated within a digital media culture. This culture encourages people to produce and share images in order to expand the public memory and alter the rhetorical function of those images.

3:37 Photsynth stitches photos together from different angles in order to represent places in a 3D way. This is an example of social photography and serves to construct the public memory. One example is Obama’s inauguration. Stitching together the thousands (millions) of photos taken that day would construct a social representation of the present.

3:41 What are the rhetorical implications of this type of digital commemoration? It fragments public memory. Something like Photosynth is an individualizing event. Where is the public? The psychosis of digital photography says that the next image is always the most important.

3:45 Closing (positive) question: Does Photosynth attempt to slow down time in order to articulate a connection to the past? Does it allow the present the time to take place?

________

3:45 Christian Smith, from the University of South Carolina, is up. Discussing Joanna Drucker the rhetoric of science.

3:48 Joanna Drucker focuses her work on the materiality of language. She analyzes elements like typography to uncover the rhetorical elements. The physicality of typography is reminiscent of industrial signification.

3:51 Capital letters are defined by their “moreness,” which communicates beyond their materiality.

3:52 Materiality depends on how a work mobilizes its resources as artifact. It extrapolates data and remediates.

3:55 Before an object can be considered an object of science, it must be describable (with language). Communicating scientific knowledge without visuals is almost unheard of.

3:58 A new rhetoric of graphic representation calls for visual analogy, and making the non-visible visible. Visual representations of knowledge are sometimes instable. Correction for this often comes from the scientific community.