In chapter sixteen of “Lest We Think the Revolution is a Revolution”, Cynthia L. Selfe starts out by describing how technology is linked to change and how it is affecting our education system as well as our everyday lives. She then goes into describing three narratives. The first one is “Global Village and The Electronic Colony”. In this narrative she gets into detail describing how the World Wide Web has helped us communicate around the globe but that it isn’t a good thing because it has led Americans to thinking that we are the leaders and the smart ones, and this will eventually make us feel superior in a way. Most of us don’t want to be reminded that the United States having only twenty percent of the world’s population consumes eighty percent of the world’s resources. The second narrative was “Land of Equal Opportunity and Land of Difference”. In this narrative Selfe describes how the myth portrayed is of men and women being treated equally, or no one being looked down upon because of their color or race. It is all just a myth though, just like America being the land of opportunity because it is that but only for some. “The Un-gendered and the Same Old Gendered Stuff” is the third narrative. Selfe talks about how men use technology or computers more than women. Also that the purposes for which each gender uses technology is different. Selfe backs up her argument with evidence in the form of picture ads.
In the introduction part of the chapter Selfe says that “When English teachers get together to talk about technology, we generally end up talking about change.” As evidence Selfe later goes onto saying that according to Moore’s law microprocessors double in speed every eighteen months. Also that English departments have changed some of the methods they used to teach. In another part of the introduction Selfe states that “Quite simply put, like Americans, we hope computers can help us make the world a better place in which to live.” As evidence for this claim Selfe says that we hope computers can make students more productive and help us communicate better.
Welcome!
Welcome to our Eng 100 Blog “Conversations Beyond the Classroom”! The title of this blog refers to the community of active readers & collaborative learners we are creating by sharing our academic writing for Eng 100 with each other + a larger group of students, instructors, academics, and just about anybody who chooses to follow our blog! When you write and post your reader responses here (and, later, as you write your essays for the course), I encourage you to use this audience to conceptualize who you are writing for and, most important, how to communicate your ideas so that this group of academic readers and writers can easily follow your line of thinking. Think about it this way: What do you need to explain and articulate in order for the other bloggers to understand your response to the essays we’ve read in class? What does your audience need to know about those essays and the authors who wrote them? And how can you show your readers, in writing, which ideas you add to these “conversations” that take place in the texts we study?
As students of Eng 100, you will use this blog to begin conversations with other academic writers on campus (students and instructors alike). We become active readers of each other’s writing when we comment on posts here. And, best of all, we are using this space to share ideas! We encourage you to use this blog to further think through the topics and writing strategies you will be introduced to this quarter. As always, be sure to give credit to those people whose ideas you borrow for your own thinking and writing (you should do this in the blog by commenting on their post, but you will also be required to cite what you borrow from your peers/instructors if and when it winds up in your essays. More details on that later…).
Finally, keep in mind that writing to and for this audience is a good way to prepare for the panel of readers (faculty at WCC) who will be reading and assessing your writing portfolio at the end of the quarter. We hope that as a large group of active readers, we can better prepare each other for this experience. But, in the meantime, let’s have fun with it! I am really excited see how far we can take this together!
--Mary Hammerbeck, Instructor of Eng 100
As students of Eng 100, you will use this blog to begin conversations with other academic writers on campus (students and instructors alike). We become active readers of each other’s writing when we comment on posts here. And, best of all, we are using this space to share ideas! We encourage you to use this blog to further think through the topics and writing strategies you will be introduced to this quarter. As always, be sure to give credit to those people whose ideas you borrow for your own thinking and writing (you should do this in the blog by commenting on their post, but you will also be required to cite what you borrow from your peers/instructors if and when it winds up in your essays. More details on that later…).
Finally, keep in mind that writing to and for this audience is a good way to prepare for the panel of readers (faculty at WCC) who will be reading and assessing your writing portfolio at the end of the quarter. We hope that as a large group of active readers, we can better prepare each other for this experience. But, in the meantime, let’s have fun with it! I am really excited see how far we can take this together!
--Mary Hammerbeck, Instructor of Eng 100
No comments:
Post a Comment