Blog entries written throughout the spring 2014 semester to fulfill requirements for ENGL 894 Theories of Networks at ODU.
Summary This is a book about operationalizing understandings of genre. Spinuzzi is interested in practical, user-friendly applications of genre theory and activity theory in professional contexts. He introduces genre tracing as a methodology “for studying these ephemeral, invisible, ubiquitous innovations” (p. x) — workplace innovations, practical solutions to work-a-day problems that arise in an organization….
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This week, like others in the class, I felt a need to add a little more structure to my mindmap. In response, I added a color key in the top left that codes each popple according its function in the map or relation to theorists. I identified two functions, marked in black and blue (without…
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I responded to Maury’s annotated bibliography of VanKooten’s “Toward a Rhetorically Sensitive Assessment Model for New Media Composition,” and I also responded to Amy’s annotated bibliography of Bourelle’s et al. “Assessing Learning in Redesigned Online First-year Composition Courses.” I appreciated Maury’s conclusion that the model VanKooten offers is plausible because I trust her academic, pedagogical, and…
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I appreciate the opportunity this week to reengage with Miller’s work on genre in “Genre as Social Action” and then to see those ideas carried forward into “Rhetorical Community: The Cultural Basis of Genre.” I encountered Miller last semester in an historical review of EDNA-based textbooks in composition studies. Miller’s ideas on the social aspects…
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Crow, A. (2013). Managing datacloud decisions and “big data”: Understanding privacy choices in terms of surveillant assemblages. In McKee, H. A., & DeVoss, D. N. (Eds.). Digital writing assessment & evaluation. Logan, UT: Computers and Composition Digital Press/Utah State University Press. Retrieved from http://ccdigitalpress.org/dwae/02_crow.html Crow addresses the ethics of assessment by defining online composition portfolios as surveillant assemblages, collections of electronic student…
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This week I focused on two terms—“historical a priori” and “contradiction”—that I wrangled in our Foucault Activity Worksheet, added to my mindmap, defined, and determined their relationship to my growing understanding of networks. I found both to be useful in understanding networks because they address questions of network hierarchy, a theme of my questions about…
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I reached nearly 3,000 words in my notes on these sections of The Archaeology of Knowledge, so what you’re reading here represents a summary of my reading notes. I kept trying to use my notes as a way to write myself into understanding the reading; although I ended up quoting lines from the text (turns…
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On Shelley’s recommendation, I started thinking about how our theorists begin answering the questions I posed in my initial mind map. And I started drawing connections between two sets of tags: the authors who represent theories we’ve studied and the terms network, node, hierarchies, and connections. What I discovered surprised me. I’ve already made more…
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Summary Part I The major idea introduced in Part I is that discourse must be considered in its relationship to other discourses and other aspects of discourse. Its defined characteristics should be determined in its relationship to its context and content, and to other discourses, in the same genre as well as to other discourse…
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Posted in response to the following prompt as a classmate-assigned asynchronous learning activity. Take a few minutes to brainstorm/freewrite a list of all the places where you have data stored in memory – all the types of memory you use and access. Think about the different types of data you store in these various places….
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