Letter to the Reader

Dear Reader,

I am writing this letter to explain how my e-portfolio and the work that went into its creation demonstrates that I have met the Student Learning Outcomes required by this course.  This letter is intended to address other instructors in the UNC-Charlotte University Writing Programs and to fullfill the requirements of the Course Redesign Award.  

Introduction

          This project emerged out of a Course Redesign Award for a Freshman Writing Course at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte offered by their University Writing Programs called "Writing and Inquiry in Academic Contexts." In an effort to better understand my own teaching, I set out to do something I had rarely done in my seventeen years as a college instructor:  my own homework. I chose to perform an inquiry into the virtual.  This portfolio explains how that inquiry evolved and provides an exhibition which my research and writing this semester helped me to create.  

          The purpose of the Course Redesign Award was to give instructors more time to think through and research the work they were doing as teacher so that our courses might better reflect the University Writing Program's Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs).   These outcomes can be listed as follows: Rhetorical Knowledge, Critical Reading, Composing Processes, Knowledge of Conventions, and Critical Reflection. As part of doing my own homework, I was required to present a Semester-Long Inquiry Project as an e-portfolio which must include an Introduction, an Exhibition, an Epilogue, a Process Documentary, and this Letter to the Reader. The Letter to the Reader is required to address each of the above SLOs and to explain how my portfolio engages them.  

          As I continue on, I am already aware that even this essay is a rendering of stereoscopic vision.  I used an inquiry into the virtual to help me improve the way that I teach a writing class.  This connection between the virtual and writing is somethingn I came to think quite a lot about this semester and will be engaged elsewhere in the Introduction.  I hope that the students had a similar experience, as they pursued their own interests with the secondary purpose of meeting the SLOs.  

The Semester-Long Inquiry Project
          Everyone in the class was free to choose the subject of their Semester-Long Inquiry Project and the medium in which they presented their final exhibition, granted the medium was accessible via the e-portfolio. A Calendar of due dates was provided and was comprised of several small writing assignments and critique sessions.  I built a great deal of flexibility into the calendar assigning which enabled students to choose how they structured their time working on the project.  Some students skipped all the early options and were forced to compress their work into the second half of the semester, while others started early, worked steadily and found their time to open up toward the deadline.  I took the middle path, though it was against my procrastinating nature, and worked on the small writing assignments sporadically throughout the semester.  I'm not sure if the freedom was a good thing for everybody, but I do think that the freedom taught all of us something about ourselves.

          I personally generated an enormous amount of material with these writing assignments. There were two kinds: Process Journals and Inquiry Journals.  Process Journals required us to write 300 words about our process plus 1 "image of own making" (to be interpreted as students saw fit).  For a perfect score, we had to write 15 of these.  We also had to write 15 Inquiry Journals that were 500 words of thinking on the page plus a bibliographic citation that had been annotated in summary and as relevant to the overall project. As the materials of the course, we were required to purchase a sketchbook and to secure an optional $40 for research purposes. I purchased a Moleskine journal and a small Sketchbook for visual work: both were filled by the end of the term.

Composing Processes

          The Process Journals were intended to connect to the Composing Processes SLO to raise student awareness of their own writing processes and to see the writing processes of others at work.  The were also intended to create a space for the mind to think about the project. The sketchbooks were intended to shift students' perspectives and get them to look at multimodal writing as an art form, one that can frame research, thought and inquiry and allow others access to it. I found that my own process was much more productive as a result of the assignments.  The deadlines helped structure my time and I ended up creating a block of time on Mondays to work on the Semester-Long Inquiry Project. I became aware of what light I worked best in, what kind of music I needed to listen to, whether or not the TV should be on or off.  I generally became more mindful of the way that I was approaching the project. 

Critical Reading

          The Critical Reading SLO was the primary focus of the Inquiry Journals which forced us all to engage voices other than our own and to make connections between them and our own.  We were allowed to create our own reading list and the definition of reading was expanded to include images, music, artifacts, places, and people.  I watched an Andy Warhol documentary, the Matrix Trilogy, Waking Life, Videodrome, Tron (original version), Black Mirror, and various other virtual reality-related productions.  I paid attention to what it was like to ride a train to Raleigh.  I thoroughly documented my process and went back over it to see if I had missed something that was staring me in the face.  I often did.

Rhetorical Knowledge

          Rhetorical Knowledge is a difficult concept for me to grasp. There's something a bit presumptuous in believing you can ever have knowledge about the rhetorical intentions of others.  How many times have your own intentions been subverted without your knowledge?  You'll never know, right?  I do think focusing on the concept of rhetoric is useful though, and we engaged it in a very simplistic way, using a triangle.

The purpose of the triangle which we returned to again and again throughout the semester, was to remind students to consider the terms within it.  The triangle could have been a hexagon and probably a little neater.  The geometry of the relations is not exact but it is a quick reference reminder, and it helped me as I had to constantly redefine my medium throughout the semester as I grappled with unfamiliar ones and the literature surrounding them. Keeping an audience in mind, being able to clearly define the text you are creating, and understanding how to present yourself as a speaker within a given context and venue are a good introduction to rhetorical thinking. I hope that students will be able to flip the model in their analysis of the texts of others as the pursue their academic disciplines.  I much prefer this model to the ones that emphasize intention and purpose as it puts a lot of emphasis on media, which was at the very heart of my own inquiry project and what I was asking my students to do by composing an e-portfolio.   My audience with this letter is my colleagues and my students. The audience of my exhibition is the general public--art lovers, VR experimenters, science fiction readers as well as those who find themselves here by chance.

Knowledge of Conventions

         Knowledge of Conventions is a tricky SLO to deal with, especially in a time when innovation and out-of-the-box thinking is so hot on the jobs market.  I think of all my assignments as a set of conventions the class must acclimate to, and I also ask students to take an online tour of websites similar in theme and/or feel to their own. Students should be able to identify the expectations of their audiences, whether or not they choose to satisfy or undermine them.    

          In terms of my exhibition, I am observing the conventions of photography exhibition in its hardcopy form--I am drawing on the beauty of nature for my frame--and I am following the format (though in digital form) of the old coffee table art books you used to find laying around everywhere before the internet.

Critical Reflection

          The last SLO is Critical Reflection.  I feel that this particular outcome is infused into the course.  As an inquiry project, we must ask questions. We must step back and look, analyze, read--and we must move in closer.  It's a process that cannot be separated from academic writing, and yet it doesn't have to be academic to be useful.  Being able to turn that critical eye on yourself is probably the most valueble application of this kind of thinking.  Students reflected throughout their critique presentations, in the preparation of drafts, in their Process Journals, Inquiry Journals, in their sketchbooks, silently before their computer screens or walking through an art exhibition.  

          As for my critical reflection in this project, I have spent many hours by now doing it.  The conveying of that reflective faculty is another project in itself. How can I make you see the exhibition through my eyes and understand all that underlies it?  You can lay my vr.jpg file over your eyes, but you still won't get all the references. You'll still bring your own experience to play. What does it remind you of?  What does that look like?  Aren't those two kinda the same?  I can only imagine what my audience will think as well. It really depends on what they're looking for at the end of the day, so my audience is on the journey, so-to-speak, living the dream.

Afterthoughts

          These SLOs are all just habits of mind good thinkers develop over time.  I feel like the semester has reminded me to be more critical and to think a bit more deeply about the rhetorical choices I make, whether it be as a virtual reality exhibition of paintings and short stories or if it is simply my class syllabus. There is one assignment I have not mentioned here--a few in fact.  Students had to take a walk; they had to visit a library and do research there; they had to visit an exhibition; and for extra credit, they had the opportunity to do my Creative Challenge Exercises which helped me fuse together the inquiry work I have always done with media and language with the concept of the virtual, which had dominated my theoretical life.  I feel the theory and practice coming together in me when I do projects like this and in many ways, it is this kind of work that makes me the happiest.