Last night, June 30th, a poetry event curated by esteemed avant-garde poet Eileen Myles took place on the rooftop of the Hispanic Museum in Manhattan. The performance was part of Tuesdays on the Terrace, and was vaguely (as Myles said in her invitation) in response to “Zoe’s show and the Hispanic Museum’s collection.”

The event was highly unusual as far as poetry events go. For one thing, it was performed SILENTLY.

The invitation says, “All will converge to sit, move, read, and perform silently for one hour on the Hispanic Museum’s incredibly spacious and evocative Audubon Plaza. You as audience are invited to come up and stroll amongst this silent happening at your own genial pace. You are urged to dress vividly and shamelessly as if you were attending a wedding or a renaissance fair or a nature hike, an art opening, poetry reading, or to spray-paint things on your roof.”

“Participants include poets Charles Bernstein, Stephanie Gray, Tim Liu, Mónica de la Torre, Rachel Zolf, Christine Hou, and Julie Patton, dancer-choreographer Christine Elmo, The Village Zendo, and soprano Juliana Snapper.”

After the performance, the “silent texts” were available in a bilingual, printed edition for all to read. And then performers and audience had a party.

More from the press release: “The Collection of Silence, a baroque site-specific work around the possibilities of silence as central to the syntax and punctuation of everyday life. A diverse group of poets will present short pieces at various locations on the outdoor plaza of Audubon Terrace, where they will be joined by a group of students from PS4.

“Also accompanied by dancers, Buddhists, an opera singer, and a life drawing class, this mute and active gathering will demonstrate and celebrate the collective power of silence and the capacity of an unvoiced poem to serve the communal purposes of public life.”

Questions for Teaching:

1. What do you think the purpose would be to having a silent poetry event?

2. What does this event try to say about the role of audience in more conventional poetry readings? What’s the purpose of asking the audience to dress up or to dress outrageously?

3. What relationship might poetry have to art in this context? How are the mediums similar? Different?

4. It might be interesting to contrast Myles’s event with a poetry slam or a lecture on poetry. How are the events different? What qualities do they share? Ask students to reflect on their preferences and consider where those preferences come from.

5. Stage your own poetry event. As a class, discuss what qualities it will have and why.

In a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Art Scheck makes a good argument for using poetry to teach fundamental reading (and thinking) skills. He laments the difficulty students have reading poetry, and offers insight to teachers who haven’t considered teaching poetic language:

“So what?” you may think. “I don’t teach poetry.” But maybe difficulty with figurative language is just one facet of trouble with analogies: As A is to B, so C is to . . . ? Problems with metaphors and analogies might explain why many students cannot carry concepts from one problem to another, or, for that matter, even learn the concepts in the first place.

Mr. Scheck bravely goes where other composition teachers fear to tread, patiently leading his students through a Shakespearean sonnet until the light of comprehension dawns.

On behalf of Joan Feinberg, President, and all of Bedford/St. Martin’s, we want to recognize and acknowledge how important the work of TAs and Adjuncts is. We support these awards, funding the three $500 prizes, because the innovative work of TAs and Adjuncts in the Computers and Writing community is so important to the field. We’re especially gratified to be working with Kairos, a journal founded and sustained by TAs and Adjuncts. It’s a journal that is fun to read and write for because its ideas excite.

GRADUATE AND ADJUNCT AWARD FOR SERVICE
Rik Hunter, University of Wisconsin-Madison

GRADUATE AND ADJUNCT AWARD FOR TEACHING
Annette Vee, University of Wisconsin-Madison

GRADUATE AND ADJUNCT AWARD FOR RESEARCH
Krista A. Kennedy, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

JOHN LOVAS WEBLOG AWARD
Jerz’s Literacy Weblog by Dennis G. Jerz, Seton Hill University

BEST WEBTEXT AWARD
Expanding the Space of f2f: Writing Centers and Audio-Visual-Textual Conferencing
Melanie Yergeau (who also received an award last year), The Ohio State University
Kathryn Wozniak, DePaul University
Peter Vandenberg, DePaul University

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When you visit a Web site you want to return to, you can add a bookmark in your Web browser that saves the page address for later. Some tools (like Xmarks, formerly Foxmarks) even allow you to synchronize your bookmarks across computers. Those bookmark synchronizer tools are great for keeping the bookmarks in your browser at home identical to the ones on your machine at work.

The shortcoming of these synchronizers is that they are personal tools. They’re meant to be used by one person to organize and simplify bookmarks on the computers that he or she uses personally. What do you do when you want to share your bookmarks with other people or use them when you’re not at your own computer? Social bookmarking is the answer.

Social bookmarking sites, like Delicious, save your bookmarks online, so that you can access them just by visiting a Web page. Take a look at High School Bits blogger Jodi Rice’s collection of bookmarks. At first it may not be obvious why they’re useful. What you’ll see on her page is a list of her most recent additions to the collection.

The good stuff is on the right side of the screen, under the Tags header. When you add bookmarks to your collection, you can also add tags (or keywords) that help you identify them and organize them. Click on the Hamlet tag, for instance, and you’ll find 37 links to pages that you can use to teach the play.

If you’re not finding what you’re looking for in Rice’s collection, try one of these:

• Drew Loewe’s bookmarks on teaching, Web design, and new media
• Bradley Dilger’s bookmarks for his research projects and teaching
• Quinn Warnick’s tech communication bookmarks

What each of those collections has in common is that it organizes links based on the keywords that the person can use later to find information.

If you’re not sold on their usefulness, look at Bradley Dilger’s reading schedule for his class, and you’ll see that the links to the readings are actually links to his Delicious bookmarks. Social bookmarking sites are perfect for this kind of task, and all you have to do is add the links and tags. No need to compose your own web page for the links you want to share with classes. Let the site do the work for you.

Delicious is just one of the social bookmarking sites available. There are many others out there you might try, like Diigo and Digg. No matter which one you choose, you’ll find that these sites are a useful way to make all those must-see Web pages you’ve saved links for available to anyone simply.

To learn more about Delicious, check out the resources on The Ultimate Guide to Delicious Social Bookmarking, which has links to tutorials and other useful resources. You’ll have your collection set up in no time!

Dozens and dozens of ideas float through my head every day. My thoughts are cluttered with them, but they go nowhere. I don’t post them on Twitter. I don’t write them down in my journal. I don’t even scribble them on a Post-It note so I can return to them later. I get so focused on trying to think of perfect ideas that I never write anything down.

I’ve been rethinking that process recently, thanks to photographer friend, Steve Mermelstein (@usrbingeek). Steve recommended Escaping Your Portfolio, from Chase Jarvis. In the entry, Jarvis explains that a photographer’s portfolio of work is typically thought of as a collection of outstanding shots. The problem with that way of thinking, he says, is that the “metaphysical weight alone of the word portfolio can crush the creative spirit rather than enhance it.”

As a writer, I quickly saw that Jarvis was describing the photographic equivalent of my problem. His solution is simple and liberating: “ditch the concept in your mind and wander aimlessly creating things that you want to create.”

Like Jarvis, I’ve been buying the belief that everything I post online has to be a perfect example of my work. Since anyone can read what I write online, everything I post has to be perfect. Why didn’t it ever occur to me to just label some of my writing as drafts or unpolished ideas?

I’m aiming to write more and think less for a while. Rough drafts of all those things I think about have to be better than no drafts at all, right? Don’t wait for the perfect words, the perfect shots, the perfect sounds! Just create your texts. The best ones can always be shifted into a polished collection later.

Beyond teaching me a lesson for my own writing, Jarvis’s blog entry is one that I want to share with students, especially students working on audio and visual compositions. Jarvis has the authority of a working professional who has published some great pictures. Students should easily see the connection to their own work.

After discussing the entry with the class, I’d challenge students to post at least 5–10 new things every day. Their posts might consist of words, photos, videos, or audio files. The important thing is that they don’t need to be perfect or polished. After a week or two, have students review the collections and choose some favorites. As they share their choices with you, ask them to reflect on the process of creating whatever they wanted to and how it might affect other projects that they work on.

The economy is in rugged shape, no? In California, we are seeing some of the most brutal and drastic cuts imaginable, and we still do not have a budget. It is stunning, it hurts, and there is no doubt that thousands of adjuncts are directly suffering from these decisions. It’s easy to want to escape the anxiety or worry, so you leave home or the office and go grab a cup of coffee.  (Or a specialty tea or an espresso drink.)

How much is that drink?
How many times per week or month do you buy one?

Sure, I know–I have my own drinks as well.  I paid just over two bucks for my current cup of coffee so I didn’t have to write this at home. Why would I want to change? I don’t like to do the same thing everyday or week–even if I am feeling broke. It feels like a cheap luxury. But is it really that cheap?

To get a better grip on my finances and feel in control, I track my coffee expenditures. When I smoked cigarettes, I tracked how many I smoked. Rather than have an idea of what I was smoking or spending, I wanted to know exactly how much I was spending.  Usually my estimations of what I spent were far less than what I actually paid for my habit.  The very act of observing and tracking what I smoked and spent slowed me down.

Tracking expenditures is a great way to see where your money is going. This means that you can budget your money more effectively. And if you budget your money, then you know that you are taking active and engaged steps to maintain control of your finances and your life. [read more]

Teaching about Copyright
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recently released their “Teaching Copyright” curriculum and website. Created in part as a response to The Copyright Alliance’s “Think First, Copy Later” collection, the EFF curriculum focuses on 5 lesson plans:

• Definitions of Copyright: What Do They Know?
• A Brief History of Copyright and Innovation
• Fair Use: Remix Culture, Mashups, and Copyright
• Peer-to-Peer File Sharing
• Fair Use: You Be The Judge

You may find the lesson plans are too scripted for the classes you teach, but the ideas and the linked materials are great resources for college classrooms.

In fact, you might skip the lessons altogether and go directly to the Resources Tab, where you’ll find the handouts, articles, and related information all on one Web page. Here are some examples:

• Take a look at the Fair Use FAQ, Copyright FAQ, and Public Domain FAQ to get started. These 3 pages are accessible, ready-to-share resources for the classroom.
• Pass out the Law and Technology Timeline, which lists significant events in copyright law alongside technology developments. It’s great background reading for discussions on how copyright has evolved.
• Choose articles from the P2P (peer-to-peer) list on the site as readings for a unit on downloading music and software files legally.

Teaching How to Avoid Plagiarism
If your intellectual property rights unit also includes a discussion of avoiding plagiarism, visit the St. Martin’s Tutorial on Avoiding Plagiarism. It’s a free resource that explains what plagiarism is and how to avoid it. The tutorial includes everything you need, from readings to practice exercises.

For a fast review of plagiarism with your class, be sure to take a look at The Bedford Researcher’s Checklist: Avoiding Plagiarism. The one-page handout makes a simple outline for class discussion and provides a handy take-away resource that students can use as they write.

Additional Information
If you want to learn more about copyright and fair use in the classroom, check out the Code of Best Practices for Fair Use in Media Literacy Education. This report and the related resources from the Media Education Lab at Temple University should answer any lingering questions you have about intellectual property rights.

In a rugged economy, it is easy to feel nervous or intimidated.  As adjuncts, we know that we have virtually no legal recourse if our courses are taken from us or if we are let go for no apparent reason. Given all the current upheavals in virtually every state and the unstable nature of the states’ budgets–not to mention that education usually ends up on the chopping block–it is very easy to feel nervous, paranoid, or worried about money and work.

It is reasonable to be concerned, but it is not reasonable–and I’d argue it is counterproductive–to be overly paranoid or concerned about jobs and the job market.  In the end, you either have the work or you don’t.  If administration is going to take it from you, that is what they will do.  If they are going to leave you alone, they will leave you alone.  No amount of fretting will change that.  Easy to say; hard to put into practice.

As adjuncts, we have heard this kind of advice quite a bit–usually from people who are not adjuncts or people who have not been part-timers for some years. Given their lack of immediate or relevant experience, it is hard to trust them or give them any credibility.  In spite of this, the advice is still relevant.

Rather than worry about whether or not you’ll teach this summer or fall, you can productively redirect your attention in a variety of ways.

1. Make sure your vita is up to date–that means this month.  In addition to adding your recent coursework and publications, be sure to triple check for clarity and errors.  This is always useful, and it helps remind you of exactly how qualified you are and just how much work and dedication you have put into your career.

2. Sketch out your calendar for the coming six months or year.  Figure out when conferences are taking place, deadlines for CFPs, required portfolio readings, and so on.  Figure out roughly what the multiple markers are in the coming year.  Not only does this help construct a sense of what you may or may not be doing, it makes you consciously aware of just how many things you may have going on.

3.  Revisit your syllabi, your course descriptions, your teaching philosophy, and so on.  Review them.  Are they current? Do they express who and what you are at this particular moment in time?  Rather than worry about a position, why not make sure that your documents most accurately and powerfully reflect your abilities and skills?

4.  Review your finances, your bills, and your spending habits.  Are there things you spend money on–subscriptions, indulgences, or habits–that are not necessary or that are a bit over what they need to be?  Rather than look for things that make you feel guilty, why not try to find a twenty-dollar expenditure here and a thirty-dollar one there?  This is not the same as earning money for several months but it is a means to make sure that you maximize your economic efficiency.  It can be useful to revisit these points every couple of months because it is easy to overlook some habits.  Similarly, our habits often change over the months.

5.  Sort through your teaching files and throw out what you do not need.  Do you really need grade sheets from three years ago, students’ letters of introduction from five years ago, or some essays they wrote two years ago?  If you have not looked at them or used them in all this time, then you probably don’t need them filling up your files–at work or at home. Cleansing your files offers you a chance to be more effective, efficient, and to cut some dead weight.  Plus it gives you a chance to rediscover diamonds in your work and some impressive teaching ideas you have forgotten.

6.  Print up fresh, clean, and viable hard copies of all your important documents for teaching and class.  While you still have access to campus printers and copiers make sure that you are professionally ready to roll.

None of these six suggestions will keep you hired or prevent you from being fired–but as adjuncts, there are few things that can.  Honestly, the best thing that you can do is be the most prepared professionals possible.  Instead of taking all of the anxiety of the current economy and using it to rip yourself apart with stress, redirect some of that nervousness and worry into improving your teaching portfolio, cleaning up your professional environment, and ensuring that you are free of as much dead weight as possible. This way, if you are cut, there is less to take with you and you are prepared; and when you keep your job, you’ve toned up and trimmed some unnecessaries so that you can focus on your work.

Want to jazz up your next slide presentation? Modea Share is a great mash-up of Twitter and SlideShare that will do the trick!

Just released this week, Modea Share lets you project your SlideShare presentation on the left side of the screen and all the related, incoming Twitter updates in a column on the right. Here’s a screen shot. Click to see the full-sized image:

The tool finds the related Twitter updates by using a hashtag, a metatagging system that people include when they post to Twitter. TwiTip’s Tweet Your Message to a Larger Audience with Hashtags explains how the tags work. Many events and organizations announce related hashtags and encourage people to use them when they post. For instance, people are using the hashtag #cw09 for status updates related to Computers and Writing 2009.

It’s easy to set up—and the Web sites you’ll use are all free.

1. Create your slide presentation in PowerPoint, OpenOffice, or Keynote.
2. Upload the presentation to SlideShare.
3. Copy the embed code for your presentation from SlideShare.
4. Go to Modea Share and enter the details on your presentation:
   • Your Twitter Username (so people can contact you later)
   • A hashtag (e.g., #cw09 if you’re presenting at Computers and Writing 2009)
   • Your SlideShare embed code
5. Ask people attending your presentation to tag their comments so that they will appear on screen.

Modea Share really is that simple. Set it up as part of your presentation, and Modea Share will quickly foreground that back channel conversation and allow you to respond to your colleagues.

To focus the Twitter updates that appear alongside your presentation, you can create your own customized hashtag. For example, #cw09 would be great for a keynote speaker’s presentation, but someone presenting at the Graduate Research Network workshop might ask people to use the hashtag #grn09 to narrow down the comments to just those people in the session.

You can use Modea Share in the classroom too. Use the tool with any slide presentation to encourage more discussion and engagement. Create basic slides that students can respond to at the beginning or end of class. Post a brainstorming prompt on a slide, and have students respond with a hashtag via Twitter so that everyone can see the responses. If you can use Twitter in your classroom, Modea Share can be a great new way to increase participation.

Oh, and if you’re worried about the stream of status updates becoming a distraction, read “Twittering in Church, with the Pastor’s O.K.” from TIME. If folks can Twitter in church without being a distraction, I know we can do it in the classroom.

I love my books, and I love to buy books.  I buy new books. I buy used books, but I cannot read every book I buy.  Sometimes, I do not even read a single page.  Instead, I see a paragraph or two that interest me, I pick the book up, and then I never look at it again.  But at least I have that book on my shelf.

Many composition instructors I know have similar approaches.  Some are extreme and others are controlled, but generally speaking, we all have a lot of books.  Few fully use and deploy all of the books they own.  Instead, they have a few core texts to employ and the rest are there just in case they need them.  Which they rarely do.

For many years, I told myself that I would actually use those books.  Yeah, right.  Instructors’ Editions sat uncracked for two years.  What was the point? Why did I order them?  Because I thought they might be of use.  Might.  At this point in time, I rarely order IE’s because I know that, in almost all cases, I won’t use them.  I know I won’t because I know my working and teaching habits.

When I walk through hallways at school and see texts other professors are throwing out, I stop and look at them.  If I see something of potential interest, I pick it up and scan it.  Sure, someone else has tossed it, but I can recycle their trash and avoid postage, money, or printing/paper costs.  In about three to five minutes I will know whether or not I want the new edition: if I can scalp enough useful material from that used text in my hand or if it is a waste of time.  Thus, rather than waste time, space and resources attempting to assemble a potential library full of unused texts, I am interested in building a small library of texts, used or new, that I can actually use.

In spite of my efforts to limit my library, books get past my guard—my half-hearted guard, that is.  Every three to six months, I reap my shelves and cut the dead weight so I can have shelf space.  Papers with article ideas and outlines for class plans fall on the floor every time I cull my books.  If I have not used a book in three months and if I can’t use it in my current class, I cull it.  If I can’t sell it for at least $15 online, I donate or dump it (depending on the condition).

Culling my library saves me from suffocating under a landslide of potential texts and forces me to make use of a limited number of texts that I know well enough to use and apply in class.  While the joy of potential, of I could use this or I could do this, is an exciting and a wonderful feeling, it does not last.  And it fills up my shelves.  There is little doubt in my mind that I am not alone.  There is little doubt that there are many books on your shelves that have not been used–and probably won’t ever be used–in the past six months or year.

All of these books take up shelf space, they require visual attention, and they are resources frozen in space and time.  No matter if they tie up attention, money, or space, they are freezing rather than facilitating flow.  Getting rid of dead weight frees attention and flow, and these things allow you to center your attention on more interesting things like students, classes, professional development, and eventually location of a full- or part-time job.