Mentoring

CLMooc 2017 Maker Cycle: Animation

I've always been interested in telling stories in different ways. And when I saw the makers cycle for this week, and I read the description about telling a story through pictures, it brought me back to a concept that I had a long time ago. 

The idea was to create the image of a house destroyed by a tornado and bring that to the computer. By clicking on the interactive screen, people could read about the various clickable pieces of debris and from the story they think is important, based on their desire to click on elements in the debris. That being said, I never found the right way or even the possibility of doing that project. 

For this cycle, it is important for me, as a writer to hold on to the writing part of my projects but still do something that is animated in some way. I still wanted to create something similar to the tornado story, but I had a vision. The concept and the vision came all at once. I would write The Fire. It would be 10-20 flash fiction stories woven together based on an image of a fire. Using an image from the tragic London tower fire, I am trying to connect and make the story work. 

The first part will be the stories and how they connect. The next part will be navigation. And finally, the overall look will be important to the story. While I know that not everyone will love reading this and connecting the concepts, the most important element is to try it. Prezi seems to do the job right now and I think it will work out in a linear fashion. I think my vision of clicking into a space and having it tell you a story would work, but for this first prototype, I will have to let the presentation play itself out in order. 

CLICK HERE TO SEE MY EXPERIMENTAL STORY 

Storytelling can be interconnected and there are a lot of different elements now to teach and tell these stories. I worked with students to create panel cartoons to tell stories. I gave the students complex stories and asked them to tell those stories in five panels. In some cases, it was near impossible, but there is something important to cutting it down to just the basic story and attempting it. I also had them create their own superhero or (as some preferred) anti-superhero to create their own satirical space for storytelling. I created the Dyslexic Man comic because of my own issues and created the dread "homonym brothers" who always confused people with their confusing words. 

The infusion of image and word and the evolution of the digital age has brought us to an interesting time and space. In The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image, the visual need to engage the world is returning. And the coded (male dominated) alphabets and convoluted languages are falling away. Storytelling and the modes to tell our stories will certainly change. With abbreviated text-language and memes evolving into shorthand, we are already speeding along in a new way of seeing the world, laughing, and making complex and satirical points about society, politics, and our own experiences. 

Ira Glass / Storytelling / Video

Writing Feedback and the Art of Wonder

by Ron Samul 
The power of information, understanding, and thinking is one of the most important skills I want students to understand in academics. Sure, they will have to write papers and do some grunt work for me, but in the end, I want diverse thinking based on thoughtful research. 

When I saw this article that suggests that feedback shouldn't be a directive, but an exploration, I realized that I wasn't fostering diverse thinking if I was telling them what I wanted them to change (make the teacher happy = good grade). But I realize now that perhaps this is not helping. Bill Ferriter posted this idea by Dylan Wiliam and it struck me that perhaps I needed to change the way I spoke to them between the lines. 

"It turns out that it isn't the giving of the feedback that causes learning gains, it is the acting on feedback that determines how much students learn"(1)

If feedback is given to college writers in terms of questions, places to look, or just leads... then students are given permission to explore and find their own learning moments. In the world of creative writing, I think there is more of an exploration of ideas rather than concrete direction and focus. 

The difference is the creative element. The choices writers make with creative writing is based on experience, not form or rhetoric. That being said, feedback does come in the way of questions and connections. Drawing in connections allows the writer to go back and consider relationships, allows them to see another writer moving around the same ideas. It is theirs to comprehend. My point is, when you look to a method of investigative feedback, we should look into the creative writing models and see how feedback is delivered. The biggest insult to a creative writer would be to tell them that their creative expression is wrong. But we do it constantly in academic writing because we are looking for specific benchmarks and rubric goals. In novel writing, sometimes we don't even realize what is happening in the novel to evaluate right and wrong. Recently, I've asked students to pre-read their novel before I commit to working with them on it. Not because they are not good writers, but perhaps I am not the writer to help you with the type of book you want to write? It is a big endeavor and not one to be taken lightly. 

Academic writing could take a few lessons from understanding the value of open-ended feedback. If the grade was secondary to the goal of better writing, we could change the thinking, the writing, and the vision of the paper. Maybe the equation is "challenge teacher = good grade" or "find a sense of voice = good grade" rather than the idea doing what the student is told. 

The last few semesters, I have taken the high-stakes research project for freshman and positioned it in the middle of the semester. The reason behind it was to spend time after the initial writing to explore, deconstruct, and revalue what they added to their paper. Most of the papers that come in are cleaned up rough drafts, and I think spending some time thinking about their paper is valuable. 

The next step is to make them feel like they know something they didn't know before. I want to them to feel like they are knowledgeable about the content of their research. If they are not, then what did they gain? It isn't enough to read the research paper back to me, it must be something you understand. That is what makes good writing. A good creative writer understands what they are writing and knows the depth of their words. So should academics, and be leading them by way of discoverable feedback, the depth of their thinking increases. 

http://blog.williamferriter.com/2016/02/20/new-slide-turn-feedback-into-detective-work/?utm_content=bufferb5c39&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Ron Samul is a writer and educator. For more information or to contact him, go to www.RonSamul.org 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Teachers in the Clouds

by Ron Samul 
"So what’s better? A teacher who waits in the wings till students need them, or one who “softly and silently vanishes away” when they are no longer needed? Or, rather, which is better when?" -- Sarah Honeycurch

In higher education, I've been actively trying to reposition myself self in terms of my role as the instructor in the class. I don't think lecturing and traditional content delivery are viable. When I saw this questioned posted on NoMadWarMachine website, and I connected immediately with some of the students I worked with last spring and into the fall.

It is inherent in my teaching style to foster collaboration with student writing and research. I want them to be good researchers, better writers, better thinkers -- I also think that I have to step aside and let them write and be effective in their practice. It might take some students a few tries to format, argue, and research their work, but that practice is good work for students.  Teaching overview skills to the entire class and then working with students one-to- one is important to fostering an individualized yet pedagogical approach to their writing. And there I am, "a teacher who is in the wings till students need them." While I know they are writing their research papers, I am waiting to assist, collaborate, and redirect students to resources, motivation, and other elements of the writing process. In Star Wars terms, this is Yoda in the swamp teaching his pupil the ways of the Force.

Yoda to the left. 

In recalibrating my purpose and interaction with students, it is clear that sometimes (with a few students) it is more important to disappear and be the whispering voice. In many ways we are in a contract with the student. They are taking the course and we have an obligations to instruct in the subject area. But how and why we do that is constantly transforming. More and more students come to me asking -"when am I really going to use this in my career." In some cases, they have a point - but not everything we learn we use in our jobs. That is where the transference of skills and ideas needs to be fostered. And perhaps, like Yoda, we need to show how important some of the transferability of their skills are across many jobs and skills they will be using. You will need to be proficient at formatting documents, finding effective articles and research, and they will have to communicate clearly. Students want individualized education and I want them to experience their educational path as an individual. But I also want them to be well versed in taking skills out of the classroom and turning them into assets in the real world.

The beauty of our job is that we will disappear, but the hope is to have an echo caught in the ears of the students - a voice that says you need to write, think, and express yourself. It is everywhere - and that is why you don't think you need them. 

Ron Samul is a writer and educator. For more information or to contact him, go to www.RonSamul.org 


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License

Reflections On Mentoring / "Only connect..."

This week, I've been thinking about the role of the mentor. I understand my official role as a mentor. But I feel like it has taken me some time to develop what I can do for students who connect. I am not the line editor, although I can pick out places where I think the writing needs work. I am the mentor who connects. Perhaps it is partly from the obsession I have with E. M. Forster's epigraph at the beginning of Howard's End that says simple "Only connect...." and he adds three pesky ellipses that just don't connect. Ugh! That idea is like a hand grenade in my brain. It is such a simple puzzle: elegant, beautiful, and sad. This relates to my mentoring philosophy. I want to find ways to enhance the likelihood of the writer writing. That is my job. 

#DigiWriMos / The Invisibles / Thought on the Metaphor Project

The world is becoming more visual. Almost all of our social media and interaction online have some pictorial element. From icons to robust ads (with color and motion), we are constantly connecting image to word. That being said, I write is to create something that someone can imagine, conjure, and experience in a way that isn't attached to my image, but with the user (the reader and creator). And the stories that are important to tell are those containing "invisibles" or things that cannot be seen or even reconciled without individual interpretation.

The idea of "invisibles" comes from the idea that no one thing represents what we are trying to describe. No one can tell you what love looks like. They can try, and you can accept or reject it. But love is complex and usually needs a series of figurative ideas and elements to make it work. Most people have a complex and changing vision of "invisbles" like love - so in one story it will appear significantly different than the next. 

In October, I discussed the thought of creating a study on the metaphor of rhizomatic learning to define why we use the metaphor to explain elements of this type of connective learning. It is a tricky endeavor. The use of a metaphor is a figurative affair that must pay off on both sides of the metaphor. So much resides on the reader's experience, the metaphorical correlation, and the way it is applied. How the hell can you possibly study those elements? Perhaps you can't but you can collect metaphors and see how they are being used. It reminds me of electron colliders - you never see the collision, but the explosion after the fact. "Invisibles" are the quintessential reason for writing. It is why poets and writers can spend a year writing a novel that creates something bigger, something epic, something brilliant that has never before been experienced. It makes sense that religion and myth derive from oral and written manifestations. Gods draw off the tongue and miracles emerge from the page when we use figurative language to define the possibility (see what I did there?).

If we look for the origins of why we write and why we admire writing - it comes from how it changes our perspective of a person, a time, or an object. Amazing stories change us because we see and learn something new about what is possible in the world. But that doesn't come from facts - it comes from the figurative nature of listening and hearing words. Figurative language has a power (simile) to compare, to encompass (symbolism), to bring to life (personification), and to experience a visionary world. Writers know that there is a little bit of magic in these things called "invisibles" -- not because they can cast spells or turn a prince into a frog, but they can give you an experience that is refined. Our lives are not stories filled with "invisibles" - and that is what we long for when we read. By way of the word, we experience them deeply.*



*I typically add an image with my posts to make them a bit more dynamic, but this one deserves words alone.  

#DigiWriMo - Cool Graphic To Navigate The Story Jumpers

#DigiWriMo -- Letter to Humanity/ Writing to Things We Cannot See

It started with a writing prompt. And that was inspired by Tom O'Brien (The Things They Carried). He wrote a piece in life magazine - a letter to his son who was an infant. He wanted to say so many things to him that he wouldn't understand, but he might not get to say as an older father. So he wrote his son a letter.

Inspired by the idea of writing to someone who might not be there to read it, I asked my creative class of adults to try it as an inclass writing prompt. The result was amazing. The prompt is to write a letter to someone in the past, present, or future who may or may not read it.

Some people write to realtives that have passed. Some writer to people that they have disconnected with. It simply doesn't matter. One night, I offered the assignment to a class and everyone read. I got to my last sutdent and she read about her father comitting suicide. And half way through her reading, she broke down. And the most amazing moment was when she pounded on the desk, choked back all those emotions and said, "I have to finish this." And she did it. She read the entire letter. When I got done with the class and got out to the car, I sat for a moment. "What are you doing?" I asked myself.

#DigiWriMo / Old School Digital Writing

In my writing program, I had a reading course where I read an ungodly amount of historical fiction and then had to write a reading journal. The reading was overwhelming, but it did teach me so much about discipline and my capacity to work harder and harder.

Then things shifted. It went from hard work, to hard meaningful work and it changed everything. I would write a response to the reading I did each week and sometimes, it would end up being long and complex. I would discuss technique, story, themes, social issues: whatever I could think up. And my mentor, the poet and novelist Cecilia Woloch did an amazing and simple thing. She spoke to me between the lines of my writing. She was very specific about what made sense, called me out on bad writing, and told me when I was saying something important. After a few interactions, something happened. I didn't want to impress my mentor - I wanted (more than anything) to continue the conversations between the lines.

In terms of digital writing, it was merely a word document with my writing and then her read writing comments embedded. A sample below just shows what it looked like. However, it was there that I could pose ideas and even connect ideas together week after week. The conversations were not only focused, but they began to expand outward. My role was not to just read anymore - my job was to read as a mode of responding. The outcome was that I was reading with purpose and intent and I was writing to refine my ideas. It wasn't enough to just respond to the writing and connect it to something someone has said already (like a critic or a book review), I felt like my job was to create new ideas and find new ways to think about the writing. There were a lot of fails. Sometimes, theories or connections that I thought were brilliant were missed or not clear. And sometimes, things that I thought were minor points were things that could be developed into bigger, and better ideas.

 The point in explaining all this, is that this interaction wasn't facilitated by the digital platform. It wasn't inspired by the type of program I used to write. It was based on people communicating. I like different writing platforms and how they interact. I live on Google Documents and work on blogs and writing often. However, it is the connections between people that drive those things to work. It is the inspiration to create and say something that is the vision. Supporting that voice and those ideas is where the digital world facilitates those conversations and shares those ideas.

Now, with the use of Google documents and other methods of writing, the importance of interconnectivity and digital writing is the key to success. Tools that connect people are why we are using them. If they don't work, then we need to find new ones. But we also should take stock in the most important tool we have as writers, the connective elements of our ideas, words, and other people. We are the curriculum, we are the network.

Here is the sample of the interactions. 

#Rhizo15 / The Humanistic Devotion

In the New York Times Sunday Review there was an interesting article on one of my hot topic issues, atheism. As someone who considers atheism and humanism the only path of understanding our lives, I feel that sometimes, the rhizome learning style is made for nomads, made for people who want proof not a philosophy. Reading that article and opening with the idea of meeting on Sunday with people leading a lecture series is interesting to me. Why Sunday? Why at all. Rhizo15 and the concept of nomadic learning, finding your own way, and taking ownership of your vision knowledge is autonomy and self-reliance made real. I agree with the article that we shouldn't be a political social group that goes after other religions and faiths, but finds common ground with them. I am not opposed to going to church. All of the churches I've been to have been very kind and open to my attendance. 

It brought me back to the series of essays I wrote a few years ago and had one published based on literature and religion have areas of overlap which are intriguing and complex. In my study of literature and the art of fiction, it is no surprise that the stories in the bible and the complexities of religious language feels something like good storytelling. I understand the issue with calling the bible fiction, but it should and is often examined with the same tools and understanding that any book or piece of world literature would be considered. Hence the beauty of thinking about these stories on their face value, and as allegory and metaphors of understanding. 

So, what is my point. My point is that religion for me is like everything else in my world of learning and inquiry. However, it also comes preloaded with political and social contexts and conditions that one had to be understanding and sometimes careful with. My faith is in us, and we have all contributed to this understanding of the world. And that is powerful and enlightening in and of itself. I might move back into that series. And talk openly why and how I think we should value a discussion about religious stories, how they are told, and why they are important. And if readers want to find divinity in those ideas, that is their choice. And I will be looking at the humanistic perspective of how we continue to define our purpose and our thinking. 

Faith and Art: willing suspension of disbelief  

If anyone has like-minded projects, read books, or just has an opinion on this topic, I would love to hear your ideas and work. I am happy to share some of the other writings that have come from this idea. Be well. Long live #rhizo15! (until #Rhizo16). 

“There are two types of people in this world. Those who want to know and those who want to believe” – F. Nietzsche

#Rhizo15 / Where Did My Artifact Go? / Week 6

The metaphor has been a powerful tool for this experience. We search for metaphors when we have trouble understanding that intangible part of our experience. In this case, some of the metaphor is built into this experience. The metaphor is a very powerful resources for people searching for the intangible. Poetry is about the intangible: love, freedom, fear, and the spiritual. Those things are only brought to beauty by way of the function of figurative language.

In thinking about creating an artifact, I thought about poetry because of the impact that the metaphor can play in explaining this process: a whimsical poem about Dave, a serious poem about being lost, a passionate poem about the power of finding your own learning path. I thought about my novella about a student who attends class that isn't happening and finds out she is in the rhizome (a bit Black Orphan inspired I'm afraid. Those two came about together. Sorry.) But I thought about all the blog posts and how they might connect and how important his space has been to me. I thought about all the other blogs out there where people challenged my thinking, my way of teaching, and even made me ask those tough questions like what are we really doing? 

What artifact would show people what happened at Rhizo15? What would give people the insight? Something concrete?  I was drifting for awhile. Then, it hit me. 

Ron looking for his Rhizo15 artifact.

It wasn't what I wrote or said - it is what I did. Two students were cut loose from my class on the last two weeks. They were sent out to do something - learn something, and come back. Those two students took the risk and the challenge - which was far more work than writing my last paper, and they defined themselves. My artifacts are the two potentially new members of the rhizome community. They went out and defined their own path, they went out, sought answers that weren't for a grade but for themselves. They were driven, passionate, and they got it. We have always been in the rhizome. We have always been thinking this way. The best way to foster a community: sustain it, and these two students went beyond my hope and they went from students to scholars. They are my artifacts, not as something left behind to pick up and referenced, that is what the blog is for, but people actively walking around looking for answers, asking questions, and getting lost so they can be found. I will leave you with this comment from one of the students, "I do plan to be a professor someday and have been analyzing teaching styles and class participation throughout my college experience. I will definitely be taking what I have learned from your posts and teaching, into my whole life, my learning, my leading, my parenting, and my teaching." 

_________________________________________________

P.S. Thank you all for your support and vision. It was amazing. I am up for any collaboration or projects. Please keep me in the loop. 

#Rhizo15 / Benchmarks in the Study of "Nomadology"

It is strange being a writer. If you are an academic you have very specific points to start and stop. You have first day of the semester, you midterm, you have finals, and then it is over. Sometimes you have other benchmarks like submission of your project or thesis or senior presentation week. All these elements signal different markers. However, if we consider the rhizome path, or what Aaron Johannes-Rosenberg coins "nomadology" - there needs to be these markers around us to shape the experience and give us a chance to reflect and commemorate the work.

Working with writers for a long time, I've seen the burn-out of writers who never celebrate, who never take stock, and appreciate what they are doing. They work like dogs and just keep sludging along. These students immersed in the idea of "nomadology" need to refine the art of marking their work, finishing a rough draft, completing a long project. We don't need traditional benchmarks. We don't need grades. But we need moments to shift from action to reflection and prepare for more action. It is not a midterm exam or anything academic, a place to stand for a moment and see where you are. Even looking up through a gorge can be stunning and inspiring.

Oddly, I feel like we are coming to one of those benchmarks soon with the official close of #rhizo15 looming on the horizon, I feel that we need to move into that moment. I hope it goes on and this vibrant community of thinkers, writers, educators, and creative people continue to interact. But it also gives us a chance to think about what just happened and is still happening. I never thought I would fall into such a collectively amazing, thoughtful, and educationally necessary (for me personally) group. Not only did I find my own way of thinking validated, I also thought of so many things I am just wrapping my brain around. I really liked the respect, the humor, and the depth of thought in this group. And for some reason, I am amazed that I did so much on Twitter (which had not really been my go to social media outlet).

Rhizo15 is something that changed the way I think about a lot of things. It confirmed a lot of my personal scholarship, and it opened my eyes to how and why I should be setting more students out into their own vision of the rhizome. If we are destined to "nomadology" and the rhizome of learning, we should find new ways to connect the path, the purpose, and the vision into a something that will help choose the next path, purpose, and vision.

A few things I learned this month: I've been in the rhizomatic learning system all along. I should stay in that learning system, and never come out. I also learned that I should lure people in with whatever means I can and tell them that it will be okay, look at me (ha!). And lastly, I was finally able to put a name and a loose metaphor to this world of learning, giving it purpose and distinction even when it feels like it is drifting or lost. Knowing the name of the thing you've always known but couldn't say is like finding the magic words to unlock a language, or a whole new way of seeing something. For that alone, I am grateful and so optimistic. Perhaps that is my benchmark - my moment on the vista. Now, I must go back and see what kind of artifact I can make for Dave. I do have a half backed novella cooking somewhere... maybe I should pull open the oven door and see if it will rise. 

#Rhizo15 / Week 5 / "Sapere aude!"

I wrote a long post about weeds, invasive learning, and strange metaphors. I wrote about definitions and realize I just copied Autumm's post over again (damn her all encompassing views!). Then I went back and read Dave's weekly post and I came back to learning as a motivation, not a means to an end.

And I felt better.

We must wander through books, through ideas, through the world. I went into a pond yesterday to recover something for someone. I thought it would be so cold, so mucky, so dismal. And the water was warm and the water was clear. And I swam, I kicked, and plunged down and saw the fish, and a stunning world of plants, rocks, and water. I was so worried about how I might feel, I never thought about how nice it would be. And it was brilliant. I swam, dove, and frolicked for more than an hour. I was the invasive species and I still had a great time.

When I found this quote, I recall reading the book, but a new idea bubbled. Perhaps the rhizome isn't a path to interrupt education, but a freedom to give to yourself. This path is the higher degree of thought, connection, and community. That is closer to enlightenment than I have ever come! And I can't help other people find their way to it, but just remind them that it exists and they should be looking for it too. Kant's spirited shout was -- "Sapere aude!" - dare to know. And it is in those moments, floating, diving, pushing in a foreign world that it becomes so evident. "What is the depth of my knowledge?" The answer is only "sapere aude."

“I shall no longer be instructed by the Yoga Veda or the Aharva Veda, or the ascetics, or any other doctrine whatsoever. I shall learn from myself, be a pupil of myself; I shall get to know myself, the mystery of Siddhartha." He looked around as if he were seeing the world for the first time.” - Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha