Submitted by dr. b. on Wednesday, March 15, 2006 - 18:22

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This is an archive of the site for the 2004-2205 "Teaching Practicum" course. You are free to browse the archived version of this site, but it is no longer interactive. It was a great course with great discussions, but all good things must come to an end

Samantha Blackmon, PhD
Assistant Professor of English
Purdue University

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Submitted by dr. b. on Thursday, April 14, 2005 - 08:50

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Putting the link up front for quick access. Approved Syllabus approaches for ENGL 106.

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Submitted by dr. b. on Sunday, April 10, 2005 - 13:26

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Just a reminder that the ICaP showcase is running all day on Tuesday. Bring your students, bring your friends, come alone. On Thursday, let's talk about what we saw at the showcase and how this gives us ideas for our own classes and syllabus choices for next year. On Thursday we're going to be talking about what approach we are considering for next year and start thinking about some possible themes. After that our task will be to go through available texts to see which one(s) best fits in with what we want to do in our own classes come fall.

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Submitted by dr. b. on Friday, April 8, 2005 - 14:43

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Observations are done today and I'll spend some time this weekend doing some serious time management and adding a sign up sheet for discussion times for what I saw. I know, it's exciting!!!

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Submitted by Bethany on Thursday, March 24, 2005 - 22:54

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Hey All,

Did I miss the sign up sheet for observations? Is it here or is it on the door?

Bethany

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Submitted by Alice on Thursday, March 24, 2005 - 09:16

Class Information

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Villanueva claims that the partial solution to the lack of "color" in academia would be to solicit journals in which people of color are "writing frankly, sympathetically about matters concerning racism, and all of us writing about what matters to those students of color" (836). I'm wondering where this leaves me, as a literature student and non-color; where do I pick up the slack? (notice I use "I", as opposed to we, because I don't subscribe to the idea of whites as a group). Villanueva writes about "two latinas and one African American woman" who boycotted a feminist theory seminar; at what politicized institutions is this still going on? This draws me back to bell hooks's rebellion of a feminist theory course catering to white women.

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Submitted by Bethany on Thursday, March 24, 2005 - 03:33

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Villanueva raises many interesting issues in his essay about multiculturalism. The point of contention for me in the essay is that he has all of these examples and theories, but no way or ideas about implementing them so that multiclturalism becomes something more than a way to not talk about the problem of racism in not just America, but the world. In my class the other day as the students were reading bell hooks one of the students said that her main problem with the essay lay in the fact that our society is not really like that. She was commenting on the fact that hooks focuses her argument on issues of black and white. I think this attitude of denial or of really not knowing is a product of the refusal to have a real conversation about the race and class issues that exist in the world.

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Submitted by mbousque on Thursday, March 24, 2005 - 01:45

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Villanueva's essay offers a reminder that "multiculturalism" does not solve racism in and of itself, but he undercuts his own points time and again by not offering any real solutions. "We are steeped in colonial discourse" (842), he argues, after walking us through problematic exerpts from Kant and Hegel, continuing that we need to "break from the colonial mindset," (843), and pleads to open our catalogue of studied writers to Dussel and Hustos, but the real problem is less about who we study - it's who's being admitted to the universities. What effect do we, as comp teachers, have on this process? Believe me, I empathize with Villanueva's argument and I'm all for people studying whoever they want to study, but after reading his article I'm unsure what I'm supposed to do with the wisdom he's imparted here. Include Dussel and Hustos in my lesson plans? Sure, but the effect that I can have is minimal - I'm not in a position to accept Villanueva's articles and place them in a top-ranked journal; I'm not in a position to admit more non-whites into the university. I can encourage the 20 freshmen I get every semester to draw upon non-European sources, but, truthfully, I know nothing of Dussel's writing, yet I see him compared (in doing a quick check of available Dussel texts at BN.com) to Levinas and Hegel. I wouldn't teach Levinas and Hegel to freshmen, so if Dussel is comparable, I wouldn't teach him, either.

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Submitted by Shannon on Thursday, March 3, 2005 - 09:21

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I think Anson brings up some interesting points through his questions at the end of this article. I think the questions he poses require that both academics and university administrators think very seriously about the role of technology in the classroom. I think what worries me most about the use of technology is the financial gain from such use (especially university-corporate contracts). It makes me think that the use of technology is done for more than merely educational reasons.

I tend have a very traditional teaching style, so I do not welcome with open arms the increasing technology in the classroom.

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Submitted by Alice on Thursday, March 3, 2005 - 08:42

Reading Responses

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Regarding Culture Cat's trouble with capitalist commenters, Sam Blackmon asked on her site: "The question that I asked over at cyberdash was this: What (if anything) does the death of anonymous commenting do to the notion of online community building? Is it going to be changed by the fact that some people are just going to refuse to register?" For me, this ties directly to Anson's article. As he builds to his point, Anson cites the Pew Higher Education Roundtable's assertion that "the problem is that faculty--and hence the institutions they serve--have approached technology more as individual consumers than as collective producers" (798). Collective producers. Can we have a space not invaded by ALL of the community? Can we privatize online communication? I don't think so.

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