| • | |
our manifesto
Bode Miller recently quit the U. S. ski team, even though he was the best athlete in the club, and his absence clearly puts a crimp in America’s plans for medals in the 2008 World Cup. Rampant speculation regarding his decision to quit focused on his legendary penchant for hard partying. However, Tom Kelly, spokesperson for the U. S. Ski Association, insisted that these lifestyle choices were not factors in the talks that led to Miller’s departure: “None of those [actions] were talking points in this meeting. This was about the philosophy of the team, what it means to be a member of the team.”
U.S. Alpine director Jesse Hunt confirms: “We had a serious discussion with Bode about his responsibilities as a team member, and he later advised us he was choosing not to join the team.”
Guess Miller discovered there’s no “I” in team. Has Elbow discovered there’s no “I” in technology?
Elbow’s freewriting is slow, yes, but it is also one-dimensional (ok, maybe two) and univocal. The whole point of Elbow’s freewriting is that there are no fancy technologies or pesky others to contend with. The lone writing wolf.
“You can’t really draft freely and keep going unless you welcome nonsense and garbage. No treasures without garbage” (Elbow 2005, in Gray).
dialogues and exchanges
mehonda2000: when beth and I think about freewriting...and the reason we did this whole piece really...is that freewriting seems to keep us apart...it is about the individual writer and her thoughts...what online program would offer an environment to do freewriting and then to share it?
ringey: seems like a blog would do that best... you could share your freewriting pieces (or make a particular entry private) and your friends or whomever you allowed to access it could leave comments in response
ringey: livejournal would probably be the best system for that... it's a specialized blog that's really designed as a personal journal that you can share with friends and control access
mehonda2000: yeah, I think you are right that blogs already do that...there is a self-consciousness about freewriting when you know it might be shared that changes it....
mehonda2000: do you use livejournal now for anything?
ringey: also possibly a web-based word processor like Google Docs... you can use it like microsoft word but since the document is online you can let others access it
ringey: i haven't written in my livejournal much in the last 6 months
mehonda2000: someone asked me the other day if beth and i used that for our co-authoring...do you like it?
mehonda2000: i mean googledocs
ringey: i'm trying it now... when you're working on a document, you can click the Share tab and invite someone as a collaborator or just a viewer
mehonda2000: are you inviting me now?
ringey: and you can control whether collaborators can invite others to view the document
ringey: this could be nice because it's a more full-featured word processor than livejournal, and it tracks all changes to the document
mehonda2000: well...i think it is neat that we figured this out as we revised this hypertext together! B-)
ringey: definitely!
mehonda2000: what would you think as a teacher or a student using that? does any of the courseware out there do anything close to this?
ringey: you really can't do this with the built-in tools in Blackboard
ringey: you would need to use this or a wiki to collaborate on a document effectively
mehonda2000: well, beth and i are starting a new book so maybe we should start using GoogleDocs
ringey: but for freewriting... a teacher could have her students do freewriting in Blackboard, maybe in the message board area, and they could be viewable by just the teacher or by everyone in the class
mehonda2000: ok...funny thing I just remembered...i was the first person to teach writing in a computer lab at my school (1990?) and there was a gimmick then that you got students to freewrite by having them turn off the monitor and just typing on the keyboard...to imitate the effect of not stopping to look/edit, etc...it was funny...students really could not appreciate what they had written because the mess of it was so distracting!
ringey: haha i wouldn't be able to do that... not seeing what i'm typing would drive me crazy!
ringey: maybe there could be a program that would just show one line at a time, so you can see anything you already wrote but you could see what you're typing at the moment
ringey: i mean, you COULDN'T see what you had already written, just the current line
mehonda2000: yeah, it was a fad that passed! but even though most writing teachers have heard of freewriting or done it themselves...i think that even that exercise is not used much anymore...on computer or not...
mehonda2000: hey...invent that program!
ringey: i might do that!
mehonda2000: the whole idea is to keep your pen moving...don't stop...and if you get stuck you can write I'm stuck I'm stuck with the assumption that you would do that for just so long and then get unstuck by writing something else...didn't matter what...
mehonda2000: think of how continuous and random keystrokes just to keep typing would look like!
ringey: it would hardly be readable i imagine
mehonda2000: ha...that is the big question everyone asks about Elbow...is any writing at all better than no writing at all? i think at one time I thought so....now I think students can work up to things in different ways...but i still like the idea of freewriting as an exercise..almost literally as exercise..
ringey: i'm sure just like learning styles, different people have different writing styles... some people may not get as much out of freewriting
mehonda2000: right...students seem to get much more from IM>:)
ringey: that's right!
mehonda2000: the connecting and the energy that is produced by the back and forth...i really can relate to that
mehonda2000: i am not a good writer in isolation!