Thursday, February 18, 2010

Attention, Thunderpups! Welcome, Dr. Hugh Burns...

As I sit here beside a roaring fire, enjoying this Thursday evening, watching the snow quickly cover my yard, I'm contemplating the week (nearly) behind me. What's more, even as I'm contemplating the successes and failures I enjoyed week six, and I'm thinking of the ways week seven (bahwahahahaah... "MIDTERM WEEK!") will exceed my highest expectations. Most of all, I'm thinking about Hugh Burns -- my mentor, my confidant, my good friend -- and the knowledge and experience he shared with me when I was his student and the knowledge he'll share with my students in the week ahead.

Yes, Professor Papu (aka Hugh Burns) will be on the CSU-Pueblo campus next week for several bits of administrative/training business. But, on Tuesday, he'll spend the day having lunch with my Advanced Rhetoric undergraduates (they'll pick his brain about the future of rhetorical studies and the rich and complex history of the field), and that evening, he'll enjoy midterm presentations (high stakes!) from my graduate Theories of Writing students -- followed by, perhaps, some beverages and feasting afterwards for a few hearty souls!

In the meantime, ENG 304 -- gear up for your midterm! On Friday, I'll be posting copies of all your weekly "check-ups" here: _____. And, here's a great, useful copy of the "History of the Western World, According to Souder, in 60 Minutes."

Now, ENG 501 students... you'll be posting (in lieu of your normal 3 weekly responses to your peers) a single response here this week. Your response is simple: ask Dr. Burns a question -- or give him a detailed topic you'd like to hear more about. This requires, as we discussed in class on Tuesday, some research on your part. But, never fear! You're in luck... I've done the research for you. Simply scroll down to last week's post on Hugh Burns. It's all there for you... Posts are due by Sunday at 11pm MDT. --DR. SOUDER

31 comments:

  1. Wow this is week six already? Jeez this semester is going by fast... I'm so busy though this semester! Next week is midterms week, eh? Well, I'm not especially thrilled by that idea, but I think I'll manage and it'll buff out. I am very excited and cannot wait to meet the professor who I'm assuming had the most influence on you. You think we'll pick his brain, but honestly I think it's going to be the other way around and he's going to melt our minds with the awesomeness and secrets of Rhetoric that'll make us all great Rhetoricans in due time. Nonetheless, it'll be a great experience and I'm ready to meet him and to have a hearty hour and 20 minute discussion about Rhetoric with him.

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  2. Right now the only thing in the world I want is to be beside a roaring fire of my own. A warm blanket and some hot coco just completes the image in my mind. But alas... I can't believe how fast this semester is flying by. It's great. And a little disturbing. Am I really enjoying this semester or just getting old? DUNDUNDUN....

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  3. All I can say is that you have dazzled me as an instructor, so to meet your mentor will be nothing less than a tremendous honor. I'm more concerned with the pedagogy project than with midterms. We are all already rhetors of substance worthy of much more than note. The midterms only establish that we have acctually paid attention up until this point. The pedagogy will give us the opportunity to utilize our knowledge. Ahh the difference between wisdom and knowledge in our classes terms: display of wisdom=pedagogy display of knowledge=midterm. I'm unsure as to why I wanted to break it down like that but it is the most math I've done in a while so I deserve some credit.

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  4. I'd be interested to hear Dr. Burns' thoughts on what role he sees literature playing in a composition classroom, if any. Many of the articles we've read in Norton have described composition classes focusing on literature and lit theory to the detriment of comp and rhetorical theory, while others have used literature as subject matter for the comp classroom. Does he believe the two should receive separate disciplinary treatments or can they complement each other?

    I'm looking forward to this!

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  5. This may sound weird but I'm kind of excited for the midterm. I'm ready to put my rhetoricious knowledge to good use. I'm extermely happy that our quick review was basically a sneak preview of the test. It seems like it would make the midterm easier, but it really doesn't. Now if we fail the test we have no excuses. Dr. Souder thinks she is sneaky, but I know what she's up to lol. It's all out of good intentions though. I Dr. Souder loves her young rhetoricians, if she didn't she wouldn't be willing to feed us on Tuesday. I'm really enjoying this class, I like what we are learing, but most importantly I love how it is being taught.

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  6. I think it will be a valuable opportunity to get to listen to a expert in the field talk about rhetoric. I know you said that we are not aloud to ask him the question that is going to be on the midterm, however, I think it would be interesting to hear what he thinks about the status of the field in that respect.

    I was kind of tossing around this idea though as a possible question.

    How do we as Americans deal with the dangerous communication barrier created by the implementation of rhetorical strategies as means of persuasion to an audience who does not understand the tactics being implemented? For example politicians who effectively persuade large audiences of highly persuadable people who are not specialized in the issues, not psychologists, and not lawyers, to believe fallacious arguments through tactics political rhetoric.

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  7. It seems like this semester has just flown by! I cannot believe that its midterm time already.

    I am excited for next week, though. A chance to get to meet your mentor is exciting. I cannot wait to listen and learn from another rhetorician. The art of rhetoric is truly fascinating and I am anxious to hear what insights will be shared with us. See you next week!
    -Hannah

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  8. I’m amazed at how fast this semester is flying by! Midterms already? I know that this is not news to you, but I’m so not looking forward to this midterm. I know that you are giving us every opportunity to do well on it, and I think that I will do fine. I just have really bad test anxiety, and I can’t believe it is already time for this test. It just makes me kind of nervous. I still feel like I have time to get my ducks in a row as my mom says. However, I am quickly realizing that I should have had them in a row week one. Not now! Eek! I worry myself sometimes. Ah oh well. I’ll just cuddle up with my blanket and my puppies next to my fake fire and sip on some cocoa and come up with brilliant questions to ask Dr. Burns. I am excited to meet him. Next week should be a great week—even with reality setting in for me :-)

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  9. I am very excited and very nervous about next week, even though I basically know what is going to be on the midterm. It still is really important and failing it would be bad. Tuesday I am really excited for. I cannot wait to see how he runs his life considering he is a contemporary rhetorician. What's even better though, is we are all eating lunch together! Is there a better way to bring people together than over food? Thank you Dr. Souder!!!

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  11. 1.) Just so you know, when I was Googling Dr. Burns, your blog was the fifth hit!
    2.) The first hit was from Ohio State University discussing a study he recently completed there titled "Rhetorical Leadership, Digital Media, & Global Learning: A Renewed Research Agenda." I would like to know what his findings were in this search in relation to the two focus questions: How are global discourses shaped by new technology? How do these new media-rich discourses influence the way we learn, teach, and lead in the 21st century?
    Title and leading questions were taken from the OSU English Department website: http://english.osu.edu/programs/rhetcomp/features/yr2009/04-15_burns.cfm

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  12. I cannot wait to meet a mentor of Dr. Souder! Learning from someone who taught the great Dr. Souder is guaranteed to have lots of meaningful insights for all of us

    However, Midterms (BLASTED WORD SHOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN INVENTED!) should be somewhat difficult. Memorizing, in my opinion is not very hard, but memorizing words that are abstract is not going to be a task for the faint of heart

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  13. Have you ever thought of the possibility, Dr. Souder, of you being one of our "Dr. Burns" in the future? Of course, I have no plans on being a teacher (that's usually how it starts, isn't it?) but there are probably many students in your classes who do. How awesome would it be to come in and eat pizza with your students' students? If I ever become a professor (knock on a big, giant, plank of wood) I'll be sure to invite you in for a day for a brain-picking session.

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  14. I am very interested in how Web 2.0 applications--specifically social networking are influencing students' writing. Social networking sites such as facebook provide an atmosphere for students to write in community, whereas academic writing seems to be more solitary. My students are so motivated to write on facebook; I would love to learn how to harness that motivation in the composition classroom.

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  15. Emily -- great topic and something close to HB's heart, I know (see David's link above or watch the video I linked to on the previous blog about his upcoming visit). I'm interested in hearing his opinions too (he's an avid Facebooker himself). We're also hosting a writer later in March who will talk about this exact topic. He's not a teacher (he's a lawyer, in fact), but he uses FB and Twitter as part of his invention process... he's found that the limited characters and diverse audience forces him to be succinct and clever. His word choice, in other words, must count even more in that limited space... --DR. SOUDER

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  17. Dr. Souder, I am very excited for this up coming week (dispite that pesky midterm) ! I am excited mostly do to the opportunity to meet your mentor. We all look up to you so much that it will be a great experience to meet the person you look up to.

    I would also like to mention that the Women's Leadership was awesome! Hearing Sara Weddington speak along with the great round table discussions was such a influential experience. I look forward to that next year.

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  18. For DB (in relation to Emily's quandary, I think): In a 1999 article, Dennis Baron claims that "we have a way of getting so used to writing technologies that we come to think of them as natural rather than technological" (133). In 2010, as people use Web 2.0 platforms/social networking sites to reinforce or establish their personal identities via computers, thereby appropriating this technology, do you find that using computers in a classroom to teach writing skills is not as compelling to students as it once was?

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  19. Considering the diversity of audience in our current day technical Kairos amid global uncertainty, how can we support meaningful discourse or persuasive argument with an audience neither universal or particular, without inviting cultural dissonance and possible political misuse, especially given the often cryptic dialogue that technology invites?

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  20. Andy, You make a good point -- in fact, this exact discussion recently took over the WPA (Writing Program Admins)list-serv for a few days. It started with a discussion of blogs -- a recent PEW study showed that fewer "young" people were blogging. I wondered if it was because we had appropriated blog spaces for classroom use (like what we're doing here!) -- thereby tarnishing the youthful, fun cache it once had. I think we did something similar with Twitter -- perhaps only FB remains untainted since we've yet to find a useful way to use it in the classroom. I'm interested to hear Dr. Burns's thoughts Tuesday...

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  21. I was intrigued by a statement Dr. Burns made in his June 22, 2009, interview given at Ohio State University while he was a visiting scholar. Dr. Burns was discussing the enormous educational potential of computer technology. In part, Dr. Burns states this technology may be used in "blowing the walls out of the classrooms into the community". This pre-supposes that the receiving community possesses the technological skills to receive this educational opportunity. My question for Dr. Burns is what measures must first be put in place within the community to ensure those members have basic access skills? For example, how do we ensure equal access for an aging population who embraces continued learning but, in many cases, have limited or no computer skills?

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  22. I really can not wait for the midterm. I thought it was last week and went over every inch of my notes. I wish I could read my own writing some times. I am excited for Tuesday as I have a few questions that I would like to ask. Class should be interesting on that day.

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  23. We learned from the presentation on Vicco that the he was greatly concerned with culture, and felt that scholrs should consider their culture. With internet and 2.0 platforms we now have the opportunity to connect with the world, but will that cause us to neglect the people and ideas physically closer to us? There is a great advantage to being connected to the world, but what steps should we take to be sure we are not ignoring the wonderful ideas in our own areas?

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  24. I'm very excited to meet Dr. Burns! I think the opportunity to meet a rhetorician will help us all tremendously in the development of our coursework.

    And I'm sure, as always with your classes, that the midterm will be challenging but not impossible. Having the worksheets with the midterm content already given to us will make it much easier.

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  25. I'm really excited to interact with a rhetorician from outside our campus. New thoughts and insights! Something that has been bothering me and seems lacking in discussions of grammar and pedagogy is how do we teach a "standard" of academic quality without alienating "non-standard" vernaculars of English? On the one hand we accept non-standard forms as legitimate language... but not in a first year comp essay. How do we balance these standards?

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  26. In light of the objective ‘How are global discourses shaped by new technology?’ in Dr. Burns’ project, "Rhetorical Leadership, Digital Media, & Global Learning: A Renewed Research Agenda.", I began thinking about technology in classrooms outside the U.S. We think of Microsoft Word and other writing programs as the staple of most classrooms. Anything we hand to a teacher is going to be typed and printed and now we blog and respond to our peers via these web 2.0 platforms. I lived in Albania for a year, an Eastern European country which is an infant Democracy and only now developing. In a village of 1,000 population, two shops were set up with a total of 15 computers each of which were constantly occupied with persons aged 15-30. All were on Facebook ninety percent of the time. I wondered why I never saw someone writing an essay. In fact, in Albania no one writes essays at a high school level and very few write a thesis at university level. What seems to replace expository writing in Albania is an emphasis on presentation. On the other hand, university students had no textbooks and little was published in the Albanian language so they researched in English, Italian, and Spanish. I saw how they absorbed and rejected many of the ideas presented from American Academia. I was surprised how eager they were to discuss with me what the American ideas they had found. It seems the discourses around the world are becoming singular, that the unending conversation is now global with the instant access to communication beyond borders. What specifically is Dr. Burns’ objective focusing on and is this borderless discourse becoming apparent too in his project?

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  27. As one of the questions on our midterm involves the careful use of technology, I was curious how Dr. Burns felt about the potential that technology has to alter the relationship between the student and the teacher. How does the modern teacher use technology in way that reinforces a traditional classroom model and power structure?

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  28. Since reading Richard Enos' article "Recovering the Lost Art of Researching the History of Rhetoric," I've been wondering what primary research for rhetoricians is. In the article, he used the example of the archaeologist who ignored what Homer said about Troy and actually went to Troy to find out what it was really like. That's not exactly a pragmatic approach for rhetoricians. So what IS primary research for rhetoricians?

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  29. My question for Dr. Burns is . . . I hate the emphasis on technology in my own children’s elementary classrooms, from overemphasis on PowerPoint assignments to Wikipedia-based research. My husband and I (we aren’t Luddites and both earn our income directly from using technology) would prefer that our children not use technology in their elementary school classrooms—use books for research and learn traditional writing methods for presentations. Some studies suggest that "screen time" -- whether on a TV screen or computer screen -- is detrimental to young developing minds. In your opinion, are we wrong about this? If so, how? What is the role of technology in elementary instruction for writing, research and presentation? How young is "too young" for incorporating technology in the writing classroom?

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  30. In working with technology you clearly have to be able to appreciate that it is continuously changing and progressing. Having extensive knowledge in teaching as well as technological advancements, you must have a personal opinion on how technology is affecting the way professors are teaching. Of course as technology continues to progress, schools are trying to keep up with the advancements, but are often failing. How do you suggest teachers give their students the technological education needed to succeed? How do you alter your techniques and frame of mind to keep up with technological advancements?

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  31. After watching the video "Visiting Scholars in DMAC," I would like to know more about multi-modal composing. As a teacher, I'm always looking for different, better, and current applications in technology. I'd also like to know how Dr. Burns speeds up MP3s, but if I'm allowed only one question, it is the first.

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