Visual Essay: Trials & Tribulations of Traveling

In this essay, it is my intention to capture the essence of international travel. To be brutally honest, a few of these photos make me very uncomfortable. As viewer, I see myself as a complete outcast- a total nerd! I just previewed this post and I nearly took some of these photos down. Yet, I can't recall feeling awkward at the time these pictures were taken.

Traveling is odd to me. The desire to leave all things known and venture into a land that is physically and culturally different than mine can be terrifying. Still, I remember feeling fulfilled and peaceful when they were taken. For instance, the shot of my boyfriend, Mike, in the shower wasn't taken in despair (though it may appear so). Rather, both of us were admiring the Nicaraguan spirit in spite of the lack of natural resources. This essay was an attempt to juxtapose real happiness with the moments of humiliation and reflection associated with travel.

In her article, Selfe writes, "one goal is to help students and ourselves better understand the communicative power and complexity of visual texts...by reflecting on the compositions we create and exchange with others as complex symbolic instantiations of the human need to communicate" (74). Personally, I enjoyed this assignment because it encourage me to reflect on my own experiences in a new way. I was reminded that you can't judge a person or experience by the way it looks. If I did that, I would probably have a vastly smaller supply of excitement and new ideas in my life. In many of the photos, images of myself or my boyfriend provided coherence for the series. The pictures are taken in many different countries, but the subjects remain the same (Or do they??!). In terms of salience, some objects stand out to me: the little girl's red shoe, the backpack, the bare white walls, the man's green and purple shirt. I like that sometimes these objects are brighter than me or my boyfriend. The viewer's eye is drawn to the exotic, not the familiar.

Media=Community?

Both Beach and White support the explicit incorporation of media literacies and media studies in the classroom. Personally, I feel the "transparency problem" is their strongest defense. White defines the transparency problem as "the challenges young people face in learning to see clearly the ways that media shape perceptions of the world" (3). Certainly, I see the value in analyzing the relationship between media, consumerism, and self-esteem/desire/identity. However, I am having trouble rationalizing how teens are "actively involved in what we are calling a participatory culture" when participating in this culture is far from active!

All right, one could argue that the authors intend "active" to refer to the ability to interactively respond to media via media, but I am worried that the emphasis on media literacies will distract students from creative play- the kind of play that results in grass stains, dirty fingernails...oh heck, even a black eye or two (okay, maybe I would think differently about that assertion if it was my kid, ha). The play that you can actually participate in.

Let's talk about communities for a sec. I've been fortunate enough to participate in a number of unique and satisfying communities in my short life: First Stage Theater Company in Milwaukee, a residential veggie co-op, the Macalester women's cross-country team, and Slide Ranch...to name a few. To date, I have yet to participate in a fulfilling online participatory culture.

Okay. Facebook. Talk about performance. White writes, "Role play is very popular with contemporary youth...such play has long been understood as testing identities, trying on possible selves, and exploring social spaces" (29). Some consider Facebook to be an online community. However, how fulfilling is facebook? Be honest. Something's lacking, right? Analyzing facebook through the context of (social) performance is complex. Although facebook is a space to test our identities (since surely, facebook identities are restricted projections of our selves) and stay in touch (sort of) with members of our networks, what do we actually do on facebook? I think for a community to be fulfilling, it needs to stand for something beyond social networking or role-play.

Whereas my thoughts on performance/community/media literacies are rather, well, long-winded, I can get on board with the appropriation train. Creating something is wholly satisfying. In fact, I can almost swear that White quoted me when he wrote, "Art does not emerge whole cloth from individual imaginations. Rather it emerges through the artist's engagement with previous cultural materials" (32). And how. Exploring with remixing is a natural part of creating something fresh. However, like White, I believe that analysis and commentary must be paired with creation (33). Otherwise, we may end up with a room full of students appropriating popular u-tube videos, adding slo-mo, and calling it "art." Oh dear...

My personal philosophy in regards to play and the media grows out of the following sources (none of which I originally found via the internets):

Last Child in the Woods

Taking Play Seriously

Slide Ranch

Camp Killooleet

I love libraries even though I'd cut them before art programs...

A link to teen information, programs, and resources at Minneapolis Public Libraries:
http://www.hclib.org/teens/
Actually, as your local "what's hot" expert, hanging out at the library is the new soda parlor. Check it:

Hot=libraries Not=soda parlor

In all serious though, the East Lake library is hoppin' after school. But ya know why, right? Free internet!

Like a squirrel gathering nuts...

Often, students are "fantastically over-evaluated, with teachers piling up grades like squirrels gathering nuts" (Dornan, 182).

This image intrigues me because it demonstrates a number of assessment paradoxes in our educational system. For one, we are forced to consider the significance of many graded assignments as opposed to a few graded assignments over the course of a semester. The more-the-merrier camp might argue that a larger selection of grades would render a student's progress and evaluation more reliable. On the other hand, the-quality-over-quantity camp might respond that grading less work but higher quality work (thanks to revisions) is a more reliable measure of student progress. To some degree, both approaches make sense.

The image of the squirrel gathering nuts also conjures up questions regarding high stakes testing and the teacher's responsibility in preparing students for this assessment. What is the teacher's motivation in his/her assessment? If the teacher is assessing with the MCA's in mind, is it better to assign work that parallels the test? Or, should teachers assess the skills that students need through creative and hands-on tasks? Do these tasks really need to be graded in order to encourage student motivation?

To me, motivation is linked with assessment. If formal assessments motivate students to produce high quality work and continue to improve, then I support assessments. However, I also feel that students need feedback from teachers that are not linked to grades. Even if a group of students were highly motivated by grades, those students need to learn that process is ultimately more significant than result. Through informal assessments and self/peer evaluations (mentioned in Dornan), students can reflect on their work and consider peer/teacher responses.

I believe pride in one's work can motivate beyond the expected or acceptable result (i.e. an "A"). Striving for an "A" still has limits whereas inner-motivation requires students to reach for their personal best.

linkatoid

Lecture on documenting culture at the Walker/it's free!:
http://calendar.walkerart.org/event.wac?id=4922
Talk about identity and portraits with Wing Young Huie (for those who missed out!)/also free!:
http://calendar.walkerart.org/event.wac?id=4923

A hippie posting on revision.

If you don't already know it, life is cyclic. Decay turns into grass, grass returns to decay. The patterns of the moon, the tides, all cyclic. Thought, and therefore, art is cyclic too. When we create something, the piece is never finished. Published writers (or, in my case, published writers thanks to underfunded college lit magazines) struggle between the pleasure of seeing their work in print and anxiety because their piece could use a tweak or two. Truly, no work is ever complete, even after it is sold and framed. Viewers and readers apply what they already know and the piece transforms over and over again (so pomo).

However, my point here isn't to argue that nothing is ever done so why keep doing it. No, I am definitely of the-more-you-stare-at-it-the-better-it-gets-camp. And, speaking of, Fulwiler definitely gets it. Off the bat, Fulwiler identifies one of my greatest pet peeves- when people write what they are going to do in a paper before doing it. Editing my friends' work in college, I often crossed off the first four sentences of their papers. The thesis was all they needed. Where the heck does this cumbersome habit come from? Like Fulwiler mentions, it is most likely the love child of writing on the run rather than writing in a bubble bath followed by a cold shower.

Fulwiler also mentions the "story embedded in a story" conundrum, or rather, a blessing in disguise if you will. Although it can be terribly hard to switch one's focus, sometimes the best ideas for writing appear in the process of writing something else. I'd argue that this is because people simply don't put pen to paper enough. When they finally do settle in to write, they find that they have buschels of stories yearning to see the light of day. Virginia Woolf would be tickled. But, in all seriousness, there have been dire occasions, midnight cram sessions, where yours truly suddenly discovered an even better paper waiting in the wings. There was nothing to be done but embrace the little sprout and go with it. Revision! ("Tradition!")

Across the board, my best writing has been the result of hours of brainstorming, outlining, free writing, and turning in a "final" draft...only to get a not so brilliant grade and a paper covered in notes. Fortunately, those teachers and professors gave me the opportunity to work with them and rewrite (fully rewrite...no shortcuts) my heart out. Not only was the paper improved, but I learned. And, honestly, isn't that the dog gone point?

Now...I better go back and revise this posting. (I actually did.)

Paulo Freire Resources

Although Freire's writing is mainly about critical pedagogy, I feel he is a good place to start as we consider what content and questions are important to consider as we think about teaching writing.

It turns out that much of Freire's research is archived at McGill University. The following website has lots of great resources for Freire fans.

http://freire.mcgill.ca/
And, for kicks, another Paulo Freire....
http://www.naic.edu/~pfreire/