This category is reserved for high-focus articles
Like so many writing instructors, I frequently find myself frustrated with what appears to be a lack of attention to editing in the papers I receive from my students. In the Fall 2013 semester, I tried something new in an effort to address this issue by inviting students to record… Continue reading
I run my first-year composition seminar as an acting class several times per semester. What does that mean? If you were to visit us, here are some of the things you might witness: physical and vocal warm-ups movement and dance experiments improvisation games observation exercises imagination training scene study discussion… Continue reading
The title for this post (the first of two) comes from a response I received to a brief writing exercise I assigned to a group of University of Rochester students in a previous semester’s writing class. I was considering the possibility of teaching Moby-Dick in a freshman writing class, and… Continue reading
Writing in itself is an aesthetic art not merely acquired, but more so felt. To say the least, writing is not baseball, and you cannot purely practice to become better. There comes a point when your grammar, style, diction, and syntax may create the ideal writing, but can still be… Continue reading
Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellowship Composition, Technical Communication, and Digital Pedagogy The Writing and Communication Program at Georgia Tech seeks recent PhDs in English, literature, rhetoric, composition, technical communication, film, linguistics, visual rhetoric/design, and related humanities fields for the Brittain Postdoctoral Fellowship. The fellowship, renewable up to three years, includes… Continue reading
In this post, I’d like to write about student posters and start/continue a conversation about the importance of the V in WOVEN. The Rhetoric of Waste and Sustainability: Teaching writing at Georgia Tech, an institution that prides itself with training problem-solvers, I invite my students to use multimodal communication as… Continue reading
In the spring of 2011, Georgia Tech started a “This I Believe” project in partnership with the Writing and Communication Program. The campus reading series and student contest are unofficial off-shoots of a popular radio series, originally hosted by Edward R. Murrow in the 1950s, and then resuscitated on NPR… Continue reading
This weekend I participated in a panel on “Teaching Multimodal Literacy with Comics” at DragonCon here in Atlanta. The panel was part of the Comics and Popular Culture Conference which is held concurrently with DragonCon. Other panelists included my Brittain Fellow colleague Noah Mass and Andy Runton, an Eisner Award-winning… Continue reading
My English 1102 “Modernism: Technology and Communication” course last spring asked how people around the world communicated before the internet. Starting with the advent of the telegraph, we addressed written, oral, visual, electronic, and nonverbal forms of communication through the nineteen thirties. We began the course with Tom Standage’s The… Continue reading
The moment Diane Jakacki showed me a picture of the Bubble Girl being chased by a bent but strangely menacing Prince Charles, I knew I had to write something about memes. That’s probably an exaggeration. I did laugh a lot. And I did do some investigating. Turns out Chubby Bubble Girl… Continue reading
We are pleased to present the second podcast in TechStyle’s podcast series! Our second episode features Colonel Stephen C. Hall, USAF Retired, 1967 Graduate of Georgia Tech, and the namesake of our new home, the Stephen C. Hall Writing and Communication Building, on the Georgia Tech campus. The podcast… Continue reading
The Writing and Communication Program has an ongoing initiative to provide mentoring to first year post-doctorates looking to further professionalize as they make their way to full time positions. As a new Brittain Fellow, I – Peter Fontaine – was paired with LMC faculty member, Dr. Krystina Madej. I had… Continue reading
I recently read Cathy Davidson’s “Let’s Talk about MOOC (online) Education–And Also About Massively Outdated Traditional Education (MOTEs)” on the HASTAC [the Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory] blog. I agree with her argument that talking heads do not a MOOC make (nor do they help digital pedagogy in… Continue reading
We may not think of future scientists, mathematicians, and engineers as artists and storytellers whose work appeals to our aesthetic sensibilities. Student View, an annual exhibition of artifacts launched in 2012 as part of a collaborative effort by the Writing and Communication Program and the Ferst Center to promote innovative… Continue reading
In a previous post, I reflected on the successes and failures of a project I assigned in my Spring 2012 course on copia, and assigned again with some minor changes this semester. Students spend the first month of the semester gathering an eclectic mix of material, organizing it into categories,… Continue reading
I’ve been a member of the digital humanities community here at Georgia Tech for the past year and a half (+!) and yet here I am, THATCamp-less. It’s a shame. I’m ashamed! THATCamp is one of the hallmarks of what we at the Brittain Fellowship try to do on a… Continue reading
At Georgia Tech, the Communication Center (or CommLab, as it is popularly known) is part of the Writing and Communication Program. The program’s commitment to the principles of WOVEN communication (i.e. Written, Oral, Visual, Electronic, and Non-verbal) has inspired instructors to design courses that develop and refine rhetorical skills in multiple media… Continue reading
1079 pages. 388 footnotes. 2 lbs 10 oz (and that’s the paperback). David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest is nothing if not formidable. It languishes on many a “to-read” shelf alongside Joyce’s Ulysses and Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. Despite its intimidation factor, Infinite Jest can be a pretty accessible read, and it is absolutely… Continue reading
Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellowship in Composition, Technical Communication, and Digital Pedagogy The Writing and Communication Program at Georgia Tech seeks recent PhDs in English, literature, rhetoric, composition, technical communication, film, linguistics, visual rhetoric/design, and related humanities fields for the Brittain Postdoctoral Fellowship. The fellowship, renewable up to three years, includes… Continue reading
Happy New Year and New Semester! My fellow teachers won’t be surprised to hear that I didn’t get a chance to finish another post last semester. But that delay turned into an opportunity to reflect at the end of my first semester teaching in a highly digital environment. What follows… Continue reading
by Jennifer Lux Brittain Fellows! The time has come again to ask for your help in nominating student works for the annual exhibit of artifacts at the Ferst Center Galleries. The Brittain Fellows’ Arts Initiative Committee (formerly known as the Ferst Center Committee) will be selecting impressive multimodal artifacts for… Continue reading
An article showed up on my facebook feed recently: “College Tuition Should Vary By Degree, Florida State Task Force Says.” The gist of it is this: “Tuition would be lower for students pursuing degrees most needed for Florida’s job market, including ones in science, technology, engineering and math, collectively known… Continue reading
At Stony Brook University, where I spent my Fall Break, I learned all about the Curse of Knowledge … from Alan Alda. A few feet away from me, Alda gave the keynote speech at the Center for Communicating Science’s Fall Institute, explaining passionately that once we know something really well,… Continue reading
What is hate, and how do we combat it? Recently, I attended a symposium organized by Gonzaga University’s Institute for Hate Studies and American University’s Washington College of Law. The symposium was on “Hate and Political Discourse” and was organized by John Shuford and Robert Tsai in honor of the… Continue reading
by Jennifer Orth-Veillon Memorial Day, July 4th, 9-11, Veterans Day. Over the past year, I have spent each of these commemorative holidays planning and teaching my English 1101 course, “American Veterans and the Non-Traditional Memoir.” While helping students improve their writing and communication skills, the class examines the way veteran… Continue reading
