You're Doing It Wrong - and It's Working!

Jockeys Before the Race by Edgar Degas
 Public domain image: Wikimedia Commons

I considered titling this entry, "A Pole through the Horse's Head."

Recently, WIRED Magazine ran an article about design that was autobiographical in nature, and theoretically provocative in implications. The article, "Why Getting It Wrong Is the Future of Design" began with a discussion of Degas' painting, Jockeys Before the Race - which you see to the right.

The most obvious element is pole, which is jarringly juxtaposed over the horse's face in a location that is neither centered, nor adhering to the rule-of-thirds.In Degas' day, social media was ablaze with cries of "You're Doing It Wrong!" (Keep in mind that social media, at that time, consisted of letters and reviews and conversations.) But after a while, it became as obvious as the pole in your face that this gesture opened up a new way of artistic seeing and showing.

The article's author, Scott Dadich, recounts a design decision he made regarding WIRED's cover - a decision that he knew to be "wrong" according to the established professional protocol, a decision he came to regret after the cover went to press, (read about the decision in the article, I'm not telling you everything,) but a decision that opened up a new way of seeing and executing design in the magazine. Of this event, Dadich says:

We have figured out the rules of creating sleek sophistication. We know, more or less, how to get it right. Now, we need a shift in perspective that allows us to move forward. We need a pole right through a horse's head.

Maybe those of us who work in new media, digital literacies and related fields could learn something from this example about how we can do more than simply theorize about randomization, aleatory methods, and non sens as necessary post-modern catalysts for invention. And, as I ponder these issues, I might offer two words for those composing in these new media:

1. Caution: It's not a wise thing to break the rules until you know you can execute your work according to the rules. The old adage, "Rules were made to be broken," doesn't seem so attractive when you meet someone on the interstate who has fully embraced that motto.
2. Throw Caution to the Wind: When you have mastered the rules, break them. Turn off the guidelines, Edit the "Master Slide," violate the template, spin the convention around, and experiment. New media doesn't yet know what they want to do/be/do, so give knock down some fences and give them some room to run.

A Few of My Favorite (Digital) Things

As a little Christmas present - I offer a few of my favorite digital things for 2013. I chose these things because they represent an interesting approach to digital literacies and composing for the brave new digital world in which we live. Or maybe just because I thought they were cool. Anyway - enjoy!

• The best new interactive web thingy is Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" multi-channel music video. Oh, yeah they did that - and it's pretty cool. It's the coolest provocation to digital creativity since Arcade Fire's interactive "Wilderness Downtown," (which I still use in my intro to Digital Literacies class.)
• My favorite (though sometimes frustrating) socially-connected app is WAZE. You probably heard about it this year when Google bought the app from its developer for about a billion dollars. It's like Google Maps meets Twitter - a free navigation app that allows users (er, uh, their passengers,) to share info with other travelers such as traffic jams, accidents, weather, and, ahem - location of police. (Admittedly, I started using this last year I think.)
• For me, and I suspect millions of others, TripAdvisor has stolen time and attention from my other travel and dining apps like Yelp and UrbanSpoon. It's desktop website and smartphone apps work well together to provide friendly, useful and comprehensive collection of user-reviews on dining spots, hotels, attractions, etc.
• Did you know you can use video backgrounds for PowerPoint? I just started using this really cool feature this year. Formerly, you'd have to shell out big bucks to get this effect - or use hinky 3rd-party apps that never failed to, uh... fail.
• And, though it is hardware, I just gotta say - I love the Jambox by Jawbone. I use it around the house for the worlds most portable best music, but its easy-synching with my smartphone and laptop means I can have awesome sound for any presentation, regardless of the available equipment at the venue.

What will 2014 bring? I don't know - but I figure that, whatever it is, it will be delivered by my Amazon Prime drone.

Scam-Mail, Bad Grammar and Audience

Every now and then I check my spam filter and find the usual junk mail: ads for foreign pharmaceuticals, phishing scams, solicitations to buy products to make my hair (or other things) grow, and the many variations on the Nigerian inheritance scam.

Here is an example of one such email:

Good day my dear,
In confidence,i have to introduce myself, i am Miss. Christy Watars,24 years old,I am the only child of late Mr & Mrs.Richard Watars.

I prayed before contacting you, please for God sake do not see my mail as embrassment as we do not know each other before.  I wish to request for your assistance in my efforts to procure the transfer of my inherited fund from my late parents for investment ventures under your care and directive,while i continue my education in NewZealand.

I inherited Three Million,Four Hundred Thousand US-Dollars ($3,400,000.00)I wish to require your assistance in receiving the transfer of my inherited fund in your account for investment purposes only, it is my wish to come over to Newzealand to further my education while you take care of the investment on my behalf.

i need your urgent assistance to transfer my inherited fund to Newzealand and also your assistance to secure my future in NZ where I will continue my education

Please I am waiting to hear from you soonest,God Bless You.
Yours sincerely,
Christy Watars

If you are a teacher of English, you feel almost compelled to correct the grammar, punctuation, syntax and formating and return it to the user, don't you? C'mon - don't you? Yeah - me too. And even though we don't proofread and edit the document, we all must wonder, "Why do scammers send out email with such horrendous writing? Don't they know that no one is going to buy the message with such glaring mistakes?"

Well, there is a method to the madness, and a mistaken assumption on our part. ALMOST no one will buy the error-riddled pitch. But the ones who do not recognize the mutilation of the Queen's English are exactly the ones who the scammers want to reach.  If you can correct the grammar and spelling, you are probably too smart for the scammers. They aren't trying to reach you. You are not their audience. People with lower intelligence are their audience.

So - if you want ONLY people with lower intelligence to give your message a fair hearing, then, for goodness sake, do not pay attention to spelling or grammar or punctuation!

Most of our students - and we ourselves - do not hope for such a limited audience. Whether it is teachers teaching, preachers preaching, advertisers advertising, or students studying, we hope to reach more than just the dumbest people around. In those cases, good grammar and correct spelling and proper punctuation insure you include the widest possible audience - including potential employers, potential publishers, colleagues, and leaders of the community. Everyone is included when good writing takes place. (I've never heard anyone say, "I ain't going back to that restaurant - they spell everything 'right' on their menu. Smarty-pants know-it-alls!" or "I don't think we should consider this candidate; his writing is just too perfect.")

Buddy the Elf, Internet Free Candy, and Plagiarism

If saw "Elf" over the holidays, then you will remember this scene - Buddy the Elf is preparing to go to New York City to find his father when Santa offers him some advice, including the following:

"Well, there are some things you should know.

First off, you see gum on The street,

Leave it there. It's not free candy."

Of course, when Buddy arrives in NYC, he can't resist the "free candy" on the streets, the handrails, etc...Funny!

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If you've taught a class that involves research, you will remember this scene - Students are preparing to complete a class to earn their degrees, and we offer them advice, including the following:

"To do good research, you should know some things.

First off, just because you can cut and paste something,

that doesn't mean it is good information.

Find reputable sources and cite them."

Of course, when your students actually get to writing the paper, they sometimes find random "free candy" on the internet to be irresistible. Not so funny.

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I ran across an informative, if less-than-encouraging, article titled "The Top 10 Internet Sources College Students Us May Discourage You."  Oh, yeah, it does discourage us - especially after we've introduced them to the wealth of scholarly online resources that are available through our college or university libraries. I mean - millions of dollars worth of resources at their finger tips, peer-reviewed articles from the most erudite experts in every subject, ground-breaking studies in every field, and they "Google" for info on "steroids?"

(Thankfully, there are no sharp objects nearby as I write this. Anyway - take deep breaths and remain calm, Randy...)

So, I remind myself - and if it helps, you can remind yourself, too - our students are sort of like Buddy - this is their first trip to the big academic city. I will try to help them understand research and intellectual integrity from a broad view that deals with credibility, critical thinking, ethos, and what it means to be a "collegial" member of their new academic community. I will use a variety of approaches ranging from our official plagiarism statements to the story of Buddy the Elf. And I will keep telling myself that it's a process, and that it is my job to help my students (and colleagues) to develop an integrated approach to 21st-century digital literacy.

And I may or may not pass along this tidbit shared with me on Facebook recently:

ESPN, Culture and Speaking "English" Slang

At some point in the term, when teaching rhetorics, critical thinking, cultural literacies, speech, composition, or other topics - I find it important to discuss how language is a culturally/socially constructed semiotic system. (I usually work from a broader intro that looks at how ontology, epistemology and semiology treat a "thing," but that's another story.)

I am planning to incorporate these ESPN commercials to help students think about how language (in this case, English) is a living, growing set of signifiers and signifieds. Maybe some of my colleagues in related fields would be able to make creative instructional use of these artifacts as well...

Video one is the commercial I saw first - and though I had no idea what these guys were "saying" - I got the idea: the speakers seem to be exactly alike from a first-blush broad-brush categorizing of the individuals as being from the UK - but each views the other as a polar opposite.

A Second video (now disappeared from the web) slows the action down and adds definitions to the "slang" English from across the pond.

So, don't be a right divvy - spice up your sessions with these discussion starters/illustrations. And remember which video is which, or you'll look like a proper digital plonker.

...

The Web is (always already) Changing (again)

The NY Times recently published an article entitled,
"Rise of Web Video, Beyond 2-Minute Clips" you should check it out here.

The "web" as new media is in a constant (non)state of dynamistic flux.

To say, "this is how the web works," or "thi sis how communication takes place online," is a guarantee of obsolescence.

Here's a notably quote from the article: “A few years ago, three minutes ‘watching’ your computer felt like a novelty; now, it’s as familiar as your television set.”

Perhaps more than old media, new media as compositional space is chimeric and chameleonesque - never allowing haunches ot be rested upon!

The Time for Talking...

In our Accelerated Composition class, we are learning to "read rhetorically," or to perform rhetorical analyses on "texts" of all type - written, film, video, visual, aural/oral, etc. Keeping in mind Aristotle's idea that "Rhetoric is the art of discovering the available means of persuasion in a given situation," we look at communication artifacts in terms of their logos (logical argument), pathos (emotional argument), ethos (ethical/relational argument), and their kairos.

Kairos, the Greek word often translated as "time," represents the time, occasion, context - that is to say - the rhetorical situation of a speech, text or other composition. Is it possible to use our rhetorical evaluation to predict, as well as to analyze, texts? I think it's worth a shot...

Much has been made (and will be made) about the upcoming Inaugural address of President-elect Barak Obama. The New York Times has an interesting video about the occasion. Pearson's DK Handbook (p. 114) has some interesting analytical questions that may be applied to the upcoming speech. For example:

• Who is included in the target audience? Who is excluded? Why?
• Toward what will the speaker draw the audience's attention? What might be overlooked as a result of this "directing?"
• What will be the guiding purpose of the speech? How explicitly will it be stated?
• What events at the time of the speech's production are likely to shape the audience's expectations? How will these events shape the writing of the speech?
• Where will this speech be delivered? (Specifically, how will the physical staging be set?)

Can you presciently answer these questions about Obama's inaugural speech? I bet you can. Weigh in with your prognostications, and then check back to follow-up after the speech is delivered.

He who does not write...

Text-centric composition has been privileged all my life. I speak here of the process of writing with letters that form words that form sentences, etc., and that can be (re)produced with ink on paper. From the time I was in grammar school with my Blue Horse Writing Tablet to the time I produced my first Five-paragraph essay, the "paper" has been to ultimate mark of scholarship - and of literary production.

However, a recent conversation with a colleague cast a new light on this "beatification" of writing. The conversation is represented by the following fragments:

Most famous, highly esteemed literary figure in the English language? Shakespeare.
Did he write? Yes. Was he famous because people read his writing? No. (Most of his audiences were textually illiterate.)
Shakespeare was known for his plays. He composed a product that was, at heart, multimodal. He incorporated aurality, visual rhetoric, pageantry, ritual, drama, evocative spaces, and high-tech (for 16th-17th c.) special effects to engage his "reader" who was no "reader" at all.

Through some forgotten seque, my colleague mentioned Jesus, who didn't write text, but rather presented his teachings in a sort of narrated 3D graphic presentation of sorts. Here's a sample lesson from the multimodal composition of Jesus:
"See the lilies of the field? (Cue real lilies as visuals.) God takes care of them.
See the birds? (Cue live birds as visuals.) God takes care of them.
You are more important to god than flowers or birds. God will take care of you, too." (Matthew chapter 6)

I noted that Jesus was "one who did not write." (His followers did - notably ones like Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.) This reminded me of "he who does not write" - Socrates. Socrates teaching was not delivered in print, but live and in person. (Think Improv or Stump Speeches or Live Podcasts.) Transcripts and commentaries would be produced in print later, by others.

We didn't even touch on composition by asking who the greatest "composers" were. If we had, we might have brought up Bach or Beethoven or Mozart.
Did they compose? Yes.
In printed words? No.
Their compositions were not "read" by the audience, but rather enjoyed apart from the printed word.

Theologian Karl Barth said, "The word became flesh... and then through theologians, it became just words again."

Is it possible that "Composition" is more than ink on paper?