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Technical Writing · Exposition & Argumentation · Non-fiction Creative Essays · Grammar and Usage of Standard English · The Structure of English · Analysis of Shakespeare
Analysis of Literary Language · Advanced Professional Papers · The History of the English Language · First Internship: Tutoring in a Writing Workshop · Second Internship: Advanced Instruction: Tutoring Writing
Visual Literacy Seminar (A First Course in Methodology) · Theories of Communication & Technology (A Second Course in Methodology) · The Writer's Guild
UMBC'S Conservative Newspaper: "The Retriever's Right Eye" · UMBC'S University Newspaper: "The Retriever Weekly" · Introduction to Journalism · Feature Writing · Science Writing Papers
Blackboard Weekly Posts (A Bulletin Board Community)
An Explanation of How to Read "This" Objective · Parameters for Re-contextualizing the Definition of a Word from the OED · Photos of the OED Annoy Artifacts · The Oxford English Dictionary Fairy Tale Radio Hour Archive Audio Tape and Script
The OED Annoy Goals and Choices · The OED Rolling Credits: Who Contributed to "This" Objective · The OED Word Definition Workshops One and Two: Brainstorming Ideas within a Social Context · The OED Blackboard Community Post
A List of OED Words that were Researched, Tested, and Abandoned
What's your process?
(This is the most fun part of the project.)
This is the part that now has caused me to re-examine everything I have been told is the writing process and the educational process demonstrating what is wrong with how the educational system let us down in destroying our imaginative processes and tells us to "think out of the box," when it is the educational system that designs the box for us. The project itself creates its own boundaries because we live in a physical world. This permits me to demonstrate how the writing process extends beyond the paper, the computer, the place the computer is in, the classroom and the academy. In essence, what I am saying is the writing process is carried in the author's brain and is carried everywhere the physical body is carried. Everything and everyone outside one's self plays a part in the writing process. Even artifacts and people I do not encounter in the process play a part because they would be responsible for possibilities not considered.
The process begins with the fact I have more resources than others around me. I have degrees in Automotive, Mechanical Engineering, I explored Computer Science right up to the last few semesters of being short of a degree only to realize the system was pushing me through to assist with the Y2K problem. I explored a degree with UMBC and was offered a two for one deal, Mathematics and Computer Science only to fall flat on my face discovering I was not an efficient programmer. I had to rescue my studies and earned a degree in Information Systems. I did not do well my first semester in Information Systems because my 15 year old parrot I raised as a baby fledgling (this means that Tammie, the parrot, was still weaning. She had to be fed with an eyedropper twice a day and this established a special connection between us) died one hour before having to go to my Accounting I final. All the B's and A's in the Information Systems program would not pull up my average to enter grad school. I was drawn back into writing from my participation in electronic bulletin boards on the Internet and wanted to improve my writing skills to write my thesis and my dissertation. I groped around the last two of my required Math courses only to find I was so rusty in math I would have to put all my time and energy interpreting the symbols. At the same time I was taking writing classes and they were going swimmingly. I love to write and with all that I have seen I like to think I have something worth hearing/saying. I tried one more time to rescue my math background in Statistics. The writing pulled me down and consumed all my time. Courses in Statistics were offered every other year and less because of the few students enrolled in the area of study. Dr. Carpenter's
One more time around I enrolled in ENGL 324, ENGL 407, ENGL 395, and ENGL 488 and realized from the syllabi that I would not be able to sleep for fifteen weeks trying to do all the work. I knew what Dr. Carpenter's course would be like and how demanding it would be to the point of consuming. ENGL 395 looked the same and I was hand selected, recommended, and accepted with reservations to be invited into the training program to become a writing tutor. This I decided could be used to become a Teacher's Assistant (TA) in grad school and get me out of lifting boxes for a living. Most part time jobs are the same and because everything in the Technology and Communications track in English is taught during the day a employer in Information Systems is not going to permit me to disappear during core hours." Shipka's courses looked even more difficult than Dr. Carpenter's but there was something the first day that said, "Space is the Place, Baby! This is where you want to be. See me when you can put in the effort." Weeks later, the chatter began. Those in my ENGL 395 class chose to stay in Shipka's class were always talking about something going on in the class. All was positive and nothing negative. Their minds were stimulated they were doing "real thinking" bouncing around ideas, negotiating assignments, and tasks. One day, Chewning walked into ENGL 395, sat down and said, "Oh shit! I forgot to do something for Shipka!" Chewning turned and said, "Tell the professors I had an emergency and couldn't be here today," and darted out of the class knowing we had something to do within "this" space (ENGL 395) that was important. Talk about dedication? I have only had a few professors that have inspired this type of dedication. I come into the room with it but these students were energized. I have to find out what's going on in Shipka's Spaces. This is not a free write but a building process of demonstrating my writing process in this project. All of these events have in some way contributed to this project. I now had to come up with a technology to focus on.
The OED was handed out on February 21 and my guess was Chewning, Piccirillo, and deLauney have some idea as to what "this" (the OED Communicative Objective) piece of paper means because of their experiences from ENGL 324. What they know may not tell them much about "this" piece of paper but after spending 15 weeks with Shipka, they have some idea of the expectations. As far as I am concerned they are veterans in the trenches. I do not see these three people most of the day or week so I do not bother to seek them out to talk to them.
A week later we are required to pick one technology off our list in 324, do a Google search, and discuss what we would like to share with others. At the time I did not think one writing process would effect the other. In other words, the process of designing the patent and the OED are almost the same because the projects, processes, and text become a gentle dance of give and take. Actually a better analogy is the tension between twins vying for the same parent's attention. The two projects have to negotiate for space and time in my mind at the same time because the due dates are the same. I think about both at the same time flipping back and forth between the states of 0 and 1 like a computer, switching processes on and off but the circuits fuse together. One cannot be separated from the other even though they have their subtle differences. I cannot create the two at the same time, as it becomes an orchestration between two texts with many similarities and differences. Once the assignment is handed out, little do we realize that we will end up on a little piece of ice clinging to each other negotiating a vast ocean of possibilities in the writing process. We are venturing off on an exciting exploration in many realms: technology, education, socialization, writing processes, personal histories, and ideologies, all of which contribute to the writing process.
The first frame (fig. 1) begins the writing process in Fine Arts room 018 the day that Shipka hands out the OED re- contextualize assignment. I have indicated who I know by name within the room after working together in the Writing Center and having endured the rigorous process of being trained as a Writing Tutor. Everyone else so far is unknown with the exceptions of Philip Hartman and Daniel Wentworth. Once our assignments were handed out for what readings we would be responsible for leading the class, I grabbed the emails and contacted them. After they received the emails, the very next class they realized I was "hard core" as Steven Norfolk now refers to me, and actively sought me out to talk. As the writing process continues I will be forced to learn my peer's names, communicate, and negotiate what this piece of paper means and what it does not mean.
The next frame (fig. 2) shows my satori that I have found myself in a huge black box with a black blindfold looking for a black cat and I knew the cat is here because it just meowed. The cat holds the clues to everything I need to know about this space; ENGL 407. The problem here is that ENGL 324, a different course with a different content, is exactly the same because of the methods. The two spaces become inseparable.
I begin to talk to other students and realize I am not alone in this black box space (fig. 3). There are 14 others just like me and not like me. We all have different backgrounds, different levels of education, different majors, different living conditions, economic backgrounds, and the other old tiresome words such as race, ethnicity, and so on. The project now becomes the second objective. The first becomes to communicate with everyone else to negotiate within this black box of the writing process. ENGL 407 differs from ENGL 324 by the people somewhat. Five of us swing back and forth between ENGL 324 and 407, yet the atmosphere is as different as night and day. The ENGL 407 class remains less communicative (1).
Individually, we know very little. As a whole we know more. This is not a matter of just bleeding other people dry for information, it becomes a dance in negotiating the writing space and sharing one's thoughts on the project with others. As we talk with each other outside of the class space, more light bulbs go off showing us it's actually a "white box" and a large one at that. The conversations begin to expand beyond the confines of the classroom and our individual writing spaces. It expands into the university itself and among fellow peers not even taking the course. The writing process is incubating.
Fun with patents becomes our next Blackboard posting assignment pushing us into exploring the U.S. Government Patent web site and exploring the language of patents in general. I prefer working on the 6th floor of the AOK library at UMBC for several reasons. I live like a P.h.D. candidate and a poor student. My own workspace at home is overly cramped. I have a brutally slow, unreliable computer at home and only a modem to dial into the UMBC Internet Service Provider (ISP). There are thousands of books in my room because I cannot afford a storage space to keep them in. I had a storage space that was broken into and six 96" bookshelves were stolen with my entire library of books in Automotive, Engineering, Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Physics, Chemistry, History, and other topics: twenty years of accumulated information gone in a day. I also have a pet parrot and parrot's require social interaction daily, only an hour or two a day, but I do not even have time to negotiate with a pet for the time I need for this writing process. I also live with three of "blue collar" workers who have no idea what I do. I am not them and they are not me. All we are is an annoyance to each other. I am surrounded by people who would like nothing better than for me not to succeed in getting out of here so they have someone lower on the food chain than they are. This also includes my landlord and this is something I have to deal with every waking moment. This forces me into a position of having to spend most of my time outside somewhere other than my roach coach room.
I use "this" space shown in fig. 4 because it is a wide-open uncluttered space providing me the opportunity to spread out (companion images fig. 4 and fig. 4a: School Work Space versus Home Work Space). The computer is faster than at home and when web research is necessary, which it always is, I have T1 access speeds so I can accomplish more work in a shorter period of time. The 6th floor is an "Absolutely Quiet Floor." I need the space of silence to hear my own thoughts and ponder all the stimulation that has been coming in all day long from the outside world, whether that stimulation is everyday transactions, attending classes, professors, peers, Writing Center peers, tutees; basically everything and everyone in the outside world stimulates me and drains me at the same time. I know who I am and all too well. People drain my emotional energy and I need solitary space in order to re-group and energize myself daily. I am introverted but have moved on the scale with maturity and age to somewhere in the middle, (a 5), to maybe a 6 on the scale towards extrovert. Some people, like my ex-wife, are energized by people and need people around them constantly. I cannot live that way, as I said people drain me. On the other hand, I am not anti-social as I once thought, I am actually a social creature and actively seek out people and artifacts for stimulation for my thinking processes. I need this because my view is not the only view and intelligent people cause me to reconsider my views. Many times one or two words of what they say act as "seeds" for creativity.
The next Blackboard post becomes the "wake up" bell. What are we going to re-invent? What am I going to re-invent? Why am I going to re-invent this? How does "this" technology begin to box in the project? We are not in concrete yet and there are a host of artifacts to think about out there as we have determined from the analysis of how we define technology. My writing space in my room is like Ray Bradbury's writing space: cluttered with artifacts and possible clues of inspiration and imagination. Yet I am not interacting with technology. There is not creative stimulation here in my home writing space. I must actively seek stimulation: it is the only thing that will stimulate the writing process. I can free write till doomsday, it will not help. I must interact with technology and other people (figs. 4 & 5)
After making my patent post the projects still run parallel. I need stimulation and food. I am aware that on the next floor there will be lecture I have been dying to attend, something about magic, mathematics, and masonry. I attend and see a few of my old professors but I do not recognize the students. Dr. Armstrong is there and he was the first adviser I met when I first came to UMBC to explore the possibilities of attending. Dr Armstrong also becomes my first math professor in MATH 301 Analysis where I mind breaks down. I was pursuing a writing minor at the same time, taking two writing courses and found I could no longer understand the symbolism in math. I talk to Dr. Armstrong and tell him of my decision. He was deeply saddened about my leaving something I could not understand. Why should he be sad? I am the one who spent years beating my head against the wall practicing math and I was the one who was scrapping years of work. I would have to spend countless hours trying to keep up in math and I decide to take the easier path for me in writing. Somehow I cannot separate my knowledge of math as a language and English as a language. I find myself being bi-lingual. Little does he realize I now help all the techies write their papers and the techies do not realize I am not a "dumb English major." I understand their content. The writers don't see English and math as two languages and wonder why I tell them to frame their mathematics with English and use conventions such as parallelism and periods at the end of equations when switching to new paragraphs. "Look at your math book, it's the established convention, you are marrying two languages together..." but the techies don't understand. I receive a more favorable response from my parrot, Ryoko, as I teach her the rigors of Partial Differential Equations.
The lecture provides the stimulation I need for my writing. The lecturer plants the seeds for ideas that vary over time. The lecturer tells a few subtle jokes such as the introverted mathematician and the extroverted mathematician. The introvert stares at his own shoes as he talks, the extrovert stares at the shoes of the person he is talking to (fig. 5). Dr. Morris describes the number one secret of the Free Mason's and the geometrical proof they use in the Middle Ages to prove that a Free Mason is who he claims to be. This becomes the seed, stimulus for my OED post and the selection of the word secret. After checking the word, the noun provides enough text to satisfy the requirement. In my haste I miss the point that the text must be weaved into my text. This becomes a "fatal" error with the same detrimental problems of saying the sine of 60 degrees equals the cosine of 60 degrees. Working on the design of a bridge this mistake would cause the bridge to collapse and so the error of forgetting that the text has to be weaved later causes the self-destruction of the OED project. I leave the lecture and come back later when everyone has left hoping the food is still left as I am so strapped that I have nothing to eat for the next two days. "Thank you God for such small favors!" The food is left and I pig out alone (fig. 6). I go home (fig. 7) and the process of creating the OED re-contextualization starts to progress.
I begin composing my first post for the OED (fig. 8) and the stimulus flows from my head about Dr. Morris' tale of the Free Mason. I have to improvise in order to transpose, edit, and rearticulate his tale into my OED fairy tale but I find this comes easily. My argument becomes why can't the OED be made entertaining and here is how this goal can be accomplished (fig. 9).
Where the processes begin or end become a blur. When the various satories occur is impossible to tell. Shipka opened the cage of my thinking (fig. 12). I was free but I was constantly reminded, "This isn't a free for all, you have to account for every choice and decision." Oh I knew this all too well. As a scientist with freedom also comes containment and constraints: It's a physical world and we are constrained by it. Now I could see all those little blobs of clay just waiting to be molded into something (fig. 13). I then looked closer. Everything that Shipka said, all of my training in so many different disciplines, and continuing discussions with my peers began to make me realize "this" new space has glass walls. If I'm not careful I'm going to knock myself unconscious when I run into one of the glass walls at the speed of thought. This led to the realization how ignorant the buzzword is "Think outside the box." I see a new world (fig. 14). As I visualized "this" new world and concentrated on forming the wet clay, (fig. 15) I could hear a voice in my head as though I was in "Star Wars" battling the evil clay. "Luke... Remember, play to your strengths."
In the Writing Center my peers are chattering. They don't get any of this. I explain. They don't listen. Bowen, Norfolk, Barsky, and Masters still don't understand what is being said in "this" space (fig. 16). I go to class once again but not Shipka's class. In front of ACIV, (fig. 17), I meet Bauhaus talking to a friend? A classmate? I'm not sure but definitely not a Shipka-ite. She's a virgin. None of what Bauhaus is saying makes sense, but listening to the conversation "this" is beginning to come together for her. Bauhaus has found the black cat. Shipka has achieved one definite goal: to make us communicate with our peers, to become a collective intelligence like "cyborgs," to be peer mentors for each other, and to perform reality checks to each other. "Is it good? Does "this make sense? What meaning-making to you get from "this?'" We, in some cases, are beginning to develop friendships outside of class. While I am on campus my creative process is carried with me to the buildings I frequent and with the people I meet (fig. 18). I am not usually a talkative person nor do I usually seek company. My thoughts are wildly alive and I'm sharing with everyone. The excitement is spreading like wildfire. "So what did you see today that you didn't see yesterday?"
The writing process travels everywhere I do (fig. 19) except my work at Pep Boys. The process carries on while I travel back and forth between home, UMBC, all the bus stops, the main street of the small town of Catonsville, the Giant supermarket, the Wal-Mart, but mysteriously the process dies at Pep Boys. Why? I have to reduce my mind to the level of the people around me. I have learned nothing I say there makes any sense. As far as they are concerned I am speaking Greek. The atmosphere is almost as dead as my rented room.
I am so frustrated as I cannot find the right word or the right argument I begin wining to Greg Masters about the whole project. I say many words and focus on one but Greg pulls out one word of what I say as I have done with other people in my writing process. One word of what someone says has always acted as the seed or catalyst to entire papers, stories, and essays. Greg throws the word back to me. "What about annoy? I mean you're so annoyed with the entire process of the OED? (fig. 20)" This one word becomes the spark. After I research the word annoy in the OED "this" word is exactly what I need to meet the constraint and it's a verb. Yippe!
Sarah Miller responds to my email and rescues the entire radio hour in the last moment (thank you, thank you, thank you!). I sent her an email on such short notice and there was such a long response time I was afraid I would have to do all the voices. Fortunately, Sarah decided to do the radio skit at the last minute. When we began production, Sarah was a little timid at first. We talked for a long period of time about various things, a "getting to know you." Sarah has been reading all my posts about music but never responds. As many of us she plays the part of a voyeur. The more I chatter in Blackboard, the more she sees how similar our lives and worlds are. We cross-over in generations in areas others would never understand. The music only acts as the ice-breaker. Our personal histories are so similar: in some ways too similar. In some ways I hope Miller does not make similar "bad choices."
Eventually we get down to the business of producing the radio show. When we began production, Sarah was not quite sure of how to make meaning of the written skit. I think my enthusiasm rubbed off a little. First, I had to run some tests on the acoustics of the room to see if I would get projection, echo, and reverb I wanted through voice inflection. I found the recorder would pick up the sound of stomping feet, the slamming of the door, and the ripping of paper. I then tried out a few different voices to see what would work and what would not. I think that Sarah now caught on to what was going to go on and what was expected. At first she said she couldn't play a bratty 5-year-old girl. After my playing with voices she caught on. I enjoy doing voiceover work and as strange sometimes as the characters may get she realized that this was "play" or "play acting." I go out of my way to have fun with it because I put on personas. There is nothing worse than listening to people reading text. When I came into the room and asked, "What is all the commotion going on..." she snapped to attention so much so that her enthusiasm was a little unexpected. I played right through though because this is what radio people do. You never double-back to correct an error. To do so indicates to the radio listeners there was a mistake. If I remember correctly we had one or two false starts and then on the third take the entire skit took off. Sarah was a joy to work with and her enthusiasm was overwhelming. She really through herself into the part which made me work all the harder. Sarah, I just want to say thank you, you really did a fabulous job. I hope we can do it again some time. The funny part about this was Sarah also wanted to do a radio advertisement also but I didn't know this until we started. I happened to be carrying a full size recorder and a mini both with tape. We then practiced for her radio advertisement which was no where near as complicated as mine. I read the script a few times to develop a persona, but the one I wanted never really came through on her tape. Things were going fabulous until somewhere on the second page while Sarah was speaking I lost a straight face and my doing so caused Sarah to break out in laughter. We then backed up and did a second take. I made sure not to look at her and bit my tongue when we got to that part again and everything went swimmingly thereafter (fig. 21).
Last, but not least follow this link to see the original advertisement for Dr. Morris lecture that inspired much of the content across the 324 CO1 Patent and the 407 CO1 Re-contextualizing the OED (fig. 22).
Note
1. At a later date I discussed "this" phenomenon of the peers of the ENGL 407 class less communicative despite the fact that five of us attended ENGL 324 immediately before attending 407. The five of us are all more communicative in 324. My speculation was the fact that there were more people within the 324 space (25) versus the 407 space (15) and the mix of the ten new personalities was enough to change the social atmosphere the 407 space. Shipka having more experience disagreed with my reasoning and said that the same atmosphere occurred in the fall of 2005 crossing from the ENGL 324 space to the 407 space. There seem to be greater channels of communication within the space of 324 versus 407. Shipka did not speculate further. “This” phenomenon may be worth further study. Another speculation may be the difference in the subject matter being studied. In 324, students study technology and artifacts, i.e. things or objects. In 407, students study communities and societies leading to a study of people. Most of the students in “these” courses are Technology and Communication majors; therefore, there may be an individual preference for studying “artifacts” versus studying “people.” Shipka and I have both voiced a preference for studying inanimate objects versus animate objects and this preference may extend to other peers within “these” spaces.
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