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| Having been a big fan of Anne Wysocki's work, I was excited to find this article that was published in Computers and Composition (2001). "Impossibly Distinct: On Form/Contect and Word/Image in two Pieces of Computer-Based Interactive Multimedia" is an article in which Wysocki examines two CD-Roms that cover the same topic, but very differently. The CDs both are about private art collections and the relationship between collector and artist(s). Each includes visual representations of the art and information about the artists. The presentation, however, is completely different. The Barnes collection is presented in a very structured way, while the Maeght Foundation collection is fluid and moves the "reader" through the exhibit more subtly and almost softly. "In both CDs, a reader can click on a digitized photograph of an artowrk to see it in more detail and to learn about who made it. In both, a reader can learn about the people who built the collections, about why they started collecting, about their relationships with the artists whose work they collected, and about how they came to construct the places that serve as the metaphors for structuring the CDs" (139–40).
As I read through this article, I wondered at first what it has to do with us as teachers or even as writers. According to Wysocki, it is about the differences of "pushing and pulling." She notes throughout the piece how the structure of the Barnes CD leaves little room for us as readers. The Maeght CD, however, "and the visual arrangement and movements of these video strolls argue, I think, for a very different relation towards art than the Barnes's strategy of arrangement" (147). She goes on to say that the CD shows her each piece in the collection differently and encourages her to "think about each differently" (147).
She says that the Barnes CD asserts that we must see the collection as a whole while the Maeght CD "would have me attempt myself to construct the whole—and to construct even the individual pieces that make the whole—out of multiple, small, incomplete observations of different pieces of art" (147).
I think that is the way it is with a new approach to "writing" and reading the visual. It also is the way of approaching teaching in a fluid way that constructs itself continually, rather than reaching a neat end.
One thing to think about and explore is how this fluid way of teaching and learning will be accepted in the academy. How can we help our students to value their own way of writing and learning while also helping them to survive in a Barnes-ean world? It seems that we'd be doing them a dis-service if we don't at least anticipate what will happen as they—and we—push beyond the margins and the Times New Roman. | | |
| As I'm reading, I am starting to gel some ideas for what I first thought of as a final paper. But now I'm starting to think of it as somethiijng more visual. (Seems fitting.) : )
I started out thinking I wanted to write about how technology affects/changes the teacher/student dynamic. How it changes our teaching and learning. But as I read, I'm becoming facinated with the idea of how we are beginning to "read" the visual as text. How our understand of what is image and what is text is becoming this fluid thing in which we understand both differently. It seems that rather than image taking the place of text (or vice versa) it is an important (and essential) part of our writing and learning today. This is especially true for our students who came up in the digital world.
So as I'm thinking about this final project, I move more and more to a place of connecting the fluidity of image and word with the fluidity of teacher-student, learner-learner. It seems that some of the same changes in perception about what is text and how we read (and write) text connects with similar changes in how we perceive ourselves as teachers and the complex relationship we have with our students. We are no longer the banker. We don't just teach, impart the right way to write, to think. It's about a relationship with our studnets, with their visual and their words. To make sense of any of this, we have to approach our teaching as differently as we approach the Web sites that Wysocki explores in her article, "Impossibly Distinct: On Form/Contect and Word/Image in two pieces of Computer-based interactive Multimedia." We have to look at what is coming at us so quickly in so many mediums with new eyes. And we have to respond to our students creative project with as much respect as we traditionally have those that fit neatly within the one-inch margin. | | |
| Fleckenstein asserts that a poetics of teaching "places the language arts classroom and teacher at the juncture of image and word to examine the ways in which imagery does and undoes, enables and disables not only the teaching of writing-reading but also the act of writing-reading" (2). She says that embodies literacies is about the belief that imagery is really the "incarnation" of meaning presented in many different forms ("modes, modalities").
The foundation of the book is about dualities: writing-reading, imageword. Dr, Fleckenstein pushes us to think about these words as those which must be combine in order to see teaching in a new way. It's interesting that she places writing before reading and image before word. She says that she uses the writing-reading order in part to "buck" the system that traditionally privileged reading (especially the classics) over composition. Her combination of imageword also seems to shake up traditional views that place more importance on the written word than on image. Traditional teaching modes, it seems, used words first and sometimes looked to the visual as an addition or complement. Fleckenstein asserts that image is an integral part of word and of thought itself.
As I get into this and other readings, it seems that it will be important to think about the uses of technology that also push us to think about and incorporate the visual in our writing and our teaching.
I'm also beginning to think about my final project. How to best do a hypertexted article. I had first thought that I'd write the paper and cut it up into pieces that I would link. After reading this first text, I know that isn't the way to go. I'm starting to think about how visual pieces will work with words. It seems like this book and Dr. Fleckenstein's ideas about imageword push us far beyond our original expectations.
Looking forward to the ride!
Going home now to feed Sox. More tomorrow... | | |
| As I anticipated, this book is so well written and so full of theory and stories, that it's hard to know where to start in a discussion. Dr. Fleckenstein weaves together the stories of her daughters and her students with theory grounded in the Greeks and Middle Ages while also making connections that address the complex issues we face as teachers of much more than the tradition of thinking of writing as just words on a page.
The thesis of the book is that we must move to think of image-word as a continuum that changes our ideas about literacy and about the way we approach our teaching. Dr. Fleckenstein asserts that we must move to a poetics of teaching, one that isn't focused on the limitations of time or the expectations of the academy. She does so, however, while also being aware that we still have to deal with those expectations, but that we must move to thinking about how visual (and I might add technological) rhetoric is not just some tertiary part of language and of learning, but that it's integral to it.
She begins each chapter with quotes from theorists and her own students, which seems to reinforce the idea of the importance of all voices, all mediums. For example, in her introduction, she includes a quote by Anzaldua, which immediately places the focus of the book on images. Anzaldua refers to the important of "images in our heads" that are the origin of everything real. Seems that as we move to thinking about writing and reading differently, we must also begin to define them as more than words, as images that have much to say. | | |
| I've started off my reading with Kristie Fleckenstein's Embodied Literacies. I bought the book at CCCC thinking I would read it just for fun, which is cool since I've had the privilege of being in Dr. Fleckenstein's classes. Now, I'm using it for 692 and am finding it's still fun! A great read so far with lots of theory and practical ideas for pushing the margins of our roles as teachers and students, especially with respect to how visual technology affects our teaching, learning, and our literacy.
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