femminista: thoughts of a feminist rhetorician

A particularly good teaching day today. My students are working on multimedia presentations that must function as stand-alone documents. Most of them, unsurprisingly, have chosen to use PowerPoint. After discussing the readings for the day, I had intended to have each group comment on another group's project, using our online forum to download project drafts and submit review comments. I changed my mind. Somehow that idea seemed interminably boring and isolating. So, as an alternative to group peer review, we conducted a class-wide review of each project. This was made possible only because there are four groups and thus, four documents to examine and critique. It started out slowly (and actually, the idea developed from a question over font and background readability issues on one of the projects; I couldn't read it easily but to be fair I solicited the opinion of the group). Students were initially hesitant and in spite of my continued reassurance that pointing out areas for improvement should be seen as constructive and not critical (or for that matter personal), they spoke up hesitantly. At this time I was also aware that as facilitator I felt the need to summarize sets of comments and that my summary and commentary might be construed as overly critical or that it might make students feel singled out, albeit in a group. I was struggling to think of a way to make this work.

Well, I must say that I am saddened by all of the things that take me away from blogging. It is now 12 days since my last entries and I have had so much to say in these past days but no time to say it.

My heart failure subsided as I finished my paper in time for the conference but was reignited when, because of illness, I was unable to attend and present it. I've had a sinus infection that won't go away and the flu, making the nine hour drive to Michigan and the Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference a non-option. Unfortunately, I'm not the only one who missed the conference as many Fems/Rhet presenters and attendees were stuck in various airports because of a snow storm in Minneapolis. However, fortunately for all of us, our tireless conference organizers are giving us the opportunity to post our papers on the web, giving us the next best thing to being there. Even though I am sad to have missed the conference, I know that my decision not to go was best. I became more ill during the week and would have been (even more) completely miserable had I gone. On the bright side, I've been able to get some work done in spite of my illness(es). I have sent Chapter One and the preface of my thesis to my director, finally. Even better, I'm almost done with Chapter Two and Chapter Three is well on its way!