communication

Submitted by Adria on October 19, 2008 - 1:52pm

Around 1am this morning, I was perched on the sofa grading, watching the History Channel. They had a great special on "Secrets of Body Language" where experts dissected the nuanced gestures, facial expressions, voice, etc of social and political leaders, including McCain and Obama. It's worth a watch (or purchase) for classroom discussions, methinks. It airs again this coming Saturday, October 25th at 5pm.

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Guilty of being insidious behind closed doors at the CCCC

Submitted by Cynthia on March 26, 2007 - 8:38pm

*Sigh* The perennial post-CCCC buzz on the WPA list about whether or not to 'read' papers at the conference has begun. Here's part of Rob Hudson's post on 'The insidious practice of monotonously reading your paper at a conference': "I had the great fortune of attending CCCC this year and was surprised that some presenters actually read papers, verbatim, at the podium! Others engaged the audience with interactive, cooperative presentations. As an unenlightened adjunct faculty with a mere Masters degree in writing, perhaps I am ignorant and don't understand why I can't simply read the paper myself, at home, without paying a conference fee.... But as an instructor who encourages students to present such content well, I can't understand why this practice of monotone reading persists." There have been rants for and against, and some calls for both/and. I'm in the 'for' camp, and it strikes me as extremely problematic for people to use terms like 'insidious,' or for other posts to be subject-lined "how can communications specialist do this to each other behind closed doors?"(see Tom Miller's post). I am a writer. I teach writing. I perform writing. I publish writing. And I do all of it behind closed doors. It is odd to me that a conference on composition does not seem to welcome compositions.