Making use of this medium...

So, instead of working this out in my head or on a piece of paper in my private notebook like I normally would, I think I'll take advantage of this medium to process through some of the challenges I'm encountering while trying to decide on a term project for this class. (And yes, I'm probably way behind lots of you who have already met with Anne and started your projects. C'est la vie.)

I often find it difficult to decide on a primary focus during the early, or even middle, part of a term because I'm so wrapped up in learning new things and because I know each new book and discussion will shape my thinking and expand the possibilities.  But I think I'm finding some particular challenges endemic in this class (sorry for the "disease" connotation of endemic; that's neither intentional nor Freudian :-) ):

Every time I begin to think about a particular question to investigate or topic to explore, I move quickly to, "But how will I represent this digitally?  What kind of multi-media project could I do with this topic?"  This tends to shut down my line of inquiry prematurely.

On the other hand, if I begin by choosing a particular medium in which I want to work (e.g. making a movie, creating a wiki, etc.), then I feel like the project will be too concrete, too practical, and not theoretical enough.  As we talked about a few weeks ago, how does one represent theory through images?  I don't think it's impossible, nor do I think that's exactly what I have to do, but I'm not sure I know how to begin with the "images" (in whatever form they may take).  And yet, I don't necessarily want to begin by writing a paper and then try to translate it in some way into a multi-media project.  I hope the two develop together, informing one another.

Ideally, I would like my project to tie into my teaching:  I always feel more invested in a project that promises to benefit my (future) students by helping me work through some aspect of composition pedagogy and reflect on my own teaching practices.  While we have been enacting some of the relationships between digitality and pedagogy - by blogging, for example - we haven't read much about this.  That's fine:  It provides some gaps for me to synthesize theories and bring in my own experience but makes it a little more challenging for me to bridge the seeming (but false?) dichotomy between theory and practice.

A few of the broad subjects I've been scribbling some notes about:

- digitizing race in the composition classroom  (e.g. How do the technologies of writing used in first-year composition reinscribe
race?)

- "thirdspace" and digitality  (e.g. In what ways does the internet constitute a thirdspace and what are the possibilities inherent in
this?)

- While I still don't have an answer, I have continued to be intrigued by the "What kind of world would you like to live in and how will/can/should digitality create this world?" question, along with its various offshoots.