Yesterday it was officially back to work, and since Blackboard was down for the update/upgrade for much of they day, I spent the day reading the following:
Teaching Writing Online: How and Why: This was an interesting read, and one that I think folks who maybe think they would never teach writing online might benefit from. Scott Warnock gives some great reflection prompts and guidelines here, and there's much here that I agreed with regarding how online teaching is so much about understanding the audience, creating a good online persona (sometimes more than one for the same course), as well as the ways in which online writing courses are inherently student-centered. One of the best parts of the book for me was the discussion of how to balance discussion board posting. His descriptions of what type of posting is not good or too much were good, and he also makes clear distinctions between how we shouldn't use that "I don't want to post too much" as an excuse to slack off, either, and become prompt-only posters.
Hewett & Ehmann's Preparing Educators for Online Writing Instruction was a good read, as well, and one that I think any faculty mentor should read. I might wind up purchasing this one so I can spend more time with it and refer to it. It's an NCTE book from 2004, but it stands up well seven years later.
Finally, I skimmed the 2010 Because Digital Writing Matters. This one was not as useful for me, because, as you may have guessed already, I know it matters :) My take-away from this one, after reading the other two, is that we--instructors--need to really think about audience as much or more than our students do. I know that I personally tend to get caught up in the content (in six week blocks, that's easy to do) and could be a bit more in tune with the audience, seeking better ways to approach them. Also, it's an interesting question--how do we get students to see how all digital writing IS writing?
And, with that, I leave you for today. I don't tend to do a lot of work-related posts, so don't be surprised if I go back to the kitchen after this one for awhile.