Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2000 12:59:23 -0500
From: "Dayna Delval"
Re: English 757 Homepage

Ok, let me say that even in my feverish distress, I came home from class on Monday and read the reading for Friday. I know you're stunned. Anyway, here are my thoughts, reactions, and questions:

I liked this essay. Although I sometimes found it difficult to keep track of the theme of one commentary while catching up on the one next to it, I found the format really very readable. I was intrigued by the paragraph on p.90 that begins "Isn't it possible..." (Wittig, 91) Those qualities sound admirable and effective for life in the 21st century. If that is so, why are English teachers so down on TV and all that it entails? What does the section in the last full paragraph on p. 91 mean that says, "The assumption seems pretty much conventional..." I read and reread it but could make no sense of it. HELP!!!

On p.101, Beth Baldwin, states, "The online world has changed the classroom...to the extent that the essay has become a dinosaur" If this is the case, what are we assigning? When will we enter the modern world and admit that what we teach may be completely moot and insufficient? I don't know that I believe that, but it is a point to consider.

Who are all the people mentioned in this essay? While I recognized a few, the bulk of them were not household names. I felt alienated from some of the discussion because I could not refer back to the article/person they were discussing.

How could this idea of a group essay be integrated into 120? Could they pair up, write on opposing sides and then create an on-line collaborated text? I would really love to explore that! That must make me an epistemological anti-foundationalist, doesn't it? :>

Dayna


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