Note: Today I am giving a talk/workshop on blogging for feminist teaching and research. I have decided to post it as a series of entries on this blog so that it can serve as a virtual handout for those attending the workshop and as a resource for those who couldn’t make it. Another reason I am posting this talk here is that I am experimenting with using the blog, instead of powerpoint, as the format for my lectures and talks. Some of the material in these posts has been posted on other entries on this blog. This is part 3. As of 2/22, this entry is still under construction.
HOW I BLOG WHILE TEACHING AND FOR TEACHING
Okay, so I have discussed why I blog and how I use blogs in my teaching. In this post, I will briefly discuss how I blog while and for teaching. As I mention above, this entry is still under construction because parts 1 and 2 took a lot of time and energy to write.
Warning: There are many strategies for managing blogs so that they don’t overwhelm you, but you have to be vigilant in your practice of them. I think this workshop is an example of trying to take on too much in too little time. Perhaps another way to look at my failure to complete this entry is this: In the spirit of the blog, which is a living, always-in-process archive of one’s ideas and writings, I offer you my preliminary thoughts on blogging while teaching. Here are some examples (without my analysis) of how I see blogging while teaching working for me.
EXAMPLE ONE: Critical Reflection
Why did we stop asking questions?
This blog entry was originally published on this blog. I also assigned the essay that is discussed in this post for my feminist debates class and posted an excerpt from the entry on that blog, here. And I posted an excerpt of the entry on my graduate course blog, feminist/queer/troublemaking, here.
EXAMPLE TWO: Critical Essay
Does Troubling Virtue = Valuing Vice? And Other Questions About Vice and Virtue, part 1?
In this entry, I drew upon readings from my queering theory class and reflected on how they connected to my own thinking/research on troublemaking and ethics. Here is the note I wrote at the top of the entry:
Note: Having just finished this entry after almost 4 days of deliberating over how to frame it and what to write, I feel compelled to comment on my blogging process. I am not sure if this entry makes sense, but it has been incredibly productive for me as I attempt to place my own thinking about virtue ethics and troublemaking in a larger context. Writing this entry has enabled me to clarify my thinking, generated a lot of new questions and sources, and has fueled my passion for troubling virtue ethics. Cool. This entry is one reason why I love blog writing.
EXAMPLE THREE: Applying theories/concepts
The Trouble with Alice
I wrote this entry over the summer, while I was in the midst of watching a lot of the Brady Bunch. It was inspired by readings we had done in my Contemporary Feminist Debates course in the spring of 2009. We are reading some of those same essays and discussing some of the same issues in Feminist Debates this week (2/23-2/25), so I decided to post an excerpt of it for the class here.
EXAMPLE FOUR: Critical Reflection
The troublemaker as a feminist killjoy (or an unhappy queer?)
I wrote this entry at the end of last semester. It was inspired by readings from my queering theory and connects to readings for my graduate class on troublemaking for this spring.
EXAMPLES FIVE and SIX: Archiving Research for/while Teaching
Troublemaking and Feminist and Queer Pedagogies: Some Sources
The Queer Child: Some Sources
EXAMPLE SEVEN: My colloquium presentation on Judith Butler and the virtue of troublemaking
My presentation
Is grief our only resource for how to stay in trouble?
In my fall presentation for the GWSS Feminist Studies Collloquium series, I presented on Judith Butler and troublemaking. I read “my presentation” and reflected on parts of “is grief…”.
All of these entries enable me to bring together my teaching and research interests in ways that benefit both my teaching (I often post excerpts of these entries on my course blogs in order to share my research/knowledge with students) and my research (these entries enable me to archive my reflecting on and processing of readings).