I think this writing session happened at the right time. Given comments on last week's entry about lack of communication and direction, meeting face-to-face with the expressed purpose of writing appeared to be just what we needed. To be honest, I'm unsure now about addressing concerns voiced there as the Torch writing session appears to have taken care of most/all of them.
Among the most productive were those researcher/writer pairs sitting across from other researcher/writer pairs. I often observed them talking over their laptops to each other about their respective work. These cross-pair conversations were almost more helpful than those in-pair discussions.
However, the bar environment wasn't conducive for all. The noise level was about what I expected, but I know not everyone is able to work under such conditions. Space was an additional, related issue as we all had to fit our food and drinks alongside bulky laptops and piles of articles and books. We'll be meeting in our regular classroom on the UM-Flint campus next week, so I expect both noise and space will be non-issues.
This is a rather short entry, though, because I want to direct audience attention to reflective entries by MBr and RA. Neither entry was required, but both are quite helpful in gleaning additional perspectives on this collaborative authoring project.
It's hard to write about a role that you have very little, or no experience with. The social role of the teacher, for example, is one that some may have first-hand experience with, or may only have knowledge about from scholarly articles. Either way, it isn't something you cannot write about, even if you have never been in that role. I know for some, writing about a role they've never stepped foot in makes them feel unsure, but I know from my own experience, it can be done.
What this class is is an exercise in the basest components of research with an eye toward contributing to a larger discussion. We are originating, researching, and synthesizing new discussion for outside consumption. *: The word "book" has attracted far too much angst in the past 4 weeks. I don't care if this is a book, a wiki, a novella, an ebook, or if these topics end up lacking the cohesion to justify a collection and we all take our pieces and look elsewhere for contribution (although I sincerely doubt the last scenario will happen). What we are trying to do here is to fit our research and writing into a larger assemblage which is itself joining a larger discussion. I knew from the beginning that the most attractive elements of a true TextDash would have difficulty integrating: in-person back-and-forth brainstorming, immersion with many like-minded writers, and developing a well-honed topic/subtopic relationship were all bound to diminish where the participants meet 2.5 hours per week over 8 weeks and necessarily had to do their work away from each other amidst the rest of regular life.