Vanessa Vaile - Greetings & Expections

Hello all. It feels as though I have been introducing myself over and over all over the place. So here's my blogger profile, my introduction posted to group and my home town blog, Mountainair Arts. I do another local announcements blog as well as a poetry blog. Here are more more pictures of where I live. You may know me better now than some of my cousins do ... hahaha

Sable and me last winter

Yes, I am horse crazy even at 65, never outgrew it and taught riding for years before I taught writing. I trained Sable so she ought to count as one of my students...

I am now editing this page - that's why the font style and color are not the same as the rest of the post. I should have waited to read the specific instructions. Sorry, but I do not have any pictures of me with a class, not with an ESL class or a composition class or a literature class or a Spanish class.... if I dig back far enough, I might find a picture of a riding class to scan...

Brief education / teaching recap for reference: MA English @ UL-Lafayette, PhD work, Comparative Literature @ UC Davis; Composition, Literature, Developmental Writing, ESL online for StudyCom (since 1997), GED, Family Literacy, computer skills & computer mediated writing w/ local after school program.

So far my expectations are to be less confused and better organized by the end of the week. I am also in BaW (trying to keep track of all the other participants as well as all the tools) and and presenting Week 4 of Tips & Tricks, computer apps, software & strategies for evaluating student writing (without going bonkers under the load), Collaborative writing and writing groups will figure prominently. Needless to say you are all invited to show up. That's only fair since I'll be picking your brains and trying ideas and resources out on you. Anyway that makes a total of 3 sessions counting this one - 1 more than recommended. Obviously I am not a math teacher.

I've used different kinds of collaborative and group projects in writing and writing intensive classes over the years. On top of that, I've been surfing and bookmarking sites, articles, handouts, resources on collaborative writing. The term can cover a lot of ground. I was thinking just sharing our understanding of what it is and what other kinds there are might be a good idea. Maybe not all of us understand or use collaborative writing in the same way.

I'm looking forward to learning new ways to use collaborative writing, fine tuning the familiar - making it new again and collecting as many new ideas for projects as possible.