Mark Johnson-
During the fall 2004 semester, Mark Johnson, a graduate assistant in English, implemented web-portfolios in his English 111 class, and took the traditional paper portfolio to another level.While writing in a variety of academic genres, Johnson’s students evaluated, revised, and organized their work to present as web-portfolios, which were designed with Macromedia Contribute, a user-friendly web-editing program. Johnson’s web-portfolio curriculum followed the traditional portfolio processes of collection, selection, and reflection, but in addition, he said, the web-portfolios allowed students to make their writing “public documents for a local and global audience,” which helped “enrich their roles as participators in the specific discourse community where they learn and live.” Johnson said he believes when students left his course, they developed writing, research, and technology skills that benefit them in and beyond the classroom.
Johnson will continue using web-portfolios in his writing courses and collecting samples of student work to be used in a forthcoming multimedia essay. The essay will examine the non-linear, hyper-textual aspects of student web-portfolios and how students, when writing for the web, learn appropriate ways to break away from simple, linear organization and thinking. Johnson suggested that “if our intelligence works by association, so can a web-portfolio.”
Nicholas Ozment-
A paper by WSU English Graduate Assistant Nicholas Ozment has been accepted for publication in the book Tolkien and Shakespeare: Influences, Echoes, Revisions. Ozment's paper is tentatively titled "Prospero's Books, Gandalf's Staff: Magic in Shakespeare and Tolkien" and will explore the affinities and differences in the two writers' literary treatment of magic (its types and the ethics of its use). The two primary texts Ozment's paper will consider are The Lord of the Rings and The Tempest. The book will likely be published in 2006
