Tag Archives: education

04.01.16
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Welcome to Torg Stories!

Torg Stories is a place for me to write about what tugs at my attention. I spend a lot of my time thinking about writing and the teaching of writing, content creation, and coaching basketball. Over the years, I’ve directed four films, had three books of fiction published, and won several screenplay awards. I’ve organized some of the topics I write about into the following categories:

  1. Youth Basketball Workouts and Player Development
  2. My family’s French Broad River Adventure
  3. The Craft of Writing and Teaching Writing

Like Holden Caulfield says in The Catcher in the Rye, “The trouble with me is, I like it when somebody digresses. It’s more interesting and all.” Rather than chastise myself about too many digressions or what could be seen as a scatterbrained approach to my work, I’ll say my writing here embraces an interdisciplinary way of thinking that allows for more of life to come in from the outside and get onto the screen. A big hope for this space is that it might allow us to learn from each other and share a good story or two. Like this one time, me and my family–having never rafted on our own in our entire lives–rafted 149 miles of the French Broad River…

On the French Broad River Torgerson French Broad River Paddle Trail Asheville Rosman MountainTrue RiverLink

Charlotte, Bill, Izzy and Megan Torgerson with Hot Springs, NC in the Background

A bit more about me: I’m a native Midwesterner who was born in Logansport, Indiana and a person who moved to Illinois to go to college, back to Indiana to teach and coach, to North Carolina for graduate school, to Georgia for more graduate school, to New York City to teach at St. John’s University, to Connecticut to escape the crowds, back to New York City to escape the commute, back to North Carolina for the mountains, back to Indiana to coach, and now we Torgs are getting ready for another move back to North Carolina. Next fall I will begin a lecturer position teaching composition at Appalachian State University in Boone. A few things I learned the past year:

  1. I found it impossible to meet my expectations for the kind of English teacher, basketball coach, husband, and dad I wanted to be balancing all of those responsibilities.
  2. I want to be free in the late afternoons to spend time with my wife and daughters, whether it’s playing hoops, working out, doing homework, creating content, or going on family adventures.
  3. We Torgs feel at home in the mountains of North Carolina.

Below, you’ll see a bit of what I’ve been up to over the years:

Books

Click here for Torg books for sale on Amazon

Indiana, basketball, love, divorce, winamac, Indiana, Pat Conroy, book club

Pat Conroy called The Coach’s Wife, “One of the best books about basketball and coaching I have ever read with a love story so complicated and wonderful it will have book groups talking about it for years.”

Thanks to Pat. I learned a lot about writing from reading his work, and I’m thankful to be able to keep hearing from him via his books.

***

MIdwestern Gothic, novel in stories, Winamac, Indiana, basketball, Flannery O'Connor, William Torgerson

Horseshoe is Midwestern Gothic collection of stories with themes about love, sin, guilt, and redemption.

romantic comedy, eighties, John Hughes, Say Anything, Olivet Nazarene University, basketball, college writing, winamac, Indiana, book club

In Love on the Big Screen, Zuke is a college freshman whose understanding of love has been shaped by late-80’s romantic comedies.

Films

morel mushrooms, hunting, Indiana, France Park, Bill William Torgerson, Martin Torgerson

The Mushroom Hunter is about my father and his buddies’ passion for hunting morel mushrooms.

Click here to watch “The Mushroom Hunter” free online.

More Torg Stories films: Christopher’s Garden and For the Love of Books

08.27.15
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Assignment Overview: A Writer on Writing

For an upcoming meeting at St. John’s University where I teach First Year Writing Courses, I was asked to speak about some aspect of my teaching. I decided to share an assignment I’ve been giving the past few years I call “A Writer on Writing.”

Some ways we learn about writing in our course:

  1. We write regularly for an audience we interact with.
  2. We read what other writers have to say about writing.
  3. We write to learn by situating our thoughts and reflections about writing within what other writers have written about writing.
  4. We learn to read like a writer by paying attention to choices writers make in their creation of texts.

Here are some examples of the kinds of texts students take a look at: 

  • Zadie Smith’s “That Crafty Feeling”
  • Anne Lamott’s “Shitty First Drafts”
  • Keith Richards’ excerpt from Life about songwriting
  • Stephen King excerpt from On Writing
  • Alice Walker interview “Writing to Save My Life”
  • Mark Doty’s “Souls on Ice”
  • Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue”
  • Do you have favorite texts about writing to recommend?

My introduction to this assignment from the course I taught this summer:

At least in this class, you have been a writer writing with other writers. I want you to claim this identity of being a writer for at least the purpose of this paper. You are the writer saying something about writing in this paper. My impulse to give you this assignment was that you would tell us about your experiences writing in this class while integrating the thoughts of writers you have been reading.

I do want to give you the space to do something different with this assignment if you’d like. Some students in the past have decided to focus on their learning of English, their dislike of writing, their wish to write screenplays, that they do slam poetry, that they speak five languages, or to think about the writing they publish on Twitter or other social media platforms. It’s a wide-open assignment as long as you focus in some way on writing and/or the use of language. Write at least 1,500 words and quote from at least three of the Writer on Writing texts (Peter Elbow counts as one if you want). You’ll use signal phrases, direct quotes, parenthetical citations, and do an MLA works cited page.

Some titles and “Golden Lines” from papers written by students the past few semesters:

  • I Dare You: I hate what they’ve done to me. They’ve made me into a robot. They’ve made my writing into a Mad Lib. Insert noun here, adjective there, quote here, citation there.” -Tatiana Castellanos
  • Writing for Me: In high school, we were assigned a paper and whenever it was due we would just hand it in to the teacher hoping to get a high grade. Having classmates listen along as you read your paper was something I’d never done before. Something I realized while writing papers in this class was that I was afraid. In “The Teacherless Writing Class” by Peter Elbow, he claims, “You have to keep from making apologies or giving explanations. For example, ‘I just wrote this last night, I didn’t have much time and didn’t revise it at all’” (101). Even though I felt self-conscious and uncomfortable reading my paper to people who were then strangers to me, I stopped myself from making excuses about my writing and waited for their criticism. What surprised me was the amount of positive feedback they had to say about my paper. -Sharin Chowdury
  • Learning to Write an Essay: Have you ever been afraid of doing something? For example, have you ever been afraid of talking to people? Or have you ever been scared of opening your mouth and saying something in your head? I have. I am a student from China still trying to learn English. -Xinxin He
  • Writing Does Not Have to Be a Burden: I remember that my classmate Farzana Haniff wrote in her process essay about how she kept erasing and rewriting her essay about her trip to Guyana because she thought it wasn’t good enough. Then she wrote about how she was able to get over her writer’s block which I think serves as great piece of advice. She wrote, “I decided to just go with my gut and to just continue writing whatever came to my mind. So I completely ignored the ‘delete’ button on my laptop and I just kept typing without even fixing spelling errors.” I thought about what Farzana wrote whenever I encounter the same problem of erasing and rewriting and it has helped me over think less about my writing choices. -Sammie Li
  • The Little Big Things: The writing process was tricky for me. I wanted to avoid being cliché and dull but when trying to write about something of this content, it can be difficult. During this process the reading from Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott reminded me that no matter how successful a writer is they often feel like they are “pulling teeth, even those writers whose prose ends up being the most natural and fluid” (22). This told me that it was okay that I was having a difficult writing process; I simply had to feel it out and roll with the punches. -Sarah Khan
01.06.13
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To the Students: An Invitation to Twitter

Dear Writer,

Twitter can be used for much more than publishing to the world what you are having for dinner. There’s a metaphor gifted to me from a former professor that goes like this: writing floats on a sea of conversation. Twitter is often about conversation. It’s great for making professional connections, accessing information published by people from all over the world, and participating in discussions including the last presidential election, a major sporting or entertainment event, or finding those who care about what you care about. Just last semester, students used Twitter to find gas for their cars after hurricane Sandy, located potential internships, and exchanged tweets from professionals in their area of major from all over the world. Like Facebook and other forms of social media, Twitter can give you a voice heard by businesses and government organizations.

We’ll begin using Twitter as a way to establish community in our course, access information beyond our classroom community, and perhaps build connections with people who care about the same issues we do.  Follow the directions below to set up your account.

Best,

Bill

Twitter, college, English, writing, language arts, multiple literacies

 

  1. Consider if you’d like for people to know who you are on Twitter.  I’m “BillTorg” and that’s pretty obviously me.  If I’m “EightiesDude,” then maybe it’s harder to figure out who I am.
  2. If you already have a Twitter account, you are welcome to use it. The personality and content of your Tweets will depend on the public identity you wish to create. This might be the time to use your St. John’s University email account to start a new approach.
  3. Twitter messages are limited to 140 characters.  The longer your Twitter name, the less room you and others have to exchange messages.  So “BillTorg” works better for me than “WilliamJosephTorgerson.”
  4. You will be asked to write a short bio for yourself.  Think about what it will say.  Some people write a silly one.  My sister’s is, “What’s on the what what?” Mine explains my job and what I do. I often find myself revising mine.
  5. You can link to your Twitter account to another site. Perhaps your blog?
  6. Go to Twitter.com
  7. Fill out the “New to Twitter” box.  Complete the steps. Let me know if there’s additional directions I should have listed here. Help me to revise this document so it can better serve the needs of those new to Twitter.
  8. When you finish setting up your account, you are going to tweet to me. You should see a white box that has this inside:  Compose new Tweet…
  9. Click inside the box.  First write this: @BillTorg
  10. The “@billtorg” is my Twitter name. Put whatever you want after that, something like, “I set up my Twitter account!”  If you want to write something more creative than that, go ahead!
  11. When you tweet to me, I’ll write you back. Do you see that “@ Connect” button at the top of the screen? If you click on that, you’ll see everyone who has tweeted directly to you. That will be how you know I received your tweet. I don’t usually follow students and you shouldn’t feel obligated to follow me. We’ll set up a system to see each other’s tweets related to class.
  12. There’s a lot more you can do with finding tweets and customizing your background.  Experiment by reading and clicking around on the Twitter pages. Two great places to start are the “view my profile page” and “#discover.”  On the profile page, click on the large “edit” tab in the upper right hand corner.  On the “#discover” tab, look all over the page and click around. Be sure to click on the following words and phrases:  activity, who to follow, find friends, and browse categories.
  13. More instructions, guidelines, and assignments will follow.


Write to me with questions:  torgersw@stjohns.edu

If you know about hash tags (more on that later) we will use this one:  #torgchat

11.13.12
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NCTE 2012 Handout: Twitter in the Writing Classroom

Dear Colleague,

I use a metaphor gifted to me by a former professor to think about my professional life. It goes, Writing Floats on a Sea of Conversation. In the fifteen years I’ve been in writing classrooms, I’ve come to believe it’s important for me to help students navigate all of the conversations they are having in digital spaces. Much of the reading and writing my students do is on the screens of their devices. There is a lot of power up for grabs in these spaces: votes will be garnered and lost, money will change bank accounts, and voices will be heard and suppressed. I originally introduced Twitter into our classroom because I thought it might help with student engagement during class discussions. That didn’t go so well. Students seemed to become lost in the worlds of their screens and the classroom fell silent.  I’d been leaning toward scrapping my use of Twitter until something happened during a conference with a student. Our conversation caused us to enter the student’s major–speech pathology–into the Twitter search box. What we found was a tweet from a speech pathologist about a job opening. For the student, who had always characterized herself as a reluctant user of technology, this was a moment where Twitter was transformed from just one more messaging system she needed to keep up with to a powerful tool that might impact her future. For the next semester, I decided that I’d have students try and find professionals within their field who tweeted. What has happened since then, is that I’ve come to see possibilities for students related to research, gathering news, and building a sense of community in the writing classroom. I see Twitter as one place students can experience a tangible example of how they might situate themselves within a conversation relevant to their lives. As someone who values that sort of  conversation for my own professional growth, I hope you’ll take the time to connect to say hello, note an observation, or ask a question. I’m including some notes below relevant to my experience with Twitter so far. Thanks for reading!

Best,

Bill

Some thoughts related to Twitter in the writing classroom:

  1. Students can decide to what degree they want to be known on Twitter. If I’m “Writer89,” and my profile picture is an apple, I don’t have to be easily identifiable. Teachers should  at least keep a private record of what student is connected to which Twitter account.
  2. What might students tweet? golden lines from readings or classmates’ writing, questions, notes of encouragement, reflections, or highlights from group work.
  3. You can lose the attention of students to their gadgets. I find myself asking students to open their laptops or get out their phones and then asking them to put those devices away. You might use Twitter as a place for work outside of class time.
  4. I’ve had students write digital literacy narratives. This has worked well.
  5. Twitter has become one more way for students to engage with the classroom community. Some students speak up in class, some do well in small groups, some write emails, and some tweet. Students send tweets to me and each other.
  6. Twitter can be a place for student research as they identify people who tweet articles and links related to conversations that are important to them.


Here’s an excerpt from a student blog that highlights what I think is possible for student research and professional connections through the use of Twitter:

After reading about nuclear pharmacy jobs on @Pharmacy_Job, I decided to search on Twitter more specifically on nuclear pharmacy jobs and I found a page @NuclearPharmacy. According to the description provided, nuclear pharmacy jobs consist of nuclear Pharmacist, radiochemist, health physicists, chemists, pharmacy technicians, and radiopharmacist…I can definitely see myself using this Twitter page! Some interesting articles that I have found on this page include topics concerning diabetes, heroin drug use, and updates from the FDA.  Searching in Twitter has made me realize that the most popular jobs are still in retail and in hospitals. However, other fields and roles are slowly becoming more and more popular as well. These pages will certainly help me find a job when I graduate!

Here are some examples of the sorts of tweets my students publish:

  • I have no clue what to do my documentary film on…
  • Prof. Torg, you’re right when you say that college is a place for trying new things. An example of one of those things is this tweet.
  • Going vegetarian all this week as an experiment for my latest documentary #wishmeluck
  • I found a twitter page titled New York Internships which can help me get an internship in my major
  • social media will soon over take media outlets as time goes on we are beginning to rely more on each other than a third party
  • “The exemplary DJ is a model of rhetorical excellence, and even the everyday DJ is a model of rhetorical agility” Digital Griots
  • my summary of the article i read for hw: the internet is not only changing the way we read, its changing the way we THINK#wow
  • wat do lebron james and professor torg have in common? Hairline.


I hope you’ll take the time to say hello, offer an observation, or ask a question!

Tweet to me @BillTorg or write me an email here: William.Torgerson@gmail.com

NCTE 2012 Twitter in the Writing English Language Arts Classroom

09.25.12
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Would you vote and tell me about your Twitter use?

[dc]T[/dc]
his post is for anyone who thinks they might want to try out Twitter, or perhaps, anyone who could use a set of instructions to pass along to students.

Social Media, Education, NCTE, Writing, Digital literacy

The handout to my instructions are here, or you can just read them below:

  1. Consider if you’d like for people to know who you are on Twitter.  I’m “BillTorg” and that’s pretty obviously me.  If I’m “EightiesDude,” then maybe it’s harder to figure out who I am.
  2. Twitter messages are limited to 140 characters.  The longer your name, the less room you and others have to exchange messages.  So “BillTorg” works better for me than “WilliamJosephTorgerson.”
  3. You will be asked to write a short bio for yourself.  Think about what it will say.  Some people’s are silly.  My sister’s is, “What’s on the what what?” Mine explains my job and what I do. I tinker with it quite a bit.
  4. You can link to your Twitter account to another site. Perhaps your Facebook page?
  5. Click on the Twitter link on the classroom website.  It’s Twitter.com
  6. Fill out the “New to Twitter” box.  Complete the steps.  Let me know if there’s additional directions I should have listed here.
  7. I’m @BillTorg on Twitter.  If you tweet and follow me and tell me that you followed these directions, I’ll follow you back. If you don’t know how to do that, there will be another set of directions coming right up.
  8. There’s a lot more you can do with color and customizing your background.  Experiment.

A more sophisticated set of instructions is coming right up.  Love to hear your feedback on this handout and what else you might find useful.