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Digication Scholars Conversations...
Welcome to Digication
Scholars Conversations.
I'm your host, Kelly Driscoll.
In this episode, you'll hear Part Two
of my conversation with Bill Torgerson,
a lecturer in Rhetoric and Composition
at Appalachian State University.
My conversation with Bill took
place before Hurricane Helene, which
has had devastating effects on the
campus and surrounding communities.
We have included donation information
in the show notes for the App
State Disaster Relief Fund and the
restoration of the treasured Valle
Crucis Park in Bill's neighborhood.
More links and information about today's
conversation can be found on Digication's
Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Full episodes of Digication Scholars
Conversations can be found on
YouTube or your favorite podcast app.
I was just curious if you'd stumbled
upon some Uh, students in creating these
recommendations, if you encountered
work that may have been done beyond
your course, that you could view in
the context of what they had done
during their time with you too.
There's so much growth that happens.
Yeah, I don't, um, You know, if I put your
name in, you know, like a student turns in
the wrong link or the links not working.
And so I search and that's another
thing that's really nice about us all
being on the same platform is, you know,
I'll do a little extra work to try to
find your portfolio because whatever
you've turned in, isn't the right link.
And then I'll see that you've maybe
created other portfolios, but usually I
have so much to read and respond to that.
I'm not.
Poking around others, perusing.
Well, so Bill, I, I also wanted
to bring up, so you ha I learned a
little bit about you from your own,
um, kind of, uh, website when I
was preparing to talk to you today.
And there are some Lovely aspects.
Uh, first of all, you
have your own podcast.
Uh, I wanted to learn a little bit
about that if you'd like to share that
with our listeners and kind of your
perspective on being a Writer that teaches
writing, writing is still something
that you're doing creatively today
and how that ties into what you might
be doing in your classroom currently.
Yeah, so I have a podcast that I
call 'Torg Stories', um, and really
the, the inception of it was, it
was just an excuse to talk to people
I wanted to talk to, which you've
probably heard like that before.
So I don't know if you know this,
um, for a period of maybe five years
or so, um, I was what was called
the director of Creative Writing for
the, uh, Rhode Island film festival.
Oh, you were?
No, I did not know that.
Okay.
So, I've, you know, been on your
campus, um, and had a film show there,
actually, had one film show there.
Very cool.
Um, so that started because, um, I wrote a
first novel called Love on the Big Screen.
And, um, and I had studios, et cetera,
interested in the novel to option it.
No one ever optioned it.
Um, and I thought, well, I'm
going to write my own screenplay.
I'm going to adapt my own novel.
Um, and so I did that and then, um,
that won the grand prize of the Rhode
Island film festival competition.
Um, and so now I got like this, this
all access pass at a film festival.
And I really fell in love
with the short films.
Um, it just had so much in common with,
uh, the short stories that I loved, for
example, and documentary films, which
I've done a couple of those independently.
Um, and that really paired with, uh,
you know, like the idea of an electronic
portfolio and creating in digital spaces.
So I would watch these short
documentaries, almost like
character sketches, really.
Um, and I thought I can make one of these.
Uh, and so then I started, I mean, so
being there led to me, um, going back
to that idea of it's fun to make stuff.
I made my first one was about my
father who hunted these things called
Morale Mushrooms, which is a really
cool family artifact that we have,
um, but, I mean, for example, there
was this guy named Chris Sparling.
He was at the film festival, and
he had just written this screenplay
called Buried, and Ryan Reynolds was
the star of this, this great, this,
he wrote this screenplay so that he
could star in his own screenplay,
and almost the whole film takes place
in a coffin buried in the ground.
I don't know if you've ever
seen Buried, but anyway.
Ryan Reynolds ended up wanting to do it.
And he was like, well, I can't
say no to Ryan Reynolds, but I
wanted to interview this guy.
So, um, and other people like him.
And so I started this podcast
called it Torg Stories.
So if I was like, Hey, Chris, do you want
to, you know, have dinner for an hour?
Talk to me.
You know, no, not really.
Um, I'm not too busy , but if I, if I get
in touch and say, Hey, I have a podcast,
would you be a guest on my podcast?
People tended to say yes to
that more than dinner with me.
So that, that's kind of where it started.
So it's been 20 years.
They're not all available 'cause I've
changed platforms a couple times.
Sure.
But it's just kind of turned into one.
I get to talk to my sister.
She's my most, we kind of
co-host most of the time.
Okay, great.
And then it continues to be an excuse.
Um, to just invite anybody I want to
talk to for an hour onto my podcast.
Well, I certainly understand that.
I mean, that's part of
why you're here, Bill
Yeah.
I wondered what, like what you
would say is your motivation.
I mean, I'm sure it's multi-pronged
to have these conversations.
Yeah, well, it is multi-pronged.
Um, I absolutely love the
community that we get to work
with and that we serve with our.
platform.
Um, and I, you know, I often, I think, as
I mentioned before we started recording,
you know, I feel like I've known you for a
long time, even though we haven't actually
sat down to have a conversation like this.
Um, and there's a lot of people out there
like that, you know, I've discovered them.
Um, through ways that they have been
using the platform or things that they
have shared in other social media areas
where they may have tagged Digication
or, um, been speaking specifically about.
using ePortfolios or, um, other
kinds of high impact practices
where they're using Digication.
And it's just been such a joyful
experience to see how, you know,
people are using something that I've
created and the value that they have
found in their teaching, the value
that students have found in, you
know, learning about themselves.
Connecting to other people within their
school communities or beyond, um, you
know, we talked a little bit about these
kind of shifting kind of life trajectories
and kind of pinnacle moments and very
often those Stories come out within the
pages that they create within Digication.
So you do get these kind of windows
into the, the people that you're, you
know, helping to support and serve.
And, um, but I don't often have the
opportunity to interact with everyone.
And, right that's something that really
shifted when I, um, You know, began
focusing on Digication full time and
was no longer directly in the classroom
working with students one on one.
Um, so this is something that
we've wanted to do for a long time.
I think we're in our third year now
and, um, it's just so much fun to
have the, the chance to, to talk
to people and to be able to share.
Their experience with, with other
people that are kind of following
our, our channel and interested
in the, the bigger community that
they've kind of become a part of
through the use of this platform too.
Right.
Yeah.
Um, so I know another element of
your life that's very important
is your love of basketball.
And I hope that you might
share some stories about that
aspect of yourself as well.
Yeah, you know the first thing, I've
always kind of balanced between Um,
liking to make stuff, which started as
writing and then just being a basket,
a college, a small college basketball
player and a basketball coach.
And I used to like try to, I
used to hide those parts of
myself from each other's camp.
Like, um, you know, when I was applying
for University jobs, I wasn't necessarily
saying anything about basketball.
And so I don't know if you'll know any of
these names, but somebody like Pat Conroy,
um, who wrote "The Prince of Tides."
Um, so he, he was a Writer.
Um, you know, a respected Writer
at universities who also played
basketball at the Citadel.
Um, and who kind of balanced, um, Sports
and Academics and a guy named Richard
Ford, uh, who won the Pulitzer and he
wrote a book called "The Sportswriter."
Um, and a guy like John Irving who wrote
"The Cider House Rules" and was also
the local high school wrestling coach.
Um, So like those are three people I think
of who helped me sort of say I can proudly
be a Creative Writer and I can proudly
be, uh, heavily involved in sports and
really, um, I kind of transitioned from
coaching to, writing around 2002, and
then I had, and I thought I was done with
coaching, and I was done with sports.
Then I had two kids, and I used to,
so I lived in New Canaan, Connecticut
for a while, and I had a second grade
daughter who's now a senior, and I
used to play in this old guy pickup
basketball game at lunch, at the Y,
and I had signed my daughter up for
second grade basketball, and they
were like, and everyone calls me Torg.
And they were like, Torg,
you're not a bad player.
We don't have anybody to
work with these girls.
Will you do it?
And so literally, I just went
from being, okay, I'll, I'll
work with these second graders.
So that was like 15 little girls.
And then I immediately started to see
like, Yes, I'm connecting with my students
in the classroom, um, but nothing like I'm
connecting with these 15 second graders
who I'm spending all this time with.
So I just, it's sort of weird, I just kind
of follow my daughter Charlotte through
school from second grade up through being
a senior and then like one thing leads to
another, you know, she's a seventh grader.
And they're like, would you
coach the seventh grade?
And then I was an assistant and our
head coach here at Watauga High School.
Her name is Laura Barry.
And she took an assistant job surprisingly
to us at Davidson College last August.
And so it's like, she's like,
I think you should do it.
And you know, some of the parents
were like, you should do it.
Um, and there's trickiness in being that.
So I have two daughters on the team.
It's hard on them.
You know, I make.
Every day you make decisions
that make some people unhappy.
There's no way you can avoid it.
Um, I'm sure you run into
that managing your company.
Um, and they, sometimes people take
it out on my kids a little bit.
Um, but they were all for it.
So we just had a really incredible
season, uh, where we went to the final
four and we played at Wake Forest.
Um, so we lost in the final four
in a close game, um, which was
exhausting, but also thrilling.
So, um, I've always kind of just like
balanced those two parts of my life, my,
my writing, teaching, writing self with
my, um, spending my afternoons playing,
you know, working with kids in the gym.
So it's much more, it started out much
more as a way to be around my daughters
and be around their peers and it did
basketball, um, although I might be
tricking myself a little bit on that.
Oh, I mean, I just think that that is so
wonderful and what an opportunity for your
daughters to, to be able to watch you in
this kind of leadership and mentoring and
coaching role throughout their childhood.
And, you know, you mentioned that.
Um, you know, you're making these
decisions every day and that not,
you know, not everyone's going to be
happy with those decisions and even
for them to be able to see that kind
of decision making and response to,
you know, certain times where there
may be friction and, uh, enjoying the,
the competition, even when, you know,
the, the wind might not come through.
Um, you know, what a wonderful experience.
Right.
If you take it back to like Art and
Sports, I mean, something I could
start to see when my kids were very
young was some of the things that
I had learned from sports that had
served me well, um, as being creative
in that, for example, just the idea
of perseverance or taking criticism.
So, you know, I grew up a
basketball player, constantly
being evaluated, sometimes not very
cheerfully, um, my performance.
And so when I was in graduate school and.
Getting feedback on things I had
written, you know, some people
really struggled with that.
And for me, it was something that
I was used to, or, um, maybe, maybe
set my first novel out, you know, 75
times, um, until finally someone, you
know, an independent press took it.
And just that it never occurred to me
that I was going to stop sending it out.
Whereas, I could see that other
people without that sports background
maybe were more apt to give up.
Or, you know, I applied for
50 jobs coming out of school
and only had four interviews.
So just like some of the things
I learned from sticking with
something in Sports or getting
used to setbacks really transferred
to lots of other areas of life.
And so that's like something I wanted
for my kids and the reason I sort of
re engaged with Sports, which of course
you can get in other ways from sports,
but that was just a path that we took.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I feel really fortunate that, um,
you know, I had a lot of support
from my father and he always
watched a lot of College Basketball.
So, uh, I also played
basketball growing up.
Um, and, and soccer.
I was better on the soccer field than
on the basketball court, but I always
enjoyed the game and being part of
the team and I talked to my kids a
lot about, you know, just go try out.
You may not get to play most games.
You may end up sitting on the bench unless
your team's really far ahead and you might
get out there for the last five minutes
or something, or you might find that this
is something that, you know, becomes a new
passion for you, but you know, you don't
know until you, until you give it a go.
And I loved being part of the basketball
team, even though most of my role
was just helping during practice.
You know, I didn't mind that
I was spending time just
cheering on the the sideline.
Yeah, that's a hard sell probably
always but today just that all the
rewards there are for being on a team
which have nothing to do with the
number of minutes that you're on the
court or the shots that you're getting.
That's something that I'm always
trying to point out and that I think
kids would see if they were sort
of left to see it on their own, but
they hear so much from you know.
'How many points did you score?'
You're not getting to play.
You should be playing.
So it just always, you know, it is
fun to do those things, but also just
pointing out all the rewards there
are that have nothing to do with play.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I'm sure so, and you may have some
obvious parallels that you can draw
from, but I can't imagine that this
experience coaching doesn't somehow find
its way into the way that you teach too.
Are there certain things
that you draw from?
And I feel.
I sort of try to not like behave
totally like a coach in the
classroom, but I think I fail in that.
I guess I worry about that.
I know that the classroom is not
the practice court gym, um, but even
some of my students, I think there's
just something about me that says
coach because some of my students
sort of fall into calling me coach.
In the classroom, I think just because
of the way I am, which is probably louder
than most professors, more excitable, more
like moving around the room, sitting down
next to you like, what's going on here?
Maybe, you know, not not like
confrontational, but just More like, I
am a presence here that you're going to
interact with when you're in this room.
Um, and I think it, most of the time, in
observations, you know, from superiors or
colleagues, it's usually very positive,
even though I feel self conscious about
trying to tone that down a little bit.
Um, but I do think that this, this would
be what I would point to as a coach and
as a professor, you know, the ability
to learn content, the ability to present
the content in an engaging way that makes
it easily digestible to the audience,
whether it's a player or a student.
Um, those are really important
in both of those spaces and
probably strengths of mine.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I imagine that your students really
Enjoy the level of energy that you bring
to the classroom, and I think for many
people, you know, that maybe don't know
you and your classroom just listening to
this and thinking back that your title is
Lecturer and Rhetoric and Composition, and
I can imagine that, you know, the first
vision may have been someone standing at a
podium at the front of the classroom and I
can imagine that, you know, the experience
in your classroom is very different that,
you know, you're moving around and talking
to students and have a, um, high level
of enthusiasm about, um, Storytelling
and learning and student success.
And I think that, um, one of the most
transformative experiences I had as a
teacher was I participated in what's
called the National Writing Project.
And that's when I say I went from
a person who set, who stood at the
podium and prepared lessons to a
person who sat next to my students
as a fellow Writer and creator.
So that changed everything.
So it's even, even.
Sometimes that's caused me, you know,
cause I've also, I've taught every
grade, um, six through graduate school.
So I've taught sixth graders and I've
taught every single grade in between sixth
grade and seniors, uh, in high school.
And then all the way up to working
with graduate students, um, in college.
So, um, and one thing that ran
into trouble sometimes Would be a
supervisor like a principal would come
in and observe me and they would be
like, well, where's your teaching?
You didn't do anything It's like everyone
in the room has a book that they're
really interested in and everyone
is working on a writing project.
You know with enthusiasm and all I'm
doing is walking around and saying
keep going you're doing great as you
ask questions So it's a style that
sometimes I had to sell and frame to
my superiors, but, uh, it's certainly a
much more fun day working with students
when that's the way that you're working.
Absolutely.
And that, you know, I wish that more
classrooms could, could be that way.
And, uh, I hope you get a lot
of support from your superiors
currently in, in that style.
I mean, great teaching is having
that student engagement, right?
Yeah.
The last two stops for me, you know, St.
John's, uh, and here at App
State, um, incredible support.
Just like, um, I feel like,
um, yeah, everybody's concerned
about how I'm feeling.
It is my energy good.
And, um, as opposed to like
giving me orders about things.
So, um, I, I, at App State, I
feel like I'm with my people, uh,
as far as pedagogy is concerned.
Yeah.
Now, Bill, I have to.
Mention this because it's behind you.
In your video, you have a big, uh,
the big word 'Believe' up there.
Right.
Would you mind talking
about that a little bit?
So does that mean that you've
seen 'Ted Lasso' or you have not?
I have seen a, I have not seen every
episode, but I am a fan, but yeah.
Um, it sounds like that might
be coming from Ted Lasso
That's right.
So, um, I mean, I already had,
uh, I can't quite remember the
poster, but way before Ted Lasso.
I had a picture, um, of
a unicorn in therapy.
On the wall of my office, um,
and the unicorn is being told
you have to believe in yourself.
Um, so just a super corny, earnest,
perhaps midwestern - I'm from Indiana
- um, you know, of just being a good person
and being helpful and we can do it.
Um, and so Ted Lasso was a really
unusual show about, you know, kindness,
uh, and it was weird to have, um, Such
a positive lead character in a show.
Um, and so I, I also have some
Ted Lasso figurines back there.
Some of those, those are
presents also from my family.
Um, but, um, I just sort
of load up behind me.
With artifacts of family life,
mostly a little bit of basketball.
I got a little Larry Bird back there.
Um, and then, and then Ted, you know,
I like Jason Sudeikis, who I think co
created Ted Lasso, um, college basketball
player, which people don't know.
Um, I'm also a big standup comedy guy.
Um, so that's SNL and he was on SNL.
So there's a lot of intersections
of like the stuff I love, which is
sports and laughing and making stuff.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, and it sounds like
kindness also, and yeah.
Thanks.
Good.
I, yeah.
Great.
Care for people.
Yeah.
Well, thank you so much
for joining me today, Bill.
It was wonderful to have a chance to
connect with you and get to know you
a bit more, even though I've felt like
we've known each other a long time.
I really appreciate it.
Um, I'm excited to share your
story with our listeners too.
Yeah, I enjoyed, I enjoyed
talking with a host for a change.
Usually I'm the one who's trying
to listen and also see what
question I'm going to next.
So it was, it was great to have you,
uh, carry the workload today, Kelly.
Yeah.
Well, my, my absolute pleasure.
Take good care.
All right.
Thank you.
Bye.