Deke in Dearborn Lets a Twit Twist On Her Own Tweet. * UPDATED WITH NEW ART! *

So, we did a unit on social media at the start of the semester, public writing, public art, yada yada. I had a class Twitter account that I used for 4 weeks. It was actually much better and more interesting than I thought it would be.

But that unit ended and I pretty much stopped checking the account.

Alongside that, I've had one student, Marcia, drama queen, queen period, who has been having a hard time getting along with her classmates. She freaks out if anyone disagrees with her. And she'll occasionally, in a meltdown, come out with a string of profanity that is quite impressive. (And it's comical, too, because she has a tiny voice and always dressed as if we were going to serve tea at any moment.)

Anyway, two students have already come to me to tell me they are afraid to talk in class, and I really felt that I wanted to say something as well. So I had Marcia stay after class. Before I started really getting to it, she burst into tears. Victim. Her whole life people have been against her. Too pretty. Too bright. It was a cross. She actually said cross.

After a couple of tissues she pulled it together. "Dr. Deke," she said. "You know, I'm glad you told me about this. Really. I'm going to be better about all of this, my talking in class, and those attacks. I really actually am happy this came up. You really saw what I needed. I can't thank you enough."

Then she stood up and angled around my desk as if to hug me. No thank you, I thought. I put one hand out and sort of gave her a pat to her shoulder and she sheepishly shrugged and left the office.

Drama over, I hoped.

Then yesterday, a colleague was asking me about my social media unit. Was it any good? What worked and what didn't?

So in my office I booted up my class Twitter account and showed him how through clever hastagging my students and I discussed several concepts about the public art in Chicago.

About half a page down in my feed was a tweet from Marcia. It wasn't directed at me; it was just one of three tweets she had made that day.

It read:

While my colleague looked on, I retweeted her note and added this. "No you didn't."

Three hours later I checked the feed again and her account was gone.