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You may have noticed that the Bedford Bits blog has undergone a recent update. I unfortunately wasn’t able to post while the site was being updated, but I wanted to make sure I posted one more time before taking a break from blogging for the summer. And so, I am writing this post on June 6, twelve days after the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis. I have wept and grieved, contributed to Black Lives Matter and the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, marched while keeping a distance and wearing a mask in the little village I live near in northern California, and looked into my heart, searching for my own unacknowledged racism. And I’ve listened to the eloquent young people telling us of their suffering, of their relentless, ongoing fear, of their emotional and physical exhaustion. And I’ve been remembering the decades of protests telling us the very same thing, over and over and over. Perhaps this time is a movement rather than a “moment.” Perhaps we are at a watershed. I hope that we are and that students in the coming years will be able to write and speak about civil rights and about police reform and about social justice in a more hopeful, less exhausted way. And when they do, I hope they will look back not only on today, but to events from the 1960s, and particularly to this day 55 years ago, on June 6, 1965, when President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, three months after Martin Luther King Jr. led the Selma to Montgomery “Bloody Sunday” march. I’ve spent most of the day revisiting that year, and those leading up to it, and especially listening to the words of Dr. King. Surely it’s no coincidence that today I received a message about that year from the Kronos Quartet, whose work for peace and justice is now in its 46th year. During the pandemic, Kronos—like all arts groups—has been unable to perform live. But they have not been resting. Rather, they have been searching for new ways to continue their work. So on this day, June 6, 2020, they released a recorded video excerpt from Zachary Watkins’s Peace Be Till, a piece commissioned and performed by Kronos featuring words from Dr. King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” that “symphony for social justice,” as Clarence Jones described it. Jones, now nearing 90 and King’s friend, speech writer, and counsel, was there on August 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, watching and listening as King began to speak, only to pause as Mahalia Jackson, near him on the stage, called out “Tell them about the dream, Martin; tell them about the dream.” And Jones watched as King discarded prepared marks and launched into his unforgettable “I Have a Dream” speech. As Jones remembers it, he turned to the person next to him and said “that sea of folks out there better get ready, because they’re fixin’ to hear a sermon.” It was a sermon for the ages, one that helped to bend the arc of history. I hope you will take a few minutes to revisit that time and place and to hear Clarence Jones read Martin Luther King Jr.’s words, accompanied by Kronos playing Watkins’s powerful score and by a searing series of images from the time. I hope that you will share it with your students and ask them to write about what “I Have a Dream” means to them today. I hope that you will ask them to write about what the current movement can mean to the future of our country. Black Lives Matter. Image Credit: Pixabay Image 5285954 by konkarampelas, used under the Pixabay License ... View more

This blog post was originally posted on May 28, 2020. Maybe you remember the first Big Read from 2012: Moby **bleep**, 135 chapters in 135 days, a radio extravaganza dreamed up by Philip Hoare and Angela Cockayne; read by the likes of Tilda Swinton, Stephen Fry, Mary Oliver, and many others; and illustrated during the streaming by contemporary artists who created images for each chapter. (It’s still available online here.) Years ago, I read Moby once every year, so the chance to hear it read, brilliantly, over a span of months was an unforgettable experience. Well, it’s now 2020 and Hoare and Cockayne are at it again, this time delivering Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” which Hoare, in an article for The Guardian, calls “a founding fable for our time.” In Coleridge’s nightmare, he says, The slain albatross hangs around the fated sailor’s neck like a broken cross, an emblem of his sin against nature. It is all too relevant today, as a statement of isolation and despair: “Alone, alone, all, all alone, / Alone on a wide, wide sea!" The poem presents a story within a story, as a wedding guest approaches the church where a wedding will take place but is held back from entering by an ancient man whose skinny hand seizes him and demands that he hear his story. The wedding guest succumbs, takes a seat on a stone, and the long, sad, harrowing story begins. Hoare says that this project, hosted by the University of Plymouth’s Art Institute as a free-access digital event, has been in the works for over three years and that he and his collaborators could not have imagined that they would complete this project in the midst of a world-wide pandemic. But they have, and listening to this poem from 1798 seems not just right at this particular moment but perfectly right. I’ve listened to the first three (of forty) parts, mesmerized by the reading of Jeremy Irons, Jeannette Winterson, and Hilary Mantel. Still to come are Tilda Swinton, Iggy Pop, Marianne Faithfull, Willem Dafoe, and a great, great, great, great, great nephew of the poet himself. As I’ve been listening and revisiting this true horror story/poem, I’ve also done a bit of writing: what is a story that I badly need to sit still and listen to, even if it comes from someone I don’t know or don’t like? What crimes against nature have I committed—ones I wish I could undo? What is the albatross that I can’t seem to rid myself of? And why? What loneliness do I find deep inside and where does it come from? Am I surrounded by metaphorical water and yet “not a drop to drink”? And who is the Mariner today who is telling us his story, over and over again? These are questions that seem particularly relevant today as we struggle against the coronavirus and as we seek to be together while staying apart. I would guess that not many of our students have read “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” or know its story. Perhaps this is another online resource we can provide to students during these strange times and they might listen to the poem as it comes to life in these free online readings. They can analyze the techniques each narrator uses when reading the poem, or perhaps they might write about the questions the poem raises for them. Perhaps some might write their own poems, tell their own stories, and share them with you. Image Credit: Pixabay Image 384385 by Hans, used under the Pixabay License ... View more

This blog post was originally posted on May 21, 2020. Inspired by the work of Laura Aull, I’ve been introducing students to corpora as a way to find information about writing in various disciplines—they can, for example, easily check whether professional writers in the sciences use the first person pronoun—and sometimes just for the kinds of curious poking around that is so much fun to do in large databases. Aull found, in an early study based on data drawn from corpora, that professional writers use more “hedges” (that is, qualifiers like “most” or “some”) in their writing than do first-year students, while first-year students use more “boosters” (words like “very”). I asked students to compare their own use of hedges and boosters in a sample of their writing and then us/e the Corpus of Contemporary American English to see what professional writers in other fields did. My students responded well to using the corpus and really liked analyzing their own writing for specific usages. They said doing so helped them feel they had “more control” over their writing. Last week, I learned of a brand new corpus—Coronavirus Corpus—and took a look to see how students might use it for research. Here’s how the website describes the corpus: The corpus (which was first released in May 2020) is currently about 279 million words in size, and it continues to grow by 3-4 million words each day. At this rate, it may be 500-600 million words in size by August 2020. The Coronavirus Corpus allows you to see the frequency of words and phrases in 10-day increments since Jan 2020, such as social distancing, flatten the curve, WORK * home, Zoom, Wuhan, hoard*, toilet paper, curbside, pandemic, reopen, defy. . . . The corpus also allows you to see the patterns in which a word occurs, as with stay-at-home, social, economic, or hoard*. You can also compare between different time periods, to see how our view of things have changed over time. (And you can even compare between the 20 countries in the corpus). Interesting comparisons over time might include phrases like social * or economic * that were more common in Jan/Feb than in Apr/May, or words near BAN or OBEY that were more common in Apr-May than in Jan-Feb. I was able to dig around in this corpus to find out how many times the word “liberate” appears in the corpus and in what context, to look for how often the word “suicide” appears and whether or not its use increases across time, and so on. I think your students might also enjoy working with the corpus. They could, for instance, search the database for collocates (words near to each other) to see, first, how often “Clorox” or “disinfectant” appears and then see how often it appears near the words “virus” or “COVID-19.” Or they might search for “masks” and then see how often that word appears near “resistance.” Using corpora in these ways can help students identify what Kenneth Burke called “terministic screens,” that is, the way words work together to form a network (or screen) that creates or reinforces certain impressions or ideas—see Burke’s discussion of terministic screens in Language as Symbolic Action; I often start my classes with a discussion of this concept! Students taking their writing courses from home could find this new corpus—and others, like Brigham Young University’s Corpus of Global Web-Based English or the Corpus of Contemporary American English—useful for projects they may be working on, or for inspiring them to pursue other research questions. Learning to use available corpora can play a role in any rhetorical analysis they may be doing now or in the future. If you use corpora in your teaching, I’d love to hear from you! In the meantime, I’ll go back to washing my hands. . . Image Credit: Pixabay Image 943739 by TBIT, used under the Pixabay License ... View more

This blog post was originally posted on May 14, 2020. Amid the daily reports of admissions to hospitals, of numbers intubated or in ICUs, and of the unthinkable roll call of deaths, I’ve felt almost numb with grief. And with anger, too, as I see how many are ignoring the recommendations of scientists, physicians, and healthcare workers across the nation and, indeed, the world. As I read reports and look for the best information, I do what all of us teachers of writing and rhetoric do: I examine the statements with a rhetorical eye, looking for what makes them effective—or not. For what makes them memorable—or not. And for what they reveal about networks of power and prestige. I’ve taken a look, for instance, at recent CDC reports and guidelines, and—at the urging of TV commentator Rachel Maddow—compared the language used in them to the language of earlier reports. What even this cursory analysis reveals is that the current language has been watered down considerably: “directives” become “recommendations” become “suggestions,” for instance. “Must” becomes “should” becomes “may.” Imperatives disappear. I’ve seen enough now to realize that the CDC experts (or at least those who write their reports) have been put on a leash, their messages “massaged” to allow state and local officials more control. But not all health officers are falling into line: daily we see one or another come forward to tell the blunt truth to the people of their town or county, even if they cry while doing so. Some are more persuasive than others, and perhaps none more so than Dr. Amy Acton, the Director of Ohio’s Department of Health. For months, she has been on the front lines, implementing early and aggressive action against the coronavirus and incurring praise along with a lot of blame. In spite of the attacks against her, Acton has been largely persuasive, and in an op-ed video piece in the New York Times last week, Sanya Dosani and Adam Westbrook carried out a brief rhetorical analysis to show why. In the 7-minute video, Dosani and Westbrook introduce Acton and then show how she uses repetition, metaphors, and personal pronouns to get her message across—and make it stick. In all, they watched seven weeks of press briefings, and identified three overall strategies that Acton relies on. The first is empowerment, which she deploys when she speaks directly to Ohioans, moving from “I” to “you” to “we,” in telling them what they are capable of doing and saying she is confident they can do it. “I’m not afraid,” she says, “I’m determined.” Her words over the weeks help listeners become determined too. In addition, Acton is brutally honest with her audience: she does not pander or try to sugar coat what is happening across the world. This honesty, and her willingness to say what she does NOT know, builds her credibility and helps connect to the viewers as well. But Acton combines that brutal honesty with vulnerability, empathizing with her audience and acknowledging, over and over, how difficult these times are and how difficult they are to face, while also acknowledging that we are all in this together. This kind of rhetorical analysis seems like a good thing to do with students: ask them to look carefully at the press briefings of the top health official in their state and analyze how effective this person is at relaying information and inspiring confidence. Do the themes of empowerment, honesty, and vulnerability show up in these statements? How do the officials use pronouns to bring people together? How do they use metaphors to bring the message to life? I’ve been watching the daily press briefings of our governor here in California and am beginning to recognize his go-to tropes and metaphors, his use of what I would call “corporate-speak,” and his notable use of gratitude, of thanks, of praise to every group as well as to the people of California. More on my analysis of Governor Newsom’s language to come. For now, stay safe, and practice rhetorical analysis! Image Credit: Pixabay Image 899477 by Skratos, used under the Pixabay License ... View more

This blog post was originally posted on May 7, 2020. Before the pandemic, I had never heard of Zoom. What a difference a couple of months can make! Now, like most of you I expect, I find myself “zooming” on a daily basis: Boards I serve on meet via Zoom; community volunteer groups gather via Zoom; classes convene via Zoom. Last week I even “zoomed” with the four young men who rescued me and two friends from the Christ Church Cathedral when it was destroyed in a 2011 earthquake in New Zealand; with a former student and his two young children; and with a group of women who were sharing, virtually, wine and cheese. I feel a bit zoomed out! During these sessions, I’ve also had an opportunity to see myself in the little Hollywood Squares boxes—or sometimes on full screen—and it’s been sobering. Of course I look my age—it is what it is!—but to me I look WORSE, sometimes much worse, than in real life. Have you or your students had the same experience? Thinking about this screen presence reminded me of a “media prep” session I was part of eons ago when I was on the MLA Executive Council. A media consultant came in to coach us on how to present ourselves on TV. I remember the consultant telling us that on television, the camera exaggerates everything: “if you barely lick your lips,” she said, “it will look like your tongue is all the way out of your mouth.” And she showed us what she meant! She also coached us to lean slightly forward when looking into the TV camera, telling us that even a slight backward lean would come across as “slouching.”  I don’t remember anything else, but these tips came back to me as I was looking at a Zoom session (or Skype or FaceTime or . . .). What can I do, I wondered, and what can I recommend that instructors and students do to make the most of Zoom and similar sessions? Some ideas came quickly to mind: Make sure you’re in a quiet and uncluttered space so that nothing distracts from what you’re saying. Pay attention to where the light is coming from so that it’s not shining directly down on you, creating weird shadows, or washing everything out. (Some people recommend using a selfie ring light, but I don’t have one of those so I look for places where the natural light is soft and clear.) If you’re using a laptop, prop it up on books so that you can look slightly up and into the camera rather than down at it. And remember to actually look into the camera—something I constantly forget to do! Dress simply in clothes that don’t glitter or glisten. (I learned this tip before a TV appearance where the host insisted I change clothes entirely because the suit I was wearing had a sheen to it which caused a lot of glare on camera. Who knew?!) I’m sure professional media folks can offer a lot more tips, and you probably know more too. (Please send them to me!) In this new world of living online—which we may be doing for the rest of this year—I for one need all the help I can get. So here’s looking at you, kid—on Zoom! Image Credit: Pixabay Image 5059828 by Tumisu, used under the Pixabay License ... View more

For the past few months, I have been analyzing the feedback I gave first-year composition students during the spring 2019 semester—looking for patterns in my lexical choices, references, and syntax. Student progress that semester was uneven at best, and I want to know how students experience my feedback and whether or not what I am doing, especially in written feedback (I also give oral feedback in individual and group conferences), is accessible and useful to students? Do I need to make adjustments, or perhaps make the format and style of the feedback a matter of explicit instruction early in the term? In short, do I need to teach students how to read my feedback? I presented some of the findings of my research at the NOSS 2020 Convention in February, before our stay-at-home orders were issued, and there’s an article in process.                                                                                                       But one feature of my feedback is on my mind today. In a recent video chat with a student, I heard myself say, “So, how are we doing?” Most of the time I address students in a face-to-face conference using a second-person pronoun: you. So the appearance of that we made me wonder: do I use we a lot in my written feedback? If so, in what contexts? What does that communicate to students?   In one data set of 11,644 words—my post-conference written responses to 28 literacy narratives—the word you predominates in terms of personal pronouns: 535 uses, or 45.94 times per 1000 words. Given that I am speaking directly to students in these comments, there are also many instances of I/me: 210 tokens, or 18.03 times per 1000 words. But there are also many uses of we/us: 145 tokens, or 12.45 times per 1000 words.    Obviously, the first person plural pronoun includes the speaker/writer (in this case, me), and upon first glance, it seems that my feedback frequently emphasizes collaboration, showing that the student and I are working through the process together.  But a closer look at the various uses of we/us in this particular feedback set suggests a much more complicated picture:     We=student and teacher             We need to work on verb tense here… we are working in the past.   We=generic (writers, speakers, people)             We can’t introduce the quote that way… we need to set it up differently.             We are articulate about something, which means we can speak well about it.   We=readers of this paper             We need additional detail here; right now this is difficult for the reader to follow.             Don’t leave the reader to wonder if we are going backwards or forwards in time.   We= the class             We will talk about this format in class.      I don’t worry that my students will misread these various instances of we; after all, we use the word in similar ways in speaking and in our online interactions. Of course, there are possibilities for awkward social miscues (“Oh—you meant you and John, not the three of us! Sorry!”), but I don’t think these would arise in the reading of the feedback.   Rather, the different uses of we in my feedback show (along with other language choices I make) that I am negotiating different stances with my students. At times, I am the expert, making recommendations I expect students to follow. At other times, I am a collaborator, brainstorming with the student ways to expand meaning or solve writing problems. Still at other times, I am a reader, giving feedback that represents what I think readers in general might experience when encountering the student text. I offer such descriptive feedback so that students can determine what they as authors want the text to accomplish.   Those of us with extensive experience in writing workshops, collaborative work, publication with an editor—we’re familiar with these various stances and can respond effectively, maintaining our own sense of ownership as we write with experts, collaborators, colleagues, and general readers. But do our students know how to read and put feedback to use when it comes from what seems like disparate and changing voices in the comment stream? The supplemental instructors and writing fellows who have worked with me in my first-year courses have told me that students are sometimes baffled by my feedback, and they aren’t sure what to do with it. Most of them, particularly in my IRW corequisite courses, haven’t gotten that kind of feedback before. They seem to be much more familiar with directive comments: “Aren’t you going to tell me what to do? That would be easier!”   Carless and Boud (2018) have developed a working model of feedback literacy, a model I want to apply in my FYC and IRW courses in future semesters. In the IRW course in particular, learning to read feedback and manage the stances negotiated within it forms a critical part of the academic reading we need to teach. The question, of course, is how best to model this reading and support students as they work with our feedback.    Do you teach your students how to read, manage, and respond to your feedback? What strategies have worked for you? ... View more

This blog series is written by Julia Domenicucci, an editor at Macmillan Learning, in conjunction with Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl.     Grammar Girl podcasts can be smoothly integrated with online classes in endless ways. The last “Teaching with Grammar Girl” blog post, “ Using Grammar Girl Podcasts in an Online Classroom ,” offered suggestions for podcast-based assignments that pair well with teaching online, and today’s post will expand upon those options! Podcasts have been around for a while, but their popularity seems to increase every day—and for good reason! They are engaging and creative, and they cover every topic imaginable. They are also great for the classroom: you can use them to maintain student engagement, accommodate different learning styles, and introduce multimodality.    LaunchPad and Achieve products include assignable, ad-free Grammar Girl podcasts, which you can use to support your lessons. You can assign one (or all!) of these suggested podcasts for students to listen to before class. Each podcast also comes with a complete transcript, which is perfect for students who aren’t audio learners or otherwise prefer to read the content. To learn more about digital products and purchasing options, please visit Macmillan's English catalog or speak with your sales representative.    If you are using LaunchPad, refer to the unit “Grammar Girl Podcasts” for instructions on assigning podcasts. You can also find the same information on the support page " Assign Grammar Girl Podcasts ."   If you are using Achieve, you will find a "Quick Start Guide: Grammar Girl and Question Bank" in your Welcome Unit. You can also find information on assigning Grammar Girl in Achieve on the support page " Add Grammar Girl and shared English content to your course ."   Assignment: Using Grammar Girl Podcasts to Support Low-Stakes Writing Find a podcast, article, or other work that ties into current events. For example, you could assign the NPR article “Tips From Someone With Nearly 50 Years Of Social Distancing Experience” by Rae Ellen Bichell (suggested by @tonnawonder in response to Grammar Girl on Twitter). Then, ask students to write a paragraph or two responding to the reading, without worrying about grammar, punctuation, or style. These responses can be submitted privately or discussed in a live meeting.    Then, identify the top two or three errors made by students in these pieces, and assign relevant Grammar Girl podcasts for students to listen to before their next writing assignment.   Be sure to review “ Using Grammar Girl Podcasts in an Online Classroom ” for ideas on which podcasts to use!   Other Ideas for Teaching Online Recently, Grammar Girl posted across social media to ask teachers a timely but important question: what is working in the sudden move to teaching online?   You can read the full responses on Twitter and Facebook . Ideas that have worked for other instructors include: For live meetings, work in systems that students are most familiar with, such as Discord. If you are using Zoom, don’t forget about the breakout rooms option! Find a positive or uplifting podcast, article, or other work for students to respond to. Share a link to a relevant Youtube video or, in a live meeting, share the video on your screen for everyone to watch together. If you record a lesson, upload it to YouTube or your LMS to easily share with students.   For even more ideas about teaching online, be sure to explore Macmillan Learning’s webinars about virtual learning .   We’d love to hear from you--what has been successful for you when teaching online? Post below or add your reply to Grammar Girl on Twitter or Facebook!   Bonus: Grammar Girl has a new request on Twitter this week ! What do you do or where are you when you listen to Grammar Girl podcasts? If you don’t regularly listen to Grammar Girl podcasts but do listen to other productions, we’d still love to hear from you! Post your answer in the comments below or head to Twitter with the hashtag #WhereIListen.   Credit: Pixabay Image 3412498by kreatikar, used under a Pixaby License ... View more

Listening, as I do almost every week, to StoryCorps on NPR, I have been struck by how quickly that organization has adapted to the new pandemic conditions, shifting from two people face to face in a booth recording their story to an online system that allows the project to continue—at a distance—through StoryCorps Connect. As I listened to some of the stories posted there, I thought of what a valuable trove of oral histories are being recorded and preserved through this project and what a valuable teaching tool the archive is.   I started browsing around the Internet, looking for other oral history projects and found many that beckoned to me. The University of Illinois has a very large collection called Voices of Illinois, and I spent a couple of very rich hours reading the words of women in the 1930s talking about their lives, their education (or lack of it), and their experiences during the Great Depression. And by coincidence, I have been in touch with a Navajo student—a fabulous writer now in college-at-home—who is part of a project to collect oral histories from Navajo elders.   This combination of coincidences makes me think that this time of coronavirus might well be a very good time indeed for oral histories. Students working from home will usually have access to parents, grandparents, or other adult relatives as well as to siblings. And most will have access to a phone for recording too. While sheltering in place and keeping social distance, they have a great opportunity—and the time—to gather family stories and to capture the voices of family members talking about their experiences living through these very difficult times as well as about their important memories of the past and hopes for the future. Fifty years from now—even ten years from now—these stories will have great resonance; they might even start a family tradition of gathering oral histories over the years.   I am certain there are teachers out there who are doing oral history projects with their students. I would so love to hear about them and to read or listen to some of them if they are available. In the meantime, I’m going to see if I can encourage the young students I know to get busy on their own oral history projects!   Image Credit: Pixabay Image 541192 by Satermedia, used under the Pixabay License ... View more

Morgellons, the controversial disease at the heart of Leslie Jamison’s essay “Devil’s Bait,” differs from COVID-19 in significant ways. And yet Jamison’s central question seems usefully relevant to the current pandemic and its concomitant quarantine measures. She writes: This isn’t an essay about whether or not Morgellons disease is real. That’s probably obvious by now. It’s an essay about what kinds of reality are considered prerequisites for compassion. It’s about this strange sympathetic limbo: Is it wrong to call it empathy when you trust the fact of suffering, but not the source?  I’ve been thinking about empathy quite a bit in relation to social distancing. On the one hand, social distancing is a selfish act: it keeps me safe from infection. On the other hand, though, social distancing is an ethical duty. It’s as much about protecting others—others I may not even know—as it is about protecting myself. Part of what enables me to make the sacrifices required of social distancing is empathy, much like the empathy Jamison comes to feel for the sufferers of Morgellons disease. And empathy hasn’t simply enabled social distancing; it’s also engendered prolific acts of kindness in response to the pandemic.   What I like about using Jamison in this context is that her essay offers a kind of limit case for empathy. With COVID-19, the suffering is all too real, all too visible. But Morgellons is a disease that may not be a disease. As the quotation above makes clear, Jamison works from the reality of suffering to formulate an empathetic response and that’s a useful maneuver for students to consider.   There are, too, some other interesting connections between Jamison’s discussion of Morgellons and the COVID-19 pandemic: Like Morgellons, some still insist that COVID-19 is a hoax or caused by 5G cellular towers. Like Morgellons, there currently is no cure for COVID-19 Like Morgellons, the pandemic has prompted dangerous bogus treatments, including zinc and tonic water, colloidal silver, and, sadly, fish tank cleaner. Jamison’s experience with sufferers of Morgellons, like so many people in the pandemic today, reminds us that fear and desperation are themselves contagious and deadly.   Here are some writing assignments you might consider: Using Jamison and one other reading (from class or that you have located on your own), write an essay about the role of empathy in mitigating epidemics and pandemics. Considering the ambivalent report about Morgellons from the Centers for Disease Control and the self-activism of those with Morgellons, write a paper about the respective responsibilities of governments and individuals in response to disease. What are the best strategies for distributing reliable information about a disease? Use Jamison and any research you might want to do on COVID-19 to support your response. How is the experience of dealing with a chronic disease different from other kinds of disease? Use Jamison, and if you have a chronic disease yourself, your own experience.   Empathy is one of the core concepts in this edition of Emerging. It’s times like these that really demonstrate the value of thinking and writing about it.   Image Credit: Pixabay Image 4939288 by geralt, used under the Pixabay License ... View more

One of the key principles of Signs of Life in the U.S.A. is the critical role that cultural mythologies play in shaping human consciousness and the way we experience our world. So, as we face a pandemic disease that is disrupting, and will, for the foreseeable future, disrupt our lives in ways that are likely to confront us with new and unexpected challenges in the months and years to come, an understanding of how cultural mythologies work has become more important than ever before. This is because one of America's most fundamental mythologies—the belief known as "American exceptionalism"—is now being starkly challenged by the realities of living in the shadow of COVID-19. This belief is that America has always been the exception to human history—that America, alone among the nations, is immune from tragedy, from unmitigated disaster, from decline. A corollary to this belief is the conviction that America has always been, and will continue to be, at the forefront of history, a City on a Hill that will lead the rest of the world to freedom and prosperity. The pandemic, and America's response to it, is challenging that confidence. So, amid the profound distractions to life and learning that COVID-19 is presenting to your classroom, focusing on the ways in which cultural mythologies—especially American exceptionalism—not only shapes our consciousness but can also present barriers to a clear understanding of the challenges that face us as a society, is something you may want to do if you are using, or plan to use, Signs of Life in the U.S.A. in your class. You could begin this by assigning the introduction to the book, concentrating especially on the discussion of cultural mythologies, along with the introduction to chapter 7, "American Paradox: Culture, Conflict and Interpretation in the U.S.A." (this will be Chapter 1 in the 10th edition), which goes into greater depth about American mythologies. After the principles explored in these introductions are clear to your students, assign Barbara Ehrenreich's reading selection, "Bright Sided," which explores in depth the effects of American exceptionalism in shaping America's fundamental optimism as a society and its concomitant tendency to be unprepared for disaster. Take as much time as you need, for once these readings are mastered, your students will be ready for an essay assignment on how Ehrenreich's essay, generally, and the mythology of American exceptionalism, more particularly, pertain to America's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Your assignment could direct your students to support, refute, or qualify the argument that American "bright-sidedness" left it unprepared for the full brunt of the disease and that our unenviable status as having the world's most cases of COVID-19, as well as deaths, is a sign that American exceptionalism is indeed a myth rather than a reality. Photo Credit: Pixabay Image 1149896   by Free-Photos, used under   Pixabay License ... View more

It’s Easter Sunday, it’s raining, and I’ve been in my house for almost a month. I was hoping this blog post would come together quickly, that I would have some technical trick or insightful advice to impart to all of us who have moved composition and IRW courses online. But I don’t have any wisdom or online teaching hacks to share, and the post hasn’t come together at all. This is a mess.   Last week, I intended to conference with each of my composition students individually to discuss the discourse community profiles they are composing for their final project—or at least the thesis and outline for these profiles. But I’ve only managed to connect with about half of the students, despite multiple attempts to contact them via email and our university-based online outreach program. I also have a couple of upper-level courses that were online even before the stay-at-home orders were given; one class was supposed to submit drafts of the literature review for their course projects on Friday. I got two drafts and a host of emails requesting more time—which I of course gave. What can I say? I am trying to finish an article by a self-imposed May 1 deadline, and my literature review has not emerged out of my research and early drafting, either. I’ve read it and re-written it a number of times. I look at the varied chunks of text I’ve written, texts that teeter precariously on top of each other like Jenga blocks. A few sections must be deleted, but I’m afraid the whole thing will topple when I pull them out. It’s a mess.   The first-year writers I have met with are, without exception, apologetic. “I’m sorry I haven’t done more. I can’t seem to focus very well. I keep getting stuck on the wording here, and nothing sounds right.”   “It’s a mess, Dr. Moore.”   I’ve been thinking about that word—mess. Growing up in the deep South, we used mess in the sense of casual clutter, temporary and rather normal disorder or dishevelment: “Have you been playin’ in the mud? Aren’t you a mess!” “You know we’re gon’ have to straighten up this mess before you can go outside, right, sugar?” “A little mess never hurt nobody…”   But mess also meant a portion—a meal’s worth of something. My accountant father loved to fish and garden. He’d come in on a Saturday afternoon in the late summer and announce he’d “caught a mess of fish,” or “picked a good mess o’ butterbeans.”    That second use of mess—a portion of food—reflects the etymology of the word, from past participle of the Latin verb mittere, (missum), which meant “to put,” as in “to put on the table.” It also came to mean a place where food was shared by small groups, hence the notion of a mess-hall. That the food served might not always by appetizing, or that it might only be fit for animal feed, may have led to the idea that a mess is chaos.   Yep, this is a mess.   But it’s ok to be in a mess—even to be a mess. We can call it what it is, and neither I nor my students have to pretend otherwise. We don’t have to like it.    Still, it’s ok. This mess isn’t going to last forever.     And a little mess may be just what we need to sustain us in this moment—a mess of beans plus a mess of okra and a little pork may not be a gourmet dish, but with patience and imagination and a little effort, it will make a meal.    When students tell me that their work is a mess, we can talk about what drew them to their topics to begin with, or what they hate about doing research, or why anxieties or tangents keep distracting them. Maybe as they talk through the mess, possibilities will arise; an outline will take shape. Maybe not—but we’ll keep talking.   Yes, we’ve got a mess right now—but it’s ok. We’ll muddle through the class, the semester, and the quarantine. The written mess we’re looking at together will eventually be discourse community profiles, literature reviews, a decent article, or maybe even a blog post.   It’s a mess. It’s still raining, and this blog post will not rank among my best. But having written it, I think I’m ready to take another stab at that literature review. ... View more

Today’s guest blogger is Tanya Rodrigue,  an associate professor in English and coordinator of the Writing Intensive Curriculum Program at Salem State University in Massachusetts. Since college classes have moved online, there’s been an uptick in plagiarism across the country. Professors are talking about it on social media and on listservs, providing different perspectives and advice on how to handle plagiarism in student writing. On a Facebook page that focuses on teaching college during this crisis, one professor says, “During a PANDEMIC, plagiarism is a non-issue. During the best of times, students cheat, and they will continue to cheat, but who cares?” Another instructor says, “…my plan is to deal with it as I always have. Plagiarism is theft and universities, like mine, have strict rules.” I thought I’d use this post to voice my own thoughts about plagiarism and how faculty might deal with it during this global health crisis.   First, a little background on plagiarism.   Plagiarism policies in higher education are often positioned in moral terms. Students who plagiarize are often described as dishonest, sneaky, lazy, or just simply unethical. Yes, plagiarism can be intentional. Students might buy a paper off the internet because they don’t feel like writing it. Or they may go to Wikipedia and cut and paste information into a paper because they don’t have time to find resources or read them. Or they might be struggling with personal issues (like many students are right now) and think plagiarizing is the only option for passing a course.   Are there other reasons why people might plagiarize? Yes, and that’s an emphatic yes.   Many institutions and instructors do not recognize the plethora of other reasons why students copy directly from sources or patchwrite (a form of plagiarism defined by Dr. Rebecca Moore Howard as “copying from a source text and then deleting some words, altering grammatical structures, or plugging in one-for-one substitutes.”). Plagiarism can be unintentional. Students might not understand what they’re reading, or they may be unfamiliar with discipline-specific terms and language. If students lack critical reading abilities or feel incapable of navigating a foreign discourse community, they will certainly have a difficult time summarizing or paraphrasing a source without appropriating its language. Students might not have a good grasp on citation practices or how to work within certain citation systems. They may have never learned how to effectively summarize, paraphrase, or cite sources, or they may not even understand what plagiarism is or constitutes (especially students who did not grow up and attend schools in the US).   Whatever the reason, we should try to remember that students are learners and developing writers. They’re not bad people. They’re not thieves or criminals. There’s a reason why they are plagiarizing. In the midst of this global health crisis, we can transform instances of plagiarism into pedagogical opportunities. Below are some guidelines for how you might do so. Rather than immediately report students to the institution or automatically give them an F in the class, consider talking to them first. Ask them if they  know  what plagiarism is. Ask them if they  know  they plagiarized. Ask them  why  they plagiarized.  Remember they are humans living in an extraordinarily difficult moment. Consider giving them an opportunity to revise their papers. Point them to resources that will help them work with sources. ( Purdue OWL  is a great resource) Suggest they work with a tutor in the writing center. Provide them with specific feedback on how they might work with sources in their papers. Provide them with guidance on how to better understand the sources with which they are engaging. At this moment in time, teaching with compassion is critical; I hope these guidelines provide one way professors might enact such a pedagogy.       ... View more

I am thinking every single day of all the teachers of writing across the country who are now teaching their classes online, and wondering how it is going, how difficult it is to prepare for these classes, how the students are responding, and most of all what everyone is learning from what is for many a different mode of interacting with students and of creating knowledge together.   Sometimes I feel grateful that I am retired, watching from a distance and checking in with my Stanford Program in Writing and Rhetoric colleagues, who are doing brilliant work. (That group of instructors—always exploring, always innovating—are clearly up to the challenge and they are helped enormously by the inimitable Christine Alfano, our Associate Director and leader in all things technological.) But other times I am a little sad to be on the sidelines: like so many others, I want to be helping out and doing something productive—especially something helpful for students.   I wrote two weeks ago about the writers’ club I have going with a second-grade and fourth-grade friend: these back-and-forth poems, stories, and drawings have kept me engaged and looking forward to what may appear in my email inbox next. In the last week, however, I’ve been spending a lot of time on FaceTime with my beloved 10th-grade grandniece, who is working away daily on “homework” (isn’t it all homework now?). She has assignments from all of her classes and she doesn’t seem to always know the teachers who are assigning this work, but she is trying hard to keep up. I think she likes the control she can exert in working from home, and I’ve felt privileged to join her some days (“It’s more fun with company, Aunt A”). One day last week she wrote an entire essay on why the electoral college should be abolished—talking through ideas, writing some, then reading aloud, then stopping to look up some information, then reading to me, then writing more. She didn’t seem to want or need any help, and it was a joy to watch her mind at work as she puzzled through the reasons backing up her position and came up with a convincing argument. All together it took two and a half hours. Another day she created a 15-slide presentation called “A Snapshot of My Life” for her psychology class that involved working through Piaget, Kohlberg, and Erikson’s stages of development and illustrating them with examples from her own life. Working systematically, she crafted her examples, illustrating them with photographs of her at various points in her life and then using open source photos to illustrate later stages of development—her in five years, her in twenty-five years. Asked to summarize part of a novel from one character’s point of view for another assignment, she drew a 22-panel comic that went far beyond what she was asked to do.   These assignments—and others; yesterday she was working on a civics assignment asking her to assume she was president of the United States and describe a day’s activities that would include all of the functions of the president—seem well suited for work at home, and my grandniece is clearly stepping up. Indeed, she seems to me very much engaged in this work (though she complains sometimes and “just wants to get it done.”) And she has lots of online resources to turn to, both from her school and from her own online experience. She introduced me to a “super cool” site, iCivics, that she said was amazingly helpful and clear. She was consulting it as she did her civics homework and praising it so much that I decided to take a look. And what a site it is! It was founded by Sandra Day O’Connor, who calls it her best legacy: “The practice of democracy is not passed down through the gene pool. It must be taught and learned anew by each generation of citizens,” she explains. Started in 2009, iCivics now reaches over 5 million students in elementary, middle, and high school and engages them in role-playing and other games through which they embody governmental practices, such as assuming they can be president of the U.S. and carry out the president’s functions for a day.   For students who are fairly self-directed, who have computers and access to rich resources like iCivics, and who have teachers who are providing engaging and meaningful assignments, this pandemic-induced, at-home schooling may be working very well, as it seems to be (so far) for my grandniece. But I worry about students who are not so self-directed, who do not have computers or access to online resources, or who thrive best in the presence of their teachers and others. Just today, my governor, Gavin Newsom, announced a new round of funding intended to get a computer or tablet into the hands of every child in California who lacks one. That seems a good first step, and I’m grateful for it. In the meantime, I need to find more ways to connect with students out there—from kindergarten through graduate school—who think that learning is “more fun with company.”   Please let me hear ideas for how I can do more, even while I’m sheltering in place.   Image Credit: Pixabay Image 3038994 by khamkhor, used under the Pixabay License ... View more

Many instructors who began the semester in face-to-face classes have spent the last weeks breathlessly surfing all seven waves of grief. It started with shock, if not denial, as we helped our students adjust to the reality that our classes will conclude in a transformed and virtual world. Then came the pedagogical pain and guilt, induced by the tsunami of emails about online teaching resources. Some missives were well-meant, from our heroic campus teaching centers, for example. Some were purely predatory, as for-profit agencies flooded our inboxes with “tips and tricks that all the best online instructors” were supposedly using – for a price, of course. Wherever you are in the timeline of reorienting yourself to pandemic-era teaching, you might be comforted, as I have been, by the more recent posts about focusing modestly on our essential course goals rather than imagining that technological bells and whistles will replace the embodied experiences of in-person teaching. Because my students are writing about sustainability topics, a theme of the semester has been on the value of relationships, whether through biodiversity, interdisciplinarity, or rich interconnections between classmates. In pre-pandemic times, we began each class period with quick community-building exercises, including a student-generated question of the day for lightning “get to know you” rounds (“Are you a cake or a pie person?” “What’s your favorite plant?” “What’s your dream travel destination?”). Early on, we took the time to do a version of this Danish “All that We Share” exercise, in which students were randomly sorted into groups of three and asked to find three things they had in common – the more unusual, the better. The earnest conversation and laughter bubbling from these groups of near-strangers in January was heartening as they discovered their shared love of particular condiments, favorite flavors of Takis, or numbers of tattoos. Why use precious class time for such exercises? Because investing in trust and emotional safety in the classroom community fosters deeper meaning-making all semester. Kathy Molloy and Diego Navarro’s ideas on the power of “affective learning” have bolstered my belief in these practices, including their reminder, “Slow down your tempo; become curious; listen beyond words to student needs, concerns, or aspirations to understand their struggles.” These practices are all the more timely during these traumatizing weeks. I sure do miss the in-person snap, crackle, and pop of my students. In the last few weeks, I have simplified aspects of my syllabus and have mourned some of the “lost” opportunities to learn with them. The foundation we built together, though, is visible everywhere, despite our physical separation. I see their investment in one another in their thoughtful engagement on discussion threads and in their assignments, as they consider texts through the newly estranging and enlightening lens of pandemic worries. Some students have described discussing class ideas with family members, inspiring conversations that wouldn’t have happened when they lived apart. I invited students to share, optionally, little videos of their pandemic experiences, after offering my awkward contribution with my favorite coffee mug and the ukulele I’m practicing more often these days. They have responded with aplomb, and I’ve been moved by their video selfies of a quiet corner in a basement or hilarious close-ups of the quivering nostrils of a favorite dog or cat. Some students have shared their worries about being laid off or being considered an “essential” worker, suddenly burdened with shifts that devour their study time. Some are frightened of handing money as they deliver food or terrified that as they sanitize grocery shelves for others they will sacrifice themselves to the virus. Some have more time, but less energy. All seem to feel unanchored and grateful to the kindness of the classroom community and the connections they actively built before our physical separation. I am right there with them. I’m grateful, too, to know that I am part of a wise pedagogical community. I hope others chime in to Miriam Moore’s call to record our experiences so we can share our strategies. More than ever, I know that my work – and my honor, really – is to be a steadying presence for these students in a profoundly unsteadying time, whether through Zoom, or phone calls, or discussion threads, or emails, or even texts. So, perhaps I’ve reached the grieving stage of acceptance and hope. Where are you? Photo Credit: April Lidinsky ... View more

Like all of us, we’ve been scrambling here at Florida Atlantic University, first to rapidly transition every course online, then to imagine all of summer online, then to work out and implement a Pass/Fail grading policy, and now to think about adjusting the various fees for summer classes. Change is the new constant, and so we adjust.   In the midst of all the madness, I’ve been thinking about how to use Emerging to teach issues connected to the current COVID-19 pandemic. I thought I would share these thoughts with you, in case you find them helpful as you think about summer or fall courses.   Emerging doesn’t have any readings on pandemics but it does have one on epidemics: Andrew Cohen’s essay “Race and the Opioid Epidemic.” Cohen’s piece has a simple message: the crack cocaine epidemic, racialized as a black epidemic, resulted in severe sentencing guidelines; the current opioid epidemic, perceived as a white epidemic, is resulting in an emphasis on treatment. Cohen thus connects politics, health, law, epidemiology, and the complex undercurrents of race and class in America.   There are a number of ways one might use this reading to invite students to examine the reaction to COVID-19 in the United States:   First, let’s keep in mind that while the COVID-19 pandemic rages, the opioid epidemic hasn’t gone anywhere. We’re tallying a terrifying number of deaths from the pandemic, both here in the United States and around the world, but COVID-19 and the essential social distancing and isolation we are practicing to fight it has and will lead to even more deaths from other factors, including opioid addiction. So, you might have students look into the current state of that The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services maintains a page of statistics on the crisis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a useful page as well. Given that 12-step programs represent a proven treatment for addiction and then also given the requirements of social isolation, you might have students explore how addicts in recovery are coping in the pandemic. Virtual meetings are central to that response, and thinking about how connection is facilitated through technology can then set up interesting counterpoints to other readings in Emerging which suggest that instead that technology disconnects us (Sherry Turkle’s essay, for example). Addressing the pandemic more directly, you might ask students to explore the intersections of epidemiology and politics as they are happening today. You might have student research some of the details of the recent two trillion dollar relief bill. Here in Florida, the pandemic has prompted suspicions that the state’s unemployment benefit website was designed to fail by Republicans. COVID-19 has also been racialized, leading to increased attacks against Asian-Americans. You could ask students to investigate this racialization in the context of broader racism in the United States or the deployment of race as a fear-based reaction. Students might also consider the intersection of race, health guidelines, and personal safety that has led to some people of color deciding not to wear face masks. One of the consequences of the harsh sentencing guidelines in response to the crack cocaine epidemic is a burgeoning prison population. Prisons represent the very opposite of social distancing, leading to concerns of outbreaks in these populations. Students could investigate how governments are responding to this threat and how that response relates to broader issues of a culture of incarceration.   Of course, the pandemic may be the last thing you or your students want to talk, think, and write about. But sometimes critical thinking is, well, critical in response to a crisis. Everything has changed with COVID-19 and some of it has changed forever. Engaging reasoned thinking in the midst of these changes may be the very thing we all need. ... View more

Today’s guest blogger is Kim Haimes-Korn, a Professor of English and Digital Writing at Kennesaw State University. Kim’s teaching philosophy encourages dynamic learning and critical digital literacies and focuses on students’ powers to create their own knowledge through language and various “acts of composition.” She likes to have fun every day, return to nature when things get too crazy, and think deeply about way too many things. She loves teaching. It has helped her understand the value of amazing relationships and boundless creativity. You can reach Kim at   khaimesk@kennesaw.edu  or visit her website :   Acts of Composition. Inside, looking out   -- Image-a-Day Challenge, April 2020 Overview None of us could have imagined that we would be living the lives we are now. For teachers, the Corona Pandemic means moving our instruction online in record time. The impact has quickly and dramatically reshaped the ways we view education or, as Andreas Schleicher, head of education at the OECD reminds us, that “Real change takes place in deep crisis,” he says. “You will not stop the momentum that will build.” Luckily, we have many resources as teachers come together to ask important questions and share ideas such as the journal, Hybrid Pedagogy or the Facebook group, Pandemic Pedagogy (with close to 30,000 members and contributors) where “Educators, students, and others share insights, best (and worst) practices, advice, successes, challenges, and research about converting to fully online instruction during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.” Despite the isolation, anxiety, and frustration, the pandemic has engaged us in teacher-talk and forced us to take a close look at our teaching practices. I have found renewed opportunities to brainstorm with teacher-friends and colleagues about new assignments and activities and the ways we might modify existing assignments to fit within our current context and cultural moment. Although we all feel a bit overwhelmed, it is a time for deep reflection on our teaching as we rethink our roles in this new instructional environment where everything is digital and . . . potentially multimodal. It is in this spirit that I decided to reflect upon and share some of my previous Multimodal Monday posts and offer a roundup of some assignments and activities to consider as we shape our classes for these new contexts. Synchronous Virtual Gatherings – Zoom meetings, teamwork, class discussions – oh my! Although I already had many components of my class online, I had never tried to create virtual, synchronous classes. It is a challenge, but I was determined to maintain interactive discussions in this online environment. Thankfully, my students were already practiced in meaningful class discussions, productive teamwork, and peer response, so the shift to an online format was easier. I had my doubts, but we have managed to maintain the class vibe in these virtual settings. I have continued community building activities like Class Playlists and Digital Tools for Critical Reading that help students prepare for lively, connected discussion. Community Engagement – I regularly incorporate community engagement projects in many of my classes. Those partnerships fell away as news from the pandemic spread. We had to regroup. I gave students opportunities to take ownership and create their own assignments to address community awareness and career preparedness. My Digital Storytelling class decided to create community awareness stories of the cultural and personal impact of the pandemic. My Careers in Writing class (who were originally going to engage in a professional writing and editing project) decided on Free Range Writing or Choose your Own Writing Adventure assignments in which they curated publication opportunities and went through the professional processes involved with submitting content for publication in digital spaces. Image Assignments and Visual Rhetorics – I love multimodal image assignments, and they work well in online contexts. Students can curate for the Image-a-Day Challenge in which they capture daily images and perspectives for critical reflection. I also like the Digital Visual Series Assignment in which they create a series that represents the connections between artifacts and ideas. The pandemic has also brought with it memes and a slew of other digital content. Students can create their own memes that capture their cultural observations as they combine text and image to produce artifacts of cultural critique. We share these assignments during our virtual class meetings and create collaborative Grab and Go Galleries. Time for Podcasts – What a great time for students to engage with podcasts in this Podcast Review Assignment. This multimodal assignment asks students to select and create a podcast series of at least five related episodes of a subject of their choosing. They listen and review a self-designed series in an interactive blog post in which they present an overview, review each episode, and connect to larger ideas through the lens of their own perspectives. They present their ideas in our virtual classroom for response and discussion. Reflection on the Activities If there is one thing we have come to understand through this struggle, it is that we are in the middle of a massive paradigm shift. We are pressed to look at our pedagogies and what we value in so many ways. Although we all want to return to normal, the reality is that we are creating a new normal that will be influenced by this defining time in our culture. Even though we have been dropped unprepared in unknown territory, we can embrace innovation and the freedom to experiment – to complicate, to reflect, and to share ideas with others during this time. Schleicher sees the potential value for students who “will take ownership over their learning, understanding more about how they learn, what they like, and what support they need. They will personalize their learning, even if the systems around them won’t. The genie cannot be put back in the bottle” (Anderson). It is clearly time for us to revisit our ideas on education and learning and to use these lessons to continue to provide meaningful experiences for our students. As teachers and students, we need to develop our digital literacies and multimodal skills to effectively communicate in these new rhetorical contexts and in our new world. Anderson, Jenny. “The Coronavirus Pandemic Is Reshaping Education.” Quartz, Quartz, 31 Mar. 2020, qz.com/1826369/how-coronavirus-is-changing-education/. ... View more

Today's guest blogger is Daniel Lambert. Daniel has taught Literature and Communications courses for Colorado Technical University since 2010. In addition, he teaches on-ground English courses at California State University, Los Angeles and East Los Angeles College. He was nominated for the Distinguished Faculty of the Year Award at CTU in 2017 and 2019.   Daniel enjoys writing fiction, essays, and poetry. He published a poetry collection, Love Adventure (with his wife, Anhthao Bui), in 2017. He published his first collection of short stories,   Mere Anarchy,   in 2016. His fiction appears in the anthologies   When Words Collide, Flash It, Daily Flash 2012 ,  and   Daily Frights 2012 . His writing also appears in the periodicals   Silver Apples, The Daily Breeze, Easy Reader, Other Worlds ,   and   Wrapped in Plastic. The term “theme” may be defined as “the central idea embodied by or explored in a literary work. . .” (Gardner 1437). Some students, and even some instructors, may undervalue the importance of theme. However, the importance of theme can be better understood when we view it as a way to bridge the gap between literature and “real life” events. For example, with the spread of the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) causing most colleges to transition from on-ground to online teaching within a matter of days, our students are contemplating the pandemic’s worst-case outcomes. How can we as instructors help to put these concerns in context? Perhaps by teaching the theme of apocalypse, which reminds our students that they are not alone: authors have contemplated the end of the world for centuries. The double threats of pandemic and climate change have engendered an increasing concern for the health and well-being of Earth and its inhabitants. Science fiction author Sheila Finch suggests that apocalyptic literature provides a type of catharsis for the reader: “There’s something compelling about other people’s horrendous events, the greater the destruction the greater the fascination, just as long as we ourselves are safe” (104). We can illuminate this fascination for our students by comparing the work of two poets: William Butler Yeats and W.S. Merwin. The apocalyptic imagery throughout W.S. Merwin’s poetry mirrors similar imagery in William Butler Yeats’s work; specifically, his poem “The Second Coming.” Yeats was influenced by the carnage of the First World War to imagine a time when “things fall apart” (3). Merwin evokes images of ecological disaster rather than man’s inhumanity to man in “Rain Light” when he describes a hill emblazoned with “the washed colors of the afterlife” (9) at a time when “the whole world is burning” (12). In the first stanza of “The Second Coming,” Yeats tells the tale of a time of chaos in which humanity is separated from nature and God. Nature, in the form of a falcon, tries fruitlessly to reconnect with man: “Turning and turning in the widening gyre / The falcon cannot hear the falconer; / Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold” (1-4). Merwin also uses avian imagery, as well as the image of an endless and pointless loop, in his poem “The Speed of Light”: “…we did not see that the swallows flashing and the sparks / of their cries were fast in the spokes of the hollow / wheel that was turning and turning us taking us / all away as one with the tires of the baker’s van” (16-18). The natural world succumbs to industrialization as the speaker laments the end of the day: “… we thought it was there and would stay / it was only as the afternoon lengthened on its / dial and the shadows reached out farther and farther…” (22-24). The speaker begins to realize too late that the end has arrived: “…we began to listen for what / might be escaping us…” (25-26). Finally, Merwin brings us to the end of the day “…the village at sundown calling their animals home / and then the bats after dark and the silence on its road” (27-28). In the second stanza of “The Second Coming,” Yeats describes a perversion of the Second Coming of Christ: after 2,000 years of Christ’s guardianship, 20 th -century Earth has given birth not to a savior but a destroyer; a god of war: “A shape with lion body and the head of a man, / A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun…” (14-15). Yeats ends his nightmare vision with a rhetorical question that leaves no hope for the future: “And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, / Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?” (21-22). Merwin evokes his own nightmare in his poem “Rain Light.” The speaker recalls the dying words of his mother: “…my mother said I am going now / when you are alone you will be all right” (2-3). Perhaps the speaker’s dead mother is the ghost of Mother Earth. The speaker is mankind, who is left to tend a world in tatters. The world has lost its luster and is now only a shell: “…the patchwork spread on the hill / the washed colors of the afterlife / that lived there long before you were born” (8-10). Merwin’s poem ends on a bittersweet note, as the still-alive flowers provide a glimmer of hope: “…see how they wake without a question / even though the whole world is burning” (11-12). In his poem “My Friends,” Merwin addresses a theme visited by Yeats in “The Second Coming”: the devastating effects of war. Merwin’s speaker laments the degradation and ultimate loss of his comrades in arms: “My friends without shoes leave / What they love / Grief moves among them as a fire among / Its bells…” (3-6). These witnesses to war’s devastation lose their ability to see, but they can still hear the world ending: “My friends without fathers or houses hear / Doors opening in the darkness / Whose halls announce / Behold the smoke has come home” (21-24). Who is to blame for this destruction? Is it the predatory desire to destroy that is embedded in the human heart? “This message telling of / Metals this / Hunger for the sake of hunger this owl in the heart” (27-29). We are doomed to destroy the Earth and each other because we are predatory owls, hungering for the next kill. Will the apocalyptic visions of William Butler Yeats and W.S. Merwin cause your students to work harder to prevent the cataclysm of pestilence or climate change? Perhaps. More likely, the study of apocalyptic themes will cause your students to realize we are not alone: for centuries, literature has motivated us to weather the storms that assail us. Which authors do you use to teach the concept of theme? I would love to hear from you.   Works Cited Finch, Sheila. Myths, Metaphors, and Science Fiction: Ancient Roots of the Literature of the  Future. (Conversation Pieces Number 39). Seattle, WA: Aqueduct Press, 2014. Gardner, Janet E., et al. Literature: A Portable Anthology. Fourth Edition. Bedford, 2017. p.  1437. Merwin, W.S. “My Friends.” Poets.org. Academy of American Poets. n.d. https://poets.org/poem/my-friends . 14 November 2019. -----. “Rain Light.” The Merwin Conservancy. 2019.  https://merwinconservancy.org/2013/10/rain-light-by-ws-merwin/ . 14 November 2019. -----. “The Speed of Light.” The Merwin Conservancy. 2019.  https://merwinconservancy.org/?s=the+speed+of+light. 14 November 2019. Yeats, William Butler. “The Second Coming.” Literature: A Portable Anthology. Fourth Edition.  Ed. Gardner, Janet E., et al. Bedford, 2017. p. 500. ... View more

Well, I'm trying at any rate. Right now that means moving along with the 10th edition of Signs of Life in the U.S.A. We're in the copyediting stage, which can be (and is being) conducted entirely through digital technology. I remember the old days when we had to paste up every page of the text and mail everything in to Bedford Books. This was before the Internet changed everything—when researching new readings meant going in person to the library and photocopying every selection. An era of post-it notes on copyedited pages and endless back-and-forth FedEx or UPS deliveries, of word processing but no email file attachments. At least we had a toll-free phone number we could use when talking to our editor. And, no, I'm not nostalgic for that time. In fact, I don't know how we managed at all, especially when Sonia and I were also still composing editions of California Dreams and Realities, segueing directly from the completion of one text to the other in a continuous stream of textbook creation. And I presume that without these technologies, which we all take for granted now, there would have had to have been some sort of interruption to our work on the new edition of Signs of Life. But thanks to the Internet, we can all work from home (authors and publishing team alike), so “Number 10” will actually be wrapped up in record time. That's a comfort in these troubled times, when the future is largely a giant question mark and the present is like a bewildering dream. And that is an experience that requires no semiotic exegesis. Photo Credit: Pixabay Image 683901   by Hermann, used under   Pixabay License ... View more

I’ve always been a fan of NPR, and of Scott Simon’s Weekend Edition, but I haven’t usually had time to just sit and listen attentively to it. In this time of sheltering in place and social distancing, however—and on a cold, bleak, and rainy Saturday—I tuned in and followed the entire program. As usual, it was full of stories that intrigued and sometimes alarmed me, like one about the scarcity of clean water on the Navajo nation or one about a group promoting dark humor as a response to the coronavirus. But the day’s show also featured interviews with three authors: Terry McMillan, Julia Alvarez, and C. Pam Zhang. Now I have three new books on my “must read” list: McMillan’s It’s Not All Downhill from Here, Alvarez’s Afterlife, and Zhang’s How Much of these Hills is Gold. So I am ordering these books from my local independent bookstore, which is closed now but fulfilling online orders, and I hope to write about them in future posts. Today, though, I wanted to share parts of the Zhang and Alvarez interviews, which especially captivated me by calling for expanded or re-definitions of writing and reading.   I’ve written in the past about the difficulties of defining writing—and ended up with such a convoluted definition that I had to laugh out loud. I haven’t written for publication about defining reading, but I have thought for a long time about the word’s derivations and its relationship to closely related words that originally meant “to advise.”   So I like thinking about how we define these two words that are so central to the work that we do, and I was fascinated to hear two novelists suggesting expanded ways of thinking about and/or defining writing and reading. Scott Simon asked if Zhang was currently writing and Zhang first responded that she was not, but then went on to expand: I think we have to expand our definition of writing. I’ve taken to saying in recent years that walking is writing. Crying is writing. Talking to your friend is writing. All these experiences help you give shape to what you’re thinking about the world, and that will come back to the page eventually, even if you’re not able to form words right now. I like this expanded view of writing, which certainly fits with my own experience. And doesn’t it seem that such a definition would be reassuring to struggling writers or to multilingual writers trying to coax words in unfamiliar languages? I can imagine students making a list of all the activities they would include in their own definitions of “writing.” I bet cooking would be on those lists. And biking and running and so much more—all activities that free up thinking and lead to writing. So thank you, C. Pam Zhang!   Later in the show, Simon spoke with Julia Alvarez about her new book, which she says is her first written as an “elder.” I’ve had the pleasure of sitting with Alvarez in Vermont and listening to her talk about her commitment to students, to teachers, and to learning, so I leaned in especially close to this interview. Toward the end, she and Simon started talking about the current pandemic and the way it has utterly changed our everyday lives—social distancing; sheltering in place; staying home, often alone—and about reading during this time of forced isolation. Alvarez paused and then said, It’s always been something that reading is about, you know? It’s about being together apart. I’ve thought a lot about that, because that phrase has been bandied about, and I thought, well, now that’s a definition of reading. What a wonderful way to expand our understanding and definition of reading: being together, apart. Perhaps that’s why reading—and writing—are such a comfort to me during this time of national crisis, because they allow me to feel closely connected to others even though I am very much alone, apart. Thank you, Julia Alvarez.   And thanks to every teacher out there who is using writing and reading to connect to students and who is reaching out to assure them that their teachers are there—even when we are apart.   Image Credit: Pixabay Image 690584 by Free-Photos, used under the Pixabay License ... View more

Santa Barbara, California /March 9 – 29, 2020   On Monday, March 9, in the year 2020, life as a community college English professor is still fairly normal, although the rapid spread of COVID-19 has everyone who’s paying attention on edge. Schools—and shops and restaurants and bars—are still open, but there is talk that soon they might be closing “for a while.”   I meet with three classes on Mondays. There are some absences, but this is Week 9 of our 15-week semester; absences are inevitable. Some students seem more aware of the virus than others: they have scooted their desks away from the center of the classroom. In general, though, we interact as we normally would, which means we are in close quarters. *   The next day, at home, I grade some late papers, take a walk around the neighborhood, and read the news, which is grim. Our Executive Vice President announces in an email: “Get Prepared to Continue Instruction in an Alternative Method.” * On the morning of Wednesday, March 11, I tell my hybrid English 110 class to be “really ready” to go online. I reassure them, as I had Monday’s section, that as a hybrid class we are already well-suited to make the transition to a fully online class.   Between the early morning and late morning’s classes, I read that the World Health Organization has officially declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. By the time I head off to teach my other two classes, word is spreading that this could be our final day of face-to-face classes “for a while.”   Students ask: “How long will this last?” “Are we going to be coming back later in the semester?” “What if I don’t have a Wi-Fi connection at home?” “Can we borrow computers from somebody?” “Will this affect summer school?”   My answer to every question is the same: “I don’t know.” * That evening the EVP emails: “We are moving as much instruction online as possible and as quickly as possible.” * On Thursday, things change quickly, sometimes by the hour. Our college president announces, “SBCC will not close our campuses unless directed to do so by the County Public Health Department.”   At home, I begin working on my two non-hybrid classes, sketching out ways that I can bring them online. * On Friday, March 13, President Trump declares “a public health emergency.”   The Chancellor of the California Community Colleges issues a blanket waiver allowing courses that do not have an “approved distance education component” to nevertheless move online as soon as possible.   Our EVP answers some FAQs via email, including “Is online instruction for the remainder of the semester?” Her answer: “We are planning in shorter increments as we move forward. Plan to be online for the foreseeable future. We are continually assessing this plan.”   * The weekend is full of rumor and uncertainty. Hospitalizations in California are beginning to rise. The number of deaths from the virus in Italy and Spain is terrifying.   My youngest daughter is a freshman at NYU, and like most college students around the country, she has been sent packing. I pick her up at the Santa Barbara airport on Saturday night. The situation being what it is, I don’t give her a hug. * On Sunday, March 15, SBCC’s president officially closes the campus. The EVP asks faculty and employees to stay away unless they are very briefly picking up “needed equipment, books, or other materials.” * My previous Bedford Bits post, written in the ancient days of February, was entitled “Self-Sufficiency in the Community College Classroom,” and lauded actions like meeting deadlines. Self-sufficiency is still going to be important for my students, but they are not going to make it without plenty of community help.   Fortunately, my school has gone into overdrive. Chromebooks are being loaned for the remainder of the semester. Counseling and financial aid have gone online. Indeed, everything is moving online. * Above all, there is a lot of Zooming going on. “If I never have to Zoom again, it will be too soon,” a colleague texts me, and I respond with the emoji with the exploding head. * Still, I feel extremely lucky that I spent a recent sabbatical converting face-to-face to online courses. While the work in front of me now is time-consuming, I know how to do it.   In contrast, one of my older colleagues doesn’t even have a computer at home: she does all her online work at the office.   She is given a loner Chromebook and reckons that she will teach the final five weeks of her classes via email. * On Thursday, March 19, our president confirms that “a currently enrolled credit student is positive for COVID-19.” Anyone who has come in contact with the student will be contacted by the Public Health Department.   We also learn that “Instruction will continue online for the remainder of the Spring term.”   That same day, Governor Gavin Newsome issues a statewide “Stay at Home” order. * Our spring break, which begins on Monday, March 23, doesn’t, of course, feel like a break at all, although I am glad that all the members of my family are healthy. I spend the first part of the week grading papers online, and the second part making sure that my two non-hybrid classes are ready to go when classes begin again on March 30. * On Tuesday, March 24, our president reminds us that as we are now under a declaration of emergency, there are “implications for public employees.” Apparently, there is a government code stating “that all employees of the District are declared civil defense workers during emergencies, subject to such defense activities as may be assigned to them.” What, I wonder, might those duties be? * The vast majority of my students seem to be working hard and earnestly to adjust to these unprecedented circumstances in their schooling and their lives, so why am I so annoyed by the few angry and irrational emails I receive from students who have clearly not read my emails or Canvas announcements?   I have to remind myself how upsetting all this is for students, and that finger-pointing is just a way for them to deal with stress. Patience, I tell myself, although it is not my strongest quality. * On Friday, March 27, the Chancellor’s office issues Executive Order 2020-02 and Guidance Memo ES 20-10, which, among other provisions, extend late-drop deadlines, waive the pass/no pass deadline, and allow students retake any class they were enrolled in during the pandemic.   That same day, our president announces, with genuine sadness, that this year’s commencement will be virtual. * I spend Sunday, March 29, the final day of spring break, tinkering with Canvas assignments for the next day and typing up my notes for this blog post.   The windows are open as I work. Outside, it is a pleasant Southern California spring day. The air is lush with birdsong, and the hills are green from the recent rains. I can smell the smoke from my next-door neighbor’s barbecue.   You’d never know that the world had changed. ... View more

As we face another month of social distancing, online learning, and the realities imposed upon us by Covid-19, I am wondering how we might document our days—and capture what we are learning so that we will remember insights, perspective shifts, and innovations when we are once again teaching in our “normal” classroom settings.   There are some national efforts to document the impact of Coronavirus, including the WAC Clearinghouse’s Coronavirus Story Archive. The Conference on College Composition and Communication asked designated “documentarians” to keep daily diaries of their work during the scheduled convention in March, even though the event in Milwaukee was canceled. They will be sharing these reflections in various ways in the coming months. At an institutional and state level, I’ve seen several initiatives to share resources and solve problems—and to recognize the unexpected benefits found in novel platforms, media, and cross-disciplinary collaborations.   I hope that each of us as IRW, ALP, developmental, or FYC instructors will find a way to preserve our virtual classroom experiences as well—how we connect with students, how we manage peer review, what seems to be most challenging, and where we are discovering unanticipated success. I know the dedication and determination of my colleagues, and I suspect we will unearth some teaching treasures as we walk through this process; we will want to remember those riches when we are back together with students in shared physical spaces.   I have often told my students that writing involves discovering, making, shaping, and organizing meaning. Composing and arranging, particularly through language, allow us to make sense of the realities we have to confront at any given moment. When unfamiliar realities break over us in successive waves, we may lose footing. Sense-making activities can help us—as teachers and as students—find grounding again.    Whatever your platform for documentation and reflection might be—from paper journals to video logs—I urge you to keep a record of teaching in the time of Coronavirus. We can share our evolving virtual pedagogy along the way, of course, but when all is said and done, I hope we will turn our memories into collaborations, into new research, into innovative ways of teaching ourselves and our students.      How are you recording and reflecting on pedagogy during these days of social distancing? I’d love to hear from you. ... View more

I may be sheltering in place and social distancing, but like so many others I am lucky to be able to connect with friends, loved ones, students, and teachers online. Recently I have gotten inquiries from teachers who have been teaching with one or another of my textbooks, and I’ve been able to send additional materials and links that they can use with their students online. This reminds me that in many ways teachers are first responders too, and heroes to their students (and to me). I feel so fortunate to be in contact with them.   And I am VERY lucky to have two particular young friends—in 2 nd and 4 th grades—who have joined me in a Writer’s Club. I have known their dad since he was 2 years old and think of him, his wife, and the girls as family. Leah (2 nd ) and Maya (4 th ) have been in Japanese immersion classes but are now schooling at home and every day, or every other day, we write back and forth. Yesterday brought an even bigger treat when we got together on Facebook for half an hour and I could see projects they were working on (a space craft and a quite large airplane carrying loads of cotton candy and other sweets) and some of their drawings.   I hope their work will bring smiles to you, as it has certainly done to me. Poems by Leah Pets Cats Dogs Little and cute Snuggly Sleepy With cat paws   President Trump bump Pickerpump Humph! Humph! Humph!   Poems by Maya To COVID19 Dear coronavirus aka COVID19, Please go away to another galaxy NEVER come back We have way too many things going on and now schools are closed Because of you. We can only see our friends and family virtually. And we can’t go out of our house! We can only go out for food and maybe clothes! And the restaurants are all closed So now we have to be six feet apart if we do go outside! So, please do not be such a pain!   Flower Flowers are soft Light as a feather Outstandingly blue Whenever you look Every bright day Right in front of you.   I have many more, of course, but hope these few will brighten your day. I am sending virtual hugs and wishes for keeping safe to teachers and students everywhere.   Image Credit: Pixabay Image 865116 by picjumbo_com, used under the Pixabay License ... View more

Feeling like I have been unwillingly dropped into a Camus novel (The Plague) or famous diary (Pepys's will do), I find writing this blog to be a very strange experience. The thing is, in spite of multiple reasons to be particularly concerned about it all (the governor of California has both spelled out and operationalized those reasons), I have a duty to stick to the script here and limit myself to a semiotically-relevant topic. And since I was already thinking about the analysis to follow before the pandemic came down, I'll simply stay with it, because, as it turns out, there are significant connections between the plague and what I was already planning to say. So, here goes. What I've been thinking about concerns the clear generational divide that has emerged through the course of the Democratic primary season, with Joe Biden sweeping the late-middle-aged and seniors vote and Bernie Sanders attracting practically all younger voters. In the "OK, Boomer" era, this was only to be expected, being yet another indicator that the split between the old and young in America, which was destined to emerge anyway as the huge Baby Boom generation ages in place, is now gaping asunder at increasing speed. There is an irony about all this, however, for it was my generation (yes, I'm a Boomer) that invented the "generation gap" in the first place. We also were largely responsible for the transformation of America into a consumerist-driven youth culture, having enjoyed a pampered childhood lavished upon us by parents who had survived the Depression and the War and who wanted their children to have the kinds of things that they had lacked. So, we got Disneyland, TV, and a consumer culture that was capable of commodifying anything—including, paradoxically enough, our own brief rebellion against consumerism in the 1960s. And to complete the irony of it all, we were the ones who rallied around the slogan "never trust anyone over thirty." So, um, well, there is something distinctly karmic in the air as we encounter a new generation of voters who, let us say, aren't conspicuously fond of us, as is plangently evident in the observation by a politically disaffected Sanders supporter that “to win us back, the Democratic Party needs to actually listen to us and serve us. Or else they need to die and we will create a new party ourselves.” With a lot of us Boomers now under official orders to "self-isolate" in order to save our lives (I'm good with that), such rhetoric can't help but have a chilling ring to it, but it doesn't really worry me. For one thing, it was spoken before the plague erupted and would almost certainly not be uttered today. But more importantly, we are all, one way or another, in the same boat now, with all of our lives at risk—if not biologically, then economically and psychologically. This whole thing is a mess of historic proportions, and we are all simply going to have to pull together to get through it. Photo Credit: Pixabay Image 4087018   by geralt, used under   Pixabay License ... View more

Last week I wrote about the importance of writing in times of crisis—times like we are experiencing right now. Writing connects us to others and enables an important form of intimacy that can stretch across great distances, and many of us are finding that taking time to write to loved ones, and especially to those with whom we have lost touch, is worth its weight in gold. As this virus continues to rage, I say keep it up and spread the word: writing helps!   Today I am thinking of another activity for students I work with: asking them not to “follow the money” but to “follow the story.” The struggle for who and what institutions will control the narrative of America’s response to and encounter with the coronavirus is ongoing, and it is reaching an especially intense state as I write this. Will the White House’s Coronavirus Task Force take control and be the voice citizens listen to and trust to provide an accurate narrative? What other narratives are out there, working away? Those provided by scientists, doctors, and those associated with the NIH and CDC? Congress, where the story being told by Republicans and the story being told by Democrats are completely at odds with one another? Traditional print and TV media that are reporting sometimes wildly varying stories of what is happening and what we should do about it? Or social media, where conspiracy theorists are busily trying to sell their narratives as the ones we should believe and trust? All of these—and more—narratives are currently in play. Why not, then, ask students to work online in pairs or small groups to track these narratives and to subject them to careful, fair rhetorical analysis.   In this time of social distancing, sheltering in place, and self-isolation, activities like these can give students something concrete and specific they can do, something that can help them understand how narratives circulate in our society and how they gain (or lose) power over how and what we think. More important, they can share their findings widely with others whose perceptions are daily being shaped (and often manipulated) by such narratives. Thinking clearly and rhetorically is one thing we and our students can all do to survive this pandemic.   Please. Stay. Safe. And aware.   Image Credit: Pixabay Image 791029 by kaboompics, used under the Pixabay License ... View more

Striving for community in this strange and estranging moment, I am here to champion the work we do—even in non-global-pandemic times—to teach our students the value of critical visual literacy. Now, these lessons are even more crucial. Isn’t it fascinating how this particular image of coronavirus-related health behaviors took off a few weeks ago? The simplicity of the visual rhetoric made this a highly shared and hashtagged image (#lowerthecurve) since it clarified the math of exponential infections. Fast on its heels, though, came critiques about the shortcomings of its simplicity. Then came a tsunami of more nuanced public health visuals, any of which could make for interesting teaching, including this free-to-access Washington Post series of models. By the time you are reading this and are navigating the process of teaching the rest of your semester online, you already might have designed assignments that address this unsettling, united-in-our-social isolation moment, perhaps by inviting students to analyze, compare, and critique these pandemic-related images. For assignment inspiration, you might revisit Bedford New Scholar Carrie Wilson’s post on visual rhetoric and digital literacy. Because March is also Women’s History Month, I’d like to recognize that while we are rightly celebrating the scientists who are working hard to address the pandemic, we might also acknowledge the barriers to careers in science that remain widespread for women. I give a shout out to two women who contributed early on to the science of public health in this essay for our local NPR affiliate, WVPE. There are many more women scientists to celebrate, but they are still a minority in most scientific fields. In the forthcoming 5th edition of From Inquiry to Academic Writing, co-authored with Stuart Greene, we offer a pithy reading on “Global Gender Disparities in Science” that includes visual representation of the gender imbalance in scientific research output. In this very teachable text, Cassidy R. Sugimoto and colleagues use bibliometric analysis to demonstrate the structural inequalities that keep women from pursuing and succeeding in many scientific fields: Our study lends solid quantitative support to what is intuitively known: barriers to women in science remain widespread worldwide, despite more than a decade of policies aimed at leveling the playing field. UNESCO data show that in 17% of countries an equal number of men and women are scientists. Yet we found a grimmer picture: fewer than 6% of countries represented in the Web of Science come close to achieving gender parity in terms of papers published. (From Inquiry to Academic Writing, 5e) Sugimoto et al. argue that we are cheating ourselves out of crucial scientific insights when a country fails to “maximize its human intellectual capital.” This pandemic is already teaching us many things. Reminding us of the value of science, and public understandings of scientific research, is among those vital lessons. Photo Credit:   Pixabay Image 3412498  by kreatikar, used under   Pixabay License ... View more

Over the past two or three weeks, most of us have made the shift to online learning as part of our nation-wide response to the corona virus pandemic. A number of helpful resources have been posted, from the most basic steps to these excellent ideas from Tina Shanahan specifically related to the corequisite course online.   As I have been shaping my courses for the move to an online environment, I have tried to follow the same principles I would use to design a face-to-face composition and corequisite paired course: structure, redundancy, transparency, connection, and opportunities for “high-quality” talk.    Structure: My online course is organized into weekly folders containing all readings, handouts, and assignments, so that students can access material easily. An overview to each week’s folder reminds students of the goals and due dates for the week.   Redundancy: Key information is available in multiple places and in multiple formats.  For example, in addition to the overviews in the weekly folders, I post reminders in the course calendar, in the announcements (seen on the log-in screen), and in regular emails. I have colleagues who build in redundancy via texts, tweets, or apps such as Remind.     Transparency: I try to outline the purpose of assignments so that students can propose reasonable alternatives if circumstances or technology make completion difficult. If students are having trouble completing a reading journal in a Google Doc, they might propose a photo of a handwritten journal sent via email or text. If a student’s proposal fulfills the assignment goals, then I’ll take the alternative, no problem.   Connection: In a typical semester, I try to connect with online students at least once in a F2F or virtual one-on-one session, and that connection is all the more important in this mid-semester shift. That connection could occur via Google Hangouts, Skype, Zoom, or any other online interface—or by phone. I think it’s important to frame these check-ins with a personal connection, before turning to academics. Is the student well?  How about his work? How’s her family doing? What is the biggest challenge at the moment? Are there resources (food pantries, campus medical clinics, community support) that might be helpful to the student?    “High-quality classroom talk”: This phrase comes from Myhill and Newman (2016), who suggest that students learn to think metalinguistically and apply that thinking in their writing through “high-quality classroom talk.” I think my greatest concern in the shift to a fully online environment was the loss of in-the-moment classroom talk about writing. But there are ways to foster such talk online, even if you have been discouraged from synchronous class sessions (which may not be feasible for all students). Of course, individual check-ins and online peer review (via Google Docs or other collaborative platforms) can support metalinguistic talk and reflection. Another option is the discussion board. If you choose to use a discussion in your online corequisite, consider the following ideas:   Make sure students are comfortable with the format. You can record a short video (via Kaltura or another screen capture tool) to show students how to write, post, read, and reply in the discussion board (these will vary depending on your LMS). You might also offer to walk through the process with students during an individual check in. Clarify the purpose of the activity and make discussion prompts specific. If students are going to discuss a reading, ask 3-4 guiding questions, with a focus not only on paraphrasing content but also on analyzing, extending, and applying. Focus on questions where a range of answers are possible for exploration. Provide guidance as to the number, length, and formatting expectations for posts. If you expect complete sentences, make sure students know this up front—as well as the guidelines you will use to assess and evaluate their contributions. If possible, use multiple deadlines across an extended period of time. For example, instead of asking all students to post a reply and 3 responses by the deadline, set three deadlines: Post an initial response by Wednesday, respond to a classmate by Sunday, and respond again by Tuesday. You might want to negotiate deadlines in your weekly check-ins with students. If you are using multiple deadlines, join the discussion yourself, providing additional clarity, probing answers, modelling discussion strategies, and suggesting ways of connecting and developing ideas further. If your class is large, consider dividing into smaller groups for more efficient online discussions. Use the discussion as a platform for continued learning: Ask students to summarize or paraphrase the most important conclusions from a discussion. Ask students to review a discussion as part of a reading or reflection journal. Revisit discussions. If you’ve added a new reading, for example, you might ask students to pick three comments from a prior discussion and consider how the new reading confirms, contradicts, or complicates their previous conclusions. Quote student discussions in your announcements, comments, handouts, videos, or other materials. Show the students that you are reading and thinking about their ideas. Allow students to use a class discussion as a source for an essay assignment, citing their classmates as authors.   Online discussions actually provide a natural opportunity for integrated reading and writing instruction, but students do not always find their footing quickly or easily in an online forum. Your online presence—along with clear directions and multiple opportunities for participation—can ease students into the process.   Ultimately, the shift to online instruction can be anxiety-inducing for instructors and students alike. Find support among colleagues and technical staff—and know that rough spots are normal. In fact, my last suggestion is perhaps the most important: grant your students—and yourself—a hefty measure of flexibility and grace. ... View more

Today’s guest blogger is Tanya Rodrigue, an associate professor in English and coordinator of the Writing Intensive Curriculum Program at Salem State University in Massachusetts.   Like thousands of other professors, I am in the process of transitioning my face-to-face courses online. While my teaching and work heavily rely on and are informed by technology, I’ve never taught online. Why? Because I’ve never wanted to. I like to see my students, read their faces, hear their voices, chat with them after class, and say hi to them in the hallways. It was fairly easy for me to re-imagine my curriculum in an online setting, though. Yet I did encounter some unexpected struggles. I faced some logistical issues, namely figuring out how I was going to hold synchronous meetings with two young children screaming “mama” every five seconds in the background. Perhaps more importantly, I struggled with how I was going to redesign my last assignment. I had to stretch out my second assignment in order for it to actually work online, so that left only one week for students to complete something comparable to a final assignment. I didn’t know what that something might be. I thought of not doing anything at all and just reworking the original grade percentages, but then I felt paranoid and insecure. If I assigned nothing, would that still make me a fairly decent teacher?   I debated about this for a long time. During the messy debate in my overwhelmed, anxiety-ridden brain, I suddenly thought maybe I should just heed the advice of the million people on social media frantically sharing ideas for online teaching: identify the most important goal(s) and outcome(s) of the class, and then design a simple, bare-boned assignment that supports students in achieving those goal(s) and outcome(s).   I called my dear friend, colleague, and experienced online teacher, Dr. Amy Minett, to ask her advice about logistical issues as well as to brainstorm possible ideas for my last assignment. She helped me figure out the synchronous conferences/future screaming child scenarios and graciously brainstormed with me about final assignment possibilities. The classes I’m teaching—two sections of Audio Storytelling—are the second course in a three-course vertical writing model in our general education curriculum. My first idea, informed by common social media advice, was to design an assignment that bridges the second and third writing classes in the vertical writing model, offering students the opportunity to reflect on what they learned in my class and the ways in which the curriculum might have prepared them for work in the third required writing class. After talking through this plan, Amy said something that shifted my entire thinking about what might constitute a meaningful writing assignment in a time of crisis. She reminded me that we are living in a historical moment and that providing students with the opportunity to dwell in the moment--to reflect, to express their thoughts, their feelings, and their experiences—in writing could be helpful and meaningful. I immediately thought a version of an oral history would work perfectly in an audio storytelling class, but I was torn. Do I do the “pedagogically responsible” thing and create an assignment that bridges the two required writing courses? Or do I focus on the here and now, and create an assignment that enables students to use writing as a means to express, to learn, to reflect, and to record and preserve their experiences during an unprecedented crisis that will likely change the world and how we live in it?   I opted for the oral history-like project, and here is why. First, research shows that students find writing assignments that connect to their personal life meaningful. Second, while this assignment may not do all of the work needed to help students transition to their third writing course or reinforce rhetorical principles they’ll find valuable for life, it does support them in strengthening their knowledge and habits of mind that have been associated with success in college: writing is a process and rhetorically situated; it’s a means to learn; and it’s a way to strengthen metacognition and practice flexibility. Yet more than either of those reasons is this: an assignment like this is humane, caring, and compassionate, and all three are desperately needed in a time of crisis. Students are isolated. They’re anxious. They’re scared. Their entire worlds have drastically changed within a week. Some might feel like the Apocalypse is coming at any moment. Some might feel too scared to tell anyone how they feel or may have no one to talk to. Some may be food insecure or housing insecure or returning to homes where they feel unsafe. Some don’t have internet access or computers. Some have never taken an online course or never wanted to. A meaningful reflective assignment provides students space to dwell and reflect, which may be therapeutic or cathartic or it might help them understand something about the world or about themselves in the world. It might be uncomfortable or difficult, and they may even hate me for assigning such a project. But I want them to know that they matter, their voices matter, their experiences matter, and I, and maybe even the world, want to listen to them, support them, connect with them, and care for them.   An audio project, which has potential to be played on the radio or on a podcast, is particularly apropos to our current context: audio stories have historically been known to provide marginalized people the opportunity to be heard, to speak for themselves, and to tell their own story with their own voice. Further, voice, according to Radio Producer Jay Allison, has a unique power in connecting people. He writes, “a voice can sneak in, bypass the brain, and touch the heart…. in hearing your mother’s voice, she becomes, in a way, my mother, and I am drawn back to my own history and to .” (Jay Allison, Reality Radio: Telling True Stories in Sound). The sharing of voices brings humanity, empathy, and compassion to the forefront, and most importantly, has the potential to unite people in a time that demands we stand at least six feet apart from one other. I can only hope that this kind of assignment can make students feel, even if it’s only for one second, that they are not so isolated and alone. And perhaps one day, they might return to their recording and feel grateful that they captured their memories and experiences of this significant moment in history.   The below assignment can be adopted or adapted in any course in any mode of writing.   We are in a historical moment, one that will be discussed, taught, and analyzed for decades to come. It’s a moment that’s confusing and scary; a moment that is understood, felt, and interpreted in different ways and in different pockets of the world.   One way people learn about and remember historical moments like this is through oral histories. Oral histories are audio or video recordings that preserve and capture a person or group of people’s memories, experiences, feelings, personal commentaries, and understandings about a person, an event, an issue, or a life at a particular moment in time. Many oral histories emerge from well-prepared interviews and are often placed in an archive or a library.   For this final project, you will compose a personal oral history-like project that captures your impressions, feelings, commentaries, and/or understanding of what’s happening in a world facing an unprecedented health crisis. This audio recording will be a piece of history that you (and maybe others) can return to in the future to further reflect, understand, analyze or remember how you perceived life during a pandemic and looming economic crisis in 2020. And if you’re willing, it will be a collection of personal oral histories about the pandemic that will be played on the Salem State English department radio show/podcast, Soundplay, at some point in the future.   You can approach this assignment in any number of ways, and you can exert as much time and energy on it as you want. You might make this oral history a combination of personal narrative, media clips, and maybe even interviews with other folks that work to construct a robust telling of the past month or so. (I created an audio piece like this for the Women’s March in 2017.) Or you might record snippets of yourself speaking about your life experience each day over the next several weeks: you might string them together to create an audio remix or a montage. Or, at the end of a particularly difficult or hopeful or even mundane day, you might capture yourself speaking in free form or in verse or in a stream of consciousness about months, weeks, or even a moment of your life. There are many other ways you could approach this project: I encourage you do whatever you think seems most fitting for capturing and audio engraving your perception of this moment in time. The only assignment requirement is that you use your own voice.  ... View more

This blog series is written by Julia Domenicucci, an editor at Macmillan Learning, in conjunction with Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl.     Grammar Girl podcasts of every topic can be smoothly integrated with online classes. Take one of our previous blog posts (listed later in this post) and pair the suggested podcasts with one of our ideas for online assignments—or create your own!   Podcasts have been around for a while, but their popularity seems to increase every day—and for good reason! They are engaging and creative, and they cover every topic imaginable. They are also great for the classroom: you can use them to maintain student engagement, accommodate different learning styles, and introduce multimodality.    LaunchPad and Achieve products include assignable, ad-free Grammar Girl podcasts, which you can use to support your lessons. You can assign one (or all!) of these suggested podcasts for students to listen to before class. Each podcast also comes with a complete transcript, which is perfect for students who aren’t audio learners or otherwise prefer to read the content. To learn more about digital products and purchasing options, please visit Macmillan's English catalog or speak with your sales representative.    If you are using LaunchPad, refer to the unit “Grammar Girl Podcasts” for instructions on assigning podcasts. You can also find the same information on the support page " Assign Grammar Girl Podcasts ."   If you are using Achieve, you will find a "Quick Start Guide: Grammar Girl and Question Bank" in your Welcome Unit. You can also find information on assigning Grammar Girl in Achieve on the support page " Add Grammar Girl and shared English content to your course ."   Ideas for Using Grammar Girl Podcasts in an Online Classroom Choose a previous blog post and review the suggested podcasts. Then, adapt an assignment from that post or pair with one of the ideas here.   Grammar & Punctuation: Celebrate National Grammar Day with Grammar Girl Podcasts! Using Grammar Girl Podcasts to Teach about Commas Using Grammar Girl Podcasts to Teach about Less Common Pronoun Usage Using Grammar Girl Podcasts to Teach about Quotation Marks Using Grammar Girl Podcasts to Teach about Apostrophe Basics   Word Choice & Word Usage: Using Grammar Girl Podcasts to Teach about Prepositions Using Grammar Girl Podcasts to Teach about Commonly Confused Words Using Grammar Girl Podcasts to Teach about Idioms   Other Topics: Using Grammar Girl Podcasts—Back to Basics Using Grammar Girl Podcasts to Start the Semester Using Grammar Girl Podcasts to Compare British and American Englishes Using Grammar Girl Podcasts to Talk about Accurate Information and Redundant Language Using Grammar Girl Podcasts to Improve Student Writing   Assignment A: Assign students one or more podcasts to listen to before class. Ask students to evaluate the features of the podcast:  What elements does the student feel are essential to a podcast?  What does the host do to connect with the listener?  How do the host's tone and voice impact the listener's experience?   What elements of the podcast best helped the student absorb the information? If your class meets at a certain time, discuss these evaluations over video or audio; if your class does not meet together, have students post their comments to a discussion board or shared document and comment on at least one other evaluation.   Assignment B: Assign several example podcasts. Ask each student to listen to them and then choose a grammar or punctuation topic. Students should research the history of their topic, including any recent changes or controversies, and then write a short podcast script of about three minutes. Then, place students into groups or two or three and have them peer review the scripts over email, a shared document, or another method. Don’t forget to have them cite their sources!   Assignment C: After writing a script (Assignment B), ask students to record it. Instruct students to create a podcast (or give them a choice between a podcast, video, or lecture slides with audio). Alternately, have students work on the scripts and recordings in small groups of two or three. Students should also adapt the script into a final transcript to accompany the final product.   Credit: Pixabay Image 3846597by GDJ, used under a Pixaby License ... View more

I am writing this post from my home by the ocean on the northern California coast. Our small local clinic has asked all folks my age to “shelter in place,” so I am doing that, along with washing my hands every time I turn around and taking other precautions. Most of all, though, I am thinking of all those students now attending classes remotely, all those people whose jobs are in jeopardy, and all the small businesses and arts organizations whose razor-thin budgets are already stretched to the limit and who are having to lay off staff and take salary reductions. And, of course, all those suffering from COVID-19. These are dark days indeed, and they are made darker by the utter incompetence of the current administration.   In such a time, as we know from decades of research, writing can help. Writing that expresses and gives vent to feelings, that captures and shares feelings, and that sets out ways to respond to a crisis—step by step, day by day—can ease tension, even lower blood pressure. So it seems to me like a very good time to think about using writing in these ways, and encouraging—even assigning—students to use writing in these ways as well.   In addition, I have found myself thinking of people I care about but have lost touch with, or of loved ones that I too often may take for granted. And I’ve been acting on these thoughts, taking time each day to write (text, email, or, my favorite, longhand letters and cards) to at least three people, asking how they are, if I can do anything to help, and telling them at least a little bit of how much they mean to me. I feel like I’m sending out messages in a bottle—messages of caring and of hope.   Might these weeks of self-isolation, social distancing, and quarantine be just the right time for such writing? I think so—and recommend it. In the meantime, stay safe.   Image Credit: Pixabay Image 828911 by Free-Photos, used under the Pixabay License ... View more