Bedford/St. Martin's is pleased to announce the participants in the 2025 Bedford New Scholars Advisory Board! This year's Bedford New Scholars are:     Janette Byrd is a PhD student and graduate assistant in rhetoric and composition at the University of Arkansas (U of A) where she teaches first year composition, technical writing, and style for professional writers. Janette recognizes every student in her classroom as a rhetor and embraces a social justice focused pedagogy. Janette completed her MA in applied cultural anthropology at Oregon State University (OSU) where she studied food in culture and social justice and was a peer reviewer for the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. Janette is the program director on a National Science Foundation ADVANCE grant at the U of A and previously served as assistant editor of the ADVANCE Journal at OSU. Current research interests include how systems, such as the criminal justice system, are narratively constructed, and the intersections of rhetoric and literacy in narrative change and system reform efforts. (Janette was recommended by Megan McIntyre.)    Courtney Crisp is a PhD candidate in Rhetoric and Composition with a specialization in Writing Across the Curriculum programming at Ball State University. Their research and pedagogical interests center rhetoric in popular culture, anti-racism, and linguistic justice. As they continue to teach first-year composition courses at both Ball State as well as a local community college, Courtney continues to research the ways that culture, embodiment, and experience shape students' perceptions of their roles as writers, scholars, and community members. (Courtney was recommended by Michael Donnelly.)          Greg Gillespie is a PhD student in Rhetoric, Writing, & Linguistics and teaches first-year composition at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He also tutors and coaches at the Judith Anderson Herbert Writing Center. His research interests include multimodal composition pedagogy, L2 writing, and technical/professional communication. Greg draws on 15 years of experience in the government and corporate sector to use engaging pedagogy in the classroom in addition to building supportive networks among graduate students and newer instructors. (Greg was recommended by Sean Morey.)    Jackson Martin is pursuing his MA in English with a concentration in Rhetoric and Composition at North Carolina State University. Jackson’s research interests include writing studies, pedagogy, writing program administration, digital rhetorics, and ambient rhetorics. Jackson has taught a range of courses, including various high school English Language Arts classes and first-year writing at North Carolina State University. Jackson values teaching multimodality, linguistic diversity, and genre studies in the classroom. (Jackson was recommended by Chris Anson.)    Marie Nour Nakhle is a PhD Candidate at the University of Connecticut studying Romanticism, with an emphasis on the figure of the critic in Romantic writing. She is also the Assistant Director for the First-Year Writing Program, where she works closely with colleagues on all aspects of the program, including planning professional development opportunities for instructors and providing teaching support. In her role, she also joined Director Dr. Lisa Blansett and former Assistant Director Mckenzie Bergan in writing a textbook for the program. (Marie Nour was recommended by Lisa Blansett.)   Shelby Ramsey is a PhD candidate in Rhetoric and Composition at Florida State University where she currently teaches first-year composition, upper-level courses in FSU's Editing, Writing, & Media program, and other courses in English studies more broadly. Her research interests include inclusive and anti-oppression pedagogies, digital writing, and writing technologies. She is particularly interested in how students engage with generative AI critically through their own writing processes, reflection, and most recently, peer review. Her other ongoing work explores how digital writing classrooms can better support linguistic justice, accessibility, and students from historically underrepresented backgrounds. In addition to her teaching and research, she has served as an elected liaison between the graduate student organization and the College Composition Program (FYC), and she has helped manage the FSU Museum of Everyday Writing where she mentors undergraduate students. She holds a BA and MA in English from the University of Alabama. (Shelby was recommended by Elias Dominguez Barajas.)  Allison Steinmeyer is a PhD candidate in Rhetoric and Digital Humanities at the University of Oklahoma (OU). She has taught First-Year Composition, Native American Children’s and Young Adult literature, and various multidisciplinary classes within the university. She is also the Assistant Director for the OU Honors College Writing Center. Throughout her time at OU she has assisted the FYC Online development team in creating virtual assignments, and constructing the Honors College Writing Assistant curriculum. Allison’s research interests include rhetorical theory, pedagogy, digital humanities, and Indigenous methodologies. For her dissertation, she is working on a project that examines structures of belonging in Indigenous society that contribute to or destroy a longing for displaced Native peoples to be part of their home communities. (Allison was recommended by Roxanne Mountford) Ryan Vojtisek is a PhD student in Public Rhetoric & Community Engagement at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In his research, he uses psychoanalysis to explore how political feelings, disingenuous rhetorics, and contradictions influence conceptual formations of (anti-)democratic publics and citizenship. He is UWM Writing Center’s Graduate Assistant Coordinator and, in fall, will serve on the UWM composition program’s Graduate Teaching Assistant Training and Mentorship Team. He has taught Composition 1 and 2, Business Writing, and Technoscience writing wherein he strives to help students embrace human collaboration's value to writing and revising. He’s committed to departmental community formation and serves as English Department Policy Committee Graduate Student Representative and Co-Chairs UWM's chapter of Rhetoric Society of America. (Ryan was recommended by Shevaun Watson.)  ... View more

Marisa Koulen Marisa Koulen is pursuing her PhD in English concentrating on Rhetoric, Composition, and Pedagogy at the University of Houston. She has taught a range of courses including First Year Writing I, First Year Writing II, and Advanced Composition. Marisa's teaching philosophy centers on acknowledging all students as writers and challenging them to critically engage in making meaning through social justice and advocacy writing. Her research explores the intersection of antiracist writing assessment and multimodal composition pedagogy. As a first-generation American and college student, Marisa is passionate about supporting students, especially those from marginalized communities, navigate the transformative power of education and literacy.       How does the next generation of students inspire you?  The next generation of students inspires me with their increasing awareness of social justice and their willingness to challenge systems of inequality. They enter the classroom with a powerful sense of activism and a desire to make their voices heard, even in my first year writing classes. These students push me, as an educator, to be more reflective, to deconstruct barriers to learning, and to make sure my classroom is a place where all voices are acknowledged and valued. Their courage to question norms and advocate for change invigorates my commitment to building inclusive and responsive writing assignments in my classroom.   What is the most important skill you aim to provide your students? The most important skill I aim to provide my students is the ability to critically reflect on their own learning and writing processes and provide/receive feedback. Reflection encourages students to become aware of their growth, understand the reasons behind their choices, and see their learning as ongoing. This metacognitive skill not only empowers them to develop as writers in my class, but also to become lifelong learners, confident in adapting their skills to new contexts. By fostering feedback and reflection, I also equip them with the tools needed to navigate and shape the world around them, both in writing and beyond. Whether using digital platforms like Padlet for anonymous feedback or facilitating breakout room activities in online classes, I prioritize spaces where students feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and supporting each other. Regular reflections and interactive discussions (like word clouds and other visualizers) are integrated to ensure that learning is a shared and dynamic process. To ensure my course is inclusive, equitable, and culturally responsive, I center my teaching around representation, linguistic diversity, and equitable assessment practices. I use labor-based grading to value students’ efforts rather than imposing traditional language norms, allowing them to take risks and grow as writers. I also encourage students to draw on their personal and cultural experiences in their writing, which allows their unique voices to flourish in the classroom. Additionally, consistent feedback mechanisms allow me to adapt the course based on students’ expressed needs. Experience giving and receiving feedback is invaluable in the classroom, as these skills transfer beyond just writing.   Marisa's Assignment That Works Below is a brief synopsis of Marisa's assignment. For the full activity, see Logical Fallacies in the Wild.    The "Logical Fallacies in the Wild" assignment is designed to bridge the critical rhetorical analysis skills discussed in the course textbook and in professional academic examples with students' lived experiences, emphasizing the situated nature of communication across diverse discourse communities. Its primary goal is to cultivate an awareness of how logical fallacies are not only pervasive but also ideologically loaded, particularly within the context of consumer culture on social media platforms. By requiring students to locate fallacies in advertisements found during their own personal social media use, this assignment actively situates their learning within spaces that shape and reflect their identities. This assignment helps students acknowledge that rhetoric operates everywhere! ... View more

Hayden Kindrat Hayden Kindrat is pursuing his PhD in English Literature at Stony Brook University (SUNY), with a focus in American and Anglophone literature, science fiction, and environmental fiction and ideas (all in the mid-twentieth century). He has taught courses in Stony Brook's English Department and Department of Writing and Rhetoric. He lives in Queens in New York City.               What do you think is the most important recent development or pedagogical approach in teaching composition? Generative AI, for sure. I don’t think any development in the past has had so much potential to disembody and disincorporate the actual process of writing to such a degree. Students are using AI to write papers, AI-generated papers are being published in academic journals. When we read it, we can usually intuitively sense that something is wrong, but we can’t always put our fingers on why; we are already talking about using AI to detect AI writing.    It is especially important, too, because of its consequences on morale, which we’re already seeing. It is challenging for instructors; it has necessitated a presumption of guilt, so that we feed our students’ work into specious and faulty detection software; there is an atmosphere of paranoia shared in by students and instructors alike. Every semester for the last few years I have had students approach me with their concerns about their work being arbitrarily flagged for plagiarism, and every semester I receive papers that have clearly been written using AI — but I do not have the tools or the resources to definitively prove it, because the technology is evolving and changing faster than institutions can adapt.    It already seems like it is necessitating a total overhaul of how we administer even the most basic and fundamental writing instruction, and a reconsideration of what is or should be sought or valued in student writing. It’s disorienting to think about!     What is the most important skill you aim to provide your students? Probably to think meaningfully and critically and what they write, how they’re writing, and all of the other processes that go into writing. And, of course, to think the same way about what they read or otherwise consume. I use the word “consume” because I think, with the way we are inundated with information and sensory input, deliberation tends to go out the window. We’re basically being conditioned to take information about as consciously as we take in oxygen. To take in as much as possible, as quickly as possible. I think it’s important to impart to students that everything they take in can and should be scrutinized for how it works, what it is saying, what the purpose or the intent behind it is, the nature and logic of its rhetoric, and so on.    In college writing courses, this is especially relevant to argumentation. Encouraging students to slow down, to think about what they’re saying, the best way to say it depending on the audience, and what evidence needs to be provided to actually convince an audience of something, is key — and one way to do this is to teach them to parse these same elements in the things they read, see, watch, and hear.    Hayden's Assignment That Works Below is a brief synopsis of Hayden's assignment. For the full activity, see Database Scavenger Hunt.   This activity is designed to acquaint WRT 102 students with the databases accessible to them through Stony Brook University’s libraries. It takes place in the classroom. I usually set aside forty-five minutes to an hour for this activity.   Students are asked to bring their laptops to class, and to break into groups of four. I give the entire class a search task to complete which will involve the use of advanced search options, database directories and research guides, boolean operators (AND, OR), and phrase searching with quotation marks, which they’ve become glancingly familiar with prior to this activity. The first team to complete the task gets a point (candy, extra credit, etc), but they have to demonstrate for the class how they arrived at their search result on the classroom’s overhead.   Some of these tasks involve whittling down massive search results by whatever means they can think of, from hundreds of thousands of results, to hundreds, to a single search result. For example: “Make a search query involving ‘Shakespeare’ that yields a single search result.” Others involve using date ranges, such as “Find me the earliest mention of Stony Brook’s mascot, Wolfie, in a newspaper,” or, “Find a contemporaneous review of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, or, “Tell me something about the Long Island Railroad in 1976.” Others still are a bit more open ended, such as “Find me a weird New York State animal fact.”   I’ve done a variation of this activity later in the semester, after students have chosen their research topics and we have discussed “scholarly” and “popular” sources and Joseph Bizup’s BEAM method. Students work individually or in groups to find articles, and also to evaluate the articles in real time. I’ve found that responses tend to be interesting in what they reveal about how deeply students are thinking about the nature of the information they’re pulling, potentially for sources and evidence in their own writing. Some get very nitty-gritty with the advanced search features of a given database, others sidestep it all and wade into the morass of thousands or even millions of results for a basic query. And almost every time I do this assignment, I have a couple students who just try to use Google, which can create some problems when it comes to actually accessing an article behind an institutional paywall.  ... View more

Elizabeth Novotny Elizabeth Novotny is a PhD candidate in Rhetoric, Theory, and Culture at Michigan Technological University. She teaches First-Year Composition and other writing courses, such as Advanced Composition and Technical and Professional Communication. She is also a Composition Graduate Assistant and assists the program director in delivering instruction in the graduate-level Composition Pedagogy and orientation for new instructors, as well as supporting curriculum development and administrative tasks. Elizabeth’s research interests include writing studies, pedagogy, rhetorical theory, and continental philosophy. For her dissertation, she is working on a project that examines the relationship between FYC student conceptions of rhetorical agency and their writing practice.         How does the next generation of students inspire you? In our composition course at Michigan Tech, students research a topic of their choice throughout the semester. The variety of topics is amazing! Just last semester, I read about microtransactions in gaming, improving air traffic flow, the evolution of jazz music, factors impacting the processed food industry, linear infrastructure’s effect on wildlife, and much more. Students always keep me on my toes and remind me that there’s more to learn. I am constantly impressed by the questions they ask and the answers they find, and it’s inspiring to see them pursue their interests and gain confidence as researchers. My favorite part of teaching is being a genuinely interested and invested reader of student work.   How do you engage students in your course, whether f2f, online, or hybrid? Too often, students think that struggling with writing means that they are bad at it or there is something wrong with them. At Michigan Tech, a STEM-focused institution, we have a lot of students who are hesitant about writing. To engage them, I focus on making my own writing process visible, especially messy works-in-progress. It is important to acknowledge that writing is not perfectible and that it is difficult for everyone, not just for beginner or novice writers. Students need to see me as a fellow writer who is engaged in the same kinds of activities that I am asking them to do. For example, I share critical feedback I’ve received on my own writing and talk about the writing or research projects I’m currently working on. I’ll share examples of pieces of my undergraduate work in comparison to more recent work to demonstrate my growth. Another strategy I will often use is completing an activity along with students and projecting my work on the board as I do it. These kinds of practices lead to a comfortable classroom environment where it is accepted and encouraged to struggle. As a class, we view a challenging writing or reading experience as evidence that we are ready to learn something new.   Elizabeth's Assignment That Works Below is a brief synopsis of Elizabeth's assignment. For the full activity, see the Exploring Place assignment prompt. The assignment I presented during Assignments that Work is a supplementary assignment that I created collaboratively with another PhD student in my program, Kendall Belopavlovich. This assignment asks students to reflect on their story of being in the Keweenaw (the area where Michigan Tech is located) and go to a new place of their choice. Students explore their chosen place, and while they’re there, write a reflection on how their experience of being in the Keweenaw has changed as a result of interacting with that place. Students have responded very positively to this assignment. Most often, students mention a newfound appreciation for the unique natural beauty of the area or observe cultural differences that come from living in a remote place. Many students also express that this assignment has helped them value exploration and curiosity about the places around them. From my Assignments that Work presentation, I received valuable feedback from the other Bedford New Scholars that will help develop the assignment further. For example, I might have students complete a pre-reflection in a familiar place, which will allow them to reflect more intentionally about what changes they notice about themselves and about their writing when they go to a new place. I also got new ideas for incorporating multimodal elements into this assignment, such as asking students to make a map of how they moved through space and how they communicated there. I’m excited about making these updates moving forward! ... View more

Mckenzie Bergan Mckenzie Bergan is a PhD student at the University of Connecticut studying gothic fiction, young adult literature, and the campus novel. She explores how students and instructors form their identities within educational institutions, both individually and in relationship to those around them. She is the Assistant Director of First-Year Writing and is writing a textbook with the Director of UConn's FYW program. In this role, she also plans professional development opportunities for instructors and helps plan and host the Conference on the Teaching of Writing. She has taught English 1007, Writing and Multimodal Composition over the past several years and in the summer. She is the co-host of the “Reading Shirley Jackson Podcast” and has published “Theorising the Uncanny Adaptation through Hamlet” in Adaptation.     What is the most important skill you aim to provide your students? The most important thing I hope to instill in my students is the ability to recognize and hone their own curiosity. For so many students, school becomes a series of check boxes, and they often don’t have time to linger on questions or ideas that excite them. And that’s not necessarily anyone’s fault! Of course, students become overwhelmed with all they are expected to do in order to gain entry into a university and to graduate from one, and educators have those same responsibilities, especially when so many students face gaps in access and instructional time from the pandemic. That's why I feel it is so vital to give students space to be curious, to recognize when an idea sparks something in them, and further, to give them tools to practice their curiosity. Google and Wikipedia are amazing resources that give us more access to information than anyone has had in the history of our world (!!!), but helping to guide them through the process of navigating those resources, how to be on the lookout for information, and how to process different information in intuitive ways are all skills I work on in the classroom. Further, exposing them to the resources they have through the university and how to use them while they can is central to my work in the classrooms.   What is your greatest teaching challenge? It might be cliche, but my biggest teaching challenge right now is how to engage with AI ethically. Not only is it a technology that will necessarily change the course of my teaching forever, but I struggle to navigate the ethical concerns I have about it, like the environmental impact it causes, and the lack of credit given to the writers and artists whose work AI uses to create its products. While I’m deeply interested in ways AI can be utilized in the classroom, I don’t feel comfortable asking students to play with AI or asking it to do the same thing multiple ways, as many class activities suggest, because creating one AI generated image is the same as completely charging your phone, according to the MIT Technology Review. In addition, AI draws from resources that it does not credit. How can I ask my students to think about ethical citation methods while using a technology that fails to follow the methods I teach? And yet, it feels like if I don’t embrace AI in my classroom, I’ll become a dinosaur and lose the opportunity to bring an exciting new technology into the classroom. It also obviously won’t stop students from using AI technology in a variety of ways. Is a “I’d rather you do it in the house” mentality a better way of teaching them how to navigate this development even with my ethical concerns? These are the questions that take up most of my teaching thinking at this point. And while they are difficult, it’s also exciting to be at an important turning point in the way we think about teaching, the composition classroom, and writing itself.   Mckenzie's Assignment That Works Below is a brief synopsis of Mckenzie's assignment. For the full activity, see the Freewriting Portfolio assignment prompt. For Assignments That Work, I shared my “Freewriting Portfolio” assignment. This assignment emerges out of a daily practice of freewriting that I do in my First-Year Writing classroom. For 10 minutes each class, students respond to a prompt I create. The prompt may be on the content of the class that day, a question about writing or composing, or a reflection on the project they're currently creating. Every student then shares one thing they thought about in the freewriting time, even if it’s just one sentence. I find starting the day with writing and sharing not only sets a concrete expectation of what class will be like, but it also helps to create a classroom community in which every student’s ideas are valued and heard. By the end of the semester, students have almost 30 freewriting responses. Our final project, the Freewriting Portfolio, asks students to create a multimodal collage of their freewriting artifacts. They must select 5 excerpts from their writing and then combine them with images that represent their thinking throughout the course. By combining visual and linguistic modes, students can reflectively think about their experience in the class in new ways. Students then create three footnotes that explain how their thinking has evolved throughout the course, and how their projects might have grown out of these preliminary meditations. It also asks them to consciously consider how they navigated their writing processes. I find reflective writing at the end of the semester to be very meaningful, and italso asks me to think about how I want to frame the course for future students. ... View more

Chloe Cardosi Chloe Cardosi is pursuing her PhD in Public Rhetorics and Community Engagement at University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. She teaches a variety of courses in writing, including FYC courses, business and technoscience writing, and rhetoric and culture. She has also served as the English 102 coordinator, assisting the Director of Composition in revising curriculum and supporting incoming Graduate Teaching Assistants in their transition to UWM’s English Department and composition program. Her research focuses on linguistic justice, public memory, and cultural rhetorics methodologies. As a first-generation student, she is invested in helping students of all levels and backgrounds finding their voices as writers, and making the space to amplify their work.   How do you ensure your course is inclusive, equitable, and culturally responsive? In addition to standard accessibility practices, my main goal for inclusivity in all of my course is fostering a sense of belonging in my students. As a writing teacher, I never want to lose sight of the fact of what an honor it is to work with students so closely and to interact with their voices and perspectives through their work. I believe that my job is not to teach students how to write, but to guide them to recognize how they already write, then get to work in refining their voices so they can compose work that matters to them.  This is a major reason why I welcome and encourage multiple modes of expression and community-engaged research in my assignments. I want students to know that writing is not a skill you learn to make it through a semester and earn a good grade based on whatever idiosyncratic expectations their instructor may have—it’s a tool that will help them express themselves and their ideas, connect with others, and accomplish things in the “real world.” How this tool is wielded depends on the student and what they’re trying to accomplish with their writing. Through the work they do in my class, I want students to see that writing can—and should—look different based on audience, purpose, genre, and so much more.   What is the most important skill you aim to provide to your students? I want my students to feel equipped to write for a variety of rhetorical situations. All too often, students are instructed that “Standard Academic English” is the end-all, be-all way to write, the “neutral” standard all other writing either adheres to or strays from. But let’s be real: “academic” writing is not neutral, and the idea that it’s the standard is a myth to uphold the idea of exclusivity in academia. From the beginning of my classes, I’m very clear with my students that more traditional, “standard” ways of writing in academia is just one way to write, not the way.  Don’t get me wrong: this isn’t simply an “anything goes” approach. I still expect students to compose projects with clarity, careful research, and effective rhetorical choices. This is simply a way to make room for other kinds of writing in the academy, and to instill confidence in students. To do this, I encourage a lot of experimentation when it comes to writing. I try to motivate students to work with topics and genres that excite them but are perhaps unfamiliar to them—like podcasts, TED Talks, creative work, or whatever else they’d like to try. I want whatever students compose in my classes to interest and excite them, and feel like it’s usable beyond the walls of classroom—which is why I use the assignment that I’ll describe below.   Chloe's Assignment That Works Below is a brief synopsis of Chloe's assignment. For the full activity, see the Research Remix assignment prompt. In my College Writing and Research classes, students spend the semester researching a topic or issue in Milwaukee (where our university is located) that matters to them. The second major assignment they complete in the course is a research report on this issue. The course then culminates in their final project: “remixing” their research report into a public-facing project that addresses a specific audience within Milwaukee. Based on the research expertise they’ve gained throughout the semester, students have to decide what information will be most useful to their chosen audience, and what genre is best for presenting that information. Essentially, this project should help students see how the same research can be employed differently to new genres and audiences.  After using this assignment many times over many different sections of College Writing and Research, I’d identify these as the main benefits: Community engagement: This project helps students to see themselves as participating members and stakeholders of the larger community of our city. Creativity: Students get to create an information product that feels more tangible and exciting to them than a more traditional research paper. Recognizing their identity as writers: In allowing/encouraging them to write about something that matters to them and make something they and their audience find useful, students will recognize that their perspective already has value. ... View more

Eric Korankye Eric Korankye is a PhD English student specializing in Rhetoric and Composition at Illinois State University (ISU). He teaches Business Writing, First-Year Composition, and Advanced Composition, and also serves as the New Instructor Mentor in the ISU Writing Program, providing mentorship and pedagogical support to new writing instructors. As an international interdisciplinary researcher and teacher from Ghana, Eric is committed to designing and practicing social justice pedagogies in Composition Studies, Rhetoric, and Technical Communication, focusing on design justice, students’ language rights advocacy, legitimation of international scholarly knowledge, and working against intersectional oppression against students of color.   What do you think is the most important recent development or pedagogical approach in teaching composition? Composition in this technocultural age has been impacted by the emergence of digital tools, technologies, multiliteracies, and the (r)evolution of rhetorical genres for composing. These digital innovations unavoidably have several implications on composition pedagogies, especially in terms of integrating the use of online platforms for collaborative writing and multimedia composition, to meet the interconnected and interdependent needs of writers in our composition classrooms.  For teaching composition, this means more than instructors reexamining their teaching practices, but also actively 1) integrating innovative assessment practices for student writers’ multimodal composition artifacts, 2) (re)framing traditional perceptions about writing, genres of writing, and audiences of writing, 3) (re)situating privileged canons, theories, and practices in composition studies, 4) valuing occluded writing traditions, knowledges, and languages of student writers from minoritized backgrounds, 5) foregrounding composition courses on rhetoric and multiliteracies, and 6) navigating the affordances and constraints associated with emerging writing technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) that have recently become topical in composition studies.  When these pedagogical practices are (re)inforced in the teaching of composition, student writers’ perceptions and approaches about composing will change, and in the long run, shape their own composing and learning practices in the classroom and apply them effectively in their worlds outside the classroom.    How do you ensure your course is inclusive, equitable, and culturally responsive? In contemporary times when the ubiquity of multiculturalism and multilingualism is gradually phasing out the previous homogeneous demography in most composition classrooms, it is important that composition classes move beyond homogenous conceptualizations to value inclusivity, equity, and culturally responsiveness. This shift can be achieved by designing and practicing anti-racist, anti-oppressive, and culturally-sustaining pedagogies which ensure that the course materials, readings, activities, assignments, language practices, and classroom cultures reflect a diverse range of voices, perspectives, cultural experiences, and ways of knowing.  Instructors need to incorporate texts from authors of different backgrounds and identities, especially BIPOC authors, and include course content that represents various cultures, traditions, histories, and experiences. This (re)alignment also means instructors’ valuing culturally relevant examples, contexts, case studies, and references that are relevant and relatable to students from diverse backgrounds. This can help students see their identities reflected in the course materials and establish connections to their own experiences.   Instructors need to continuously create a supportive–safe and brave–classroom environment which makes all students feel valued and respected. Instructors need to value students’ right to their own languages, encourage open dialogue, respect differing opinions, avoid biases and stereotypes, and create opportunities for students to share their experiences and ways of knowing.   Eric’s Assignment That Works Below is a brief synopsis of Eric's assignment. For the full activity, see Professional Outlook Portfolio Project Prompt. My “Assignment That Works” is the Professional Outlook Portfolio project, the second major project I assign in the ENG 145.13 Writing Business and Government Organizations course I teach at Illinois State University (ISU). In this Project, student writers will create a resume and a blog/website profile that match their education and work experiences. They will also search and find a job posting which they will respond to and write a cover letter for. After completing all these writing tasks, they will create an uptake document, explaining and describing their composing practices throughout the project.  This project has been designed to help student writers become more critical, creative, and capable as both consumers and producers of business writing (e.g., resume/CV, job posting, business/personal website, etc.). The goal is also to provide writers with hands-on experience in building a solid marketable professional outlook for their chosen career path and exploring various business writing genres.  In assigning this project, we read and annotate the project prompt together and ask questions. We workshop for project ideas in subsequent classes, and the feedback from student writers shows that the project offers them hands-on experience in creating business writing genres that they can use in real life.    ... View more

Katayoun Hashemin Katayoun Hashemin is an Iranian teacher and political activist who views teaching composition and creative writing as two sides of the same coin. After earning her M.A. in TESL/TEFL from Colorado State University in 2023, she committed herself to supporting her home country through its ongoing national revolution. She writes nonfiction essays about Iran to illuminate lesser-known facts and life experiences that many do not normally associate with Iran. Her goal is to broaden non-Persian speakers' understanding of Iran’s cultural, historical, and political heritage.   What is the most important skill you aim to provide your students? Many emphasize the importance of teaching students to read and think critically, but I believe that teaching students how to do so is even more important as there is usually more than one way to critical thinking and people’s approach and receptiveness to persuasion and being convinced varies highly with culture, personality, social priorities, identity and context. Therefore, I personally prefer to design activities and group work that reveal the processes of thinking and writing. By making these processes visible, students can compare and analyze their own and their classmates' approaches against each other. This comparison highlights similarities and differences in analysis and the level of detail required to become and emerge as a critical thinker and writer. Through these methods, students gain a deeper understanding of critical thinking and develop the skills necessary to apply it effectively in their writing. Additionally, it’s very important to teach students to become independent writers, who are capable of spotting inadequacies in their drafts by using self-assessment checklists and predicting and responding to the audience’s reaction. As an independent writer, I teach them to craft revision plans, prioritizing changes and setting specific, actionable goals to enhance their writing.   How do you engage students in your course, whether f2f, online, or hybrid? As a TESOL major, I've been trained to work with the SIOP (Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol) model, which I find highly effective for engaging students in various learning environments. The SIOP model was first developed to make content like math and biology comprehensible for second language learners through hands-on activities and by aligning lesson objectives with actionable steps that guide the progression of relatable class activities that keep students involved. In a composition classroom, SIOP can be replicated by matching the two axes of content and language with rhetorical concepts and the act of composing, respectively. In other words, teaching rhetoric becomes the content, while the act of composing is the second language. In SIOP, the key to keeping students engaged is to ensure that the material is accessible and intelligible for them. Therefore, to make rhetorical concepts comprehensible for students, I introduce these holistic and abstract concepts by comparing their components with the rather tangible and familiar content of everyday activities. For example, in one assignment, I compare synthesis of academic sources to the process of baking a cake, where individuals need to decide what ingredients need to be mixed in what order to deliver an audience-friendly and convincing cake!   Moreover, I ensure that each lesson objective is paired with an action verb. This method not only clarifies the lesson's goals but also actively engages students in the learning process by specifying what they are supposed to perform and do, rather than just building theoretical knowledge. An activity designed around the objective “Today I will be able to convince my audience to approve my proposal” is more likely to engage students than a more general objective like “learning persuasive writing.” This combination of actionable objectives, and real-life analogies helps to engage students deeply and effectively in their learning journey.   Katayoun's Assignment that Works During the Bedford New Scholars Summit, each member presented an assignment that had proven successful or innovative in their classroom. Below is Katayoun's explanation of her assignment, Synthesizing Sources: This assignment is meant to help students understand the meaning and process of synthesizing various sources for writing a research paper and apply it for crafting a thesis statement. Recognizing that grasping the idea of synthesizing can be challenging, I compare it to baking a cake! Just as a baker needs different ingredients to create a cake, students need to read a range of different sources to develop their own brand-new claim/argument. No baker can make five different types of flour into a cake, but they need milk, oil and other materials too! Moreover, a good pastry chef doesn't serve raw ingredients separately (that would make a horrible experience for the customers/audience!) but combines them in the right amounts and order to create a delicious cake that persuades customers to want more! The assignment uses numerous visuals to bring these steps to life and make the analogy as effective as possible. It concludes with students drawing a visual representation of what material each of their sources offer. This marks the beginning of the synthesis process for their own research. If all the visuals end up depicting the same scene, then perhaps the chef is using flour only and needs to consider using a range of different materials to make the research cake possible! ... View more

Bedford/St. Martin's is pleased to announce the participants in the 2024 Bedford New Scholars Advisory Board! Advisory Board members are:   Mckenzie Bergan Mckenzie Bergan (recommended by Tom Doran) is a PhD student at the University of Connecticut studying gothic fiction, young adult literature, and the campus novel. She explores how students and instructors form their identities within educational institutions, both individually and in relationship to those around them. She is the Assistant Director of First-Year Writing and is writing a textbook with the Director of UConn's FYW program. In this role, she also plans professional development opportunities for instructors and helps plan and host the Conference on the Teaching of Writing. She has taught English 1007, Writing and Multimodal Composition over the past several years and in the summer. She is the co-host of the “Reading Shirley Jackson Podcast” and has published “Theorising the Uncanny Adaptation through Hamlet” in Adaptation. Katayoun Hashemin Katayoun Hashemin (recommended by Lisa MacFarlane): Obtained her M.A. in TESL/TEFL from Colorado State University. Currently pursuing an MFA in Writing Non-Fiction at the University of New Hampshire, her focus lies in exploring Iran, Iranian identity, and the struggles of Iranians striving to liberate their country from totalitarian rule. Transitioning from teaching college composition at CSU to a similar role at UNH, she has been trained to craft interactive class activities, worksheets, material, and specific examples. Her approach, influenced by the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP), aims to simplify complex tasks involving more than once content (i.e., rhetorical features and language use) into digestible pieces (scaffolding). In November 2022, she delivered a presentation titled Peer Review: Development of a Bidimensional Rubric for L2 Writing at the Co-TESOL regional conference. Hayden Kindrat   Hayden Kindrat (recommended by Roger Thompson) is pursuing his PhD in English Literature at Stony Brook University (SUNY), with a focus in American and Anglophone literature, science fiction, and environmental fiction and ideas (all in the mid-twentieth century). He has taught courses in Stony Brook's English Department and Department of Writing and Rhetoric. He lives in Queens in New York City. Eric Korankye   Eric Korankye (recommended by Rachel Gramer) is a PhD English student specializing in Rhetoric and Composition at Illinois State University (ISU). He teaches Business Writing, First-Year Composition, and Advanced Composition, and also serves as the New Instructor Mentor in the ISU Writing Program, providing mentorship and pedagogical support to new writing instructors. As an international interdisciplinary researcher and teacher from Ghana, Eric is committed to designing and practicing social justice pedagogies in Composition Studies, Rhetoric, and Technical Communication, focusing on design justice, students’ language rights advocacy, legitimation of international scholarly knowledge, and working against intersectional oppression against students of color. Marisa Koulen   Marisa Koulen (recommended by Melanie Salome) is pursuing her PhD in English concentrating on Rhetoric, Composition, and Pedagogy at the University of Houston. She has taught a range of courses including First Year Writing I, First Year Writing II, and Advanced Composition. Marisa's teaching philosophy centers on acknowledging all students as writers and challenging them to critically engage in making meaning through social justice and advocacy writing. Her research explores the intersection of antiracist writing assessment and multimodal composition pedagogy. As a first-generation American and college student, Marisa is passionate about supporting students, especially those from marginalized communities, navigate the transformative power of education and literacy. Elizabeth Novotny Elizabeth Novotny (recommended by Holly Hassel) is a PhD candidate in Rhetoric, Theory, and Culture at Michigan Technological University. She teaches First-Year Composition and other writing courses, such as Advanced Composition and Technical and Professional Communication. She is also a Composition Graduate Assistant and assists the program director in delivering instruction in the graduate-level Composition Pedagogy and orientation for new instructors, as well as supporting curriculum development and administrative tasks. Elizabeth’s research interests include writing studies, pedagogy, rhetorical theory, and continental philosophy. For her dissertation, she is working on a project that examines the relationship between FYC student conceptions of rhetorical agency and their writing practice. Zachary Singletary   Zachary Singletary (recommended by Tracy Ann Morse) is pursuing a PhD in English centering on Rhetoric, Writing, and Professional Communication at Eastern Carolina University. He has taught a variety of courses including Business Writing, Writing & Style, Writing in the Disciplines, and FYW. He has also served as a Graduate Assistant Director of Writing Foundations, working with a variety of faculty and graduate students in the teaching and preparation of FYW & Writing in the Disciplines courses. This position has allowed him to develop assignments and projects for others at his institution to use in their own courses, which has influenced his research interests in the accessible design of pedagogical materials and accessible writing pedagogies in general. Chloe Smith Chloe Smith (recommended by Shevaun Watson) is pursuing her PhD in Public Rhetorics and Community Engagement at University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. She teaches a variety of courses in writing, including FYC courses, business and technoscience writing, and rhetoric and culture. She has also served as the English 102 coordinator, assisting the Director of Composition in revising curriculum and supporting incoming Graduate Teaching Assistants in their transition to UWM’s English Department and composition program. Her research focuses on linguistic justice, public memory, and cultural rhetorics methodologies. As a first-generation student, she is invested in helping students of all levels and backgrounds finding their voices as writers, and making the space to amplify their work. Mohi Uddin Mohi Uddin (recommended by Megan McIntyre) is an outgoing English M.A. student at the University of Arkansas. His specialization at the University of Arkansas is Cultural Studies with a secondary focus in Rhetoric and Composition. He will start his Ph.D. in Writing and Rhetoric Studies at the University of Utah in Fall 2024. His area of interests include digital rhetorics, cultural rhetorics, and writing pedagogy and theory. He teaches Composition I and Composition II as a Graduate Teaching Assistant. ... View more

Bedford/St. Martin's is pleased to announce the participants in the 2023 Bedford New Scholars Advisory Board! Advisory Board members are: Emily Aguilar   Emily Aguilar (recommended by Danelle Dyckhoff) is a Master's student in English at California State University, Los Angeles, where she is also a Teaching Associate. Her experience teaching first-year writing has amplified her approach to equity-based teaching, especially for ESL students and students with disabilities. She hopes to teach writing as an exercise toward liberation. In addition to her interests in pedagogy, she is interested in literary trauma studies, theories in modernism and postmodernism, speculative fiction, and literature of the incarcerated. Hannah Benefiel Hannah Benefiel (recommended by Kyle Jensen) is a Writing, Rhetoric, and Composition PhD student at Arizona State University. She writes about eating disorders, food as medicine, embodied technical communication, and religious trauma. Currently, she is working on her dissertation that frames eating disorder recovery texts as rhetorical education through the lens of rhythm, myth, and graphic medicine. She serves as the Assistant Director of Writing programs and teaches Professional and Technical Communication, Composition 1&2, and the First Year Composition TA practicum. Jacqueline Cano Diaz Jacqueline Cano Diaz (recommended by Joel Schneier) is pursuing an English MA in Rhetoric and Composition at the University of Central Florida, where her thesis work centers on the rhetorical aspects of clothing choice, particularly as a woman of color in academia. She teaches Composition I and Composition II as part of the First Year Composition Program. Her research primarily focuses on material and visual rhetorics through a feminist and queer studies lens. In addition to her thesis research, she has applied these interests to study alienation and identification in Halloween costuming and, most recently, literacy activities involved in birdwatching. Ronada Dominique   Ronada Dominique (recommended by Courtney Wooten) is pursuing her PhD in English concentrating on Writing and Rhetoric at George Mason University. She teaches FYC courses and served as the Graduate Writing Program Administrator, overseeing PhD mentoring and professional development and assisting with MA/MFA/Phd orientations. As a Black Millennial Mother in higher education, Ronada explores the representation of Black scholars in Writing Studies publications and how research impacts the Black Experience in higher education classrooms. Starting her PhD studies with a 3-month-old infant, Ronada understands the importance of representation and legacy and wants to ensure that those who are responsible for shaping the academic landscape of the future are equipped to do so. Samira Grayson   Samira Grayson (recommended by Kate Pantelides) is pursuing her PhD in English with a concentration in Rhetoric and Composition at Middle Tennessee State University. She has taught Expository Writing and Research and Argumentation (the first year writing sequence at MTSU), and currently serves as the University Writing Center’s program coordinator. Her research interests include writing center and writing program administration, spatial rhetorics and place-based pedagogy, feminist historiography and research methods, and notions of authorship in collaborative writing. She is a member of WPA-GO’s digital presence committee and was recently published in Peitho. Hannah Hopkins Hannah Hopkins (recommended by Diane Davis) is pursuing a PhD in the Rhetoric & Writing at the University of Texas at Austin. She is an Assistant Director of the Digital Writing and Research Lab and an Assistant Instructor for the Center for Teaching and Learning. Hannah teaches a variety of courses in writing and pedagogy, with a focus on digital rhetoric. Students in her special topics course "Rhetoric of Data Justice" create podcasts that explore data justice controversies. Hannah also teaches an introductory pedagogy course for graduate students. Hannah's research investigates storytelling with and about data, data centers, and networked technologies. Her current research engages ways that communities build power through, with, and against digital memory infrastructures, including recent work building solar-powered computers. Amanda E. Scott   Amanda E. Scott (recommended by Brian Gogan) is pursuing a PhD in English with a concentration in Creative Writing at Western Michigan University, where she currently serves as an Assistant Director of First-Year Writing. She's taught a variety of undergraduate courses, including developmental writing, first-year composition, technical writing, and editing, as well as graduate-level courses in publishing. Her research, which often explores the intersections between inclusive writing practices, ethical design, and social inequities, has appeared in Technical Communication Quarterly and the Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning. Christopher Luis Shosted Christopher Luis Shosted (recommended by Brooke Rollins) is currently enrolled at Lehigh University where he studies the intersection of rhetoric and literary studies. He teaches courses in the First-Year Writing Program at Lehigh focusing on introducing students to the conventions of academic writing and research as well as persuasive arguments as they exist outside of the university. Additionally, Christopher has also served as the assistant to the First-Year Writing Program working with the director to build protocols for programmatic assessment, educating new teachers joining the program through a year-long practicum, and drafting new iterations of shared syllabi. His research areas focus on applications of classical rhetoric to modern situations and the assessment of student writing along large and small scales. Christopher also currently serves as a co-editor of the Program Profiles section of Composition Forum. Kristen Wheaton Kristen Wheaton (recommended by Dr. Roxanne Mountford) is pursuing her PhD in English with a concentration in Rhetoric and Writing Studies at the University of Oklahoma. She teaches primarily First-Year Composition and is currently one of only three instructors leading the co-requisite course first introduced in Fall of 2022. In addition to her teaching role, Kristen is currently the Senior Assistant Director of First-Year Composition. Her research interests include resistance rhetorics, genre theory, ethos, and rhetorics of difference. Ashleah Wimberly Ashleah Wimberly (recommended by Elias Dominguez-Barajas) is pursuing their PhD in Rhetoric and Composition at Florida State University, where they hope to defend their dissertation on graduate instructor literacies in Spring 2024. They teach a variety of courses, including first and second year composition and upper-level courses in FSU's Editing, Writing, & Media program such as Rhetoric, Article & Essay Techniques, and Writing in Print & Online. Ashleah has served as a mentor to incoming graduate instructors and as an assistant to the Composition Program. In these roles, they've overseen the mentoring and training of graduate instructors, helped design and implement assessment protocols, and assisted the program director in various administrative tasks. Prior to their work at FSU, Ashleah also co-wrote a custom textbook for the University of North Dakota and assisted librarians in creating custom lessons tailored to the Composition program there. Ashleah's research primarily centers around pedagogy, with strong interests in literacy studies, identity, and accessibility. ... View more

Eric D. BrownEric D. Brown (recommended by Kyle Jensen), Bedford New Scholar 2021, is pursuing his PhD in Arizona State University’s Writing, Rhetorics and Literacies PhD program, where he studies writing technologies, writing pedagogy, and writing program administration. He has taught First-Year Composition, Persuasive Writing and Public Issues, Writing for the Professions, and Business Writing. Eric is also Assistant Director (AD) of Writing Programs, where he aids the director in growing the scope of Writing Programs and creating professional development for faculty. As Assistant Director, he also co-runs the National Day on Writing, ASU’s annual Composition Conference, and is an editor of Writing Programs’ bi-annual newsletter, Writing Notes.   How do you engage students in your course? I’ve found that one of the best ways to engage students in my courses is to show them that the writing process doesn’t have to be a lonely endeavor and that writing is hard, even for those of us who are “good” at it. I enact this approach by positioning myself as an expert on writing (what it is and how it works) but one that fails and stumbles through the writing process, just like they do. And I’ve found that students are particularly engaged with this idea when I write “live” for/with them. For example, I’ll write an email or an assignment sheet with them, talking through my thinking/rhetorical strategies and asking for advice and ideas from them. Regardless of what writing task I take on for/with them, they see me struggle to get started, stumble with wording, sidestep through typos/spelling mistakes, and go back and rework the text. In sum, they can see that “the struggle is real” when it comes to writing, showing students (who are often fearful of college writing) that even experts struggle with writing, that writing is collaborative, and that revision is essential to any writing situation.  What is it like to be a part of the Bedford New Scholars program? In sum, it’s pretty awesome. As a Bedford New Scholar, I get opportunities to work with Bedford/St. Martin’s on a variety of projects: feedback on textbooks, input about developing technologies, and opinions on readings for students, to name a few. It’s really great to not only get some insight into the higher ed publishing world but to contribute to that world. Meeting and interacting with the other Bedford New Scholars is also a notable highlight of the program. The virtual summit this summer gave me the chance to not only meet and interact with other new scholars, but I was able to work on projects with them and talk about what is most important to me with them: teaching. Sharing my work and sitting in on presentations for the Assignments that Work part of the summer summit was generative, as well as fun. I got a ton of great ideas for assignments to try out, and I was able to see my fellow New Scholars’ unique approaches to teaching and writing. What do you think instructors don’t know about higher ed publishing but should? I don’t think instructors know how willing and excited publishers like Bedford/St. Martin’s are to work with them, and I think this “not knowing” can lead to a view of higher ed publishing as “The Man.” While this was certainly a perception I  held in my early days as a graduate student (and before that as an adjunct), I have become persuaded otherwise. I have found higher ed publishers like Bedford/St.Martin’s to be highly invested in instructor input, experience, and in the workings/makeup of the writing programs instructors teach in. Before working with Bedford/St. Martin’s, I would not have imagined that my ideas, feedback, and support would be important to higher ed publishers, but I’ve found the opposite to be true. Furthermore, I have found that higher ed publishers like Bedford/St. Martin’s are more often than not pedagogically focused--they want to know what research is influencing our teaching, what we are doing in the classroom, why we are doing things the way we are, and how they can support that work.  What projects or course materials from Bedford/St. Martin's most pique your interest, and why? My writing program just shifted to using a common textbook (which we created with Bedford/St. Martin’s), and Achieve is offered with the textbook. I’m excited to learn more about Achieve and use it with my students. I was able to use some of Achieve’s peer review functions this summer during the virtual summit, and I really liked many of its affordances. My institution’s current LMS has a very clunky peer review system, and I’m particularly looking forward to switching to one that allows me to shape and tweak peer review goals and that has an interface I think will be intuitive for my students. I also know that Achieve has some annotation functions, and I’m excited to use them with my students, as well.   Eric's Assignment that Works During the Bedford New Scholars Summit, each member presented an assignment that had proven successful or innovative in their classroom. Below is a brief synopsis of Eric’s assignment. For the full activity, see Remediation. One of the goals of my 101 courses is to expand for students what writing is and how it works. My “Remediation” assignment works toward this goal, as it asks students to reshape their writing for new audiences and to funnel their ideas through a new medium or genre. In sum, students are asked to take an already completed written project (usually the first major project, which asks them to explore a literacy) and funnel its ideas through another medium/“translate” it into another genre. For example, students might take their project and (re)shape it into a podcast or blog post. Remediation gets students thinking about the ever-shifting relationship among writer, audience, and text (i.e., the rhetorical situation), but also asks them to focus on how the mediums/genres in which we communicate our ideas to others consist of different kinds of media that very much are “writing.” Students are excited to expand their notions of what “counts” as writing, and one of the assignment’s selling points is in how it asks students to not only consider how certain mediums/genres appeal to certain audiences, and not others, but to consider how their writing does so as well. ... View more

KAREN TRUJILLO (recommended by Lauren Rosenberg) is pursuing her PhD in English with a concentration in Rhetoric and Professional Communication at New Mexico State University. She teaches Rhetoric and Composition, Business and Professional Communication, Technical and Scientific Communication, and the Rhetoric of the Horror Story. Karen also serves as a Writing Program Coordinator, Writing Program Mentor, and she has spent three years as a Writing Center Coordinator. She has taught both face-to-face and online in English and Education Leadership and Administration Departments. Her research interests include feminist theory, pedagogy, dissident literature, expressions of emotion, and enactments of resilience in the composition classroom. She expects to graduate in December 2019. What is your greatest teaching challenge? The challenge of knowing that a handful of students in my English 111 – Rhetoric and Composition won’t return after their first year of college is one of my greatest. New Mexico grants new graduates with a Lottery Scholarship that requires 2.5 GPA while taking 15 credit hours (5 classes). These requirements can be stressful for first-year students who have outside obligations and struggles that are unseen by teachers. Each move I make begins with the knowledge that each writing prompt, essay, and project is an opportunity to give students resources they can take with them, whether they stay in college or not.    I often think about Pegeen Reichert Powell’s Retention and Resistance: Writing Instruction and Students Who Leave and the recognition that there is not one single thing that universities can do to reduce attrition rates. Powell further asks that administration and faculty focus on the students who are enrolled at present, rather than working to try to assure that they do not leave. Keeping this in mind, I consistently work to create and maintain a space in which students are given opportunities to write often, and to write about present interests, experiences, and what they feel are relevant topics, rather than preparing them to transfer learning to the next courses leading to graduation.   How does the next generation of students inspire you? The next generation of students inspires me in a way that speaks to my position as a nontraditional student. While I recognize that there is not an ideal classroom, my students bring behaviors and perspectives that I didn’t often see when I first attended college in the early 1990s. The classroom was a quiet place for me. I did not choose a rhetorical silence but chose not to speak because I didn’t feel included. I am inspired by the next generation of students who I believe are and will become more accustomed to actions that are inclusive and to choosing words that unite with the efforts of dedicated composition teachers. If the next generation of students that becomes more accustomed to conflict, the composition classroom can be a place where students learn to share experiences of difference in ways that I don’t feel would have been comfortable when I took first-year composition. With time, practice, and facilitation of thoughtful composition teachers, the next generation gives me hope that we will spend less time searching for things we have in common, and spend more time acting as listeners, thoughtful speakers, and those who choose to and are comfortable with others’ silences.   What's it like to be a part of the Bedford New Scholars program?   Anyone who has written a dissertation, prepared for, or joined the academic job market search knows that it can be a scary time. Although committees and peers are reassuring, it can be a lonely process. Being part of Bedford New Scholars reassured me that there are others who not only understand the struggles, but are also there to listen, give advice, and become cheerleaders. I have to say that, undoubtedly, each of us is from unique learning and teaching experiences, which I think ended up being what drew us together. With each new activity, I found that it was our differences that encouraged unpacking of new ideas and provided opportunities to step outside our usual line of thinking and onto a new track. Being part of Bedford New Scholars is like having someone hand select a support system for you and give you the gift of new friends at a time when you had no idea you needed it most.    What did you learn from other Bedford New Scholars? I sometimes need to be reminded that teaching is what I am called to and I can’t imagine doing anything else. The Summit at Bedford St. Martin came on the heels of a trying semester during which I had just completed the first chapters of my dissertation. At the risk of drenching you in sap, receiving responses such as, “I totally get that,” or “Ugh, I’ve felt that way too,” renewed my energy and hope. I gained a reading list from Nina Feng, a reading response assignment from Misty Fuller (that I used this semester), love for Canva (and hopes for creativity) from Caitlin Martin, and a new approach to rhetorical analysis from Marissa McKinley. Along with these contributions, I learned that no matter where we are coming from, we all share the experience of being a “Border” university of some type. I learned that while my experiences are unique and valuable, I have a diverse support system who will do their best to listen and give meaningful, well considered feedback. The Summit was the best possible place I could have taken time out to learn that the loving energy of my peers is only a few clicks away.     Karen’s Assignment that Works During the Bedford New Scholars Summit, each member presented an assignment that had proven successful or innovative in their classroom. Below is a brief synopsis of Karen’s assignment. You can view the full details here: Advocacy Project  My Assignment that Works is a four-part assignment titled, The Advocacy Project. Originally, this project was created by Dr. Christopher Burnham. After working as a research and teaching assistant using this assignment for six years, I modified this project for my own use in first-year Rhetoric and Composition. This is a social justice project that can be scaffolded over the course of a 15-week semester, culminating in a final exam in the form of a project. The final project consists of a written portion, a handout, and a presentation using the media that best serves the aims of the project. The assignment itself is broken into an exploration, local research, global research, and numerous other considerations such as stasis, and concessions and rebuttals on one’s position. The big idea is that the student will find something that they are passionate about, will research, and will advocate action or policy to further the passion. Each semester, I find myself re-writing this assignment in small ways in response to my teaching reflections and student responses. I love that it’s a living document that seems to be growing up alongside me on my journey toward completion of doctoral studies. Learn more about the Bedford New Scholars advisory board on the Bedford New Scholars Community page. ... View more

Shannon Butts (recommended by Creed Greer) received her PhD in English with a concentration in Rhetoric and Writing Studies at The University of Florida in August 2019. Shannon teaches courses on digital rhetoric, multimodal composition, professional communication, technofeminism, and first-year writing. She also serves as the Assistant Coordinator of First Year Writing and mentors graduate instructors. Shannon's research examines how digital and mobile writing technologies, such as augmented reality, locative media, and 3D printing, author new literacy practices for public writing and community advocacy. How does the next generation of students inspire you?    The students coming through my courses seem to have a hustle that understands the larger ecology of work, play, and education. College is not necessarily their end game but part of a growing skill set that will position them for more opportunities in the future. And that looks different for different students. People coming in from high school are hustling to make grades, get internships, start businesses – hustling to participate in an economy that has diversified the paths that people can take to make money and be successful. Similarly, students coming back to school or working on graduate degrees are hustling to build a portfolio of experiences that will help them advance in their current careers or start new ones. The hustle can be tiring, or seem disorganized. Yet, most of the students that I see are working to create a well-rounded set of skills to be not only competitive but happy in their work and life. The hustle includes physical fitness, growing plants, joining clubs, taking days off, having families, developing apps, caring about public issues, and fighting for equality and balance in new ways. The students I see now inspire me to hustle for both myself and others.    What is the most important skill you aim to provide your students?   I want the students in my classroom to understand that writing is a process that grows and changes throughout their lives. As such, I want students to develop analytical skills that evaluate the nuances of any rhetorical situation or ecology. If students understand the complex components of an issue, then they can best evaluate how to respond and make change. Learning how to analyze arguments, identify evidence, and trace the connections between conversations can help students actively participate in the public sphere—where they not only receive or disseminate information but understand how to assemble new publics, to read and write for change, and to evaluate information for accuracy as well as applicability. If writers can map rhetorical ecologies and trace the relationships between evidence and argument, then I think they are better prepared to understand the complex systems that we all read, write, and participate in.   What is it like to be a part of the Bedford New Scholars?   Participating in the Bedford New Scholars programs provides a look behind the curtain of educational publishing. More than merely understanding how to test or market a text, the program has shown me how Bedford works to identify what is important to students, writers, and teachers in different schools and demographics. Through online resources, publishers have new opportunities to create platforms and curate content that works for diverse groups of students and instructors. While institutions may adopt one central text or program, Bedford has shown us how to work within the larger system to find what can best help students and instructors meet their goals for a classroom or course. By showing us multiple texts and platforms, the Bedford staff creates a forum for helping us understand the publishing process, but also gives a voice to the people who are in the classroom everyday. They not only wanted my feedback on existing projects but my critique and suggestions for change, and Bedford New Scholars offers an opportunity to participate in shaping emerging resources.    What have you learned from other Bedford New Scholars?   I found the Bedford New Scholars experience empowering. Not only did I get the chance to meet some incredible teachers and scholars from different fields and institutions, but I also was challenged to continually evaluate my own teaching strategies and tools. By sitting down around a table and discussing the different dynamics of each Scholar’s school and experience, I was able to consider how my pedagogy might change while also affirming many of the common issues that instructors currently address: How can I make my classroom more inclusive and accessible? How can I empower my students through public writing? What kinds of emerging tools can help address inequality in the education system? The Bedford New Scholars offered a range of experience and insight and created a small community where instructors could share methods, critiques, tools, and camaraderie.   Shannon’s Assignment that Works During the Bedford New Scholars Summit, each member presented an assignment that had proven successful or innovative in their classroom. Below is a brief synopsis of Shannon’s assignment. You can view the full details here: Know Your Meme: Finding the Exigence.    The “Know Your Meme” activity draws on research, analysis, evaluation, and remix skills to transform popular memes into detailed claims. Composing arguments requires an attunement to exigence—understanding an issue, problem, or situation and how best to address a public to motivate a response. For this activity, students are introduced to several popular memes asked to find the first time the meme was used as part of an argument. Instead of focusing on the isolated image, students should look to the rhetorical ecology of how a meme responded to a particular issue or idea. By asking questions like “What are the basic elements of the issue?” and “How does the meme engage a key component of an argument?,” students begin to define the exigence for the meme and the specifics of the rhetorical situation. Practicing good research skills, students can analyze the different arguments surrounding an issue and evaluate how their meme engages specific viewpoints.   After analyzing how a specific meme has responded to arguments in the public sphere, students gain a familiarity with the media as well as the details of the involved arguments. Memes are fairly simplistic in construction and can reduce complex arguments to pithy forms. The next step has participants evaluate memes for missing elements or logical fallacies and rewrite the media as a more complex claim with supportive details. Focusing on one specific use of their meme, students can ask, “What is missing to create a detailed response to the issue?” Drawing on their own research, students can then address the exigence of an issue by rewriting a meme as an argumentative claim with supportive details. Paying attention to research, exigence, and arguments, students learn to map the larger rhetorical ecology of public issues and craft detailed claims that participate in evolving conversations.   Learn more about the Bedford New Scholars advisory board on the Bedford New Scholars Community page.   ... View more

Caitlin Martin (recommended by Elizabeth Wardle and Jason Palmeri) is a PhD candidate studying composition and rhetoric at Miami University (Ohio), where she also serves as graduate assistant director of the Howe Center for Writing Excellence. She has taught courses in composition theory and business writing in addition to face-to-face and online first-year composition and advanced writing courses. Her primary research interests include threshold concept theories and conceptions of writing, writing-related faculty development, and writing assessment. What is the most important skill you aim to provide your students? No matter what class I’m teaching, my ultimate goal is to help students develop as reflective practitioners (Shon). Reflection isn’t just crucial to learning about writing, it’s crucial to most learning situations we all encounter. I want the students I work with to be able to ask good questions about their knowledge and experiences so they can determine how to bring that to bear on their current and future educational experiences. When I first started teaching, I struggled with teaching this because I had never really been given adequate support to reflect on my own experiences. I studied reflective self assessment in order to teach for transfer for my MA thesis, and it helped me to think about reflection not as a genre I ask students to write, but as a strategy that is useful at all stages of writing a given product. Providing multiple opportunities for reflection also helps me learn about my students and meet them where they are, which is important to me as a teacher. How do you hope higher education will change in the next ten years? One change I hope to see in all education, not just higher education, is a shift away from deficit models of learning. Instead, I hope more educators will adopt strength-based models of education. Elaine Maimon, President of Governors State University in Chicago, explains this model as “building on what is right about students rather than fixing what is wrong” in her book Leading Academic Change: Vision, Strategy, Transformation. Instead of focusing on what students can’t do, it can be really powerful to think about what they can do and to consider how a course might build on that existing knowledge or set of experiences. This model also more accurately reflects how learning works. People aren’t empty vessels waiting to be filled with knowledge. They have lived experiences that influence how they encounter the worlds, and then they integrate new experiences, ideas, beliefs, and values with those experiences. It doesn’t serve learning when we as teachers only focus on what someone isn’t currently capable of doing.  What do you think instructors don't know about educational publishing but should?  When I was offered the opportunity to be a Bedford New Scholar, I didn’t know much about the publishing world except ongoing conversations about rising textbook costs and some skepticism about the publishing industry’s role in developing curricula. I imagine that other instructors, especially those who haven’t had the opportunity to meet and work with publishers, might view the industry similarly. I was really excited to learn how Bedford/St. Martin’s values disciplinary expertise when developing its textbooks and products. The editors I’ve worked with care about helping authors translate their research into textbooks meaningfully. I was also completely unaware of the amount of focus group research they conduct when developing new projects. They have really committed themselves to responding to teacher needs by finding a variety of ways to figure out what those needs are and to work with experts who can help meet those needs. I don’t think that’s something most of us think about when we consider whether to adopt a textbook. What's it like to be a part of the Bedford New Scholars program? Being part of the Bedford New Scholars program has been a great opportunity to learn about the educational publishing industry and learn from other New Scholars about how writing is taught in a variety of contexts. But most importantly, it was a really energizing and validating experience. Of course, it’s always nice to be recognized for my work by my mentors who nominated me. But there was a really awesome sense of encouragement as we shared our Assignments that Work during our summit in Boston, and I left the summit being really excited about my scholarship and my teaching because of the ideas I’d heard from others and the feedback I’d gotten on my own assignment. I have enjoyed this opportunity to meet and learn from others who I otherwise might not ever cross paths with.  Caitlin’s Assignment That Works During the Bedford New Scholars Summit, each member presented an assignment that had proven successful or innovative in their classroom. Below is a brief synopsis of Caitlin's assignment. You can view the full details here: Teaching Revision and Research through Full-Class Collaboration. I chose to share my approach to teaching research using full-class collaboration, which I explored in a first-semester composition course that focused on research-based writing, typically by developing a research project over multiple stages throughout the semester. The first time I taught the course, I saw my students struggle with using sources in their papers and discovered that most of them had never been taught how to take notes, so I created an assignment in which we read and took notes on the same resources together and then wrote an argumentative paper as a class. Students then revised the draft on their own by trying out what I call “radical revision”: rewriting everything in a given paragraph except one sentence. This assignment doesn’t fit with the FYC curricula I teach now, but the semester I used this approach is still one of my favorite teaching memories, and I try to find ways to bring successful aspects of this assignment into all the courses I teach. Learn more about the Bedford New Scholars advisory board on the Bedford New Scholars Community page. ... View more

Nina Feng (recommended by Jay Jordan and Andrew Franta) is pursuing her PhD in English with an emphasis in Writing and Rhetoric Studies at the University of Utah. She expects to graduate in May 2021. She teaches Intermediate Writing, Writing in the Social Sciences, and Write4U, a course for transfer students. Her research interests include game pedagogy, multimodality, sensory rhetorics, and critical race theory. What is your greatest teaching challenge? I’ve faced many difficult situations and made many mistakes throughout my teaching career. It’s taught me that I have to continue educating myself on student needs and working towards recognizing my own biases, which is a process that I hope to always engage in. One of the greatest challenges I’ve faced in teaching is to be self-aware and unafraid to relinquish control, along with previous ideas of success in writing. I try to be thoughtful about how I expect students to respond, or how the lesson should go because if we allow students to claim authority and show us unexpected ways to approach assignments, we can give them space to grow in confidence and develop their own aims and strengths.  How do you hope higher education will change in the next ten years? I hope that more and more teachers and institutions will adopt translingual approaches, emphasizing the acts of translation and interpretation that happen when we communicate, destabilizing curriculums that depend on standards of white supremacy. I think we’re seeing more of that happen in many fields, and we’re beginning to embrace language difference as potential, rather than deficit. What do you think instructors don't know about educational publishing but should? I think instructors should know that there are meticulous processes and engaged conversations happening with publishers and educators on the ground. Many of the materials that are created can be extremely useful, in supplementary ways and beyond composition classrooms as well. It’s worth considering and looking through potential textbooks to see what might help new instructors, in particular. What have you learned from other Bedford New Scholars? I was very fortunate to work with an incredible group of graduate students, and I learned so much from each one of them. I realized how much social justice work is happening at multiple institutions, and also how we’re all trying to reinvent similar assignments, ones which depend on basic, durable rhetorical models but need innovative modifications to address student needs. I also learned how many brilliant ideas are brewing in the minds of individual instructors — we could all benefit from a larger network of closer connections across institutions. During the Bedford New Scholars Summit, each member presented an assignment that had proven successful or innovative in their classroom. Below is a brief synopsis of Nina’s assignment. Nina’s Assignment that Works: Rhetorical Synthesis of Multimodal Works For this assignment, students are asked to choose four pieces of media/readings we’ve been studying during the first month of the semester, and to write a synthesis focused on the similarities and differences between rhetorical strategies utilized among the pieces. The pieces range from radio clips to short films to video games, encouraging students to become more aware of the mediums and modalities that contribute to rhetorical effectiveness. In an effort to help students think about the various tools, people, histories and contexts involved in communication, I think the more diverse the modalities and media we present, the more visible we can make the multiple layers of communication processes.  Learn more about the Bedford New Scholars advisory board on the Bedford New Scholars Community page. ... View more