Christopher Peace (recommended by Louis M. Maraj, on behalf of DBLAC) is pursuing a PhD in English with a concentration in Rhetoric and Composition at the University of Kansas. He expects to finish in May 2022. He currently teaches Composition 102 and plans to teach a 203 course on Digital Storytelling in Fall 2020. He has also taught online first-year composition and world literature. His research interests include rhetorical genre studies, (African-derived) religious rhetorics, writing ecologies, spatial rhetorics, digital storytelling/mythmaking, and ecocomposition. He also serves as a professional tutor for the KU Gear Up program and is an affiliate of the Project on the History of Black Writing.   What do you think is the most important recent development in teaching composition? The recent materialist turn in rhetoric and composition is important for teaching composition because it provides language to describe the multifaceted spatial dimensions of language and composition. Engaging with the spatial dimension of language is articulated through genre, which is the dimensions of typified communication that responds to the rhetorical situation. Rhetorical genre theory and mapping allows for a spatial engagement with composition in innovative ways, especially for multimodal composition. I’m interested in multigenre projects in composition: writers compose in multiple genres that are connected rhetorically, and they explain how different genres circulate differently in discourse communities. I think projects like this ask students to engage materially with certain discourse. One of the most important pedagogical shifts in composition studies has been the move from product-centered teaching to process-centered teaching. Instead of student writers focusing on the product of writing, process-centered pedagogy focuses on the multiple processes that occur during the act of writing. A focus on materiality expands on the situatedness of writing in an academic context, and I think it has given students more options in completing the tasks they must solve in coursework. What is your greatest teaching challenge? My proposed class for the Fall semester was canceled due to low enrollment, and I am now teaching a Professional Writing class. The Professional Writing course is divided into two eight-week online courses, and the modules for the courses are already set up for me. Therefore, I don't have as much control with this course as I did with my proposed course. I have some control over the syllabus, but my department has suggested that I shouldn’t change anything because everything is already set up for the online course. Currently, my difficulties with teaching involve moving around content to make it more comfortable for me to navigate. With the syllabus already designed, it feels like I have to learn just as much as the students, and it places me in a less stable situation when speaking through the course material. This course is generally online, but I want to make sure my students access the learning goals of this course in a way that is just as effective as an in-person course. I enjoy small-group conferences, so I will definitely find a way to implement that more into this online course. What is it like to be a part of the Bedford New Scholars program? I’m sure my experience with the Bedford New Scholars program has been unique due to the current pandemic, but our distanced situation hasn’t stopped the success of the program. Reviewing Everything’s an Argument was one of my first experiences as a Bedford New Scholar. First of all, I was surprised that my opinion mattered enough to be asked to review a well-known textbook. I’m really excited to be a part of that process as an upcoming academic, and an instructor who teaches argumentation frequently in composition courses. I believe that reviewing textbooks at this level is necessary for the cultural inclusion needed in the texts we normalize in academia. The BNS Summit was engaging and made me aware of my pedagogical leanings. It was really great to share teaching experiences with other Scholars. Although we couldn’t meet physically, the breakout sessions during the summit were personal and added a layer of closeness needed to have a successful experience. I didn’t feel out of place when it came to interactions with others. I know this experience will be beneficial to my future in rhetoric and composition, and to any editorial opportunities that may come my way. What have you learned from other Bedford New Scholars? I learned the most from other Bedford New Scholars during the summit. During the “Assignments that Work,” I learned a lot of practical moves from other Scholars. One Scholar reviewed a student information sheet—I had never thought to do the assignment in the way the Scholar presented it, especially since the assignment was geared toward preferred learning styles. I think more assessments like this could impact how my semester is set up toward the beginning of the course. I enjoyed another Scholar’s assignment that scaffolded synthesizing primary research by asking students to identify the rhetorical situations present in interviews, observations, and analyses. I’m always looking for ways to make primary research easier for students to follow, so having them see another person do primary research is a great way to explore synthesis. I liked sharing our teaching philosophies as well. The philosophies were articulated in multiple ways, and I gained several ideas about the complexities of my own dispositions to teaching. As Dr. Kendra Bryant mentioned, “philosophy” is about the love of knowledge. Being with a group of scholars to talk through the inspirational and emotional impulses of our teaching philosophies helped me articulate why I’m on this journey of completing this doctoral degree.   Christopher Peace’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 Christopher's assignment. For the full activity, see Multigenre Dystopian Invention. The Multigenre Dystopian Project is a multigenre project that asks students to invent a dystopian society through the creation of multiple genres. A dystopia is often characterized by an authoritarian or totalitarian form of governing and normalized social control of space, with seen or unseen intentions. It suggests different kinds of repressive social control systems, a lack or total absence of individual freedoms and expressions, and a state of constant warfare or violence. In this multigenre project, students create an original (as possible) dystopian society using written and visual genres. They come up with a fictional (or twistedly realistic) place that is intended to be perfect but has gone wrong due to some external reasons. Students invent social media, medical, and legal genres that express tension between the governing body and protesting citizens. This project aims to connect rhetoric of place and space with genres of writing, power, and control. I like this project because students combine rhetoric, creative writing, and literature together in a way that is unlike the standard essay—students are usually excited to be as multimodal as possible when creating different genres for their dystopias. ... View more

Sierra Mendez (recommended by Diane Davis) is pursuing a PhD in Rhetoric and Writing at the University of Texas at Austin. She expects to finish in May 2022. Sierra currently teaches a custom RHE 309K course entitled "Rhetoric of Texas" and serves as Assistant Director for the D.R.W.'s Digital Writing and Research Lab. In the past, she has taught "Introduction to Rhetoric and Composition" and served on the Lower Division Curriculum Committee. Before beginning her doctoral program, Sierra worked for three years for a museum branch of the San Antonio Public Library, creating educational community-based resources, installations, and programming. Her research interests concern border, material, visual, and memory rhetorics: specifically, the historical and ongoing constitution of Mexicanx bodies via narratives held both tenuously and powerfully across San Antonio’s urban space.   How will online or remote learning affect your teaching? The sudden and total switch to online instruction in the last year has been an enormous challenge for students and teachers. Luckily, I have worked at U.T.’s Digital Writing & Research Lab for four years, so I have spent time thinking about engaging, accessible online content and learning about necessary equipment and softwares. This shift is still an enormous challenge for me. I like to create malleable classrooms that respond to what is happening in the news, in student’s lives, and in our classroom in real time. In a traditional setting, I depend on face-to-face interaction with and between my students to know their struggles and interests. Moving online, however, requires content be produced ahead of time. In some ways, this is good because I am learning to be more structured and methodical (a hilarious notion, if you know me). It also means I hear more from students who are not as comfortable speaking aloud in class. In other ways, this is not good because it means my pre-recorded lectures have less room to respond to the news, to students’ lives, and to what our classroom is being. This fall, particularly, will be an enormous challenge because I’m teaching Intro to Visual Rhetoric: #2020PresidentialElection — topics that require response. How does the next generation of students inspire you? This generation of students faces enormous challenges. I am constantly moved by their willingness to engage in spite of the upheaval that surrounds them. This past spring, I fully expected after Spring Break this past year for most of my class to just say “eff this” and quit turning work in or turn in shoddy work; I wouldn’t have blamed any of them for doing so. But none of them did. They continued to participate in class activities and small group discussions via Zoom; they continued to respond thoughtfully to writing assignments, many of them turning in better work than they had previously; and they continued to seek out help through office hours and meetings. This generation of students, perhaps because of their exposure to social media and constant political chaos, seems much more willing and able than my generation to engage with complexity and to engage with humanity’s multiplicities. What have you learned from other Bedford New Scholars? I deeply appreciated learning from other instructors at Bedford New Scholars. I wish we had been able to spend more time talking one-on-one, but I know that is an experience not easily replicable online. I appreciated the group’s commitment to students as individuals. There was very real concern for who each student is and where they come from and what they need. There was very real attention to socio-economic backgrounds and issues of race, gender, and sexual orientation that produce often unchecked inequity in the classroom. Also, our guest speakers Kendra N. Bryant and Shelley Reid, were both incredible to listen to. What is exciting to you about Achieve and why? I am very excited about the feedback process enabled by Achieve. Most commonly-implemented online learning systems seem to conceive of paper feedback as an afterthought, but Achieve implements the paper into its design as an ongoing process. I am interested in how Achieve could help support portfolio-style and other nontraditional grading systems that don’t insist on the assignment of an opaque yet completely subjective letter grade.   Sierra’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 Sierra's assignment. For the full activity, see Drawing Arguments (Prewriting Activity). I like to do this pre-writing class activity in the final unit of class. It’s fun and it helps students generate ideas and structure for their final argumentative essay and accompanying argumentative infographic. Prior to this activity, students should generally know what they want to write/argue about. In this activity, to loosen up their brains, students start by drawing an object (a unicorn, Batman, whatever) for increasingly shorter increments of time. At the end of this first part, they will have four versions of the object with different degrees of detail and, somewhere in there, something recognizable as the essence of the object. I always let them talk to each other about what they’ve made/discovered and share with the class if they want. This kind of drawing and forced quick thinking gets their brains moving and raises room energy. It also helps them think about the pieces that make a thing. The activity then asks students to go through the same steps again but, this time, writing about their argument for increasingly shorter periods of time. When they are done, they will have their topic, something like a thesis, primary paragraph claims, and key details and evidence. I’ve done this activity with undergraduate and graduate students. It seems to help most people think more creatively and openly about their argument. ... View more

L. Corinne Jones(recommended by Lissa Pompous Mansfield) is completing her PhD in Texts and Technology with an emphasis in Rhetoric and Composition at the University of Central Florida (UCF), where she expects to finish in Spring 2021. She currently teaches Composition II (Writing about Writing and Research Writing); in Fall 2020, she anticipates teaching Business and Technical Communication. She also works as a legal writing adjunct at Barry University (Law School). Previously, she has taught Composition I (introductory writing) at UCF, as well as First-Year composition for conditionally admitted students at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Additionally, she has worked extensively in writing centers. Her research interests include digital rhetoric; circulation studies; digital, qualitative, mixed methods and methodologies; and feminist and queer studies.   How does the next generation of students inspire you? The next generation of students inspire me in so many ways. While I have only had the pleasure to teach this next generation of students for a few years now, I am particularly impressed with not only how resilient and determined my students are, but also how civic-minded and socially and politically active they are. My own students have faced incredible challenges both before and during the transition to online learning, and they have all overcome those challenges with both grace and tenacity. However, my own students and the next generation of students generally have consistently not let their challenges define them; instead they have turned these challenges into rhetorically and civically productive spaces for change. In my limited experience, this next generation of students is concerned with not only earning a passing grade, but with developing skills to use as they become agents of larger systemic changes.    How do you hope higher education will change in the next ten years? Relatedly, I hope that higher education responds to this next generation of students and their needs, both at their local institutions and more systemically. Though my students have proven that they can overcome challenges, I recognize that suggesting that success is achieved solely through individual will and hard work overlooks the neoliberal ideologies about individualism and the white supremacist systems that undergird higher education. So, I hope that higher education will respond to students’ stated needs, and I hope that higher education will work to actively change policies that negatively impact current students, prospective students, and the communities in which colleges and universities are embedded. This might include rethinking things like standardized tests, as we are already seeing some universities do. Ultimately, I hope that higher education both reflects and serves the larger community.  For those who work in higher education, I would also like to see higher education shift to recognize and value different types of labor and to compensate non-tenure track faculty and graduate student workers fairly and according to this unrecognized labor. Part of this change might also include shifting to valuing interdisciplinary work that traverses traditional disciplinary boundaries and expectations.    What is it like to be a part of the Bedford New Scholars program? Being part of the Bedford New Scholars program was an enlightening experience; first, I had the opportunity to learn about other programs and approaches to teaching writing. I loved having the opportunity to learn about the other scholars’ creative and smart assignments that they created to address their particular institutional contexts and students. Just as importantly, I appreciated hearing their rationales and reasoning behind their design choices as their explanations sparked new ideas for me and my own classroom assignments and practices. They all challenged me to rethink and reevaluate my own practices to try to better meet the needs of my own students.  Second, I appreciated learning about the publishing process. I found it helpful to learn about the layered decisions that publishers make when choosing a topic for a textbook, as well as when deciding on the content, chapters, and skills covered in those textbooks. It helps me to know more about the decisions, affordances, and constraints, which educational publishing companies face in developing new materials because now I have a better understanding of what to expect.    How will the Bedford New Scholars program affect your professional development or your classroom practice? The Bedford New Scholars Program has affected my professional development and classroom practices in a number of ways. First, and most obviously, it has given me a lot of new ideas and things to think about as I move forward on my own pedagogical path. As I noted above, I was very impressed with the fellow scholars’ assignments, as well as their thoughtful approaches to classroom practices more generally. Moving forward, I would like to adopt some of their practices in my own classrooms, and I hope to draw from some of their ideas presented in the institute and posted here on the Macmillan English Community (with credit, of course!).  Second, while I have been interested in the challenges of online pedagogy and been an online student myself, participating in the Bedford New Scholars program online has made me think more critically about how to approach online pedagogy in the fall semester. I now know more about the work and the cognitive load (switching between screens, etc.) from a student perspective. The experience reinforced my belief that students will need grace and understanding from teachers in the upcoming semester.     Corinne’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 Corinne's assignment. For the full activity, see Rhetorical Velocity: A Game of Strategy and Chance. At my university, GTAs use Writing about Writing, which uses complex writing studies texts to get students thinking metacognitively about their rhetorical choices. Sometimes, students struggle with the readings, so I try to ground some of the dense readings in in-class games. For this assignment, students read about the concept of “rhetorical velocity,” which broadly refers to how online rhetors strategically compose texts for rapid Internet spread and re-appropriation (Ridolfo & DeVoss, 2009). Importantly, rhetorical velocity is beyond the control of the rhetor, thereby disturbing the concept of the singular author. After a scaffolded discussion defining terms, students put the concept to use in a game. In the game, students get onto teams and select attributes which can add to the rhetorical velocity of their online compositions in fictive scenarios. However, when selecting these attributes, students are unaware of consequences of their online compositions, some of which lose their team points. After the game, students discuss the rhetorical velocity of their texts and the extent to which they had control (and responsibility) over those texts and their consequences. Once students understand the concept of rhetorical velocity, they can use it in their own literacy narratives or profiles of other authors. ... View more

Photo Credit: Kyle BrettSarah Heidebrink-Bruno (recommended by Jenna Lay) is pursuing her PhD in English, with a concentration in literature and social justice pedagogies, at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA. She expects to finish her degree in 2020 or 2021. She teaches a range of composition and rhetoric courses, including English 1, 2, and 11, in addition to interdisciplinary courses in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies as well as Africana Studies. She has also taught online courses in English and WGSS, with a focus on pop culture themes, including modern relationships. Her research interests include restorative justice practices, women's literature of the 1960s-present, feminist theory and praxis, and writing center tutors' instruction.   How do you hope higher education will change in the next ten years? In the next ten years, I hope to see folks in higher education intentionally divorce themselves from the “ivory tower” image and embrace education as a truly equalizing experience — by prioritizing access to the most vulnerable and historically marginalized among us, including BIPOC, LGBTQIA folks, and differently abled, faculty, and staff. I would like to see a concerted effort to serve the community in which colleges and universities are located, in ways that the community deems desirable and appropriate. Moreover, I’d love for all of the stakeholders in colleges and universities to have a greater focus on holistic students’ experiences — ideally, academic and student affairs would work in tandem to recognize students as complex young adults, rather than essentializing one aspect of their identities in one space.    How does the next generation of students inspire you? I am constantly inspired by my students. Though my colleagues have sometimes suggested that students are generally apathetic and only interested in getting good grades/a degree, I think this stereotype ignores the larger structural issues that students must face in order to not feel the pressure to just “get it done.” In my experiences, I have been lucky to see students blossom through their research and writing processes into conscientious young adults who have strong values and ideas about the ways in which education — and the world — can change. They constantly amaze me with their curiosity and their willingness to ask difficult questions and challenge ideas that seem untrue or unjust.    What have you learned from other Bedford New Scholars? I relished the opportunity to learn with and from my fellow Bedford New Scholars during our summer orientation meetings. Specifically, I really liked learning about the different writing assignments and classroom activities that my peers have used — which I am eager to try myself! I learned a lot from their feedback and insight on my work, which I intend to use to improve my teaching this coming semester. Finally, it was reassuring to hear that we are all facing similar struggles, especially at this difficult time, and that they were willing to share different solutions and moral support for dealing with these challenges.    What is it like to be a part of the Bedford New Scholars program? I really appreciated the chance to meet and work with the dedicated staff at Macmillan who organize the BNS program. I admit that I had little insight into the publishing world and the process that scholars undergo as they progress from an idea to a fully-formed reference guide or handbook, etc., but I enjoyed learning about the inner mechanisms of the publishing world and the ways in which writers seek feedback from their peers as well as their editors throughout the process. (Admittedly, it was also cool to see exclusive content prior to its public release!) It was clear to me how much the editors and staff members really care about the authors they work with and that they are dedicated to producing thoughtful and helpful teaching materials (among other products).   Sarah Heidebrink-Bruno’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 Sarah’s assignment. For the full activity, see Student Information Sheet. For my “assignment that works,” I shared a version of my Student Information Sheet, a form that I typically hand out during the first week of class as a way to  Establish the tone of the course; Get to know more about my students and their learning needs;  And finally, gather information that I then use when I am lesson planning.  In the sheet, I ask them about their preferred names (if any), their pronouns (if they feel comfortable sharing that information with me), and what kinds of learning environment and activities they prefer. For example, I include a list of possible activities, such as Think-Pair-Share, answering questions in small groups, Check Out tickets, and more. They can either check off boxes in the list of options or add additional suggestions. After everyone has completed the sheet, we then discuss how we best learn and what kind of learning spaces have been the most impactful. I tell them about my own learning and teaching techniques that have worked for me in the past, with an explicit emphasis on the fact that I need and expect for them to give me feedback on pedagogical choices and activities in the classroom to make sure that I am reaching folks where they are. I will note that although I’ve used a hard copy of this form in the past, it would be very easy to create a version in Google forms (or another digital space), which would also allow the instructor to easily see what the most popular choices are. The instructor could then use that information for an ice-breaker activity or discussion at the beginning of the next class. ... View more

Michael S. GarciaMichael S. Garcia (recommended by Kimberly Harrison) is pursuing his MFA in Creative Writing at Florida International University. He expects to finish in April 2021. At FIU, he has taught Writing and Rhetoric, Writing in Action, Essay Writing, and Creative Writing: Forms and Practices. He has also taught 11th and 12th grade English at a Title I high school. As a writer, he has published short stories, essays, web articles, and poetry.   What is the most important skill you aim to provide your students?  We are currently living in an important social and political moment—a time rife with conflict, strife, and disinformation. Never before has there been so much (mis)information coming at us from all sides, all the time. I believe my most important role as a writing and rhetoric teacher is two-fold: I must teach students how to evaluate information through a critical lens, so they can filter out the noise and arrive at well-informed opinions; simultaneously, I must empower my students with the skills, knowledge, and confidence to express themselves in an accurate, thoughtful, and ethical way.    How will online or remote learning affect your teaching? While teaching remotely is not ideal, I have chosen to view it as a learning opportunity, a chance to grow into a more effective teacher. Keeping students active and engaged can be a challenge in the very best of times, but now, with all our teaching happening through digital tools, it is more crucial than ever to focus on student engagement. In my in-person classes, I really focus on trying my best to implement lessons and activities that engage students and keep them interested, but it is so easy to become distracted or fatigued when meeting through digital platforms like Zoom, so this aspect of my teaching will be even more important now than ever.  Also, while I already make use of digital tools and platforms in my usual in-person teaching, I will rely on them now more than ever before. I suspect that I will become more adept at using a variety of digital tools as part of the teaching process.  I anticipate that what I learn from remote teaching—not just in terms of student engagement and technology, but perhaps in other areas I haven’t considered yet—will turn this challenging time into a net-positive for my development as an educator, increasing my effectiveness as a teacher in the long term.  What is it like to be a part of the Bedford New Scholars program? The Bedford New Scholars program has turned out to be an invaluable experience for my personal and professional development. I have learned about the process behind creating and publishing educational materials, something I had very little idea about beforehand. The program also gave me the opportunity to collaborate with a great group of accomplished scholars from around the country that I may not have met otherwise.  Additionally, the opportunity to preview and give feedback on upcoming Bedford/St. Martin’s texts and tools that are currently being worked-on is a really cool experience. It’s great to see the thought and care that the people at Bedford/St. Martin’s put into their projects, and how important it is to them to collaborate with a varied and diverse group of educators—I think this collaborative approach helps ensure Bedford/St. Martin’s texts and tools are effective and relevant to both teachers and students.   What projects or course materials from Bedford/St. Martin's most pique your interest, and why? I was very impressed by the wide array of texts Bedford/St. Martin’s offered in my subject area; it seemed there was a text for every approach, something I wasn’t aware of before the Bedford New Scholars project.  The project I was most interested in was the Achieve learning platform. I think it’s great how the platform empowers instructors to create effective, multimodal assignments, while also encouraging and enabling collaboration—not only between the student and their instructor, but among students and their peers. It is intuitive and easy-to-use while also having depth in what it is capable of. I’m excited by the opportunities and possibilities that Achieve presents, not only in the composition classroom, but in teaching the subject of English overall.  Michael’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 Michael's assignment. For the full activity, see Discourse Community Profile.   My “Assignment That Works” is the Discourse Community Profile, the first major assignment I assign as part of the first of FIU’s two-course introductory writing sequence. For this assignment, students are asked to write a profile on a discourse community of their choice; this involves describing the discourse community, citing specific examples of discourse from this community and where it occurs, and examining what can be gleaned about this community from analyzing its use of language. Students are asked to conclude the profile with a reflection on their relationship to this discourse community, why they chose to write about it, and what they learned in the process.  The assignment sheet is designed with question-and-answer format to make the assignment prompt as clear and concise as possible. We spend the first unit of the course scaffolding up to this assignment with foundational lessons about rhetorical awareness, rhetorical strategies, how to choose the appropriate genre (this is where they learn what a “profile” is), and code-switching. Students are asked to submit a “first steps” topic proposal to ensure they understand what is being asked of them. They submit a low-stakes first draft for instructor comments and peer review, giving them time to polish their work before the final draft is due.  ... View more

Allison Dziuba (recommended by Jonathan Alexander) is a PhD candidate in English at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). She teaches courses in the lower-division writing sequence, in person during the school year and online during the summer. She also teaches the Summer Bridge writing lab, a pre-college course for incoming UCI first-years. She has served as the editorial assistant for College Composition and Communication and Rhetoric Society Quarterly. She is currently the Campus Writing & Communication Fellow at UCI. Allison's research interests include college students' self-sponsored literacy practices and extracurricular rhetorical education, and intersectional feminist approaches to rhetorical studies.   What is your greatest teaching challenge? Time management. Whether I’m teaching a 50- or 80-minute class session, the time seems to fly by. I was advised early on to plan lessons around just one main point or activity. Planning more concise lessons allows me to better explain what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. It also provides space for students to shape each class with their questions and interests. As a teacher, I want to better adapt to my students’ needs, to let them drive the agenda. In sketching out the full term, it’s important for me to set reasonable goals, too. Because my university is on the quarter system, we only have 10 weeks together as a class. I have to tailor my expectations based on this relatively limited time frame and prioritize the skills and experiences I hope will be most valuable to my students (more on this below). What is the most important skill you aim to provide your students? I teach lower-division writing, which means that, for many of my students, our class is their first college-level writing experience. It’s often the smallest class that they’ve taken so far (around 20 students), so they have an opportunity to get to know their instructor and peers. Understanding that this is a potentially crucial moment in their undergraduate careers but also a brief and largely introductory one, I focus on rhetorical flexibility. That is, we aim to address the question, how does a rhetor craft messages in different genres and modes to communicate their purposes? I care deeply about what my students have to say, and so my hope is that helping to cultivate their rhetorical know-how will allow their voices to reach a variety of audiences. Students explore how they can shape communications and how messages move through the world; in so doing, they engage with the often overlapping communities to which they belong—home, college, local/regional, transnational, etc. This process of discovery animates my dissertation research as well—how do college students develop their rhetorical educations and their sense of belonging within campus and broader ecologies? What is it like to co-design or work with the editorial team at Bedford/St. Martin's? I’ve enjoyed working with the English composition editors because they’re knowledgeable about the world of writing instruction and they’re attentive to the needs of instructors. These traits, combined with their close familiarity with the Bedford catalogue, make for generative working relationships. For example, one of the workshops during the BNS summit was about developing writing assignments that are transparent in their aims—a topic that I and other teachers think about a lot—paired with a preview of a forthcoming book focused on tackling writing problems. Special kudos to Leah Rang and her team for organizing a virtual summit experience this summer that ran smoothly, covered a wide range of topics, and provided both graduate students and editorial staff opportunities to get to know one another and to ask each other productive questions about composition pedagogy. What have you learned from other Bedford New Scholars? I value the creativity and generosity of my BNS colleagues. In particular, I’m inspired by the assignments they’ve shared and their explanations of how these activities function in their classrooms. A few examples are Corinne’s gamification of teaching about the (potentially unintended) circulation and re-appropriation of texts, Kalyn’s step-by-step approach to analyzing rhetors’ source synthesis, and Sierra’s engagement of visual composition practices, as inspired by her pre–grad school career. I plan to incorporate elements of these activities into my own teaching practice. Overall, gathering this group of inquisitive, like-minded folks together for the summit lead to fruitful discussions about teaching and what we care about as teachers. These conversations and my peers’ commitment to their students will help to sustain my academic journey, and I hope to continue to cultivate these connections. Allison’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 Allison's assignment. For the full activity, see Opinion Barometer Activity  I’m sharing the “Opinion Barometer,” an in-class activity that aims to help students recognize the knowledges that they bring to the classroom and to explore nuances of rhetorical stances, beyond mere pro/con. I credit a fellow graduate student writing instructor with the spatial and interactive structure of the activity, and I’ve developed it over time to align with course assignments and to be relevant to the populations of students I’m teaching. Students are given statements or claims and are asked to move to a point in the classroom to indicate how much they agree or disagree with the statement. I’ve used this activity with first-year students who are encountering college-level courses and college life for the first time; the sample questions are crafted particularly with new college students in mind. I feel that the Opinion Barometer facilitates honest discussions about my students’ goals and expectations for their college careers. I’ve also used this as a warm-up activity before diving into an op-ed assignment. My intention is to boost students’ perceptions of their own expertise and to begin brainstorming topics that they have opinions about. I’d like to think more about how this activity could be adapted for an online teaching environment. Thanks to my fellow Bedford New Scholars for considering possible modifications. For instance, Sidney recommended gauging students’ opinions via an online poll and then asking them to write brief rationales for their positions. ... View more

Sidney Blaylock (recommended by Kate Pantelides) is pursuing his PhD in English with a concentration in Rhetoric and Composition at Middle Tennessee State University. He expects to finish in May 2021. He teaches Expository Writing and Research and Argumentation. His research interests include multimodality, rhetorical analysis, new media, cultural rhetorics, digital rhetorics, film, and afrofuturism.   What is the most important skill you aim to provide your students? The ability to understand how to critically read and assess both texts and situations. Higher education should give students the ability and the resources to evaluate information and ideas that they come in contact with and to make informed choices. This practice should not only extend to what students read or write but to their daily lives. I want students to understand that the ideologies of close reading can give them strategies that can inform their interpretation of popular culture texts in addition to great literature, which helps them find meaning in the texts they interact with on a daily basis. I also want students to understand that the idea of the rhetorical situation undergirds human activities and human communication whether it is as important as giving a presentation to colleagues on the job or as mundane as ordering a coffee at Starbucks, so that they can navigate the world as successfully as possible. Without being able to critically read and assess texts and situations, I feel that students are at a disadvantage, especially from those seeking to misuse power or misrepresent facts and situations.   What is your greatest teaching challenge? Getting students to understand that opinions, especially those that confirm a student’s own beliefs, are not facts, and cannot be relied on without question. I want students to challenge assertions found on social media, something many seem reluctant to do. I want students to look at the author of the information and to see if that person is credible--are they an expert in their field or a normal person, do they have a particular bias that you can determine, or do they seem impartial? Where does the information come from--an academic journal with multiple authors or one person’s social media account? How old is the information? My greatest teaching challenge revolves around getting students to ask questions and not simply take the information presented as fact. All humans have biases, things that they like or dislike, and I want students to understand that our biases, along with the biases of the person who is communicating with them, all are aspects of communication that must be negotiated before one can make a cogent and reasoned decision about a subject.     What have you learned from other New Bedford Scholars?  While there were many things that I learned from my fellow New Bedford Scholars during our time together at the Summit, there are three that I thought were highly important. First, like myself, I learned that getting students to learn critical thinking skills is a primary focus for all of us. We want students to understand the richness of thinking for themselves and learning how to critically evaluate information. I also learned that we each have diverse interests and experiences that inform our instruction. It is in this diversity that our strengths as educators come to the fore. I learned that my fellow Scholars have a wealth of knowledge and resources that I can draw upon to help better my own teaching. This was especially true in looking at the variety of assignments presented during the Summit. It was amazing to see the various types of assignments that integrated multimodal ways of learning. Seeing all of this amazing work helped to inspire me for the upcoming semester. I, too, want to create innovative and highly multimodal assignments that my students will see as fun, challenging, and inspiring, in addition to being informative.     What is it like to be a part of the Bedford New Scholars program? It is an amazing experience! Not only are you working with the editorial team at Bedford/St. Martin’s, you also have access to nine other scholars who are in your field. This allows you to collaborate and interact in order to help shape the future of student learning. The editorial team at Bedford/St. Martin’s are an extremely knowledgeable and friendly group of people to work with, and are exceedingly helpful by explaining the reasons behind the decisions that are needed in the publishing world. Moreover, they also listen, which is a rare quality these days. They actively solicit feedback and truly want to know when something is working well, so that they continue it or expand it. However, they also want to know when something isn’t working, so that they can find a way to address the issue and fix it so that it works better the next time. Finally, being part of the Bedford New Scholars program is fun! The editorial team made sure that we found time to socialize and to collaborate in several fun and interesting ways--even on Zoom.   Sidney Blaylock Jr.’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 Sidney's assignment. You can view the full details here: "Go Forth and Find" “Go Forth and Find” is a short lesson, designed to be mostly done over a class meeting or two. At the beginning of the unit discussing genre, I ask students to pair off and use their phones to take pictures of various “genre” items in the room, in the hall, in the building, and around campus (this can be modified to safe areas for virtual learning). I ask them to find information/instructions, a bulletin board, a poster, a graphic/image, a sign, and a “wildcard” (which can be any interesting item they found during the search). We then come together and discuss the various items that we’ve found, specifically noting the various affordances and constraints of the genre — looking for ways the items follow convention or the ways in which they deviate from the norm. This assignment tries to encourage critical learning and thinking in a fun way that helps students learn from (and with) their peers. Also, since the assignment happens early in the semester, it is a great way to, hopefully, form the bonds that will allow the class to grow into a strong learning community together.  ... 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

Matt Switliski (nominated by Christina Ortmeier-Hooper) is completing a PhD in English with a concentration in Composition at the University of New Hampshire. He has taught First-Year Writing, Introduction to Creative Nonfiction, Professional and Technical Writing, and other courses. His major research interests are writing centers and creative writing. His secondary interests include response, stylistics, and craft books. Matt was a 2018 Bedford New Scholar.   In the First-Year Writing classes I teach, I often ask a series of questions on the first day of the semester to get students involved and to access some of what they already know about writing. “What were you told to do (or not do) in writing?” generates plenty of ideas and usually some disagreement. The answers encompass the expected (Your thesis should be in the first paragraph) and the surprising (You can’t start a sentence with “because”). For as many times as I’ve asked that question, I’ve never had a student ask, “What kind of writing?” To shake up their ideas about school writing being one universal variety, I try to integrate discussions of genre throughout the term.   Some context: At the University of New Hampshire, our one-semester First-Year Writing (FYW) course is the only requirement for all students regardless of program (save those with appropriate transfer or AP credit). While individual instructors have a lot of flexibility, the course is generally structured around three major assignments—an analytical essay, a researched persuasive essay, and a personal essay—with a rhetorical emphasis throughout. The first assignment asks students to rhetorically analyze an argument, integrating the appeals of ethos, logos, and pathos. That language bridges nicely to the next essay in which writers make their own arguments, supported by evidence. It’s in the early days of the researched persuasive unit that I raise the matter of genre with the assignment linked here.   One way I’ve introduced genre is to have students brainstorm as many different kinds of writing as they can. I encourage them to be as broad with it as possible. If it contains language, it’s fair game. As students call out ideas—Lyrics! Menus! Lab reports! Poems!—I scribble them furiously on the board, both to signal that their contributions are valuable and to give us a powerful visual of the diversity of writing. Breaking into groups, they discuss what’s common and what’s distinctive about each of these sorts of writing, sharing their findings as a whole class afterward. (I realize there are much more nuanced approaches to genre, as in the work of Amy Devitt and Anis Bawarshi, but I’m not even sure I understand those views as well as I should. Besides, this exercise is really just scratching the surface of a much bigger topic.)   From there we consider the research papers they’ve written in the past, whether those are a genre themselves or if they include a range of genres. Some have written diverse work that integrates research, but many more have written a kind of generic research paper that just gathers information and solders it together without opinion, without audience, without purpose. That, I tell them, is not the case here. The research will help them make a point that they believe. And in doing so, they get to experiment with genre.   As you can see in the assignment, I provide students with the introductions to three approaches to the same basic research topic. The audience for each is different, however, as is the evidence used. In the past I’ve given them the choice of writing their research paper as an op-ed, a report, or a letter, though I do like the idea of making it entirely open-ended; that way, they would not only need to research material to help them make their arguments, but they’d also need to research how to write whatever genre they choose, something they will need to do in the future as FYW cannot prepare writers for every contingency. (Here I align myself with Downs and Wardle in rejecting teaching a “universal academic discourse” as a goal for FYW [553].)   While each example obviously differs in style and structure, I emphasize audience, purpose, and evidence. The letter addresses an individual, the report a larger group, and the op-ed the largest. Given those audiences, we discuss what issues are relevant to each of these audiences and, if we don’t know, how to find out. What the audience cares about changes the angle of the argument and thus demands different evidence. We discuss what each argument is asking its audience to do and if that course of action is within their power—something I expect them to address in their own writing. And we talk about evidence not just as it relates to the audience and purpose but what seems appropriate for the genre. A report probably won’t have much room for pathos, whereas a letter or an op-ed might. The ethos of the writer can sometimes be relevant for an op-ed and almost always is in the case of a letter. As for logos, well, that’s key to nearly any argument, something they generally notice when writing their own rhetorical analyses.   How do you bring up genre in writing classrooms? How do you work against the ubiquitous generic research paper?   References Bawarshi, Anis S. Genre and the Invention of the Writer: Reconsidering the Place of Invention in Composition. Utah State UP, 2003. Devitt, Amy J. Writing Genres. Southern Illinois UP, 2008. Downs, Douglas, and Elizabeth Wardle. “Teaching about Writing, Righting Misconceptions: (Re)Envisioning ‘First-Year Composition’ as ‘Introduction to Writing Studies.’” College Composition and Communication, vol. 58, no. 4, 2007, pp. 552-584.   To view Matt’s assignment, visit Persuasive Genres. To learn more about the Bedford New Scholars advisory board, visit the Bedford New Scholars page on the Macmillan English Community. ... View more