Driving Around on Purpose: Learning to See through Photo Essays and Visual Storytelling   Kim Haimes-Korn is a Professor of English and Digital Writing at Kennesaw State University. She also trains graduate student writing teachers in composition theory and pedagogy. Kim’s teaching philosophy encourages dynamic learning and critical digital literacies and focuses on students’ powers to create their own knowledge through language and various “acts of composition.” She likes to have fun every day, return to nature when things get too crazy, and think deeply about way too many things. She loves teaching. It has helped her understand the value of amazing relationships and boundless creativity. You can reach Kim at khaimesk@kennesaw.edu or visit her website: Acts of Composition   Overview Our family came up with the term, “Driving Around on Purpose,” when my daughter was a young child. I taught a night class once a week for many years and felt bad about not being around during that time. My daughter and husband, however, turned it into a daddy-daughter date night and happily did their own thing.  After many years, I decided to rearrange my schedule, drop the night class and return home for Wednesday nights. I was expecting that my family would be relieved that I was back on deck for that day, but they were actually a bit disappointed as they were happy with their weekly hang-time.  My daughter, in all of her young insight, asked me if I could just “drive around on purpose” during this time to keep their hang-time intact.    Photo by Kim Haimes-KornAlthough I found it funny at the time, I was not a stranger to driving around on purpose.  On the contrary, I love a drive without a destination to create chances to start out in one place and see how one thing leads to the next. As a digital storyteller I seek out unstructured opportunities to connect visually with the world, the seasons, the sights, and the unexpected events that present themselves. Driving around on purpose is really about changing your state of mind, learning how to see and live the flow life and notice things that might go unnoticed. It is about finding the right light, right angle, new connections, and the right story to tell.  For me and all the busy people I know, this is a way to step outside of our overscheduled lives and enjoy the openness of discovery, which is where stories emerge.          I bring this practice into my classes to push students to do the same thing – learn how to drive around on purpose.  One of the skills of digital storytellers is learning how to see.  Students, in their busy lives often walk quickly by and through their experiences, rather than slowing down and observing their surroundings.  The concept of driving around on purpose is perfect for students generating microcontent and telling visual stories.    The idea of the photo essay is at the center of this kind of multimodal work. Photo essays tell stories and strengthen students’ abilities to see their world in new ways. As immersive storytellers, we often find ourselves in situations where we experience and interpret reality and then represent it for others in digital spaces.     The photo essay originally emerged as a genre through journalism and lived its origins in the early magazines. The term came about when W. Eugene Smith chronicled the back stories of a Rural Country Doctor (1948) and a Nurse Midwife (1951) through landmark photo essays in the iconic Life magazine. These essays defined the genre and were followed by others in different contexts and subjects. Photojournalists told stories that created behind-the- scenes portraits, slice-of-life experiences and life in the field. The photo essay surged during the Vietnam war and other cultural and historical moments as we were able to feel the emotional impact through images. Today, the photo essay has worked its way into popular mediums through online sharing and distribution in digital spaces where both everyday composers and professional storytellers share their lives, experiences, and ideas through visual storytelling.    The Format Magazine article, Advice for an Unforgettable Photo Essay (2018) offers a working definition and characteristics of photo essays:   Possibilities, discovery, and stories: these are some of the most effective elements of a photo essay. Collections of images can help produce a narrative, evoke emotion, and guide the viewer through one or more perspectives. A well-executed photo essay doesn’t rely on a title or any prior knowledge of its creator; it narrates on its own, moving viewers through sensations, lessons, and reactions.   Photo by Ed 259 on UnsplashWhen assigning photo essays or visual microcontent, I sometimes give students prompts to sharpen their focus and feed into my class assignments. For example, I have students investigate their sense of place, look for a series of related things (digital, visual series) or search for particular composing techniques. Other times, I leave it more unstructured and ask them to go on a walk-about or exploratory journey that encourages seeking out the unexpected. I also offer opportunities to choose their own paths and drive around on purpose according to their own terms. Prompts can encourage students to follow narrative paths that “focus on the story you’re telling the viewer” or thematic paths that “speak to a specific subject.” (2018).   Photo essays are stories of discovery or ones that make a statement. They can entertain, persuade, or inform and present thoughtful connections between composed images to tell stories and communicate meaning. They are short, visual stories (microcontent) that can stand-alone or be integrated into larger projects. Steps to the Assignment:  Assign students a prompt (structured or unstructured) and ask them to venture out and take at least 10 images on their phone in which they visually represent a story or idea.  I encourage them to engage in strong composing practices as they learn to compose strong images.  Although I usually assign 10 images (for micro-stories), I encourage students to overtake and curate more than they need so they have more to choose from to create their stories. Sometimes, I intentionally assign more images, depending on the nature, purpose, and depth of the assignment. I emphasize the importance of context and varied visual perspectives (such as different distances (micro to macro), angles).   Once students collect their images, they should edit, sort, and arrange them so they tell a story, communicate an idea, or explain a perspective.  Students can prepare them for submission through an array of options: they can present them as an advancing slide show or a gallery of captioned images. They can add title slides, text, and music if they want or just let the images speak for themselves.  I usually have them include an accompanying context statement through which they discuss their purposes and processes.   Finally, students share their stories with others in either full class or small group formats to see the reactions of an active audience.  Students can also add them to existing forms and platforms such as blogs, social media posts, written articles, or other spaces.   Here are some example prompts/ideas for short photo essays:  Transformation or change  Journeys or photo walks  DIY – process of how to do something or how things work  Day-in-the-life  Community  Personal space  Profile/portraits of people  Behind the scenes  Persuasive statement towards an idea or cause  Technique driven – Composing techniques, black and white, etc. Seasonal portraits Nature Architecture  City Life Objects  Moods or emotions  Experiences or events Choose your own adventure   Reflections on the Activity: I am glad I learned how to drive around on purpose and find meaning through photo essays. It nurtured my love of visual storytelling and shaped my ability to shift my state of mind and find stories to tell. I find students also embrace these opportunities as engaging assignments that help them learn to see, critically interpret their experiences, and hone their skills as visual storytellers. ... View more

Today's Tiny Teaching Story is by Jordan Hill, composition instructor in the Global First Year program at Florida International University. A recently-selected Fulbright Scholar, he will soon move to Italy to research a short story collection. Idioms I tell my class of international students that a certain American literary character is “an odd duck.” They stare at me with tilted heads and confused smiles. I imagine what they must be imagining—Jay Gatsby as a strange waterfowl. I clear my throat. “Sorry, everyone,” I say. “An ‘odd duck’ is an idiom. An expression.” How can I explain this? “An odd duck is sort of like a black sheep.” Again, the quizzical faces. Too late, I register my second, unintentional idiom. I sigh and explain what happened. They laugh, and I try again.   Submit your own Tiny Teaching Story to tinyteachingstories@macmillan.com! See the Tiny Teaching Stories Launch for submission details and guidelines.   ... View more

Kim Haimes-Korn is a Professor of English and Digital Writing at Kennesaw State University. She also trains graduate student writing teachers in composition theory and pedagogy. Kim’s teaching philosophy encourages dynamic learning and critical digital literacies and focuses on students’ powers to create their own knowledge through language and various “acts of composition.” She likes to have fun every day, return to nature when things get too crazy, and think deeply about way too many things. She loves teaching. It has helped her understand the value of amazing relationships and boundless creativity. You can reach Kim at khaimesk@kennesaw.edu or visit her website: Acts of Composition.   Overview Writing in digital spaces asks us to rethink the nature of writing. Our students compose through non-linear writing and interactive formats. Site maps are used in interactive design to help users find our sites and content and enhance SEO (search engine optimization).  Although this is important for those composing in online formats, I use site maps in my classes as part of the planning and revision processes.    It is often difficult for students to get their minds around non-linear writing. They are used to writing in a vertical format, where readers read from top to bottom and left to right. Generally, the author controls where the reader goes through linear progression. With webtexts and interactive writing, the audience takes on a participatory role through which writers and readers work together to understand meaning and readers have choices about where to go next, thus creating documents that are read deep vs from top to bottom. Celia Pearce in the Ins and Outs of Interactive Storytelling, provides a good working definition for these terms: “In the context of interactivity, linear is defined as any body of content (i.e., information) that is meant to be seen or heard in the same order every time it is experienced.” She continues, “Non-linear, on the other hand, is defined as any body of content that is structured such that its final delivery is variable. Each time it is seen or heard, it can be presented in a different order, based on input from the user, or (as I prefer to call it) the player.” Teaching students to write in this way is a challenge as it asks them to include multimedia and multimodal components, embedded links and incorporate design cues that allow readers to move around and participate in the narrative. See my previous post on Foundations for Non-linear Writing for including these components.   I use site maps in my courses to help students see the connection between their ideas and the ways that form and content work together. My students are not web designers and my goal at this point is not to have them understand SEO and other back-end strategies for location and distribution of their work (although this is important down the line if they continue in these areas).  Instead, I use them as planning and revision documents that help them conceptualize the structure of non-linear writing.    Here are two examples of how I use them in my classes:    Sitemaps for Interactive Writing I have students write interactive feature articles that require many branching directions and pathways. For these articles, the site map helps students organize their work and shape the writing through identifying embedded links, exploratory paths, and multimodal components. Here is a sample from a Sense of Place interactive article:  Talia Dodenhoff’s Site map for Sense of Place Interactive Feature Article (2022)   Sitemaps for Organizing Online Portfolios  I use online portfolios in many of my classes. One class in particular encourages students to curate a collection of artifacts that represent their marketable skills. This portfolio assists them on the job market as they shape a professional identity and allows future employers to understand the connections between their work and their abilities.  Students in this context need to understand the connections between their artifacts through categorizing and organizing.    For both of these examples, students need to create a hierarchy of pages and elements and detail the connections between components. Here is a sample of a site map for an online portfolio: Isabel McNamara’s Sitemap for an online portfolio (2022)   Steps to the assignment:  Give students context through discussing linear and non-linear composition.  Explain the concept of site maps and talk about how they are similar and different from outlines and other processes of linear writing. Students are generally familiar with outlines, so this is a good place to start.  I usually show them a couple of examples to get an idea of the visual sitemap.  Have students to review their work and list the components included in their articles and in their portfolios. Ask them to specifically name their ideas rather than rely on generic naming. Encourage them to talk about hierarchy and to look for categories and connections between their ideas and components.    I introduce a site map generator tool/app that allows them to create the maps in real time and through fluid design that can change as the projects progress. I like Gloomaps because it is simple and free but there are many other free tools and apps for site map design. This app helps you create a map that is available for 14 days unless it is revisited and will renew each time for dynamic interaction as students revise and refer back to it as an organizing document. Students can also save their sitemaps to their computers in PNG or PDF formats. Here is a short instructional video on the site that demonstrates the building process.  Share sitemaps in peer groups or project for the whole class to get feedback.   Have students revisit the sitemap several times during the process and revise it based on new ideas and directions.        Reflection on the Activity  This activity goes far to help students understand that they are not just dropping a paper online and that they must think differently in these contexts. It allows them to engage in dynamic, fluid design that trains them to be strong interactive composers. It emphasizes a visual planning and revising through new conceptual lenses.      Works Cited:  Pearce, C. (1994, May 1). The ins & outs of non-linear storytelling, ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics. DeepDyve. Retrieved March 27, 2023, from https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/association-for-computing-machinery/the-ins-outs-of-non-linear-storytelling-QwtZIQstxb  ... View more

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been re-evaluating the power of digital technologies. But not, as you might expect, AI tools like ChatGPT. Actually, I’ve been pondering Google Translate.   Ten or twelve years ago, I recall discussions among ESL and FYC colleagues in which Google Translate was censured as an impediment to both language acquisition and writing development.  But within a few years, the tone had softened considerably, and many of us working with multilingual writers recognized the benefits of this Google tool for academic readers and writers trying to deal with unfamiliar vocabulary. There was a  particular value in classes with students from many language backgrounds: students with shared linguistic resources could rely on each other, but others—such as speakers of Nepali or Korean or Lingala in the class—often felt left out.  Google Translate was a resource for them, and it seemed to level the playing field. For translations of words and short sentences, this tool made sense.   Still, 1o years ago, I would not have encouraged a student to write a complete piece in a different language and produce the English version through Google Translate.     This spring, however, one of my students submitted the first draft of his literacy narrative in both Spanish and English. He had added an annotation:  the English version came from Google Translate.     My first instinct was to invite the student to my office and make it clear that he should not do this again.  But I hesitated. After all, it was not a final piece, and it was clear the student was engaged in the assignment. When I asked about his process, he explained that he just “felt more comfortable” beginning in Spanish.     So I let the process stand, and I provided feedback as I normally would, asking questions about the content, organization, word choice. The student began revising the English version. To my surprise, however, he did not delete the Spanish original on his working draft. It was a touchstone for him, a point of assessment and reflection.  The student asked questions of his own, met with our writing fellows, and discussed the piece with classmates.     He has since completed two additional assignment drafts using the compose/translate/revise method.  He recognizes the potential difficulties and risks inherent in this method, and he does not use it for every assignment. He knows he has to assess meaning, word choice, paragraph structure, and syntax.   I am not sure this process would be effective for all students, but for this student in particular, the use of Google Translate in the composing process engages him in metalinguistic and meta-rhetorical talk. As Myhill and Newman have suggested:   “Learners’ capacity to think metalinguistically about writing and to enact that thinking in the composing of text is enabled through high-quality classroom talk. . . . Potentially, classroom talk can be the cultural tool which supports the construction of shared declarative metalinguistic knowledge and the psychological tool which supports writers’ cognitive capacities to use that knowledge procedurally in the shaping of their own written texts.”  (Myhill and Newman, 2016, p. 178).    My student is certainly developing “declarative metalinguistic knowledge” and using that knowledge to shape his own written texts.   In a sense, my student is deploying all the tools and resources (community, digital, and linguistic) available to him to compose, revise, and transform meaningful texts.  His process, in fact, reminds me of my son’s artwork; my son uses a host of digital tools to transform photos into abstract works of art, as in the example below.      The initial inspiration is no longer recognizable or even recoverable: each choice my son makes takes the piece further from its original source.  But those choices are thoughtful and purposeful, made according to his initial vision of the piece. We can even see the process of composition and transformation condensed in a time-lapse video of his work.         I would love to have a time-lapse video of my student’s composing process—from his freewriting and revision in Spanish, to the first iteration of an English translation, to the interactions and edits which will ultimately lead to an essay in his final portfolio. Through notes and annotations, he has already documented at least part of his process.     Ten years ago, I might have told this student that his extensive use of Google Translate wasn’t really “writing in English.”  But like my student’s narrative or my son’s artwork, I have seen my teaching transformed through disciplinary communities, interactions with students and colleagues, and a host of digital, rhetorical, and linguistic resources.  Such transformation is certainly a good thing.   Image credit: Murray Moore ... View more

Today's Tiny Teaching Story is by Xinqiang Li, a writing instructor at Michigan State University. Class as People It’s the students who have inspired me to bring out the best in my teaching. Their eager questions, timely submissions, and even the smiley faces at the end of their emails remove my nervousness and tiredness at the beginning of the semester. They remind me to teach the class as people. Gradually, I’ve learned to imagine the class as a tea house conversation. I step off the platform, walk among the students, and change the sentence “Writing is an epistemic and recursive process” into “How many drafts do you usually write?” Then, I see eyes light up in the class. Submit your own Tiny Teaching Story to tinyteachingstories@macmillan.com! See the Tiny Teaching Stories Launch for submission details and guidelines. ... View more

Have you ever heard anyone use the “flight attendant speech” as a rationale for self-care? First put on your own oxygen mask, and then assist those around you.      That illustration—which has nearly attained the status of cliché—came to my mind this weekend as I attended a conference focused on student success: students are more likely to succeed in our classrooms when we attend to the needs of those who teach and support them. I learned, for example, about resources related to ADHD and autism (such as Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman), not only because they would illuminate the struggles of my students, but also because I have co-workers with autism or ADHD.  It was a subtle shift, to be sure, but I heard this refrain again and again: the support and accommodations we design for students should extend to instructors, tutors, success coaches, counselors, and testing coordinators—these needs don’t “expire” when the diploma is earned.     Work in higher education may abound with insecurities: “I couldn’t afford the conference hotel—we had to find a cheaper place.” “Our co-presenter made a video—she lost her funding for the conference.” “These are great ideas, but I am not allowed to make any changes to the online course assignments or prompts.  Even if it’s not working for my students, I can’t alter any course components.” “I was diagnosed with autism as an adult—and I was not sure what would happen if the people I work with found out.” “The room is so bright—and I can’t dim the lights. I am always on the verge of a migraine.”  “I can’t tell them about my chronic pain or request accommodations. I am lucky to have a job, and I can’t risk it.” “I can’t say no to the overload, even though the pay barely covers my extra child-care and travel.” “I generally pack a bag with toilet paper, paper towels, and a ream of printing paper—I can’t count on there being any when I get to campus.” “They tell me I must teach online to keep the job, but I don’t have reliable internet at home.” “They said our restrooms are ADA compliant, but only about a few of them actually are.  I have to take an elevator up two floors to get to the restroom that I can use with my wheelchair—and someone is constantly putting signs and boxes in the hallway outside that restroom.” Photo by youssef naddam on Unsplash And of course, there are the realities of political scrutiny in higher education, efforts to undermine academic freedom or tenure protections, and added burdens for faculty to ensure student success or achieve metrics of productivity.  Moreover, policy decisions about developmental education and corequisite instruction are often made in accordance with narratives (even false narratives, as Alexandros Goudas has carefully documented over the past decade) that are far removed from our daily work with students. After over 15 years in community colleges, I know the feeling of being at the tail end of a very long chain, with no voice to speak truth—the reality of our classrooms—to those in power.     I am sure most of you do not need me to point out the precarious conditions of our labor—conditions some of you may be dealing with daily. You well know how these conditions affect our students’ learning. But I needed the reminder this past weekend.     How are you addressing insecurities facing colleagues at your institution? ... View more

Today’s guest blogger is Kim Haimes-Korn, a Professor of English and Digital Writing at Kennesaw State University. Kim’s teaching philosophy encourages dynamic learning and critical digital literacies and focuses on students’ powers to create their own knowledge through language and various “acts of composition.” She likes to have fun every day, return to nature when things get too crazy, and think deeply about way too many things. She loves teaching. It has helped her understand the value of amazing relationships and boundless creativity. You can reach Kim at khaimesk@kennesaw.edu or visit her website: Acts of Composition   So... The buzz lately is Open AI language generators and Chat GPT, in particular. It’s got teachers talking, scrambling, and rethinking our roles and pedagogies in the classroom and what it means to write. No doubt, as educators, we have many concerns about the negative implications of these tools. We hear tension in our communities pointing to the major disruptive impact of these language generators, or as Steven Marche writes in the Atlantic article, The College Essay is Dead (December 2022). The essay, in particular the undergraduate essay, has been the center of humanistic pedagogy for generations. It is the way we teach children how to research, think, and write. That entire tradition is about to be disrupted from the ground up.  We will experience disruption and this tool does present us with real concerns. It is undoubtedly a major paradigm shift that asks us to rethink much of what we know about the teaching of writing. We wonder how it will challenge issues of plagiarism and intellectual property. We recognize the potential threat to students’ abilities to write and think critically on their own. We worry about a world where creativity is merely an algorithm, and the humanity of our discipline is lost.  The fact of the matter is that... we are here... there IS no turning back. We can choose to enter this conversation from a place of fear where students lose the ability to write and think critically or we can search for opportunities, new definitions, and pedagogical approaches. Theorists and practitioners, such as Professor Mike Sharple urge educators to “rethink teaching and assessment” in light of the technology, which he said, “could become a gift for student cheats, or a powerful teaching assistant, or a tool for creativity” (Marche).   Looking Back  This is not the first time in my career that I was forced to reflect on my practices because of the introduction of new technologies and tools. When we moved from typewriters to writing with computers, we had to rethink how we compose and revise. This shift opened opportunities for writers to see revision as more than correction and connected it to thinking and “Seeing again” (Re-vision). It allowed us to revise sentences during the act of composition, reorganize, and substantiate in ways that were difficult with the typewriter as a tool. It helped us to understand the recursive nature of revision beyond a lock-step process. We wondered how tools like spelling, grammar checkers, and citation generators would affect students’ abilities to spell, research and know how to write grammatically correct sentences on their own.   We were concerned when the internet hit the scene that students would no longer spend time in the library and instead find sources in ways that were much more convenient. We worried that students would no longer gain the research practices necessary to foster strong critical thinking and succeed. We had to shift our teaching to focus less on the location of sources and towards the analysis and evaluation of sources since students faced many available options. We taught them new practices such as how to use online databases, key words, and develop a critical eye towards locating themselves within a range of ideas and perspectives.   I was part of the early wave of teachers embracing multimodal composition in our writing classes. In those days, our work was met with criticism, skepticism, and fear.  Multimodal assignments were seen only as “creative” supplements to the writing of essays rather than a valid form of communication to prepare our student writers for success in college and beyond. Multimodality pushed us to think about how we defined composition and what would happen if we moved students away from alphabetic writing as their primary method of communication. We introduced multimodal texts for analysis and eventually followed with the composition of multimodal texts as a viable and compelling way to understand and express meaning. Our focus moved off the production of texts towards teaching writing as a rhetorical act through which students analyze their purposes, audiences, subjects, and contexts to come up with the best modes of delivery for their messages. We came to value rhetorical agility and new understandings of genre conventions in light of new audiences, purposes, and digital affordances. We had to redefine our definitions of originality and creativity and open our minds to the idea of remixing and recognizing the ways texts, images, sound, and motion work together to communicate meaning. We questioned our ideas on intellectual property and fair use as composition became more collaborative and participatory. We moved towards an integrated curriculum through which we engaged writers in multimodal analysis and composition throughout their writing processes – from invention to production.     Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash   Looking Forward None of us can really say where this is all going and once we get our minds around these tools, things will change again. Some, such as Ian Bogost, in his article, Chat GPT is Dumber than You Think, argue that the tool does not have the ability to, “truly understand the complexity of human language and conversation” suggesting that we will seek out a human component in these texts.  I am not sure how this will play out as we learn more about the limitations and affordances of these tools. However, I do know that I will resist practices that put us in a place of fear and have our primary goal to police student writing. First, that is not a winning game and second, it is not why we teach. Instead, we can bring these ideas into the conversation in ways that will help us learn and grow.   Here are some practical ideas we can consider as we move ahead:  Let students know that we are aware of these technologies and work together with them to understand their potential and limitations. Show the tools to students. Have them play with them, discuss them, challenge them.   Study these tools as cultural artifacts in the digital landscape, including the human factors and ethical frameworks.  Use them for brainstorming and invention. AI’s can be a place for students to try out their ideas, explore sources and generate directions for research and writing. The bots can encourage us to ask thoughtful questions and follow up questions.  Understand and analyze style, tone, and voice as we can guide the tool to emulate these characteristics.  Incorporate what we already know about process approaches and scaffolding and include the tool as part of a series of incremental steps towards more finished projects.    Turn our attention towards teaching revision through thoughtful hybrid texts that recognize both student ideas and the ideas of others.    Keep our attention on teaching writing as a rhetorical act and design assignments that ask students to gain rhetorical agility.  Celebrate multimodal composition and its many possibilities for meaningful work and expand our creative and critical writing practices.   We always say that we don’t “teach tools” because tools change. Instead, we can focus on the processes of composition and develop a sense of digital intuition through which students explore new tools and learn as they go. We serve our students well to allow them to experiment with digital tools and contribute their experiences to classroom conversations and collaborative work. Ultimately, we will be OK if we keep our eyes on the prize – helping students to read, write, and think critically and recognizing the impact of their unique ideas and contributions.     Marche, Stephen. “The College Essay Is Dead.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 16 Dec. 2022, https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/12/chatgpt-ai-writing-college-student-essays/672371/. Bogost, Ian. “CHATGPT Is Dumber than You Think.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 16 Dec. 2022, https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/12/chatgpt-openai-artificial-intelligence-writing-ethics/672386/. ... View more

I need to make a confession: I fell into a snit of professional jealousy and self-pity a week or so ago. Why? I did not get to attend the 4Cs in Chicago (Conference on College Composition and Communication).   Instead, I reviewed preliminary bibliographies for students in my Introductory Linguistics class and worked with corequisite writers preparing to write profiles of discourse communities. The students had read and tried (with mixed success) to summarize Dan Melzer’s essay, “Understanding Discourse Communities,” and they were exploring their chosen communities through websites and social media. One of the most engaged writers in my multilingual class was struggling to identify a target community.      I sat down with the student to think through some possibilities:  “What’s your major? “Not sure—I really don’t have a direction in mind.” “Well, what interests you?” “I don’t know. I played football in high school, and I like to watch sports, but I don’t really follow a team or anything.” “How about music?” “Nah.” “Well, how about church—you’re a youth leader, right?” “Yeah, but I don’t really want to write about that.”   Back and forth. I don’t think this student was being purposefully unyielding. He was looking for a purpose for writing this paper—and he couldn’t find one.  And he is just the sort of resourceful student who—absent a compelling reason to write—could easily turn to AI to generate a paper. He knows (because we’ve talked about it), how easily ChatGPT could get this job done. He also knows he would gain nothing by that choice. Yet he has not seen what he could gain by doing the assignment, either. “I like our class.  Could I write about our class?” He selected a topic, but I sense, for the moment, it is a perfunctory choice. If all goes as planned, somewhere during the process, he will discover a purpose and find that the work itself can be energizing, that there is a rush of satisfaction as a text begins to take shape before our eyes.  If all goes as it should, and that’s a big “if.”   Over the past couple of years, the moments where classes go “as they should” seem to be less frequent. I find myself looking for ways to bring energy and joy into classrooms where students (corequisite and multilingual students in particular) are struggling to engage.   So when a colleague began posting pics of tables of friends and presentation titles and plates of amazing food from Chicago, I got jealous.   But then I saw this (https://twitter.com/CCCCSLW)      I would have loved to have been in that room, talking hope with my colleagues. But I thought about my struggling writer—who had decided his writing class, of all things, was a discourse community he could write about. He is indeed a multilingual border crosser and change maker.    I began to watch for the Second Language Writing Standing group tweets, drawing vicarious energy from the insights and questions they posted.     What a lovely thought: we can practice embodying hope—even those of us who did not make it to Chicago.     My colleagues are giving voice to questions that are critical to me, and in doing so, they challenge me to go back into my classroom with hope.     This series of Tweets on February 18 connected me to colleagues—and reminded me that I do not teach in isolation. The sense that I am doing so much but never quite enough is shared.     Indeed.  I am grateful to whoever managed the Second Language Standing Group’s Twitter during the conference, as this non-attender found renewed hope and community through them.  I will go back to class with my struggling writer and his discourse community profile. This work with multilingual writers sustains us—and brings hope.   The CCCC Second Language Writing Standing Group’s Twitter is managed by Analeigh Horton, currently a graduate teaching Associate at the University of Arizona and Outreach Coordinator for the CCCC Second Language Writing Standing Group. ... View more

Today's Tiny Teaching Story is by Christine Cucciarre, Professor of English and Director of Composition at the University of Delaware.   Weight I read the want ads during the pandemic. At the end of each Zoom class, I clicked “Leave Meeting,” and cried. Maybe I could drive a truck. Sling mulch at Home Depot. Stock shelves at Target. Just to go to work. Leave work. Be home. No torment of failing my students, failing myself. Fall semester I returned to the classroom. Walk to work. Teach. Return home. Repeat. Still, no lingering with students, office conferences, chatting with colleagues in the copy room.  The sudden weight of the pandemic was so easy to put on, but it’s so hard to take off.   Submit your own Tiny Teaching Story to tinyteachingstories@macmillan.com! See the Tiny Teaching Stories Launch for submission details and guidelines. ... View more

“New forms of media have always caused moral panics.” So begins a 2010 op-ed Steven Pinker wrote in response to concerns about potential negative impacts of digital technologies on habits of reading and thinking.  I began assigning that essay, along with Nicholas Carr’s point-by-point response, in my FYC courses in 2011, but by 2017, their argument appeared to have lost its relevance. My students engaged, instead, in discussions of influencers, fake news, fact checkers, Tik Tok, social media regulations, Elon Musk, and Twitter.   But this past fall, I started to hear rumors of something new, something different, and something that might herald the demise of writing instruction (or even higher education) as we know it. This apocalyptic AI tool is called ChatGPT.  Since it was made publicly available in November of 2022, we have seen a steady stream of essays, blogs, Tweets, chats, webinars, and podcasts addressing the perils and possibilities of the chatbot (as in the growing collection of resources here).  At my department’s faculty meeting last month, we got a quick demonstration, followed by suggestions for policies and syllabus statements.      At that January meeting, with deadlines looming and a new semester about to begin, some of us were thinking, “What is this? I do not have time to deal with yet another disruption to my syllabus and pedagogy! Is it really such a big deal?”     And as I looked at my blog schedule for this semester, I considered asking ChatGPT to compose this post for me—knowing I could then meet the deadline and make a point (even though I wasn’t sure what the point should be).  Instead, I asked for a title. Here’s what it generated: "Navigating the Boundaries: The Perils and Promise of ChatGPT in College Writing Classrooms.” It sounds catchy enough.     The best way to learn about ChatGPT is to try it for yourself.  Take just a few minutes (it’s fast!) and give it one or more of your writing prompts or exam questions. Query the program about a research project or request a title for your next blog post. Or you can just ask it how it works:     Once you’ve played with the program a bit, compare experiences with colleagues and friends.  I’ve found colleagues and family members using ChatGPT as search engines (“How can I teach semicolons creatively?” “What’s a good sermon illustration on overcoming anxiety?”), study and preparation (“What sorts of job interview questions should I expect based on this job description?” “Give me some practice sentences to transcribe in IPA, along with the answers”), or writing models (“Write a thank-you note as a follow-up to my job interview”).  I’ve had colleagues who have asked for definitions, outlines, or group activities.       Within a short time of exploration, you will probably encounter the program’s accuracy problem. AI experts call this hallucination:  at times, the program will simply make things up—sources, quotes, or statistics.  I recently gave the program a discussion board prompt I use in my FYC class.  Here’s what it generated:       Unfortunately, the quoted sentence does not actually appear in Alexie’s essay.  So, I pointed this out to ChatGPT:       Yet again, the quoted sentence does not actually appear in the essay, although it is certainly related to the theme of the essay.   After a second “confrontation,” ChatGPT stated that it had “misunderstood the prompt,” something my students have said before, too!   With that in mind, I’ve invited students to explore the technology with me this semester. They will find the “hallucinations,” and we’ll discuss privacy and integrity. My students will be assessing an essay generated by the chatbot, and they will experiment with ChatGPT as a brainstorming tool (considering if and how to cite the results). We will also ask the program to provide feedback on a draft and compare its feedback with our own. We’ll ask some tough questions: how does the technology support our thinking—and how might it limit our thinking?     And perhaps I’ll ask students to re-visit the Pinker/Carr debate. After all, our technological tools can exert a profound influence on the way we interact with the world and the way we think. Pinker closed his celebration of digital technologies this way:   The new media have caught on for a reason. Knowledge is increasing exponentially; human brainpower and waking hours are not. Fortunately, the Internet and information technologies are helping us manage, search and retrieve our collective intellectual output at different scales, from Twitter and previews to e-books and online encyclopedias. Far from making us stupid, these technologies are the only things that will keep us smart.   In the age of ChatGPT, I wonder if my colleagues and students will agree.  I’m still thinking about it.    What about you?  If you have insights or classroom ideas, please share! ... View more

Today's Tiny Teaching Story is by Stuart Barbier, a Professor of English at Delta College. Partly Veiled Validation I returned to mask-to-mask teaching after three semesters asynchronously online. About half of our college's students elected to return, too. Yet, the hallways were oddly quiet, and I only saw a few colleagues. I'd always speak, even if just a quick hello. One colleague barely acknowledged my greeting the first time, and then was silent all the others, not even looking my way when I added his name. Might as well have been online with my camera off. In contrast, my students acknowledged my presence with their eyes, words, and only partly veiled validation.   Submit your own Tiny Teaching Story to tinyteachingstories@macmillan.com! See the Tiny Teaching Stories Launch for submission details and guidelines. ... View more

Today's Tiny Teaching Story is by John Hansen. John Hansen received a BA in English from the University of Iowa and an MA in English literature from Oklahoma State University. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Summerset Review, One Sentence Poems, The Dillydoun Review, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Eunoia Review, Litro Magazine, Wild Roof Journal, The Banyan Review, Drunk Monkeys, and elsewhere. He has presented on a variety of topics at The National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development (NISOD), The Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC—Regional), The American Comparative Literature Association, The Midwest Conference on British Studies, and others. He is an English Department faculty member at Mohave Community College in Arizona. Read more at johnphansen.com.   Unknown Impacts: Be Kind Early in the Fall 2020 semester, I sent e-mails to several students who stopped participating in our developmental English course. Ben responded two days later apologizing. Hours later, I answered the phone - it was Ben. Small talk quickly turned to him revealing a recent divorce, eviction, and layoff (due to COVID-19). I chatted with Ben weekly. He became one of the better writers in class. Days before the semester ended, Ben sent an e-mail about how he would have ended his life if he didn't have someone to talk with that day. I've reflected on this and Ben every semester.   Submit your own Tiny Teaching Story to tinyteachingstories@macmillan.com! See the Tiny Teaching Stories Launch for submission details and guidelines. ... View more

Today's Tiny Teaching Story is by Eileen Curran-Kondrad, Teaching Lecturer, English, at Plymouth State University. Eileen has written her story as a poem.   About the Course   No birdies, no eagles no long drives I slink off the course after the ninth   On the terrace outside the clubhouse college tournament players mill around. I browse the tables brimming with golf swag.   A voice calls out a young man approaches. Remember me? I took your class last year. We read five books that semester. You turned me into a reader. I went on to read  David Copperfield. I just had to tell you.   I roll my clubs to the car chuckle to myself. Did I just get a hole in one?   Submit your own Tiny Teaching Story to tinyteachingstories@macmillan.com! See the Tiny Teaching Stories Launch for submission details and guidelines. ... View more

Today's Tiny Teaching Story is by Kyle McIntosh, an Assistant Professor in the Department of English and Writing at the University of Tampa where he teaches in the Academic Writing and TESOL Certificate programs.   Mirror “The professor always provides such useful feedback. I don’t know how he has time to read each paper so carefully,” wrote a student on my course evaluation last fall. “He never gives us any feedback,” wrote another. “He doesn’t care about students at all.” Suddenly, I wondered: “Are there two versions of me – one good teacher and one bad – who appear to different students in the same class at different moments on different days? And which one is the me who is reading these comments now?” Just to be safe, I shave off my goatee.   Submit your own Tiny Teaching Story to tinyteachingstories@macmillan.com! See the Tiny Teaching Stories Launch for submission details and guidelines. ... View more

Today's Tiny Teaching Story is by Dr. Chris M. Anson. Chris is a Distinguished University Professor at North Carolina State University, where he is also the Director of the Campus Writing & Speaking Program.   The Big Reveal On the last day of the semester, the elderly bearded gentleman in my 200-student course on English language and linguistics approached me, smiling. “I have thoroughly enjoyed this class,” he said. “You’re clearly a dedicated and student-centered teacher.” As a newly-minted professor, I took his words as high praise. “You see, I’m retired,” he continued, “but I take one course each semester to keep learning.” “That’s awesome!” I said. “What sort of work did you do?” He smiled. “Until last year, I was the provost here.” Stunned, I realized that his gift was more than his praise; it was waiting until the end to disclose.   Submit your own Tiny Teaching Story to tinyteachingstories@macmillan.com! See the Tiny Teaching Stories Launch for submission details and guidelines. ... View more