The following interview with professors Jami Blaauw-Hara of North Central Michigan College and Mark Blauuw-Hara of the University of Toronto-Mississauga was conducted via email in August of 2022. This is the fourth of four parts. David Starkey: My wife, Sandy, and I were colleagues for many years at Santa Barbara City College. That wasn’t always great when we brought home the tensions and traumas of the job, but overall I felt having the chance to discuss everything from big-picture pedagogy to the minutiae of a writing prompt really helped me become a better English teacher. What’s been your experience of being a married couple in the same profession? Mark Blaauw-Hara: We loved being colleagues, and one of the things I miss most at my new job is not having her around. It helps that Jami is a top-notch teacher, so if I was struggling with how to address something in my classes, I could just walk down the hall to her office and ask her how she’d do it, and that would help me a lot. Jami’s right that it’s sometimes hard to remind people that we’re not the same person, though, and that colleagues should treat us as individuals rather than asking us what the other person might think or say. Jami Blaauw-Hara: We met at Michigan State University’s Writing Center when I was a brand new graduate student and Mark was at the very end of his undergraduate career. Thus, our relationship started out with a recognition of our interest in writing pedagogy. I even brought an article about hypertext to our first date, which I’m a little embarrassed about now! I would say that it’s mostly been a natural pleasure to work together, and I miss him in my department now. One challenge was convincing the campus community that we were separate individuals with different opinions and strengths. I was often asked if Mark was available to do something or if I knew when or where he was teaching. My response was always “You’ll have to ask him!” DS: I’d like to end our conversation by discussing an issue that I don’t think receives the attention it should at the college level, and that’s teacher burnout. We hear a lot these days about “quiet quitting,” but I think for many of us dedicated to teaching composition students, that’s not really an option. For me, once that first set of essays comes in the job basically becomes seven days a week until after I’ve turned in my final grades. Our long vacations are a blessing, to be sure, but those weeks in the trenches reading and responding to student prose can be really draining, no matter how much we want to help our students become better writers. Any thoughts about how our colleagues deep into their careers, as well as those just beginning, can avoid becoming casualties of too much work? JBH: I struggle with this at this stage in my career, especially when my current institution is going through some administrative changes that are challenging. When I focus on my students and the importance of human relationships, I am buoyed. Human relationships are important to me, and even though they can tire me, as an introvert, they are what ultimately bring me the most satisfaction in my job. I focus on getting to know my classes, to try to reach out and really connect to the humans who spend a semester with me. Specifically, I use grading conferences for essays where I read and grade papers in conversation with students. It has been a game-changer for me. It decreases the dreaded stack of papers to grade, and it helps me stay connected to my students as people. MBH: I can totally relate, David, and I bet a lot of other writing faculty can as well. One thing I’d recommend is cultivating some things outside of the job. For me, one of those major things I did was really dive into the larger scholarly community. Heading off to conferences or working with colleagues at other institutions on ALP not only gave me great ideas, but it buoyed me up. It’s just good to know that other people are in similar situations, in those same trenches. Another thing I did–and I know you share this, David–is lean into other passions that have nothing to do with the classroom, which for me is music. I’ve played live music in various bands for my whole career, and whether it was being in an official band, just jamming, or even going to see live shows, that helped me interact with lots of other people who were outside of education and just kept me fresh. I’m the kind of person who needs lots of different things to be going on–I don’t do too well if I focus too hard on any one thing. (I’m jealous of people who can really dig into one area and be happy for their entire lives!) DS: Well, it’s been an enlightening conversation. Thanks to both of you! MBH: It’s been really fun for us as well, David. Thank you so much for asking us to be a part of this conversation! And good luck with the book! ... View more

Today's Tiny Teaching Story is by Kelle Alden, an Assistant Professor of English and Director of the Writing Center at the University of Tennessee at Martin.   Every Year, I Flunk a Decent Person During our conference, I showed my student the math. Regardless of his excellent attendance and participation, without his missing homework and essays, he would fail English. My student looked sheepish, gave excuses, promised to catch up. I no longer take it personally when students lie to me. I try to teach in the moment, to appreciate how my student smiles and greets me every day. Seeing the whole of him will help after finals, when I have to deliver my most difficult lesson. I will still smile for him next semester, even if he cannot return the gesture right away.   Submit your own Tiny Teaching Story to tinyteachingstories@macmillan.com! See the Tiny Teaching Stories Launch for submission details and guidelines. ... View more

Laura Hardin Marshall (referred by Paul Lynch and Nathaniel Rivers) is the Writing Support Coordinator at Webster University and a PhD candidate in rhetoric and composition at Saint Louis University, specializing in Rhetoric and Composition. Her research focuses on the response practices of writing instructors and consultants, examining what feedback we offer to students, how we offer it, and what students then do with that feedback as they work through their revisions and future assignments. She has taught courses on basic writing and college preparation, introductory and advanced composition, and writing consulting and has published articles on writing program and writing center administration. What do you think is the most important recent development or pedagogical approach in teaching composition? The overall move toward more diverse and inclusive conceptions of composition, language, rhetoric, and communication have made an enormous impact on teaching and learning—or it has the potential to do so when more instructors, administrators, and universities embrace it. Similarly, many composition instructors have re-envisioned the five-paragraph essay and more traditional thesis-driven composition. By moving away from more formulaic and/or academically traditional types of writing (which often put US- and white-centric conventions on a pedestal), we can help students conceive of writing in more diverse ways that meet their linguistic and rhetorical needs. It feels as though so much of composition instruction still centers certain “right” or “standard” ways of thinking and doing that only actually fit very specific and rigid situations, and we do students a disservice by limiting the scope of what they can do! As writing instructors we can do a much better job at being transparent about identifying and knowing how to work with (or against) the contexts and conditions at play when we choose what and how to write. By understanding context and timing, situation and audience, we can better know how diverse and versatile (and enjoyable!) writing can be. What is the most important skill you aim to provide your students? I like to emphasize rhetorical situations and kairos (having a sense of timing that is appropriate, intentional, and suitable for the given situation). When we write, there is so much more to it than developing and supporting a thesis, but students are often stuck in a very narrow mind frame. So many students seem to approach writing by thinking of it only as a thesis-driven, five-paragraph essay that’s been drilled into them year after year, and that style of writing is so often (sadly) devoid of creativity and context, often with an audience of one. They’re taught a form of writing that never sees the light of day. When we can point to other assignments and writing contexts that call for diverse ways of communicating, students can better see what composition is (or should be) truly about. They have to be able to see who they’re writing about or to (and the potential diversity of their audiences), in what locales and modes, at what time of day or year. I believe that when students can identify the wide variety of elements at play, they have a better understanding of the possibilities and choices that go into making composition work. What is it like to work with the editorial team at Bedford/St. Martin's? The Bedford/St. Martin’s editorial team was such a delight to work with! I initially thought most of the events would be focused around “selling” us on certain textbooks and/or instructional tools, which we would then be encouraged to adopt in our classes or programs. That couldn’t have been further from the truth! The editorial team was so clearly invested in learning what composition teachers and scholars want and need in the classroom. They cared about hearing about our experiences: what has worked, what hasn’t worked, what have we observed about student engagement, etc. I didn’t realize the care and intentionality that goes into developing educational materials that work for instructors and students, but the team very much demonstrated those qualities. They came through in each of the events they planned. It was such a pedagogically energizing experience! What do you think instructors don't know about higher ed publishing but should? I think many instructors—like me before this experience—don’t know how pedagogically informed higher education publishing is. I initially thought that commercial textbooks were developed and written by people who were far removed from actual classrooms and students. If nothing else, I assumed that most of the offerings would have mostly stodgy concepts and practices focused on a “current-traditional” sort of pedagogy, i.e., quite out of touch with current issues and practices. My experience as a Bedford New Scholar made it very clear that higher ed publishing is aware of and wants to tap into pedagogies that are more inclusive and functional for an every-changing student and instructor population. The offerings and the technological tools they develop are much more progressively student- and instructor-centered than many might imagine. And they’re so friendly and willing to be hands-on! I was surprised by how many resources were available to help instructors maximize how we teach and support students. Laura’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 Laura’s assignment. For the full activity, see Double-Entry Research Log. The double-entry research log serves to orient students to the wide range of tasks involved in academic research. The accompanying citation exercise helps illustrate that citation conventions—though seemingly arbitrary—have purpose and meaning for academic readers. (It also promotes regular and early citation.) It also gets students into the habit of thinking about and responding to the research they find. Students in the early stages of researched writing often think about quotes as evidence they can lob at readers without any follow up; they pass the “ball,” and then it’s up to the reader to run with it. With the double-entry log, though, students know they’re supposed to stop and think about the idea they’ve chosen, and we’ll talk throughout the semester about how they’ll do the same when they incorporate the quotes into formal writing. The screenshots help me as an instructor assist students in quoting and citing correctly; they’ll be used later when we discuss paraphrasing, too. Lastly, summaries help students understand the piece and practice conveying authors’ claims clearly, but it’s also a useful reminder of what each source is about, which can often become fuzzy the deeper into the research process we go.  ... View more

Today's Tiny Teaching Story is by Dr. Leslie Werden, a Professor of English & Rhetoric and Department Head of Humanities at Morningside University in Sioux City, Iowa. She teaches Persuasive Writing, Small Group Communication, Literary Theory & Analysis, British Literature, Page to Stage, and more.    Blaming Binaries The large post-it note, halved with a line down the middle separating a list of binaries, was left behind in the classroom. On one side: white, power, strength, leader, good. On the other: black, no control, weakness, follower, bad. The lone black student arrived in the classroom and cocked her head, glaring at the list, brows furrowed, lips tightly pressed together. “What. Is. This?” she asked her professor. A discussion about three different stories from the class before. “Thank God,” the student said. The binaries left behind, assume too much and remain misunderstood.   Submit your own Tiny Teaching Story to tinyteachingstories@macmillan.com! See the Tiny Teaching Stories Launch for submission details and guidelines. ... View more

Content alert for sexist language, white supremacy, racist violence, and suicide.  If you are having thoughts of suicide, you are not alone. A mental health professional can help. Call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988, or visit https://www.speakingofsuicide.com/resources/    This week I am reading Heather Clark’s Red Comet, a recent biography of Sylvia Plath, poet and author of the novel The Bell Jar. I was fascinated to learn that Plath once taught as an adjunct at her alma mater, Smith College, in 1957-58. Plath had a temporary, renewable one-year appointment, and in the fall semester she taught three sections of first-year English. Plath quit this position after her first year because it was, she discovered, untenable with her life’s work as a writer. In a letter to her brother Warren in the fall of 1957, Plath reveals: . . . the sacrifice of energy and life blood I’m making for this job is all out of proportion to the good I am doing in it. . . I am sacrificing my energy, writing, & versatile intellectual life for grubbing over 66 Hawthorne papers a week and trying to be articulate in front of a rough class of spoiled bitches. (Clark 509) The excerpt of this letter, with its dated, sexist language, may be shocking to some, and Plath  probably did not intend for the public to read it. All the same, the sentiments Plath expresses are unsurprising. Teaching first-year English was new to Plath, and she had recently returned to the United States from England, where she had finished a second bachelor’s degree at Cambridge University. Plath had survived rigorous academics, severe mental illness, a suicide attempt, shock treatment, and incarceration in a mental hospital in Massachusetts. As a twenty-five year old neurodivergent woman, Plath was used to fighting her way back to the fragile equilibrium of the intellectual life that she craved. Adjuncting, as suggested in her letter to Warren, used up too much of her time and energy  to maintain a clear focus on her own writing (Clark 509). In the late 1950s, the first semester of first-year English at Smith was focused on literature written in English, especially Romantic and Modernist writers whose predominance was beginning to fade for the younger generation. Five years later, James Baldwin (eight years older than Plath) wrote “As Much Truth as One Can Bear.” This 1962 essay considers the emergence of younger post-World War II writers, and especially those writers who approach their work from a very different sensibility: We are the generation that must throw everything into the endeavor to remake America into what we say we want it to be. Without this endeavor, we will perish. However immoral or subversive this may sound to some, it is the writer who must always remember that morality, if it is to remain or become morality, must be perpetually examined, cracked, changed, made new. (Baldwin 50) For Baldwin, writers have a special responsibility to examine, dismantle, and “remake” America, not in the service of perpetuating a fantasy, but for forging new ground for the greater good, beyond individual writing lives. Indeed, in this essay, the reader can find one of Baldwin’s most well-known adages, a quote that reinforces his point about the urgent necessity of social transformation: “Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” The fact that Baldwin and Plath wrote as near contemporaries in the late 1950s and early 1960s is interesting to me. Even as Clark contextualizes Plath’s life and work with details from post-World War II history, any consciousness of the Civil Rights Movement appears to be absent. In this way, Plath’s concerns might be seen through the lens of what Koa Beck identifies as White Feminism (also see Mathew and Hariharan).Baldwin, who was Black and grew up in Harlem, left the United States for exile in France in the late 1940s. His hope was to discover his vocation as a writer away from white supremacy in America. But in 1957, as the Civil Rights Movement continued to unfold, Baldwin returned to the United States to bear witness, to engage with writing and activism (See I Am Not Your Negro by Raoul Peck and James Baldwin: A Biography by David Leeming). I link Baldwin and Plath through the year 1957: Plath’s year as a struggling adjunct, and Baldwin’s return to the United States. In fall of 1957, nine Little Rock, Arkansas teenagers (known as the Little Rock Nine) became the first Black students to attend Little Rock’s Central High School. The Arkansas governor called in the National Guard to prevent the students from entering the school. White supremacist riots ensued to keep the Little Rock Nine out of Central High School, and eventually President Eisenhower sent the Army’s 101st Airborne Division to quell the rioting and to escort the Little Rock Nine students to school (also see Warriors Don’t Cry by Melba Patillo Beals).  Photo credit: The U.S. Army At a sixty-five year distance, it seems peculiar that the author of Plath’s biography, although making use of Plath’s copiously written journals and letters, makes no mention of these national events in Red Comet. I am puzzled by this absence, until I consider white supremacy, white privilege, and the overwhelmingly white poets of Plath’s acquaintance. What turns might American Literature have taken if that generation of poets followed Baldwin’s call to reckon with the truth? What might Sylvia Plath have contributed to this reckoning, as a struggling adjunct “sacrificing her energy”?  Work/life balance, Plath suggested in 1957, was an impossible fantasy. In 2022, life as an adjunct often feels critically unbalanced and extremely isolating. Yet, in a subsequent lecture, Baldwin advocates  that his audience must “engage in the struggle, which is universal and daily, of all human beings on the face of this globe to get to become human beings” (63). That is, even as people appear to inhabit different worlds or spheres of influence, these worlds touch each other, intersect and collide. Struggle is a means of survival, and Baldwin reiterates that his  audience must take action if change is to occur. For Baldwin, struggle for the greater good offers “artistic integrity” and is often “our only hope” (67). For adjuncts, contingent work remains destabilizing and often, as Sylvia Plath discovered, debilitating. Even so, as the struggle of the Little Rock Nine affirms, history unfurls in and out of classrooms. Participating in, and acknowledging and bearing witness to struggle might serve as a means of connection for students and teachers. In the face of formidable challenges, even acknowledgment might seem painful and exhausting, but no less necessary, in troubling times.   Works Cited Baldwin, James. “As Much Truth As One Can Bear.” The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings, edited by Randall Kenan, Pantheon Books, 2010, pp. 50-57. Baldwin, James. “The Artist’s Struggle for Integrity.” The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings, edited by Randall Kenan, Pantheon Books, 2010, pp. 63-70. Clark, Heather. Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath. Penguin Random House, 2021. ... View more

Antonio Hamilton (recommended by Kristi McDuffie) is pursuing his PhD in Writing Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He teaches first-year composition courses and is a member of the Rhetoric Advisory Committee. His research interest focuses on how writing is remediated and potentially restricted in online writing environments, such as Automated Writing Evaluation software and Language Models. He is specifically interested in writer agency when writing with these programs, and what forms or styles of writing are prioritized. His research draws on intercultural rhetoric, algorithmic knowledge, and rhetorical genre studies perspectives to assess how writing is digitally transformed. How do you engage students in your course, whether f2f, online, or hybrid? I think engaging students in my course is probably one of the most difficult things, especially post COVID-19. But it is definitely one of the most important things to establish at the beginning of the semester. For me, engagement is not just teaching relevant material or having exciting in-class activities but also doing my best to ensure that every student feels comfortable in the class. I try to do this by using the first few weeks of class to establish trust with my students individually and as a group. For the most part, the first few weeks of my course allow a decent amount of in-class brainstorming time. I use this time to go around and talk to each of my students and help them work through or develop their ideas for whatever the first major assignment is. I believe this encourages them to feel that my classroom is a safe and collaborative environment where the instructor regularly engages with everyone. Basically, if they see I am engaging with them, then hopefully they engage in the course and realize that engagement is a two-way-street. What is the most important skill you aim to provide your students? The most important skill that I aim to provide my students is independence and ownership of the work they produce. I believe that oftentimes, students are accustomed to producing work that is either strictly a regurgitation of their instructor’s thoughts or having the feeling that they are producing work for the instructor and not work from themselves. I try to make sure that students know that I care about their ideas, and I will always do my best to help them to achieve their goals. Doing this helps them build that independence and ownership of their work because it is intrinsically their individualized ideas. I try to avoid questions such as “What do you think I should do” or “Do you like this idea?” I always center it back to the student by responding “Is this an idea that you produce?” If it is, then I encourage them to stick with it! What have you learned from other Bedford New Scholars? Having the opportunity to meet, discuss and work with other Bedford New Scholars was an enlightening experience. Because of Covid, I think that we often think about what is going on outside of individual departments. For me, hearing what other graduate students are doing in their composition/rhetoric/writing related courses was reaffirming and motivating. It was assuring to hear that other scholars have the same classroom concerns, teaching goals, theory applications, etc. It showed me that what I am doing in my classroom is not so different than what others are doing around the country at their own institutions. I also was able to learn about new in-class activities and assignments, one of which I implemented in one of my courses this semester! Essentially, interacting with the other scholars allowed me to grow as an instructor myself. How will the Bedford New Scholars program affect your professional development or your classroom practice? Professionally, this was my first time participating in something that gave me the opportunity to interact with other graduate students, as well as getting a peek at what goes on behind the scenes with a major publisher. It was all quite enlightening and informative. In regard to the other graduate students, it reaffirmed the collaborative nature of our field and showed me that the sharing of ideas can potentially lead to connections down the line. This may sound simple, but I think that in the past, I would just listen. If I did not perceive what was being said as immediately relevant, I would hold on to those ideas. But something does not immediately need to be relevant for it to be important. In regard to my classroom, listening to and having conversations with speaker Dr. Wonderful helped me consider how to maneuver through potential difficult classroom conversations. I have worked on having a more self-aware classroom environment that tries to prioritize each student’s opinions and thoughts equally. This has always been something I try to do, but through hearing the other scholars and Dr. Wonderful speak about this, I feel that my approach is becoming more refined. Antonio’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 Antonio’s assignment. For the full activity, see Remediation Remix. For the Remediation Remix assignment, students are asked to remediate their research paper into a new genre. The assignment applies Bolter & Grusin’s (2000) concept of remediation. The goal is for students to think about the varied ways information can be communicated and asks them to consider accessibility. Additionally, they must think about how certain information may be more effectively communicated in certain genres. The students are asked to write a proposal that I provide feedback on, and then they go on to create the remediation. Accompanying the remediation is a rationale statement where they detail their choices and reasons to explain why they successfully remediated their research paper. I enjoy this assignment a lot because it shows students that writing and communication is not just bound to the traditional academic essay. ... View more

I’ve been following the work of Kaitlyn Tiffany and Kate Lindsey, largely in The Atlantic, on what they call “the Millennial Internet era” and its gradual demise, at least as they see it. And thinking about millennials got me thinking even more about the names or labels for such “generations” in twentieth and twenty first-century America. As my grandmother would have said, it’s a puzzlement. Millennials supposedly include those born roughly between 1981 and 1995, and this group falls fifth among the American “generations” usually acknowledged:  The Greatest Generation (1901-27) The Silent Generation (1928-45) Baby Boomers (1946-64) Generation X (1965-80) Millennials (1981-95) Generation Z (1996-2010) Generation Alpha (2011-25) According to this lore, I am part of the Silent Generation, though when I was coming of age in the sixties, I thought I was part of the Beat Generation, or the Civil Rights Generation: I don’t remember ever hearing “silent” applied to my cohort in those days and wouldn’t have recognized the label if I had. (I’m wondering which of these cohorts you belong to and what your own perceptions were and are of the accuracy of that label.) At any rate, Tiffany and Lindsey see the millennial view of the world and especially their experience of the Internet either “slipping away” or becoming cringe-worthy, relegating them to technological has-beens who must adapt to new ways of doing things or become obsolescent, and very quickly. As proof, Tiffany writes that the early file format “GIF is on its deathbed,” largely because “GIFs have gotten way overused” and are no longer reflective of creativity or innovation. And because Gen Z associates them with millennials. More proof comes from the prominence of the “millennial pause” (waiting a split second after hitting “record” before starting to speak), no longer necessary in the age of Tik Tok, and from the decline of Instagram and Facebook. The solution lies, the authors say, in learning to give up old ways of interacting and adapting—quickly! Of course we all have lived with shifting technologies all our lives, and many have become fairly agile at adapting to them—cross-generational adaptations, if you will. But I am still interested in and puzzled by the names of these generations and of how such titles tend not only to characterize people in a particular era, but stereotype them. In this regard, a writing assignment based on this concept of “generations” seems like a potentially useful one for students today. They might begin by interviewing grandparents (or great grandparents) and parents and asking them what they think about the “generation” their birthdates group them into. They can choose one of these “generations” and do research on it, finding out how it got its name, what its supposed characteristics are, major events that occurred during its span, and so on. Or they might do the same for their own “generation,” investigating its label and asking how well they feel that they fit, or don’t fit, into it. They can probe who is included in these “generations” and who is not: as I read about the “silent” generation, for example, it seems to me to include primarily white people, thus missing a huge and important segment of the population born during those years. Finally, students might compose a piece of oral history based on their conversations with family members or friends. They might write proposals for alternative labels for one or more generations, along with evidence and examples to support them. Or they might write arguments for or against the whole tradition of naming generations. And even if you do not want to engage students in such a formal assignment, the concept of “generations,” their titles, their inclusions and exclusions, and their alternatives can make for lively class discussion followed by a short writing on a focused question.  As to the “end of the millennial Internet era,” I’d love to hear what students in your classes right now think of that!   The image in this post, "Gen Z" by EpicTop10.com, is licensed under CC BY 2.0. ... View more

Throughout all the editions of Elements of Argument, the concept of the warrant has been the most difficult to teach. In fact, we recently started using the term assumption because it was a more familiar term. Instead of discussing what warrant underlies an argument, we speak in terms of what assumption you must accept in order to accept the evidence offered in support of a claim. The more examples we can draw from headlines, the easier it will be for students to find the assumptions that underlie the arguments they hear and read about in the media and to analyze the critical relationships among claim, support, and assumption. Identifying the underlying assumptions held by opposing sides in an argument can also help students see why it is so difficult to find a common ground. Look at how the terms can be applied to this argument: Claim: Abortion after sixteen weeks of pregnancy should not be allowed in our state for any reason. Support: Killing an unborn child after sixteen weeks is murder. Underlying assumption: A fetus of sixteen weeks is a person with the same protection under the law as any other person.   In order to accept the support as proof of the claim, you must first be able to accept the underlying assumption. On the other hand, anyone who cannot accept the underlying assumption will not be able to accept the claim. Consider these statements: Claim: It should be legal to terminate a pregnancy if the fetus is not viable. Support: A non-viable fetus can never develop into a child that can survive outside of the womb. Underlying assumption: It should be legal to terminate a pregnancy that cannot produce a child that can survive outside the womb. This type of analysis can be applied to an argument on any subject. Claim: Voting by mail should not be allowed in our state. Support: Voting by mail increases the possibility of voter fraud. Underlying assumption: Forms of voting that increase voter fraud should not be allowed. There is nothing wrong with the form of this last argument, but of course, the support offered must be verifiable for the argument to be valid. The writer or speaker would have to offer convincing evidence that mail-in voting increases the possibility of voter fraud. So far, there seems to be little evidence to support that assertion of widespread fraud. Over sixty court cases have failed to prove fraud in the last presidential election. In a recent interview with Jon Stewart, Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, who is currently running for Lieutenant Governor, defended her state’s decision to ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth. Trans reporter and MSNBC Opinion Columnist Katelyn Burns writes, “In the interview, Stewart grounded his questions in fact, asking Rutledge what basis she had to overrule all of the major medical associations that have designed standards of care for trans minors over the last several decades. In the face of Stewart’s gentle pushback, Rutledge dissembled, remarking that she ‘wasn’t prepared to have a Supreme Court argument’ with Stewart at that particular time. The interview was notable because Stewart called out the attorney general’s arguments in real-time, such as when she tried to claim that 98% of all youth with gender dysphoria eventually grow out of it. ‘That is an incredibly made-up figure,’ Stewart replied, as Rutledge failed to name a single source for her claims.” When Rutledge does face the Supreme Court, she must be prepared to provide evidence to back up her claim and the assumptions on which she bases her argument. This is an important lesson about argumentation that we hope all of our students will learn. "Newspaper Collection, Three Headlines, July 2016"  by Daniel X. O'Neil is licensed under CC BY 2.0 ... View more

Today's Tiny Teaching Story is by Lauri Mattenson. Lauri is a Lecturer with UCLA Writing programs.   Holding Zoom Space She’s sitting in her empty bathtub, laptop propped up on a stack of towels, because there’s no room anywhere else in the apartment. He’s in his garage using his neighbor’s wifi. She’s on academic probation and never submitted a draft. They are using a laptop with seven missing keys and a cracked screen. He hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in two weeks. She’s taking care of three little sisters during class. He’s the only Covid-negative person in a household of six. They are working 25 hours a week while going to school full-time. We’re weary, but we’re all here.    Submit your own Tiny Teaching Story to tinyteachingstories@macmillan.com! See the Tiny Teaching Stories Launch for submission details and guidelines. ... View more

  Dilara Avci (recommended by Dev Bose) is pursuing her MA in Teaching English as a Second Language at the University of Arizona. She has taught writing and literacy across diverse backgrounds and age levels, from elementary school to college. She is currently teaching First-Year Composition. Her research interests are the role of individual learner differences such as language aptitude and anxiety in writing and material design with a focus on digital literacies and critical pedagogy. She believes in the importance of sharing experiences and creating an inclusive learning environment and has been involved in a variety of Teaching-as-Research Projects, Faculty Learning Communities and conferences on writing and teaching practices.   How do you engage students in your course, whether f2f, online, or hybrid? I am a writing instructor and act as a choreographer at the same time. I perform on stage every day when I am in front of my students by grabbing their attention and energizing them for learning. Like a choreographer composing the sequence of steps and moves for a performance of dance, I compose my lesson plan and activities step by step. While doing so, there are many factors I need to consider such as the learner profile, several identities, diversity in the classroom, my students’ needs, individual learner differences, student learning objectives, and teaching during pandemic. To embrace all these varieties and engage my students, I try to integrate a number of activities and differentiated instruction by conducting a station-rotation model of learning in class activities, giving students options as part of assignments and creating opportunities for informal and formal reflection on students’ learning. Similar to a choreographer, I ensure that all the movements and steps in a performance (lesson) are systematically related to each other so that the activities are not in isolation but in a sweet harmony. Therefore, I benefit a lot from workshopping, genre-based instruction, one-on-one conferences, and technology-enhanced learning by integrating discussions, group work, and interactive slides with Nearpod, Padlet and Kahoot activities.  What is the most important skill you aim to provide your students? I care mostly about teaching my students a growing mindset, the importance of practicing and building confidence in themselves and in their skills. If my students learned only one thing from my course, it would be the knowledge of how to set goals and work to reach them. In the beginning of my courses, what I usually realized is that my students were quite stressed about whether they would pass or fail the course and focused too much on the grades. Throughout my courses, however, they learned that there is always room for improvement in writing and in life. In my opinion, this is necessary and it aligns well with the notion of “All writers have more to learn” stated by Adler-Kassner and Wardle (2015) in Naming What We Know. In that way, students may perceive “failure” as an opportunity to improve more, and instead of “viewing feedback or revisions as a punishment,” they embrace “writing as an ongoing process” (Adler-Kassner & Wardle, 2015). As a consequence of this growing mindset and rhetorical awareness, they know how to analyze a sample work, draft, revise, and create a better version of their writing/assignment in a planned way without giving up after a messy first draft.  What is it like to be a part of the Bedford New Scholars program? I have participated in several professional development opportunities but the Bedford New Scholars program has been distinct among those. In other professional development opportunities, we mostly talk about what amazing things we do in our classes and how we can even achieve better teaching and learning outcomes in future, which in a way pushes us to put ourselves “in the best shape.” However, the Bedford New Scholars program encouraged us to be who we are with our strengths and weaknesses, show our vulnerable sides in teaching and learning, and create sincere discussions on what we are challenged by and how we can work toward those issues. It is an inspiring learning community in which we have a great opportunity to meet other instructors in the writing program all over the United States, have conversations on teaching and learning without the fear of being judged or evaluated, and realize that we are not the only ones who sometimes struggle with planning, teaching, and giving feedback. We share similar concerns and face many challenges. How will the Bedford New Scholars program affect your professional development or your classroom practice? The Bedford New Scholars program helped me gain new perspectives in teaching writing, rhetoric, and argumentation. The summer Summit was especially helpful with mind-opening guest speakers, presentations by the Macmillan team and Assignments that Work sessions by other scholars. To illustrate how the program added new methods and perspectives into my teaching repertoire, I would like to share the following example: I was quite hesitant to bring sensitive issues into the classroom setting due to my learner background and the learning system I grew up in before attending the summer Summit. Dr. Wonderful Faison initiated a welcoming discussion on this topic and shared exhilarating readings that can be used as teaching materials. She was able to spark new ideas that we can experiment with regarding critical pedagogy with our students. I know that I will be using many things like this one I learned from being a part of this amazing learning community. Dilara’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 Dilara’s assignment. For the full activity, see Visual Literacy & Analysis. The second major project that my students complete in the ENGL 101 course is to design a digital poster or infographic. The unit focuses on multimodal elements, visual literacy, and how meaning is created through images, text, audio, illustrations, and design in a digital poster or infographic. In this in-class interactive assignment, the students are asked to choose a visual/image of an advertisement to analyze and explain its purpose, the target audience, what makes it a powerful visual, how certain visual strategies or techniques are used, and their reason for choosing the image. While implementing the activity in class, I benefited from Padlet, a technological tool that allows note-taking and sharing in the form of a post-it. Padlet allows students to add a visual and text and to read, like, and comment on their peers’ posts in a convenient way. I find this tool quite useful in creating student engagement and interaction in the class setting. Find Dilara on Instagram @dilaratunaliavci. References Adler-Kassner, L., & Wardle, E. (2015). Naming what we know: Threshold concepts of writing studies. University Press of Colorado. ... View more

Today's Tiny Teaching Story is by Jennifer Smith Daniel, Director of Writing Center and Writing Across the Curriculum Programs at Queens University of Charlotte.   Restoring Your Tongue... Earlier in the Center, you’d encouraged a first-year with her assignment. Then sat in the comfy red chair of my office as essential oils penetrated our masks to cry out your anger at the professor who commented on your writing with his elitist, prescriptive perspective. He never learned the story of how your family stopped speaking Spanish at home because you didn’t get registered for preschool after migrating from Mexico. Later, I stood in the front our class as another white women teacher and offered you Anzaldúa. You found restoration in the new word - Chicana.   Submit your own Tiny Teaching Story to tinyteachingstories@macmillan.com! See the Tiny Teaching Stories Launch for submission details and guidelines. ... View more

**Content alerts for racist violence and sexual violence.**    On a recent Saturday in September, I attended a neighborhood street fair in Queens, New York. Since it was the day before the beginning of Banned Books Week, my local bookstore offered a table to support and sell banned books. The table included a selection of the most frequently banned books, postcards to support the authors and publishers of banned books, and a tablet with a link to the  PEN America's Index of School Book Bans (July 1, 2021 - June 30, 2022). There are 2,435 titles on Pen America’s list, beginning with Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé and ending with Grandpa Cacao: A Tale of Chocolate, from Farm to Family by  Elizabeth Zunon. The books are banned, challenged, and being investigated in schools and libraries across the United States.     In scanning the list, as well as the American Library Association’s lists of Top Ten Most Challenged Books, I found books I remembered very well. There were books I taught in my  first-year writing and literature classes, books I had given as birthday gifts to young relatives assigned by my high school teachers, and books I read for my doctoral comprehensive exams. The list also offered my memories of my first encounters with some of the books in question. At the street fair, I offered my first memory of realizing that book bans existed back in junior high in the early 1970s at my town’s public library in suburban Chicago.   One afternoon, I brought my books to the library’s front desk to be stamped with the due date, only to be met with resistance. “You can’t check those books out,” the librarian said. “Why not?” I asked. “Because these are adult books and children are not allowed to check out books from the adult stacks.” Again I asked why, but the explanation was vague and dismissive. I left without the books. But a few weeks later, I discovered them back on the shelves, and for many visits afterward I found cozy and secluded sections of the adult stacks, and I read the books I wasn’t allowed to read.    I could not stop asking why. Why did the library not allow a tween or young teen to check out books from the adult stacks? The books I wanted to read had no provocative pictures, no offensive language. Mostly I wanted to read history. There were gaps in the school curriculum that needed filling. For instance, there were no lessons about race, class, or gender, and no indication that our textbooks contained contradictory information.    For instance, I learned U.S. history from the perspective of colonizers, not the colonized. After the Civil War, the textbooks said, carpetbaggers and other outsiders from the North tried to change the way of life in the South, but ultimately the carpetbaggers weren’t successful. However, there was no mention that Northerners tried to eliminate a way of life that included lynching, convict leasing, and other forms of de facto slavery. My reading in the adult stacks was a revelation, and having to hide this reading from the librarians was deeply disconcerting.     In high school, there were limited changes, but still more censorship. The sex education classes focused on menstruation (for girls only), reproduction, and sexually transmitted diseases. The complexities of gender, and the basics of sexual assault, rape, consent, birth control, and abortion, if addressed at all, were perfunctory and confusing. But there were other means of discovering information, and this happened through several books that are now on the Pen America list. This discovery begins with Brave New World, an assigned reading for my first-year high school English class. I did not yet have enough background to fully comprehend Aldous Huxley’s dystopia, and the links between the disturbing images in the book, and the disturbances unfolding in the early 1970s. Because of this disconnect, I could not find a way to process the messages of the book.    However, another dystopian world was unraveling below my desk. Someone in the class had procured a copy of another banned book, Go Ask Alice: A Real Diary.  We carefully passed the text back and forth among students, underneath the desks and beneath the teacher’s line of vision. Alice’s diary dealt with sex and sexual violence, drug addiction, and rebelling against parental authority. Even as Alice’s diary turned out to be fake, the topics it addressed were deeply intriguing to me and, before the internet, scant information about them was available to me through my health classes, my family, or the public library. Our Bodies, Ourselves, yet another banned book in print at this time, addressed all these topics and more; . however, I was unaware of its existence until my sophomore year of college.    A few years after Go Ask Alice, I encountered I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings in the high school library. I still remember the front cover of that book. Showing through the clear protective plastic against a red-orange background was a blackbird soaring upward from the sun. Finding this book in the library was life changing, as it was the first book I ever encountered that centered Black lives. Angelou was part of the same generation as my parents and many of my teachers. Yet Angelou’s first memoir of racism, poverty, sexual assault, segregation, Black community, and Black joy was never listed as a text or acknowledged throughout the entirety of my schooling. I bought my own paperback copy and reread it often, even as the book is yet another entry on the Pen America list.   Destiny, an orange tabby cat, sits next to a paperback copy of a banned book: Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Photo by Susan Bernstein.   The lesson I learn from the experiences of reading all of these books, then and now, is that I could not rely on school for my education, because the parameters of what was acceptable, or what counted as literature, were narrow and opaque. Even as white privilege shapes my view, the current book bans, although not supported by a majority of people, attempt to replicate perspectives of everyday life that are as insufficient and constricted as the views I encountered in and out of school half a century ago. The banned books that lifted me out of that restricted thinking changed my world, and allowed me to understand two contradictory ideas: First, I was not the first young girl in history to suffer the tribulations of coming of age. Second, I needed and still need to interrogate my own privileges as I continue the lifelong work of building beloved community.   Read banned books, teach them, and absorb what they have to offer. The lessons might not seem immediately clear, but processing them over time and distance can open the heart and the imagination to new possibilities.   ... 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 Overview [Generational] cohorts give researchers a tool to analyze changes in views over time; they can provide a way to understand how different formative experiences interact with the life-cycle and aging process to shape people’s view of the world. (Pew Research 2020) This post is the first in a three-part series through which I detail a rather expansive Generation Project with multimodal components and sub-projects. I broke down the project into concurrent parts that can also be used as stand-alone activities. Stay tuned as I present these assignments over the next couple of posts. In this first post, I present the project overview and the historical context, the second post I detail the popular culture component and the third is the collaborative presentations. These assignments are easily modified for all teaching modalities (online, f2f, and hybrid). Image of timeline between 1962 and 1966 with events placed This series demonstrates that we can integrate multimodal composition in thoughtful ways throughout assignments and processes and is not just about end products. In designing this project, I imagined something that involved students in deep research – both individual and collaborative – on a subject that is interesting and current. I wanted to offer opportunities throughout the project to engage in multimodal work – both the analysis and composition of multimodal artifacts. Students house the project on individual websites created through Google Sites to allow for composing and sharing of interactive and visual content. Generation Project Overview This generation project helps students move beyond their insular views and challenges them to understand the perspectives of others by immersing themselves in generational research. We live in a society with polarized discourse and this project will help students engage with ideas outside of their generational space. These ideas motivated me to design this generation project in which students work together to research one of the five living generations: The Silent Generation (born 1928–1945) Baby Boomers (born 1946–1964) Generation X (born 1965–1980) Millennials (born 1981–1995) Generation Z (born 1996–2010) Students research both primary and secondary sources to define and create a portrait of their assigned generation. The purpose is to understand the historical context, popular culture artifacts, values, and cultural ideologies. Each student will individually research a couple of focus years within the generation and then contribute to a collaborative project in which they overview and interpret the generation. Sources: Students will locate and analyze the following scholarly and popular sources: Historical context (timelines, historical portraits, economy, values, important figures, oral stories, theoretical perspectives, etc.) Media and Popular culture artifacts (images, music, advertisements, literature, film, fashion, food, etc.) Defining Moments (Headlines, Articles) Ideologies, ideas, behaviors, and values of the time Anything else that might be meaningful Steps to the Assignment This first part of the assignment orients students towards generational research and introduces them to definitions of the five living generations. 1. Background Resources: Understanding Generational Research It is important for students to understand the nature of generational research and gain a general overview of the generations. This helps them understand the ways generations are constructed and the trends that affect them. I allow students to choose the generation research group they want to join so these background readings help them make those choices. Generation Research Resources: The Whys and Hows of Generational Research Pew Research Center (2020) Generations Throughout History – Buzzfeed Video (2017) Fast Facts: American Generations – CNN (2022) Baby Boomers, Millennials, Gen X Labels: Necessary or Nonsense The Conversation (2020) 2. Online Discussion - Students engage in an online discussion in which they choose a passage, idea or related ideas from the generation readings. I encourage them to speak about the characteristics they observed along with assumptions and stereotypes they might have about the different generations. I require them to also post one representative image (from Creative Commons or other copyright free sources). 3. Choose a Generation and Focus Years – After the initial background work, students choose the generation that they want to research as part of a team. I try to make sure that the groups are evenly distributed to have the same number of members. Students assemble in their teams (online or f2f) and then choose a couple of focus years within their generations. The focus years give students responsibility for individual research that they will contribute to their research team to create a representative span of their generation years. 4. Research Historical Context: Students compose an Historical Overview of their focus years. They should include events, defining moments, trends, important figures and ideas, observations about politics, economy and values. I encourage them to go beyond just listing facts and interpret and synthesize their findings. They search for academic and popular articles and learn how to attribute their sources. 5. Interactive Feature Article: Students compose their historical overview of their focus years as an interactive document that includes specific references, purposeful embedded links, and captioned multimodal components (images, video clips, etc.) to tell their stories and contextualize their research. They create a page on their site to host the post. 6. Teamwork: Defining Moments: Students get together with their teams and share their research. Each team creates a Google doc in which they list the defining moments and significant events of their focus years. Together, they discuss the overlaps and the ways their focus years fit together to define their generation. 7. Interactive Timeline: Data Visualization: As a team, students select the most important defining moments from their extensive list and create a multimodal timeline. There are many open-source platforms for creating interactive and visual timelines. I give them some resources but allow them to choose their own. They will include the defining moments along with representative images for each entry on the timeline. They will also use this timeline as part of their collaborative presentation later in the project. Some timeline resources: Best Free Timeline Maker Tools for Students Timelines in Canva Adobe Timeline Creator Reflections on the Activities This generation project gives each student a research role and ways to contribute to the larger community knowledge on the subject. The level of individual responsibility creates genuine research teams that invite strong analysis and synthesis through collaboration. These activities engage students in a range of research, writing, and multimodal composition practices. I find that when students are asked to engage in meaningful curiosity and collaboration, they demonstrate a stronger sense of ownership and motivation. Stay tuned – next post – Part 2: Generations through Popular Culture ... View more

Madhu Nadarajah (recommended by Nick Recktenwald and Tia North) is pursuing her PhD in English with a concentration in Cultural Rhetorics at the University of Oregon where she is researching the discursive practices within the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora. She is currently serving as the Assistant Director of the Composition Program where she worked on redesigning the Composition Policy Handbook, helped with graduate teaching instruction, and facilitated the annual Composition Conference. She is also a Culturally Responsive Teaching Fellow in which she draws on her work in Cultural Rhetorics to provide anti-oppressive teaching principles for the wider Composition community in the classroom.     How do you ensure your classroom is inclusive, equitable, and culturally responsive? For me, community building exercises are crucial to ensuring the classroom is inclusive, equitable, and culturally responsive. Through community, students learn to trust the classroom space and become more comfortable having transparent conversations. One approach I take to help build community in my classroom is through the readings I assign. Part of my writing pedagogy is to inform students about the complexity surrounding writing studies. Many of my students are taking my class to fulfill their writing requirement and therefore are unaware about the history of writing in institutionalized settings. One reading in particular that helps students situate themselves within the history of writing studies is CCCC’s “Students Rights to their Own Language” (1974). While the article was published a little under fifty years ago, many of the concerns brought up still remain true for writing students, particularly that surrounding a student’s agency. By framing the classroom through readings like “SRTOL,” we began to have transparent conversations about voice, power structures, and community. What is the most important skill you aim to provide your students? A skill that I aim to provide my students is for them to have a greater awareness of their own rhetorical traditions. In my classroom, we define rhetorical tradition as not only a means of communicating, but also the cultural and material effects that have led us to these communicative practices. I want students to become aware of the rhetorical tradition they are bringing in, how they have come to gather those traditions, and how it interacts with the rhetorical traditions of their peers. Moreover, this awareness leads students to understand how their rhetorical traditions are part of the larger constellation of rhetorical traditions. In other words, how do these rhetorical traditions exist with one another? I believe this awareness of rhetorical traditions is an important skill for students that they can carry over to their other classes and to their lives outside of school. In particular, understanding the cultural and material effects that inform their way of communication allows students to intimately understand the weight of (physical and cultural) space.  One assignment that helps students understand their own rhetorical traditions is my “Social Literacy Assignment” (provided later in this post). I define a social literacy narrative as an exploration of a rhetorical moment that informs your awareness of a social issue (or issues) that directly impacts you and how that shapes how you communicate and interact with others. In this assignment, I also ask students to pay close attention to how subject-position cannot be separated from how you perceive and are impacted by the rhetorical moment you are reflecting on. I find this assignment (especially since I assign it early on) allows students to have a more nuanced understanding of the importance of rhetorical practices.  What is it like to be part of the Bedford New Scholars Program? The Bedford New Scholars Program provided me with an incredible opportunity to be in community with other graduate students who are also passionate about teaching and rhet/composition studies. Additionally, while we all had a background in rhetorical studies, our approaches to the field varied greatly. In turn, this offered me a great opportunity to collaborate and network. My favorite part of the Bedford New Scholars virtual Summit was the “Assignments at Work” session. This session was an opportunity for the Scholars to share and workshop an assignment or lesson plan. I received valuable feedback on my teaching assignment and I was able to learn about the exciting materials from the other instructors. The other parts of the Summit that I really enjoyed were the sessions led by the guest speakers, Dr. Andrea Lunsford and Dr. Wonderful Faison. Their individual talks were incredible and I learned so much about their pedagogical approaches. Moreover, the Bedford New Scholars Program provided me with a greater understanding of what higher-ed publishing looks like. We tend to view higher-ed publishing as these “big bad guys.” However, the Bedford New Scholars program has opened my perspective to how nuanced publishing really is. While publishing is definitely not without its faults, what I appreciated about the Bedford New Scholars Program is learning how Macmillan Learning prioritizes student perspectives in the development of their textbooks. How will the Bedford New Scholars Program affect your professional development or your classroom practice? The Bedford New Scholars Program is a collaborative and engaging experience. In particular, I learned a lot about the behind the scenes of higher-ed publishing. I think this new knowledge will help me tremendously in my professional development. One of my roles is that of an Assistant Director of Composition. Within that role, I often discuss textbook options and reflect on the newest trends in textbook content. The Bedford New Scholars Program gave me an inside look into the most current trends for writing textbooks and how that information was determined. I will be taking this new insight back into my role as we start to discuss the textbook options for the new academic year.   Madhu’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 Dilara’s assignment. For the full activity, see Social Literacy Narrative. My assignment asks students to write a social literacy narrative in the form of a letter. I typically assign the “Social Literacy Narrative” within the first week of the quarter in place of an “Initial Reflection” assignment. This is a great way for students to reflect and expand on their understanding of rhetoric, especially as it applies to their own space and place. The assignment asks students to consider the rhetorical moments that helped shape their awareness of social issues that directly impacted them and how that shapes the way they communicate and interact with others. It also requires students to reflect and interrogate how their subject-position plays an integral part in those rhetorical moments, especially as it informs how they communicate with other people and different communities. I offer four different examples of what I regard as a social literacy narrative so the students have an idea of how they should model their assignment. I have students write the assignment in the form of a letter because it is a style that allows for personal expression and is addressed to someone the writer specifically designates to be the recipient. Find Madhu on Twitter @MNadarajah9. ... View more

  Semester system schools are already in full swing and quarter system schools are just about to start up. Fall 2022 is here, a new school year—one that brings us students who have been through the pandemic of the last two and a half years. Many haven’t been on campus in some time, haven’t been in classes with other students and teachers. Others have been fairly isolated, or isolated on phones, which is a special kind of isolation. For the last month I have listened to stories—as I’m sure you have—about mental health issues among young people today, and I’ve listened especially to those about college students and the difficulties they are reporting. Just yesterday I heard a first-year college student being interviewed: when asked what she had lost during the last two years, she answered, simply, “myself.” I know you can fill in similar examples from your own experience, maybe even from your own family. This has always been my favorite time of year: the new school year, the new class of students, the excitement of beginning college study, the excitement of meeting, and teaching, first-year students. My favorite. Time. Of. Year. But the last two and a half years have chastened and sobered me, as I’ve spoken with so many college-bound students who are feeling distress and even fear. In such a time, my steadfast belief is that teachers of writing/reading/speaking have a special opportunity and a special obligation. We may be teaching the smallest class our students will take. We almost certainly will be meeting students one-on-one more than other faculty, either in office hour sessions or in writing center sessions. We will absolutely be sharing writing with students, reading and responding to what they have to say and, we hope, establishing a two-way connection with them.  This year, more than ever, we need to make the most of these opportunities. But I think we need to do something more: we need to introduce students to the ludic nature of rhetoric and remind them of the crucial importance of play and playfulness to their learning and to their lives.  In this endeavor, I am guided and inspired by Lynda Barry, whose One! Hundred! Demons! I have taught for eons and whose comics and especially books on creativity (Picture This, What It Is) are always on my desk, along with her brilliant syllabus.  Barry is convinced that there is an artist in each of us and that playing—playing!—is the best way to let that artist emerge. And to release anxieties of all kinds and to become creators rather than recorders or responders only. (If you’ve ever had a chance to participate in one of Barry’s workshops, you’ll have seen the magic happen: if you haven’t, take some time to read about them or find out if she will be giving workshops anywhere near you in the coming months.) Barry says that when she is working with graduate students, almost always uptight and anxious and focused laser-like on one objective—she pairs them with 3 and 4 year olds: she says sixty to ninety minutes playing with these little ones loosens everything up, shifts patterns of thought, and leads to some brilliant problem solving. And when she says playing, she means playing:  down on the floor, making things together, defining things together, even just hanging out. While I don’t have access to a bunch of preschoolers (wish I did!), I can still introduce play into our classroom: activities where I ask students to listen hard for three minutes and then describe what they heard, or hand them objects they must describe and name without opening their eyes–you can probably think of more. And we can be playful with writing: trying for limericks or witty haikus; writing a very long sentence about the process of writing a very long sentence; trying for a sentence with the most double negatives, or the most metaphors or similes. Anything to be playful and to loosen up, to relax, and then to create. I would like to make all our writing projects more fun, with more potential for play—even a research-based argument; even a research project itself. I will write more about these possibilities soon. In the meantime, I am thinking of all writing teachers and students everywhere, and hoping that, together, we can have a healthy—and a healing—year.  Image used under a standard Adobe Stock license.  ... View more