So far in this series, we’ve looked at coloring (essentially that’s what they’re doing with highlighters), cutting, and taping.  In this part we’re going to move into drawing. “Drawing the Argument” is one of my favorite class activities when discussing a new reading.  Working in groups, students draw the argument of the essay, locating quotations that support their visual interpretation.  It’s a great way to open up discussion about the meaning of a reading since it forces students to condense the argument into a form that can be drawn. I sometimes use this same exercise for peer revision.  In some ways it’s more challenging for the peers since there’s less “stuff” to draw but as part of a class with a couple of peer revision exercises it offers authors a completely new view of their writing. It also occurs to me that in early stages of drafting it might be interesting to invert this exercise, asking students to draw the argument they want to make in a paper and then share that drawing with peers (or maybe a photo collage they prepared before class).  Peers would then write out the argument they see.  Student authors might get new insights on their own thinking, not only by making the drawing in the first place but also through any suggestions, deviations, or variations offered by their peers. ... View more

I suspect we all use peer review in some form or other. If we can help students become effective peer reviewers, then we give them a skill that helps them improve their writing without a teacherly intervention. Peer review makes writing public, so students see what others are doing and learn indirectly. We also help students become valuable workplace writers, because they know how to interact with others to improve writing within an organization. My typical pattern in my introcomp class is to have students arrive to class with a completed draft, ready for peer review. We work from stated criteria on a given assignment, so students get in the habit of asking whether a document fulfills requirements and meets the purposes of the assignment. Comments, of course, range widely and do not stick strictly to the criteria on the rubric, but that is OK. We will often work in pairs. I have a morning class this term, and I generally set a deadline for 11:30 pm that evening to turn in revisions. What I like about the system—and what students like, too—is that peer review makes a difference, immediately. Students might get some really helpful feedback and want to act upon it. Students might decide after seeing a couple of papers from others that they need to make some major changes. Or they might realize they fulfilled part of the assignment, but forgot to attend to some criterion. Or they might realize they have pretty good work in hand and just need do some final editing before submitting. Because the assignment is due the same day, students get immediate help, and the peer comments are fresh when they revise later that day. I get better work, and I get more work out of the students. There are different ways to do peer review, and using available technology opens up more opportunity to play with the structure in a way that benefits students most. In my class, everyone brings a laptop (and we have a few Surface tablets for those without), and sometimes I have students pull up their texts in Word, turn on Track Changes, and then we play musical chairs. Students work at the author’s laptop, inserting comments and suggesting changes. They learn to use some very useful editing tools, and each student can quickly review two or three papers, so everyone gets feedback from more than one reader. Students like this approach because they feel freer in this setting, where they are not face-to-face with the author, to offer criticism, to suggest meaningful revisions, and to ask real questions about the text and its effectiveness. But I also like to mix up my approach to peer review. My students sit at tables where they have a large shared screen. Anyone can connect by cable or wirelessly, and students can put their work up in front of other students. So sometimes we will put up a paper, especially an early draft, in front of the whole team (4-6 students per team). They can talk as a group about the writer’s approach, the strengths and weaknesses, and perhaps review two papers in class with the group agreeing to offer individual peer reviews to others outside of class. I let the teams manage the logistics. My team tables are permanent through the course term, so students really get to know one another and establish good working patterns. But sometimes we work across teams. I’ll have everyone post their work to Sakai, our class management system, in the Forum (or Discussion) area, as an attachment. Students can then download the attachment, comment on the text either in the text itself or in the dialog box in Sakai, and review anyone’s text. I ask everyone to give at least two reviews and get at least two. Some do more. Many, I suspect, read quite a few of their classmates’ texts, learning to see what is strong or weak, what is novel or predictable, in the work of others. A collateral benefit of this approach is that students learn to be careful when downloading, renaming, and saving files so they can work on them. They use those handy Word tools to track changes and comments, and then upload their annotated files to the Forum. Students get to see what other reviewers do, and we can have a follow-up discussion about whose review comments were most helpful and why. A very natural modeling process for peer reviews leads to stronger future reviews. ... View more

I spent the weekend in wonderful Savannah, Georgia, at the Student Success in Writing Conference. The wonderful event led me to conversations with teachers from high schools, two-year colleges, and four-year colleges. I got to meet Bits guest bloggers Kim Haimes-Korn and Jeanne Bohannon, who presented on “Transcending Tech-Tools: Engaging Students through Critical Digital Pedagogies.” Jeanne shared a video animation project that focused on “A Day in the Life” stories that developed students’ critical thinking skills by requiring them to consider another point of view, and Kim talked about an assignment that asks students to use digital timeline tools to publish literacy narratives. I’m hopeful that they will share more details in a future post. Sarah Domet and Margaret Sullivan discussed “Practical Approaches to Multimodal Composition.” Their themed blog assignment transforms their first-year writing course into a semester-long writing and research project that students publish on WordPress.com blogs or Weebly.com websites. I loved their historicization web essay, which asked students to trace the development of their topic from past to current events. Their student examples showed students deeply engaged with their research. Students read and engage with one another’s blogs, culminating in bloggy awards at the end of the semester for categories like best overall blog and best home page. I’m not quite sure how to fit the activities into my own classes right now, but I’m certainly working on it. I regret that I missed Natalie James’s presentation on “Teaching Tumblr: Blogging towards Critical Discourse,” but I had a nice conversation with her between sessions. Her presentation focused on the ways that “Tumblr can give students tools for practicing critical discourse in a relevant and engaging online environment.” I cannot wait to find her materials in the conference’s Digital Commons archive. My own presentation focused on “Ten Ways to Use Digital Tools in the Writing Classroom.” I shared a collection of assignments and activities that I have used in the writing classroom to engage students. Some of the ideas I have already talked about in Bits posts, like my Pinterest Assignments and my Digital Identity Mapping Activity, but you will find some new ideas and student examples in the presentation resources as well. Overall, I had a grand time in Savannah. The conference is a perfect size, allowing you to connect with colleagues and meet new collaborators, and because of the focus on practical writing strategies, I left every session with a list of ideas for my own classes. I recommend that you check out the Call for Proposals for the 2016 Conference, and submit your proposal beginning June 15. You’ll be glad you did, and you’ll have a grand time too. ... View more

Today’s guest blogger is Monica Miller, a Marion L Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow in the school of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech, specializing in digital pedagogies and multimodal composition. She received her Ph.D. from Louisiana State University in 2014, where she studied American literature, with concentrations in Southern Literature and Women’s and Gender Studies. Her work focuses on the intersections of region and gender. Her current book project, Don’t Be Ugly: The Ugly Plot in the Work of Southern Women Writers, examines the ways in which ugliness marks fictional characters who are excluded from traditional gender roles of marriage and motherhood. “My friend said that his 1101 class was the best, because they watch videos all day—but he doesn’t get to play with Play-doh like we do!” –Overheard in my first year, multimodal, “maker culture”-themed composition classroom. The students in my class were to some extent open to the idea of playing in the classroom, as the course theme of “Maker Culture” was one which encouraged play, seeing it as a key to innovation. “Play” is actually one of the guiding principles of Mark Hatch’s Maker Movement Manifesto, as important to his philosophy as other guiding principles such as “Share,” “Learn,” and “Tool Up.” Hatch encourages makers to “Be playful with what you are making, and you will be surprised, excited, and proud of what you discover” (2). Although there is much less awareness of maker culture in FYC pedagogy than there is in STEM classrooms, I have found that maker culture’s emphasis on digital tools, play, and collaborative learning make it an ideal approach to the multimodal composition classroom. Let me clarify, however, that this kind of “play day” is not the same as the “safe space” featured in a recent New York Times article which has been subject to much debate. While students in such safe spaces play with Play-doh, crayons, and bubbles in order to find emotional security, in my classroom, these craft supplies served very specific pedagogical purposes. Goals To learn and reflect upon collaboration. To introduce the concept of affordances. Background reading before class Ask students to plan for the presentation by reading relevant content from your handbook or rhetoric: The St. Martin’s Handbook, section 4m, “Reflecting” The Everyday Writer, section 11b, “Reflect” Writing in Action, section 5i, “Reflect” EasyWriter, section 2j, “Reflecting” The Activity In small groups, construct “creatures” from Play-doh and other “play” materials. The students worked hard on their presentations, and many of them had been terrified by the public speaking. To reward their efforts, the class period following their presentations, we had a “play day.” I gave students Play-doh, construction paper, yarn, glue sticks, and scissors, with the vague instruction to “make a creature.” The only parameters I set were these: each group was to collaborate on one creature; the creature had to be finished by the end of class; and they couldn’t mix the Play-doh colors, because other students would be using them. When asked why we were playing with Play-doh in class, I said that I did have some pedagogical motivations for the day, which I would reveal on Thursday, but I asked that they trust that there was a pedagogical foundation to the exercise and try to immerse themselves in the play. As the photographs throughout this post show, it was generally a fun day—something about the smells and textures from childhood coupled with relief from having a big project behind them allowed most of them to really let go and enjoy themselves. (Also, engineers have some skills with craft materials!) Reflecting on the Activity The class period after our play day, I began by focusing on the collaborative learning aspect of the exercise. My students were used to frequent collaboration in their assignments, whether brainstorming, peer review workshops on drafts, or more formal group projects. That day, I started class with a writing assignment, in which I asked students to reflect upon the following: The nature of their group dynamics while making the creature, comparing the experience to their group presentation project as well as the other group work they’ve done, both in English 1101 as well as other situations. How the nature of the project affected how they worked as a group. How their group dynamics had changed over the course of the larger project. We then looked at the photographs I took of the different creatures. Each group explained their process, what media they used for the different parts, and how their vision changed over the course of the construction. As we looked at the pictures, I asked students to think about what different purposes were served by different media. Yarn works well for hair as well as for being crocheted or knitted into clothes; Play-doh is good for larger body parts; construction paper can be used not only for details, such as eyes, but also for construction–several groups used it to make tabs to attach tails to bodies, for example. Moving Forward These observations allowed me to introduce the concept of “affordances” to the class. By first talking about the affordances of Play-doh in creature creation, I could then transition to a lesson in digital tools: a discussion of the affordances of different media—whether photos, video, or written text—in website design, which was their final project in the class. I was quite pleased with the results of our play day. Maker culture is on to something—play encourages not only innovation, but also an atmosphere of openness which helps bring about the kind of community I strive for in my classroom. Playing in the classroom not only gives students a chance to catch their breath but fosters an environment of trust and (dare I say?) fun which I believe ultimately produces happier, more engaged students. Want to collaborate with Andrea on a Multimodal Mondays assignment? Send ideas to leah.rang@macmillan.com for possible inclusion in a future post. ... View more

This blog was originally posted on March 30th, 2015. Today’s guest blogger is Kim Haimes-Korn. It is clear that Multimodal Composition is “alive and well” in the field and in our writing classrooms.  I just got back from a great teacher experience at our annual, national Conference on College Composition and Communication — 4Cs — in Tampa, where digital writing is central to the conversation. In his Chair’s address, “Funk, Flight, and Freedom,” Adam Banks spoke about the ways that the field of composition engages in the “funk.”  By that, he means that we are willing to “sweat and that we will look at all that pains us and still dance.” He extends to talk about the ways flight and freedom have always also been part of our discipline as we continually redefine ourselves in relation to the changing world in which we live.  He defines flight “as embracing and investing in exploration” and positions composition as a “hub for intellectual and critical dialogue” that gives us the “freedom to fly.” In his talk, he challenged us to move beyond the school essay and disciplinary boundaries and “promote other intellectual genres” as we “expand our vision to other forms.” He calls for boldly bringing technology and digital writing into our literacy practices – the kind of boldness that “climbs up from the soles of your feet.”                                             Adam Banks’s Chairs’ Address at CCCC 2015 This keynote address drove the crowd to their feet, ready to embrace their “funk” and set the tone for the rest of the conference.  Adam’s motivating words and ideas wove themselves into many connections and conversations. I also had the pleasure of sitting down and talking with Andrea Lunsford about her work in the field and the ways that we are embracing multiple visions of composition as we re-identify our writing programs and rethink our writing classes.  She speaks from a long career of shifts and changes and says it is “safe to say that multimodal writing is alive and well and prospering in writing programs across the country.” Our own Department of Digital Writing and Media Arts represents this kind of reframing as we teach courses that are both interdisciplinary and intra-disciplinary, and that transcend traditional writing programs to prepare students for professions in integrated, interactive content creation that bring together texts and visuals, writing and design, and emerging technologies. As Andrea notes in an earlier post, there is a “whole lot of shakin’ going on.” Perhaps, this was most evident once again at the Bedford/St. Martin’s Celebration of Multimodal Composition Showcase, where teachers from programs all around the country displayed and discussed practical, multimodal classroom strategies and assignments. For three non-stop hours we got the opportunity to talk to many teachers from different kinds of institutions at different places in this process of incorporating digital writing practices into their curriculum and classes. Jeanne Bohannan and I got to show off work we have shared on the Mulitmodal Mondays blog over the past year. Jeanne presented her ideas on DIY blogs, wikis and twitter assignments and I got to share some of my assignments such as literacy timelines, mapping, and lifehacks.  Laurie Goodling showed how Microblogging and social networking for a cause can promote participatory learning and student activism. Niki Turnipseed shared a dynamic series of multimodal blog assignments such as a Genre Analysis and community ethnography, and Molly Scanlon’s shared assignments included a researched feature article on students’ chosen majors. Kristen Arola shared her student’s informational campaign, and Casey Miles’ Remix presentation encouraged students to analyze and compose in new ways through transforming ideas in new forms or modes. These examples represent just a few of the many interesting ways the showcase teachers engage students through multimodal composition.  It was great to meet people who followed our blogs, show off our amazing student work and support and encourage teachers wanting to learn more about multimodal composition.  The quality and complexity of the range of assignments showed the ways students, when given the opportunity, take ownership and critically and creatively engage with their own language and ideas to participate in the kinds of public conversations that multimodal composition affords. It is truly an exciting time to be a writing teacher and embrace our FUNK. Check out Jeanne Bohannon’s storify archive of the event. Featuring my students’ work at the Bedford/St. Martin’s Multimodal Showcase Guest blogger Kim Haimes-Korn is a Professor in the Digital Writing and Media Arts (DWMA) Department at Kennesaw State University. Kim’s teaching philosophy encourages dynamic learning, 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:actsofcomposition.khaimesk.org Want to collaborate with Andrea on a Multimodal Monday assignment? Send ideas to leah.rang@macmillan.com for possible inclusion in a future post. ... View more

This blog was originally posted on February 10th, 2015. I began the multimodal composing course I’m teaching this term with an exploration of digital identity, working from an assignment shared as a Multimodal Mondays post. I asked students to compose a “Statement of Your Online Identity,” combining a digital image with a brief linguistic text. To help them get started, I asked students to think about the personas they developed online. Informally in class, we talked about the ways that they presented themselves online (for instance, on Facebook with friends, on LinkedIn with potential colleagues and employers, and on gaming sites with other gamers). While I felt students had the general idea, I wanted to give them a more structured way to gather thoughts about their identity. I found the perfect tool in a Digital Identity Mapping grid, from Fred Cavazza (blog in French): In the grid, students noted the different places they inhabit online, and then worked from the grid to find the aspects of their identity to focus on in their projects. To simplify their notetaking, I created a Digital Identity Mapping form in Google Drive. (Make your own copy by opening the link, then go to File → Make a Copy in Google Drive). I encouraged students to type the names of the various sites rather than tracking down the icons, as in Cavazza’s image. The icons make a pretty and colorful display, but I wanted students’ energy focused on their project, not on gathering icons. The Digital Identity Mapping form was a great supplement to the project. Rather than going with the first idea that came to mind, students had to think deeply about the different places and identities that they had developed online. As a result, students had more evidence to use as they developed their identity statements. They quickly went from having little to say to choosing among a variety of options. I’m definitely using that grid again to get students started on their projects. Could you use it in your course? Want to share some feedback on my project or share another tool I can use? Please leave me a comment below, or drop by my page on Facebook or Google+. [Photo: Digital Identity Mapping by fredcavazza, on Flickr] ... View more

So Mad Men is in its final victory lap, and I really have to hand it to Matthew Weiner.  I mean, imagine trying to pitch a television concept about a group of more-or-less middle-aged characters struggling to make it in the advertising business to a bunch of age-averse entertainment industry executives.  And set it in the 1960s—which means that the lead characters will all belong to my parents’ generation.  And don’t even try to frame it as a comedy. Wow, that took a lot of imagination, not to mention perseverance. But beyond the kudos, which we will be hearing a lot of as the series winds down, and the possible speculation as to whether Jon Hamm (Don Draper) will go the way of such hopelessly typecast television stars as Lorne Greene (Ben Cartwright), Richard Thomas (John-Boy), and Henry Winkler (the Fonz), there lies the story-telling genre in which Mad Men firmly belongs: that of literary realism—which would not be remarkable except for the fact that realism, in this era of superhero blockbusters and fantasy favorites (from Harry Potter to Katniss Everdeen and a mess of Starks and Lannisters), has not exactly been on the upswing in our popular culture.  And therein lies a semiotic tale. Oh, you might point to the enormous success of such shows as The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and, more currently, House of Cards, while the entire category of Reality Television (RTV) would seem to indicate that realism has been all the rage for quite some time.  But, as literary theorist György Lukács put it, realism depicts the lives of typical human beings in typical circumstances, and there is nothing typical about being a mob leader, a meth king, and the President of the United States; RTV manages to take the typical and turn it into game show, soap opera, or farce.  And though a case could be made that the continuing tradition of the family sitcom belongs to the category of realism, the need to tell the story in the form of contrived situations, punctuated with one-liners and laugh tracks, substantially undermines any reality that might be found there. Not that Mad Men doesn’t have its own rather soapy moments, but that is a result of a challenge that literary realism has faced from its beginnings, as authors have struggled with the problem of depicting the typical lives of ordinary people while somehow making it all entertaining enough for readers to want to read.  And even An American Family, that early pioneer of reality TV, lapsed into soap opera after a valiant attempt to capture life as it is really (that is, typically) lived. So, I’ll refrain from nit picking and concentrate on what Mad Men accomplished.  By focusing on Americans at work in what is probably America’s second most iconic industry (the entertainment industry comes first, I suppose, but advertising is what America runs on), Matthew Weiner and his writers held the sort of mirror up to reality that can make us think about who we really are.  And by setting his series in the 1960s, Weiner took the additional step of causing his viewers to think about a critical threshold in American history that saw the transformation of the country in ways that we are still coping with today. That is the fundamental value of realism: rather than distracting us from reality (as fantasy, in its myriad of forms, does), realism makes us think about ourselves.  That can make realism uncomfortable, but it also makes it a more mature venue for entertainment than fantasy can ever be.  That Matthew Weiner managed to hold onto his audience for eight years (albeit on cable, with Nielsen numbers that are only a small fraction of the top network programs, not to mention its AMC colleague, the fantasy series Walking Dead) is therefore quite an accomplishment. And while I do rather wish that fans of the show would focus more on what it can tell us about how we got to where we are today as a country than on its clothing fashions and steamy affairs, that, I suppose, is part of the price that realistic entertainment has to pay in order to get anyone to pay any attention at all. ... View more

So Mad Men is in its final victory lap, and I really have to hand it to Matthew Weiner.  I mean, imagine trying to pitch a television concept about a group of more-or-less middle-aged characters struggling to make it in the advertising business to a bunch of age-averse entertainment industry executives.  And set it in the 1960s—which means that the lead characters will all belong to my parents' generation.  And don't even try to frame it as a comedy. Wow, that took a lot of imagination, not to mention perseverance. But beyond the kudos, which we will be hearing a lot of as the series winds down, and the possible speculation as to whether Jon Hamm (Don Draper) will go the way of such hopelessly typecast television stars as Lorne Greene (Ben Cartwright), Richard Thomas (John-Boy), and Henry Winkler (the Fonz), there lies the story-telling genre in which Mad Men firmly belongs: that of literary realism—which would not be remarkable except for the fact that realism, in this era of superhero blockbusters and fantasy favorites (from Harry Potter to Katniss Everdeen and a mess of Starks and Lannisters), has not exactly been on the upswing in our popular culture.  And therein lies a semiotic tale. Oh, you might point to the enormous success of such shows as The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and, more currently, House of Cards, while the entire category of Reality Television (RTV) would seem to indicate that realism has been all the rage for quite some time.  But, as literary theorist György Lukács put it, realism depicts the lives of typical human beings in typical circumstances, and there is nothing typical about being a mob leader, a meth king, and the President of the United States; RTV manages to take the typical and turn it into game show, soap opera, or farce.  And though a case could be made that the continuing tradition of the family sitcom belongs to the category of realism, the need to tell the story in the form of contrived situations, punctuated with one-liners and laugh tracks, substantially undermines any reality that might be found there. Not that Mad Men doesn't have its own rather soapy moments, but that is a result of a challenge that literary realism has faced from its beginnings, as authors have struggled with the problem of depicting the typical lives of ordinary people while somehow making it all entertaining enough for readers to want to read.  And even An American Family, that early pioneer of reality TV, lapsed into soap opera after a valiant attempt to capture life as it is really (that is, typically) lived. So, I'll refrain from nit picking and concentrate on what Mad Men accomplished.  By focusing on Americans at work in what is probably America's second most iconic industry (the entertainment industry comes first, I suppose, but advertising is what America runs on), Matthew Weiner and his writers held the sort of mirror up to reality that can make us think about who we really are.  And by setting his series in the 1960s, Weiner took the additional step of causing his viewers to think about a critical threshold in American history that saw the transformation of the country in ways that we are still coping with today. That is the fundamental value of realism: rather than distracting us from reality (as fantasy, in its myriad of forms, does), realism makes us think about ourselves.  That can make realism uncomfortable, but it also makes it a more mature venue for entertainment than fantasy can ever be.  That Matthew Weiner managed to hold onto his audience for eight years (albeit on cable, with Nielsen numbers that are only a small fraction of the top network programs, not to mention its AMC colleague, the fantasy series Walking Dead) is therefore quite an accomplishment. And while I do rather wish that fans of the show would focus more on what it can tell us about how we got to where we are today as a country than on its clothing fashions and steamy affairs, that, I suppose, is part of the price that realistic entertainment has to pay in order to get anyone to pay any attention at all. ... View more

This month found me returning to Canada, land of dreams for me ever since I taught at the University of British Columbia for ten years (1977-1987).  This time I was in Calgary, at Mount Royal University, where I gave a talk as part of their Distinguished Lecture Series and then participated in a colloquium on writing and teaching writing that brought together scholars and teachers from other Alberta Universities.  Calgary still has a frontier feel to me and I loved being in “big sky” country once again. Professor Sarah Banting of Mt. Royal’s English Department and Writing Program, convened the colloquium, which began with tea (in real teacups!) and pastries.  And it really was a colloquium, one that left plenty of time for talk and interaction, and that featured panels that were more like conversations than lectures.  (You should check out her blog, Issues in Teaching Writing: A Mount Royal University Conversation.) One major standout:  five students and one faculty member responding to questions from a moderator.  The students were thoughtful, insightful, and witty, reflecting on their experiences with writing, writing classes, and writing instructors—and on their sense of the role writing may play in their future lives.  One student, a biology major, was particularly eloquent in describing what she had learned about herself through writing and about how she expected to use writing for the rest of her life.  Other speakers described innovative courses and assignments and explored new uses of technology in the classroom.  Heather and Roger Graves (both of the University of Alberta, where Roger is Director of WAC) talked about the development of a fascinating project, The Game of Writing, which allows students to monitor their own writing processes, making progress step by step, and also to receive multiple forms of response to their writing. An extra bonus was seeing Nick Sousanis, now on a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Calgary.  Sousanis is a comics artist who visited Stanford’s Graphic Narrative Project a couple of years ago when he was writing his dissertation at Columbia University, in comic book form (!).  The book based on his dissertation—Unflattening—is just out from Harvard University.  A shape-shifting, deeply engaging meditation on the relationship between words and images and on visual thinking, it’s a book you should check out soon! As always, I came away from this colloquium energized and happy to be part of the writing studies community in North America.  After 45 years in the field, it’s good to feel that if I were starting all over again, I’d choose the same path! ... View more

This blog was originally posted on April 16th, 2015. In my last post, I suggested ways to use highlighters in peer revision.  In this one, we’re moving into dangerous territory—dangerous because scissors are involved (no running!). Bring a few pairs of scissors to class and some tape.  Ask students to cut up a copy of their paper into individual paragraphs and then to shuffle them.  (You can also ask them to do this part before class, bringing in the cut up paragraphs in an envelope.) Peers are given the individual slips of writing and then asked to put them in the right order, taping them back together. The primary goal of this exercise is to help students with organization.  I usually frame it with a discussion about organization and transitions.  Most often, students get taped together papers with one or more paragraphs out of place.  These are probably paragraphs that need a better transition but this exercise will also reveal a paper that just makes a series of points without suggesting any logical order to those points.  This is to say that the exercise will reveal both local and global problems with organization. There is a secondary effect of this technique, too.  Students, receiving long strips of taped together writing, are offered a new perspective on what they’ve accomplished by seeing how much writing they have done when receiving one long taped together strip of paper.  They tend to be really impressed with what they have been able to accomplish, as well they should be. ... View more

In my last post, I suggested ways to use highlighters in peer revision.  In this one, we’re moving into dangerous territory—dangerous because scissors are involved (no running!). Bring a few pairs of scissors to class and some tape.  Ask students to cut up a copy of their paper into individual paragraphs and then to shuffle them.  (You can also ask them to do this part before class, bringing in the cut up paragraphs in an envelope.) Peers are given the individual slips of writing and then asked to put them in the right order, taping them back together. The primary goal of this exercise is to help students with organization.  I usually frame it with a discussion about organization and transitions.  Most often, students get taped together papers with one or more paragraphs out of place.  These are probably paragraphs that need a better transition but this exercise will also reveal a paper that just makes a series of points without suggesting any logical order to those points.  This is to say that the exercise will reveal both local and global problems with organization. There is a secondary effect of this technique, too.  Students, receiving long strips of taped together writing, are offered a new perspective on what they’ve accomplished by seeing how much writing they have done when receiving one long taped together strip of paper.  They tend to be really impressed with what they have been able to accomplish, as well they should be. ... View more

Students in the writing and digital media course that I teach have started work on their final project, the “remix a story” project that I have mentioned in previous posts. For this project, students choose a story (fiction or nonfiction) and retell that story using digital composing tools. The goal is to get beyond primarily linguistic stories to create stories that engage multiple modes of communication fully. Many students will include social media as part of their remix. I have had projects that included things such as Twitter updates from Little Red Riding Hood and Facebook updates from characters in The Little Mermaid. As creative and fun as these projects are, they bring challenges: Facebook does not allow fictional sites, so students risk having their project removed if Facebook finds it. Creating logins for multiple characters can be at best tedious and at worst impossible for sites that allow only one account per email address. Project assets made with the real social media sites sometimes include extraneous information Students may need to know how to edit screenshots to remove timestamps, for instance. Students shouldn’t have to use their personal accounts for such projects. Their private social media stream should be private, not filled with updates from Little Red Riding Hood and the Big, Bad Wolf. To address these challenges, I point students to these online tools that allow them to fake social media updates. Facebook Fakebook, Fake Facebook Generators, The Wall Machine Twitter Fake Twitter Generators, LemmeTweetThatForYou, Twister Text Messages iPhone Fake Phone Texts, iOS7 Text Generator, SMS Generator,IFakeText SnapChat Snapr, Fake Snap Others iPad Message Generator, Sign Generators, Ticket-O-Matic, iFakeSiri There are additional tools at ClassTools.net and BigHugeLabs that could work, depending upon the story and remix goals a student has. I do talk about ethical use of the tools when I share the list in class. It’s not that I don’t trust my students, but many of the sites talk about pranking people with your fake creations. That isn’t our goal, and I want to avoid any mixed messages. I’m always on the lookout for tools to add the list. If you have a suggestion, please leave me a comment below, or drop by my page on Facebook or Google+. ... View more

This blog was originally posted on March 16th, 2015. Today’s guest blogger is Jeanne Law Bohannon. As I write this week’s post, I am wrapping up an illuminating weekend at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and its library’s conference Digitorium, where I engaged with colleagues who use critical pedagogy to “do the work” of digital humanities (DH).  There were so many different kinds of re/mixing and re/envisioning happening, that I felt, for the first time, the true interdisciplinarity of DH.  My colleagues were leading students in geocaching and visualizing distance reading data from biblical texts (see Bo Adam’s Presentation). So much of what I saw made me think about how our students really do produce texts for various publics, more and more frequently in digital spaces.  And it also made me think hard about the “doing of DH” and how we, as instructors, don’t have to be IT professionals to find a comfortable praxis in this “doing” and “re/mixing.” As I’ve written in an earlier post, this semester has been a reflective opportunity for me, in terms of re/mixing writing for multimodal assignments and applying multimodal composition as DIYs across genres and contexts. This week, I offer a re/mix of analytical micro-studies, re/envisioned for a podcasting genre and public dissemination on YouTube. Context This public text construction comes at the end of an upper division writing course, after students have drafted two micro-studies, demonstrating their understanding of specific language conventions and associated usages in digital spaces. Throughout the course, students practice applying grammar and syntactic structures in unconventional ways across digital platforms in social and public media.  YouTube is, of course, one of the most popular of these spaces. YouTube was part of our daily lives in this class, from serving as digital teacher, Ian McCarthy on Social Media, to digital tipster, Writing Better Blog Posts.  As we watched to learn, students began to comment about adding their own voices to these video conversations about grammar(s) and creating content in digital spaces.  So, we crowd-sourced an idea: student-produced vlog-casts. Assignment A re/mixed analytical study, re/imagined from a traditional, academic essay to a multimodal, public vlog-cast. Goals and Measurable Learning Objectives Apply multimodal composition strategies to video productions Create vlogs as rhetorical, content-delivery devices Synthesize meaning through critical production of digital texts on-screen Background Reading for Students and Instructors Acts of reading and viewing visual texts are ongoing processes for attaining learning goals in democratic, digital writing assignments.  Ask students to plan by reading relevant content from your handbook: The St. Martin’s Handbook: Chapter 2, “Rhetorical Situations”; Section 6a, “Collaborating in College”; Chapter 7, “Reading Critically” The Everyday Writer: Chapters 5-11, “The Writing Process;” Chapter 20, “Writing to the World” Writing in Action: Chapter 4, “A Writer’s Choices”; Chapter 9, “Reading Critically” EasyWriter: Sections 1c-1g, “A Writer’s Choices”; Section 3a, “Reading Critically” Before Class: Student and Instructor Preparation My students and I run this writing assignment late in the semester, as a re/mix of a previous one.  Prior to starting the process, the class reads, responds to, and discusses multimodalities of texts and content management across digital discourses. We read Bohannon’s Multimodalities for Students and Popular Media Writing Tips.  We also peer review each other’s original micro-studies and offer ideas for relevant topics. In Class and/or Out During the semester, we watch YouTube instructional videos.  For this class, we collaboratively searched YouTube for videos that taught us brief histories of English, helped us figure out usage (courtesy of Grammar Girl),and advised us on how to write for popular media.  Searching together as a group was a most rewarding experience; I highly recommend it! After each viewing, we then analyze key rhetorical components through the Five Elements for Visual Analysis, noting what works and what doesn’t for different audiences and purposes.  We provide feedback in both large and small groups to re/vise our writing for Vlog-casting Guidelines. We then produce our “Grammar Vlogs,” using tools such as iMovie, QuickTime, Movie Maker, and Garage Band. The average time spent is about four, one-hour class periods, with production happening outside of class. Next Steps: Reflections on the Activity When my students reflected on this writing opportunity, here’s what they said: Based on my experience with this assignment I would do it all over it again. It was fairly simple because I was able to find information about putting together the technological parts of it online, as well as, through my professor and other students’ advice. One issue I came across was making sure the audio matched the timer but after playing with the slides for a while, I was able to make it work. I was inspired to continue practicing my skills and decided to start a YouTube channel of my own this summer. – Brittany Rosario, Digital Pragmatics When deciding what topic to do for my vlog-cast, I thought it would be really cool to do one about language, using multimodalities. It felt 100% authentic to be discussing the linguistic phenomena of up-talk and vocal fry, and I thought that it was just organic and real. That’s why I decided to go with a vlog-cast instead of a traditional essay style of writing.  I thought it definitely helped me with a better understanding of my topic. – Becca Tuck, Watch Becca’s Vlog-Cast “I enjoyed this assignment because my topic gave me an opportunity to reflect upon the characteristics of my fellow students. It was less formal than the traditional essay, [and] making the vlog helped me understand my topic in more ways than just seeing my thoughts written out.” – McKenna Hight, The Institutional Dialects of Students at SPSU My Reflection I think this assignment would work well across topics and courses, because it doesn’t teach content, but rhetorical behaviors.  It draws out rhetorical performances as well, which engenders creativity and scholarly research processes that are relevant throughout the Humanities. Instructors could re/mix their own topics and search for YouTube videos that are specific to their students’ interests and needs.  I would love for folks outside of our field to try it, so please share this post with others! Also, please leave me feedback here or at rhetoricmatters.org. Guest blogger Jeanne Law Bohannon is an Assistant Professor in the Digital Writing and Media Arts (DWMA) department at Kennesaw State University. She believes in creating democratic learning spaces, where students become stakeholders in their own rhetorical growth though authentic engagement in class communities. Her research interests include evaluating digital literacies, critical pedagogies, and New Media theory; performing feminist rhetorical recoveries; and growing informed and empowered student scholars. Reach Jeanne at: Jeanne_bohannon@kennesaw.edu and www.rhetoricmatters.org Want to collaborate with Andrea on a Multimodal Monday assignment? Send ideas to leah.rang@macmillan.com for possible inclusion in a future post. ... View more

This blog was originally posted on April 13th, 2015. As the end of the term draws near for many of us, we may wish to provide a writing process review for students. We could rehash textbook pages or websites that offer basic information about writing processes, as well as written products and genres of academic writing. But spring has sprung for many of us, and summer looms and attention drifts. How can we offer students opportunities to remember what they have learned about writing—and putting their learning into practice? A kinesthetic approach to review can help. In kinesthetic learning, students turn away from laptop and tablet screens and use whole-body movement to rehearse significant concepts. For review purposes, the activity I present in class is called “What do we already know about writing and how can we apply our knowledge to our current writing project?” Step 1: On the board, create four separate columns: Introduction, Body, Conclusion, Other Step 2: Students use sticky notes to write as many concepts as they remember about the writing process and about the appearance of the final product. Step 3: Students stick their sticky notes to a blank space on the wall and observe what everyone else has written. Step 4: Students divide into groups based on each of the four columns: Introduction, Body, Conclusion, Other. Step 5: Each separate group moves the appropriate sticky notes from the wall to the column on the board designated for their column. Step 6: Each group of students explains to the rest of the class which sticky notes they chose for their column and why they were chosen. Step 7: Students and instructor discuss the choices made, and also clear up contradictions, discrepancies, and overlaps between the processes and products listed on the sticky notes. Results almost certainly vary between classes, and each group of students can add its own flourishes. One class member, for instance, shared heart-shaped sticky notes left over from Valentines Day. Paired with a variety of dry-eraser marker colors, the final display was detailed and bright, with hearts popping to emphasize significant points. This display brought up design questions that intersect with online multimedia writing. In another class, students debated about the order of the writing process: should writers always write an introduction first? Or is it possible to write an introduction near the end of the process, even though the introduction needs to be placed at the beginning of the essay? The students decided that it depended on the genre of the writing project. Essay tests might require a more linear process, while a 1500-word researched essay might be more open-ended—or not. Students offered differing versions of how and why they grappled with their individual processes and products of writing. As the instructor, I enjoyed the experience of watching students demonstrate what they already know about writing and how they could apply it to their current writing project. But perhaps most significantly, it was even more thrilling to bear witness to students’ intellectual engagements and commitments to writing. Through participating in kinesthetic activity and discussing the results, students developed a stronger sense of what they knew as individual writers, and also of what they could create through collective participation. This exercise proved useful as a writing review—and also as an activity for moving forward together. ... View more

This blog was originally posted on April 10th, 2015. Indiana’s controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act reminds us once again of the role that definition can play in argumentation. The case has been made that the recent Indiana law is no different from the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act signed into law by President Clinton in 1993. One crucial difference, however, is a matter of definition. The federal RFRA states, “Government shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability.” The wording of the state law is identical except that the term “governmental entity” replaces “government.” That is not the crucial difference, however. What is crucial is that where the federal law does not define the word “person,” the Indiana law explicitly gives it a much broader definition than most people would expect. A person is not just an individual, but “an organization, a religious society, a church, a body of communicants . . . . a partnership, a limited liability company, a corporation, a company, a firm, a society, a joint-stock company . . . .”  By stipulating that broad—and unexpected—definition of a person, Indiana has changed the whole interpretation of the law—or opened it up to a much broader range of interpretation. It would be useful for our students to consider how that stipulated definition changes the law. The Indiana controversy is reminiscent of the controversy that revolved around Chick-Fil-A not too long ago. In that case, not an individual, but a company, was making decisions based on religion. That company drew criticism and boycotts because it donated to organizations opposed to same-sex marriage. It neither refused to hire or to serve gay or lesbian individuals. A question for students to consider is how the Indiana law would apply to that situation. The key term “exercise of religion,” of course, is open to interpretation, and it is the discriminatory forms that the exercise of religion can take in this day of broader acceptance of same-sex marriage that have led to most of the outcry against the law. The owners of a bakery refuse to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple because they view homosexuality as a sin. Not a life-threatening exercise of religion, but how far should exercise of religion go in a world where members of ISIS use religion as justification for their atrocities? ... View more