This blog was originally posted on September 29th, 2014. Guest blogger Kim Haimes-Korn is a Professor in the Digital Writing and Media Arts (DWMA) Department at Southern Polytechnic 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. This week, Kim shares her multimodal visual timelines assignment and some student projects. You can reach Kim at khaimesk@spsu.edu or at actsofcomposition.khaimesk.org “I felt that our Timeline project was the most intellectually involved assignment I’ve had in a long time. I felt more inclined to give my full attention, and express myself more than I would in a typical task. I especially felt free in not being afraid to show who I am” ~Jacob ~ Composition teachers have long used literacy narrative assignments to promote rhetorical awareness and critical thinking about the ways our literacy experiences shape our lives and academic work.  I extend on this assignment expanding our definitions of literacies to include all kinds of texts and discourse communities (both traditional and digital) that have impacted our lives.  Our class discussion focuses on the ways one is considered “literate” in this day and age.  In this Literacies Experiences Timeline assignment, my students explore and reflect on these types of literacy experiences and use a multimodal, visual timeline to help tell our stories. The assignment asks students to place their literacy experiences on adigital visual timeline.   Most of the students use Dipity, an online timeline creator, but they can choose other timeline and presentation applications as well.   In the timeline creator, students place their experiences in chronological order and compose descriptive bubbles to accompany each entry.  Each bubble contains a description of the literacy experience along with a multimodal representative image (a photo, drawing, video, animation, podcast, screenshot, etc.).   I encourage students to move beyond mere information about their digital artifacts, explore the ways their own experiences overlap with the artifacts they described, and connect the artifacts to their overall messages and purposes.   The selection of the artifacts is important as it asks students to think critically and selectively about their literacy experiences.  They have to look at the design of their lives and realize which events were meaningful and which ones shaped their developing perspectives, decisions and identities. After students create and revise their timelines (through peer feedback), they  compose a contextualized authors’ statement in which they describe their literacy experiences as a whole, analyzing the isolated bubbles on the timeline. The purpose of this part of the assignment is to consider a larger audience and to rhetorically contextualize their timelines (they will later embed these as part of their blogs).   In other words, they have to bring purpose, audience, voice, and perspective to their timelines to situate them in a different rhetorical context.  The assignment calls for them to bring together the textual and the visual in meaningful ways for this multimodal form. Assignment Goals Explore the broad definition of literacies including digital literacies and discourse communities. Help students gain rhetorical awareness as they compose for different audience, purposes, genres and contexts. Introduce multimodal peer responding techniques. Engage students in ethical digital practices through online citation instruction and introduction to public domain and creative commons resources. Background Reading for Students and Instructors Acts of textual and visual design using multimodal elements are on-going learning opportunities for instructors.  Below, I have listed a few foundational texts and helpful links.  I encourage teachers to add to and enrich the list. The St. Martin’s Handbook: Ch. 21, “Online Texts”; Ch. 2, “Rhetorical Situations”; Ch. 23, “Design for Writing”       The Everyday Writer and Writer’s Help E-Book: Section 3a, “Plan online assignments”; Ch. 5, “Rhetorical Situations”;  Ch. 9, “Making Design Decisions”             Writing in Action: Ch. 6, “Multimodal Assignments”; Ch. 4 “A Writer’s Choices”; Ch. 8, “Making Design Decisions”               EasyWriter: Ch. 4, “Multimodal Writing”; Ch. 1, “A Writer’s Choices”; Section 2f, “Designing” Timeline Creator: Dipity (Note – we did find that this application worked better with certain browsers – another lesson in digital pedagogies) Creative Commons and other public domain sites Mark Prensky, “Digital Immigrants, Digital Natives” The Idea Channel, Are there Internet Dialects? (video) Steps to the Assignment Introduce students to the concept of multiple literacies – traditional, digital and discourse communities.  Ask them to compose an exploratory writing in which they identify, define and give examples of their literacy experiences.  Encourage them to interact with the ideas of others, including their classmates and online sources. After the class has shared ideas and discussed all kinds of literacy experiences I have them list as many of their own defining literacy experiences (traditional, digital, discourse communities) that they can recall.  I encourage them to think about experiences from their young childhood (reading aloud, learning to read, parents sharing stories, favorite books, television shows, magazines, etc.) and those that developed and defined themselves as they moved into adulthood (first phone, social media, video projects, music, impactful movies, important groups, etc.) . Send students to a timeline creator tool such asDipity(or one of their choosing) to start adding the items from their list onto the timeline.   Have them select and focus on defining moments in this timeline to create a portrait of the ways they use digital literacies in their daily lives. For each of the entries they will need to add a short textual description that speaks to the source and why it is part of their literacy timeline.  They should include a multimodal, representative image for each of the selections. They should include both literal images and representative images in multiple modes.  The descriptions should include more than information and should also address their experiential overlay as they bring meaning and purpose to their selections. This is a good time to introduce ethical citation practices for the internet.  Include introductions to Creative Commons and other public domain sites. Next, students work in peer response groups to give each other feedback towards revision.  As a class,  work to define and identify the rhetorical expectations of this mulitmodal composition.  Click this link to a sample multimodal rubric to see the one I used for this assignment.  After workshop, students revise based on feedback. For the final step, have students compose an accompanying contextual author’s statement for their visual timeline in which they reflect on their literacy experiences as a whole.  Basically, they should write a narrative essay that includes some of the particular experiences (from their visual timeline) along with overall observations of what it means for them to be “literate” these days as a digital native.  Have them examine the connections between their experiences to create a portrait of the ways these experiences shaped them as people.  Ask them to reflect upon how their individual experiences have defined them, their communities, or their worldview.  In the end of this reflective piece, have students introduce their visual timeline and include the link to access the visual work.  This assignment works easily into a blog post and shows students how the visual and the textual work together to create context and meaning (I usually take these through a round of peer response and revision as well). I always have students share finished projects with their classmates.  Bringing their ideas to a larger audience is a big part of this assignment. You can feature some for whole class or small group viewing and discussion. Teaching and Reflecting Through the Multimodal Lens Many times when I create multimodal assignments I move from the textual to the visual.  In this case, however, I reversed that idea and had students compose the visual first.  I think this is a product of that little voice in the back of our heads that still tells us that we should do thetraditional writing first and then follow with the “fun” stuff.   As we move deeper into multimodal composition we recognize the recursive nature of revision—that we can revisit parts of the process any time during the process.  Multimodal composition teaches us that all of these modes of communication are on the same level but just require different rhetorical approaches and practices.  Textual and visual composition now work together to construct and communicate meaning. It was interesting to notice that students engaged immediately with this project when starting with the visual.   They enjoyed learning about each other through the visual timelines and connected through common cultural references.  The fact that they shared experiences such as getting their first phone, reading Green Eggs and Ham, posting on Facebook or playing World of Warcraft helped them to reflect on the ways these experiences have the power to both define and invent.   Many also noticed connections between their early literacy experiences and their choice of major.  The timeline acted as both an interesting final product and also a dynamic tool for rhetorical invention and idea generation.   Students reported that the author’s statements (the literacy narrative portion) were much easier to compose because of the visual literacies timeline and saw these modes working in concert to communicate in ways they had not previously considered.  One of my students states it nicely: This assignment made me think about how literacy is in a lot more life experiences than I originally thought. It’s not just reading and writing — it is an understanding for certain things. We had to look back on our past experiences that have led us to learning and literacy, be it reading your first few books or sitting down to watch your favorite movie, and we organized it through internet media. The timeline was a visual representation of our ideas put into chronological order. Then our author’s statement just explained it a little more. I think the assignment was engaging and great for visual thinkers. ~ Alfredo Check out the Assignment Shout-outs for more student feedback on the assignment. Student Timeline Examples My students generously agreed to share their visual timelines on my page.   Enjoy and share these samples with your students as they create their own Literacy Experiences Timelines. Check them out at Literacies Experience Timelines (Fall 2014 Composition I) 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 October 27th, 2014. Today's guest blogger is Kim Haimes-Korn. Guest blogger Kim Haimes-Korn is a Professor in the Digital Writing and Media Arts (DWMA) Department at Southern Polytechnic 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. This week, Kim shares her “lifehacking” assignment and some student examples. You can reach Kim at khaimesk@spsu.edu or at actsofcomposition.khaimesk.org I have my students use blogs to shape their digital identities and provide a space for them to share their work and ideas with others. I encourage them to go out into the world and critically examine their place within it through weekly exploratory blog posts. Many of these assignments are open ended and based on their observations and perceptions. However, I like to switch it up every once in a while and ask them to use a particular style or format as a rhetorical device to shape and deliver their ideas. I draw from ancient rhetorical strategies of heuristics — ​ topics of invention to vary their discourse and provide different types of critical and visual arguments. It is this idea that led me to this assignment about “life hacking.” Goals Teach students how to compose critical, textual and visual arguments. Teach an awareness of audience beyond the classroom. Use a heuristic structure to increase rhetorical awareness. Encourage students to understand how to balance narration and exposition. Background Reading for Students and Instructors Acts of textual and visual design using multimodal elements are on-going learning opportunities for instructors.  Below, I have listed a few foundational texts and helpful links.  I encourage teachers to add to and enrich the list. The St. Martin’s Handbook: Sections 8a-e, Analyzing Arguments; Chapter 24, “Writing to the World” The Everyday Writer and Writer’s Help E-Book: Sections 13 a – d, Analyzing Arguments; Chapter 20, “Writing to the World” Writing in Action: Sections 10a-d, Analyzing Arguments; Chapter 17, “Writing to the World” EasyWriter: Sections 3b-3d, Analyzing Arguments; Chapter 29, “Writing to the World” Lifehacks Website: lifehack.org Creative Commons and other public domain sites. The Assignment Students compose this post using the “lifehack” format to deliver their ideas. The parameters define the requirements for them to include images along with a numbered entry in their list. The list must be substantiated with their numbered entries along with a textual explanation that supports their lifehacks and reveals their perspectives and ideas. According to Wikipedia, lifehacking refers to: [A]ny trick, shortcut, skill, or novelty method that increases productivity and efficiency, in all walks of life. It is arguably a modern appropriation of a gordian knot –in other words, anything that solves an everyday problem in an inspired, ingenious manner. I send them first to the site lifehack.org to familiarize themselves with the format, style and language of the genre. Here is an excerpt from the Lifehack website that defines their purpose: Lifehack is your source for tips to help improve all aspects of your life. We are widely recognized as one of the premier productivity and lifestyle blogs on the web. This site is dedicated to lifehacks, which is a phrase that describes any advice, resource, tip or trick that will help you get things done more efficiently and effectively. Once students are on the site, I guide them  to explore and  familiarize themselves with the voice, style, audience, format, and the ways the bloggers use visual rhetoric. When students look at individual posts, they will notice that all of the posts have a similar structure and purpose, but it is in the content and the composition choices the bloggers make to construct their critical and visual arguments that make the posts unique and interesting. Students will notice that the lifehack.org sites have some things in common: They are ordered by number. They usually start with titles such as 16 Common Foods We Chronically Misspell. Content is generated from the pulling together of facts and tips from outside sources along with their own experiences or ideas. All of them, however, include the author’s own perspectives on subjects as they contextualize them within their own framework: 10 Harsh Things about Being an Adult. They are based on perspectives, experiences, and outside resources: 10 Unique and Totally Mind-Blowing Buildings from Around the World. They can take the form of recommendations: 77 books that Changed My Life. They use images and text to make their meanings known. Authors use both still images and animated videos – this example does both: 25 Secret Parenting Tips You Won’t Find in Typical Parenting Books. As students compose their lifehacks, they follow the format on the site and must come up with an appropriate, engaging title, a purposeful introduction to their subject, and a list, which includes images and an explanation in which they overlay their own perspectives.  It is not enough for them to just list and describe.  Instead they must substantiate through the lens of their own experiences and demonstrate a strong sense of audience awareness. I have them compose  visual images of their own photographs and also allow them to use copyright-free outside images and other multimodal artifacts (with attribution).  Students then work in small group peer review sessions to gauge audience response and provide suggestions for revision. Reflections on the Activity Students really enjoyed this activity.  It enabled them to connect with a familiar internet, multimodal format and engage in their own life learning through the lifehack mission.  The assignment gives them a chance to take authority and describe things that they know to be true and shows them how to take information and ideas and overlay their experiences and perspectives.  The peer review sessions help them develop additional criteria for revision that demonstrate their rhetorical awareness towards this act of composition.  Students observed that many of them share similar experiences and that there is humor and wisdom in sharing these ideas with others.Some of the students, like Phillip and Andrew, focused on the lives defined by their majors.  I included both to demonstrate different perspectives and rhetorical approaches on the same subject.  Others like Kyle explored a personal issue within a larger framework.  Rafael, an exchange student from Brazil, chose to share some of his culture, and Asante chose a current topical issue to critique. Check out these students’ lifehack projects on their blogs: 8 Things that Make you Hate Architecture - Phillip Sanders 10 Survival tips for Architecture Students – Andrew Mesa 7 most difficult things to deal with when you are over 6 ft tall – Kyle Lamb 7 Types of Brazilian Food You Have to Try by the End of this Year – Rafael Albuquerque 7 Reasons the US Should Not Be Petrified of Ebola – Asante Lloyd Or, check them out on my teaching blog: Acts of Composition.​ 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 26th, 2015. At the end of last year, I went to hear students in PWR 2 at Stanford (that’s the second year writing class) participate in a conference, during which they gave presentations based on their research this term. As I expected, the presentations were all fun to listen to and packed with information: the students were dressed up and doing their best to get and hold their audience’s attention. (Of course, I wouldn’t be a teacher if I didn’t have some suggestions for improvement—and all the presenters I heard could have used more work on transitions: “and now,” for instance, isn’t a very helpful transition for listeners, especially if it’s repeated over and over!) But the presentations were all engaging, and after a while I began to notice that some of the students were using very intriguing icons to mark call-out items or ideas on their slides:  no bullet points for these speakers. After the presentations were over, I asked one of the students about it and she said, “Do you know The Noun Project?” I did not. But now I have checked it out and discovered that the Project was founded by Edward Boatman, Sofya Polyakov, and Scott Thomas in 2010, when they produced a catalog with several hundred non-copyrighted icons. Since that time, the Project has grown exponentially; now designers around the world contribute new symbols and icons. Their website (see thenounproject.com) announces their goal as “Creating, Sharing and Celebrating the World’s Visual Language,” inspired by Edward’s insight that “It would be really great if I had a drawing of every single object or concept on the planet.” Such drawings, symbols, and icons can help foster communication across languages, cultures, and space. The student I spoke with was using a fish from the Project to act more or less like a bullet point, only more interesting—and appropriate since she was talking about marine biology.  Good idea—but once I was on the Noun Project site, I could imagine many other uses for these symbols, which the creators refer to as “a silent language that speaks louder than words.” I’m not sure I would go quite so far: I don’t think visual symbols will replace words any time soon (and besides, words are themselves visual images when they are written down). But they work beautifully with words to help get messages across clearly and succinctly. Check out The Noun Project website—and be sure to click on the short video embedded on the home page! ... View more

This blog was originally posted on February 25th, 2015. It’s always surprised me that I don’t teach online.  I am a tech-heavy guy, often an early adopter, and much of my work has involved computers and composition. But I tried teaching a writing course online once and, frankly, I thought it was a disaster.  Granted, I was doing it somewhere around the turn of the millennium; I’m certain the technology has changed since then.  But I’ve been stubbornly dead set against writing instruction online for most of my career. That must change. In part, it’s my whole “teachability” thing: I think I need to look back and reexamine old conclusions.  A more pressing part, though, is a new mandate from our school to get our FYC courses online.  It’s not entirely clear where the pressure is coming from: eLearning, the Dean of Undergraduate Studies, the Provost.  Dunno.  But the orders have come and now the challenge is making it happen in a way that maximizes student learning and success. My basic objections have always been related to two points.  First, composition classes are process-based classes, not content-based.  Sure, I can see how it would be easy to put a video lecture on Blackboard, toss up some quizzes, add an exam and be done with it.  It seems easy to me to deliver content through Content Management Systems (duh). But how does one teach process online?  It strikes me as being as odd as trying to teach sculpture online. My limited experience suggests that any attempt to do so triggers my second objection: time.  Specifically, it feels like writing courses takes a lot more time online.  If I am having discussion in a 50-minute class it takes 50 minutes.  Move that discussion onto a discussion board, though, and I have to read each student response, engage appropriately, and redirect or respond, a process which I think ends up taking a lot longer than 50 minutes. Maybe I am wrong.  I have to be.  I know that lots of schools teach writing online.  I’m just not sure how they do it effectively. I may be signing up for the Cs workshop on the topic and you can bet I’ll be reading widely in the field.  But if you’ve taught online and feel that you’ve found a way that really works, let me know, OK? ... View more

This blog was originally posted on February 24th, 2015. Ever have one of those days when you wanted to connect with colleagues who were teaching the same things you were? A new online community has formed that provides just that kind of connection for me. The Teaching the Rhetoric of Social Media group on Facebook was founded two weeks ago by Christina Fisanick. Born from a discussion of resources on the Writing Program Administrators discussion list, the Facebook group has this simple goal: Teaching the Rhetoric of Social Media is a group focused on helping students understand how to analyze and create artifacts for social media. Anyone can join the group, though new members do have to be approved (to avoid spambots). Facebook groups are separate from your personal timeline and news feed, so you can participate in the community without posting the information to everyone you know on Facebook. So far, group members have shared assignments and syllabi, collaborated to answer questions, discussed online identity profiles, and posted links to relevant resources. The group may be only two weeks old today, but it’s already a wonderful resource and supportive community. Please consider joining in the conversation. All you have to do it log into Facebook, visit the Teaching the Rhetoric of Social Media group page, and click the Join button. Someone will approve your request (usually in a few minutes), and you can post a self-introduction and begin connecting with the community. We’d love to have you. [Photo: Social Media Class by mkhmarketing, on Flickr] ... View more

This blog was originally posted on February 23rd, 2015. In many classrooms, multimodal presentations are becoming par for the (composition) course, and other Bits authors and Multimodal Mondays bloggers have shared ways to take presentations beyond PowerPoint (see "Multimodal Mondays: Composing Identities with Literacies Experience Timelines" and "When to Prezi" for examples). Instructors are thinking not only about different types of presentations but about different ways—and contexts—to use presentations. Traditionally, presentations have been cumulative, a capstone on a well-developed research project. But presentations can also be useful tools for invention and for establishing a writing community in your classroom. Added benefits are building visual literacy and giving a platform for visual learners to brainstorm and share their ideas. Goal To present research proposals and build a writing community in a class PechaKucha Event. 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, Chapter 17, “Presentations” Everything’s an Argument, Chapter 15, “Presenting Arguments” The Everyday Writer, section 3c, “Prepare for Presentations” Writing in Action, section 6b “Prepare for Presentations” EasyWriter, section 4b, “Creating Presentations” In class For this activity, students will prepare a PechaKucha to present their research project proposals. (If you decide the 400 seconds of a full PechaKucha is too long, you may opt to have students collaborate on a presentation, or pair students who have similar topics and can be responsible for equal portions of the slides).Take the time in class to explain the PechaKucha format and show some examples of the presentations, plenty of which are available at the PechaKucha website; it’s likely you’ll find a presentation on the theme of your course or your assignment, if you have a limited focus. It might be useful to share that the PechaKucha format was developed by an architecture firm to prevent architects from talking too long about their work. This means that this kind of presentation has real-world implications and a place beyond the classroom, and that it can be exploratory and perhaps even a bit informal. PechaKuchas are also developed to be events, featured in global PechaKucha Nights, which means that the social context of the format is one of its essential aspects. In class, students should approach this activity in two ways: Students should use the guidelines from your research project to consider their argument, the sources they will research, and their ideas for how they might support their arguments: giving context, offering rebuttals, exploring entry points into the conversations, explaining why the topic is relevant, etc. Remind students that this stage is exploratory; they can provide several options they might pursue. Students should also think about how they might present their ideas visually in the PechaKucha format. They might consider photographs from news sources, data charts that piqued their interest (and might be used as sources later), abstract images that represent their ideas or research plans, even “selfies” in which students position themselves in the context of their arguments. Encourage them to be creative! Together, develop criteria for a good PechaKucha proposal. For example, you might consider questions like the following to develop your guidelines: What is the benefit of providing visuals to share your ideas? What counts as a “visual”? Pictures?  Words? Something else? How should you organize your proposal to have the most impact on your audience? What are the benefits to presenting your proposal in this format rather than writing a formal proposal? What are the challenges? What are the advantages of presenting to your classmates? How should the audience engage with your presentation? Assignment Ask students to develop and present (or record) their research project proposals in a PechaKucha-style presentation that they will share during your class’s PechaKucha Event. You can choose to structure your Event as a continuous presentation, with students jumping up to give their ideas when it’s their turn, or you can choose to have students present individually or in small groups. Adding in breaks allows for questions, while a continuous loop might make students feel like they’re all part of the same presentation and might add to a looser atmosphere. Before the Event, have students submit their slides to you, and you can combine the slides, inserting a slide with the presenter name(s) before each proposal. Set the slides to advance every twenty seconds (check out the YouTube video below to learn about the basics of setting up a PowerPoint for the PechaKucha format). Depending on your resources or goals, you might consider making the PechaKucha Event an occasion that expands beyond the classroom, much like the official PechaKucha Nights that occur in cities around the world. Perhaps you could schedule an event for multiple sections or your course so that students in different classes can share their ideas. It’s up to you! Regardless, making the proposal presentation more of an event will stress the importance of early planning and thinking for a research project and remind students that it’s not just about the final product—each step is important and event-worthy. Reflection on the activity                  Ask students to reflect on the presentations they and their classmates have created, using questions like these as prompts for discussion or writing: How did setting up the proposal in a PechaKucha format help you conceptualize your writing project? How did it challenge you? How will you use the audience’s interactions and questions as you move forward with your project? What would you do differently if you were to present your proposal again? What advice would you give to other students who are asked to do this assignment in the future? 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 19th, 2015. You may have seen an article in the New York Times called “Writing Your Way to Happiness.” This essay corroborated earlier research that has connected writing with improved health, though the author here focuses on if and how writing can lead to behavioral change and “improve happiness.” A number of studies indicate that writing can indeed lead to such changes. As the author puts it, “by writing and then editing our own stories, we can change our perceptions of ourselves and identify obstacles that stand in the way of better health.” I found the article fascinating, and encouraging, although the behaviorist leanings of some of the studies reported on left me less than thrilled. But closer to home, I have seen the benefits of life writing/revising at work. Bronwyn LaMay’s (brilliant) dissertation reported on an ethnographic study she had done of students of color who attended a very tough high school. She followed one class for an entire year, during which they read Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon and wrote about love in their own lives. Bronwyn is working on a book that describes the study and her students, and I’ll be reviewing and recommending it to you as soon as it is available, because the results were truly remarkable. Bronwyn led her students in reading—word for word, line for line—Morrison’s book, and talking about the kinds of love represented there—and about the way that some characters attempted to intervene in the plot lines of their lives. Slowly the students began to apply this concept to their own lives: what stories or plot lines could they see their own lives taking—and how might they write their way toward interventions and changes in those stories? They tackled this question with energy and passion and commitment. Recently, Bronwyn and I had a chance to introduce the same questions to a group of students participating in Stanford’s Project WRITE, which brings students from East Palo Alto high schools to campus on Saturday mornings during the winter for writing workshops of all kinds. The one Bronwyn and I led began with a simple question: what is love? We showed the group some things Toni Morrison has to say about love (“actually, I think all the time when I write, I’m writing about love or its absence”) and some quotations from Bronwyn’s former students, like this one: As I was growing up all I heard around me was “I love you,” “te amo,” without showing it. My definition of love when I was growing up was somebody hurting you physically and emotionally, but that was just a way of them showing their loved ones love. The students then wrote on their own in short spurts about their definitions of love, and during discussion we asked them what kind of a story these definitions told about their lives. Once we got there, the students were hooked: they talked to and often over one another, and then they wrote. And wrote some more. We left them with the assignment to carry on this piece of writing during the week and to return to the workshop the following Saturday. I was certain they would come prepared as never before. As Bronwyn points out, students in their high school years are focused (inevitably and as they should be) on themselves, on who they are and who they might be. Writing that guides them in exploring these questions is the kind of writing I think of when I hear about “writing your way to happiness.” Writing alone can’t change the cold hard facts of many young people’s lives. But it can begin the work of interrogating those facts, of interpreting them and shaping them. And revising their lives in the process. ... View more

This blog was originally posted on February 19th, 2015. My candidate for the hands-down “what were they thinking?” award for Super Bowl XLIX is GoDaddy’s now-notorious “Puppy” ad, which was pulled from the broadcast schedule days before the game. The ad, of course, was a parody of last year’s Budweiser puppy ad, highlighting something (oddly enough) that I pointed out in my Blog analysis of that ad—namely, that for all the heart warm, the Budweiser puppy was, in effect, a commodity for sale.  GoDaddy’s version made this its punch line, with the adorable Golden Retriever pup returning home only to be shipped out again by his breeder, who smugly observes that the sale was made possible by her GoDaddy sponsored web page. Indeed, I’m really beginning to wonder whether the GoDaddy ad team read my analysis of last year’s Budweiser puppy ad, because I also discussed there how Budweiser’s puppy narrative fit into a system that includes the movie Hachi: A Dog’s Tale, and, sure enough, the GoDaddy ad is packed with Hachi-like music and imagery. But that’s not the point of this blog.  I’m much more interested in noting how the GoDaddy debacle illustrates a fundamental principle of conducting semiotic analyses of advertising. That principle is that advertisements characteristically try to associate some unrelated emotion with a product in order to move consumers towards purchasing it. The 2014 Budweiser puppy ad does this by appealing to its intended audience’s affection for cute animals (horses as well as dogs) to sell beer. The emotions stimulated in the GoDaddy ad are a great deal more complex, however. Audience affection for puppies isanticipated, but it is undercut by the pratfall-like reversal at the end of the ad, which turns upon a doubly humorous revelation: first, that the ad is a parody of the famous Budweiser ad; and second, that it is a satire of the sort of person who breeds dogs for profit. Now, as an ad that plays upon viewer awareness of the prior ads that are being parodied, the GoDaddy ad joins the tradition of such campaigns as the Energizer Bunny series.  Ads of this kind play upon their intended audiences’ disgust with advertising itself, and thus make viewers feel good about the product because the ad that is pitching it is also ridiculing advertising.  Given the track record of such advertisements, the GoDaddy ad should have been a success. But the strikingly unsympathetic character of the dog breeder in the GoDaddy ad is much more ambiguous. We are clearly not supposed to like her (an emotion that can be anticipated in an audience full of dog lovers). But, strangely enough, the dog breeder is also the one who is identified with GoDaddy, when she happily exclaims that it was her GoDaddy-hosted web site that enabled her to sell the puppy in the first place as she packs it off again into exile. Um, what were they thinking?  No wonder they pulled the ad—but the damage had already been done. Moral of story: if you are going to advertise a product on the basis of unrelated emotions rather than on the objective facts of the product itself, you’d better get your emotions straight.  Satirical humor can be a very effective way of moving the goods, but there are some things you mess with at your peril—puppies come to mind. ... View more

This blog was originally posted on February 18th, 2015. I just made my reservations for the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC).  Wow, some lessons learned. The first lesson: reserve rooms early.  I couldn’t get into the host hotel or the backup hotel or even the backup, backup hotel.  I’m only about a mile away from the conference but I know from past experience there is no greater pleasure than getting through a long day of panels and then simply stepping into an elevator and collapsing in my room. This year I will be taking a hike before collapsing.  I have to admit I was really kind of shocked.  I just never expected it to be that hard to find a hotel room in Tampa of all places. The second lesson is closely connected: CV lines are expensive.  I tried every traveler’s trick I know, including Kayak, Orbitz, Hotels.com, AAA discounts, state government rates—everything. I still can’t believe it costs $250+ a night to stay in Tampa. When all is said and done, I will be spending about $1,000 to attend the conference.  Luckily, it’s just across the state from me so I can drive there.  If I had to fly in, that cost would be even higher.  That’s a lot of money, it seems to me, for a line on one’s CV (especially since I am not presenting this year and so, really, it’s not a line on my CV).  It prompts me to think about the costs of tenure: the money we invest while on the tenure track to get our work out there, to stay current, to connect to others, and to move towards tenure.  The cost problem is compounded for me since I won’t be getting department funds to travel this year, as I am technically “out of unit” and up in the dean’s office.  I’m trying to think of this as a critical investment in my career but it’s a tough sell to my bank account. Third lesson: they do an awesome job with the conference.  Yes, I’m in sticker shock thinking of what I am paying for where I am staying.  But in getting things together for the conference I was really impressed with all the work they’re doing.  I watched some YouTube videos about the location, I see they have more poster sessions (with cash awards!), and super kudos to Joyce Carter for all that work—there are a ton of new features to look forward to. I’ll be sure to enjoy many panels and will delight in seeing professional friends that, really, I only see at Cs.  But I have to admit what I look forward to the most is the Bedford party.  For me, it’s the highlight of the conference. Hope to see you there.  And you can bet I will be taking these lessons with me as Cs moves to Houston in 2016.  I’ll be saving up, booking early, and thinking about some new formats to share my work. ... View more

This blog was originally posted on February 17th, 2015. As I prepare for any class I teach, I post the planned activities on a WordPress blog and send out updates on Twitter. My blog post typically includes a photo I have found on Flickr, using Creative Commons search. In class, we are likely to talk about Facebook, Flickr, or Pinterest. We build LinkedIn profiles, and we discuss online personas. Social media has become a significant part of what I teach and how I communicate with students for these ten reasons: It provides an authentic audience (often with instant responses). It builds community among students as they connect in writing. It creates a simple discussion space for classroom brainstorming. It supports back channel conversations. It lets me share information easily when students are not in the classroom. It teaches skills students will use in their job searches and ultimately in the workplace. It stresses the value of multimodal composing. It can create archives of course work and class discussions—and it’s much easier than copying everything off the board. It provides great spaces for collaborative projects. It’s fun! Anytime learning is fun, everyone wins. Now that you know why I use social media, would you like to learn more about how? Join me during Macmillan’s #EdTechWeek for my presentation on “Ten Ways to Use Social Media in the Writing Classroom.” I will share some general strategies as well as specific assignments and activities that focus on bringing the connectivity of social media tools in the writing classroom. I will be presenting Wednesday, February 25 at 2 PM Eastern. I look forward to seeing you there! ... View more

This blog was originally posted on February 13th, 2015. Because my son Jonathan is a film scholar, I am probably even more aware than most that this is awards season. The Academy Awards ceremony each year is for our household what the Super Bowl is for others. Jonathan recently posted on Facebook that in his lifetime he has seen 2,502 movies. The fact that he knows that speaks volumes about his obsession, along with the fact that he was watching classic silent movies before he could read the subtitles. I came naturally to use the movie review as a means of teaching the claim of value, but my approach can be adapted to other types of evaluative writing as well. First, I ask my students to bring in or upload examples of movie reviews that are essay length. My goal is to let my students discover the conventions of the genre. I put them into groups to share the reviews and ask them to come up with a list of rules for writing movie reviews. An example would be that one never gives away the ending. More useful is the observation that a good review is focused—it has a point more specific than that the movie is good or bad. After the group work, we work as a class to come up with a master list of rules, and I ask them to share some of the best examples of claims that they discovered. They can use the list of rules as they write their own reviews and can model claims for their own writing on the best examples we have discovered. Second, I find it useful to check students’ claims before they write their essays so that I can head off problems such as claims that are too broad or that are not actually claims of value. Third, I have them write their review for a specific publication. It makes a difference if a review would appear in Parents magazine rather than Rolling Stone. They can adapt their content and their language to their audience, and I can evaluate their writing accordingly. Through this process I am trying to teach them an important point about all evaluative writing—that a work of art, or anything else, is evaluated according to a set of standards.  Readers are not going to agree with a review if they do not agree with the standards the writer uses to judge it. It is widely believed that the Academy Awards are slanted to the perspective of “old white guys” because of the make-up of the organization. They are more conservative, for example, than professional critics, who err on the side of rewarding risk taking. Whatever the audience, whatever the standards being used to judge a work of art, it is ultimately the responsibility of the reviewer to build a convincing case, using specific references to the work, that it meets or does not meet a clearly established set of standards. [Photo source: Loren Javier, "Academy Award..."] ... View more

This blog was originally posted on February 11th, 2015. I’ve recently come to realize that I am now what I would consider a “TOACA,” a Teacher of a Certain Age.  Granted, that has more to do with chronobiological age than professional longevity.  And let me be clear that it’s not that I feel like things are “over” (thank goodness). Still, there is a certain sense that I am reaching the top of the hill, so to speak, no matter how long it may be on the other side.  This realization has prompted quite a bit of reflection about my life and career. One of the things I’ve decided is that it is time for me to be teachable again. Curious, I think, for a teacher to seek teachability. I’ve been teaching for quite some time now, successfully.  I say “successfully” but I am now coming to wonder how much of my success results from a certain kind of inertia, the simple fact that I have kept doing what I always did.  Maybe it’s time for that to change.  I’m committing myself to exploring new things in my teaching: new methods and approaches, new kinds of assignments, new approaches to the classroom, new pedagogies.  For so long I thought I knew the answers; maybe it’s time to ask new questions. I’m not entirely sure what this is all going to look like but, as a quick example, I have been thinking a lot about a conversation I had with our point person for student success across the entire university.  She explained that studies show that student learning increases when a teacher takes just a couple of minutes at the start of class to discuss what was covered last class, what will be covered this class, and why it matters. It seems a pretty low stakes change for me and so I feel it’s worth a try.  I can picture myself saying something like “Last class we worked on how to make arguments more specific.  This class as you read through your peers’ papers I want you to focus on arguments to see how specific they are.  Not only will this help your peers to improve their papers but it will give you practice that can help you with your argument as well which will help you improve your writing and your grade.”  So simple, really.  It’s a small change in my teaching but one that may have a large impact. I’ll try to share other little shifts I make in the classroom but the most important shift, I think, is that I am ready to shift.  I’m wondering if I am alone in this.  Well, really, I am wondering if I am the only one with so much hubris as to think that what once worked will always work.  How often do you switch up your teaching?  How teachable are you? ... View more

This blog was originally posted on April 21st, 2014. Voice is that elusive category we talk about with students—“find your voice,” we urge, as if they left it somewhere, in a dresser drawer, perhaps, or as if they could purchase it on Amazon.  But there is no lost and found drawer for voice, no way to shop for it, or seek it out.  Voice is something students have to write their way into, something that takes practice and play, and numerous attempts while listening for their own idiosyncratic take on the world. Teaching creative nonfiction this semester has given me an opportunity to talk more about voice, something that too often seems missing from the over-crowded academic writing class, with its rush from analysis to argument to research writing. There’s plenty to teach about voice in academic writing, especially its absence in stilted, dull prose, or its presence in particular genres, but, unfortunately, in first-year writing the subject of voice often takes a back seat.  A creative nonfiction course is over-crowded in its own way, as we move from one assignment to the next, practicing dialogue and crafting scenes in one exercise, handling the passage of time with back-stories and reflections in the next, and always reflecting on what draws us into the world of the essays we read or those which students write. Voice is center stage in every discussion about subject, style, shape, and narrative technique; it is always on the page and in our workshops as students figure out who they are—and who they want to be—in their own narratives. One way to approach the elusiveness of voice is by not talking about it at first. Instead, I talk with students about the ways in which all good creative nonfiction—and all good academic writing, too—has, at its center, a writer trying to figure something out— struggling with a problem,  a dilemma or contradiction—a “not knowing” which gives the writing its reason for being. As students plan their narratives, I ask them to write from curiosity:  What is it you want to understand—what doesn’t make sense—what pieces don’t fit together?   These questions and the spirit of exploration they engender don’t guarantee that students will write their way into an engaging, compelling, genuine voice, but they encourage them to write away from certainty and cliché, and into complexity. In writing creative nonfiction, students discover a freedom of form that often leads to the kind of explorations that bring them closer to a voice they recognize. In handling the passage of time, for instance, they often need to question the reliability of memory—a subject in itself– or think against themselves and test assumptions in order to see perspectives other than their own.  Or in wrestling with the complexity of family secrets, for example, they often need to interview relatives, examine evocative photographs and objects to understand the personal and historical back-stories behind these secrets.  It requires plenty of practice and play to be comfortable on the page, and doesn’t happen with a single assignment or writing course, but when students explore a question or problem that really matters to them, they start listening for their personal, quirky, idiosyncratic take on the world. Dear Readers:  How do you talk about voice with your students?  What exercises or assignments help your students find a comfortable voice on the page? Please share your ideas by leaving a comment below. ... View more

This blog was originally posted on February 13th, 2014. Dear Readers: Here’s a question for you:  How do we reinvent ourselves, semester after semester, to keep our teaching fresh and new? This is a question I’m pondering as I mentor new teachers, their passions palpable, their enthusiasm unbridled; they can’t imagine a more perfect calling than teaching writing. I ask them to reflect on what brought them to education, and I find myself asking, after thirty-some years of teaching, what has kept me here? How do I find those corners in myself, year after year, that rhyme with my students—and subject matter—and that keep me passionate about teaching? Flashback to my first teaching experience: I imagined teaching to be nothing more than bringing my love of Walt Whitman to students, eighth graders brimming with the rhythms of Chicago’s urban life. I thought the only way to love Whitman was to read poetry outdoors, to luxuriate in the grass, marveling at the conjugation of the color green.  My students, though, had no desire to celebrate leaves of grass.  They had plenty to say, their bodies electric, but I wasn’t listening to the call of their stories. Looking back, I realize how much of the year was a song of myself, more soliloquy than an exchange of voices, more my performance than theirs.                                                                                                    Nancy Sommers, circa 1978 It took a decade or more for me to understand that teaching requires both humility and leaps of faith—and, most importantly, the willingness to listen to and learn from students—a back and forth exchange that comes from helping students to give voice to their own ideas, and not impose passions, literary or political, on them. What I learned from my students, when I started listening, is how to write— a preposterous claim, I suppose, since I’m the one who is supposed to be the teacher.  But their struggles to revise and my difficulties responding to their drafts revealed my own limitations as a writer and provided a subject to write about. It started with revision, watching students sabotage their own best interests as they moved words around, their successive drafts weaker than their first.  I started researching and writing about my students, their questions and challenges, curious about why some prospered as college writers while others lagged.  My students gave me a subject and, in doing so, invited me to join them on the page, not as the critic in the margins of their work, but as a fellow writer, compassionate and less judgmental. These days I consider myself as much a writer as a teacher, although there are plenty of years in which the balance between teaching and writing is lopsided, the teaching taking precedence, and I need to write my way back to balance the equation. Humility comes from teaching writing as a writer; and a loss of certainty comes, too.  I am less likely to impose my interpretation upon a student’s draft and more likely, as a fellow writer, to recognize vulnerability, especially when students are asked to put their first drafts aside and start anew. Each semester I am inspired by my students’ stories, their writing struggles and successes as they compose essays about complex subjects that matter to them.  Helping students develop as thinkers and writers is a calling, one that is renewed each semester by students. I can’t imagine work more important than this. Dear Readers: Whether you’ve been teaching writing for two years or thirty-two, how do you keep teaching fresh and new?  Share your stories and ideas below. ... View more

This blog was originally posted on November 17th, 2014. Guest blogger Jeanne Law Bohannon is an Assistant Professor in the Digital Writing and Media Arts (DWMA) Department at Southern Polytechnic State University. She believes in creating democratic learning spaces, where students become accountable for their own 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 student scholars. Reach Jeanne at: jbohanno@spsu.edu. Many of my students are gamers. They define themselves by the characters they embody in RPGs (role-playing games), by the interactions between characters who are also their peers, and by their own “mad” gaming skills. Accordingly, the amount of time they spend in digital gaming spaces outdistances the time they spend studying. Students often hyper-identify with these digital spaces, so I asked myself if I was missing an opportunity to reach out to them in their e-world and use their embodied identities as rhetorical learning tools in the p-world (physical world). In an effort to meet students where they reside, I developed a multimodal assignment that asks them to choose, play, and analyze their favorite game; record themselves doing so; upload their videos to YouTube; and present their findings to their course mates. Assignment Goals: Produce YouTube videos as multimodal arguments Learn to effectively use video software as a meaning-making tool Produce transcripts as texts that guide elements of essay writing Learn to rhetorically analyze video game play as text Achieve meaning through critical delivery of digital texts on-screen Evaluate oneself and others for rhetorical delivery and invention Background Reading for Students and Instructors: Acts of reading and viewing visual texts on rhetorical elements are ongoing processes for attaining learning goals in democratic, digital writing assignments. Below, I have listed a few foundational texts. You will no doubt have your own to enrich this list. 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” Writing in Action: Chapter 4, “A Writer’s Choices”; Section 7h, “Collaboration and Communication”; Chapter 9, “Reading Critically” EasyWriter: Sections 1c-1g in Ch.1, “A Writer’s Choices”; Section 1h, “Collaborating”; Section 3a, “Reading Critically” YouTube Help Pod/Vlogcasting Guidelines Bohannon’s Multimodalities for Students Before Class: Student and Instructor Preparation Prior to assigning this project, the class discusses multimodalities of texts that we produce across digital discourse communities. We read Bohannon’s Multimodalities for Students and watch examples of videos from YouTube (Idea Channel) and TEDTalks (John McWhorter on Texting). Then, using our Pod/Vlogcasting Guidelines, we analyze the rhetorical techniques used in the videos and evaluate them based on elements common in writing, such as introductions, arguments, evidence, and conclusions. After the group is comfortable with both terminology and product, we choose our individual games for analysis. Students may choose either digital or board games, with or without rating limits on their choices. The class chats about the methods for making and uploading videos to YouTube. We brainstorm possible video-makers and test them out in low-stakes collaborations.  Google offers a helpful file converter that also lists YouTube-compatible files: Is My Video YouTube Ready? A foundational component of this assignment is the community-building aspect. Although each student produces her/his own video, we all spend class time working out “technology issues.” Most of our digital natives are proficient in e-consumption; some are fluent in e-production. The mix of expertise levels makes this assignment different each time! In Class and/or Out: Students choose and work through how they will play their video game, in terms of the Guidelines and Aristotle’s Triad of Appeals. They develop an outline that begins with an introduction, flows into an argument with evidence, and ends in a YouTube conclusion. In vlogcasting, authors/hosts sign-on to establish their ethos, present their material, then sign-off. The outline will become a transcript that students write before they record their vlogcast. Finally, after producing the morphemic texts, students record their videotexts and upload these as vlogcasts to YouTube. They may adjust privacy settings and send their vlogcasts to me via e-mail as well, and I can then upload the videos to my channel. Next Steps: Reflections on the Activity: At the next class meeting(s), students present their vlogcasts and justify the rhetorical choices they made in their analyses. They evaluate their delivery and the Elements of Multimodalities. The entire community provides feedback after the video presentations, engendering synthesis of the elements of rhetoric for everyone. This assignment requires instructors to be a bit tech-savvy. You need to know what movie-making programs your students have access to (most likely Windows Movie Maker and iMovie). However, you don’t necessarily need to know how to use these programs. You can run this assignment using the Help Pages from various websites. You can also run parts of this assignment both in-class or out. Try it and let me know what you think. Please view/use the project guidelines (edit as you need) and view student samples here: Vlogcast Student Examples. Also, please leave me feedback on this page! 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