I learned about trigger warnings for the first time this semester. Trigger warnings, whether presented on syllabi or before class readings, warn students that material in the course (such as content on sexual abuse, war, or rape) could trigger those suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).  At the very start of the semester I learned about them when one of our Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) approached me about a student in her class.  The student, a rape victim, was concerned about one of the readings we were using in our standard sequence this semester, Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s “Kiki Kannibal: The Girl Who Played With Fire,” which discusses Kiki’s rape and consequent bullying and shaming.  Now at the very end I am getting ready to read a paper about trigger warnings in the writing classroom written by one of our GTAs, a vet with PTSD.  Slate may have called 2013 The Year of the Trigger Warning but I guess I am a year behind. The practice is not without controversy.  There are those who support them and those who oppose them.  What’s clear is that the discussion about them is just starting. We haven’t embraced them as a writing program yet but I’ve already talked to my editor Sarah about adding them to the instructor’s manual for the next edition of Emerging.  We have quite a few essays that might merit such an advisory, including one about a war photo too powerful to publish, one about rape culture, and one about kids sexting. And for me as a teacher, it’s something I will be grappling with.  And I think that’s the real advantage of the whole discussion: a chance to reflect on what I do as a teacher and why I do it and an opportunity to consider the material I teach in relation to the needs of my students. So what say you?  Trigger warnings… yes or no? ... View more

The practice of popular cultural semiotics has much in common with both anthropology and sociology: after all, cultural semiotics, too, analyzes human behavior.  But it is important to point out that there are a number of methodological differences that distinguish the semiotic from the sociological or anthropological approaches, one of which I wish to explain here. The key distinction, I believe, is that the methodologies of sociology and anthropology prescribe a kind of clinical neutrality on the part of the analyst: that is, the observer strives for scientific objectivity with respect to the subject of observation.  This is not quite the case with the semiotic method, for while objectivity is most certainly a valuable component of cultural semiotics, it need not be taken as an absolute.  In fact, taking into account one’s own experience of popular culture can reveal important insights into its broader significance.  This is because as an expression of mass culture, popular culture includes the analyst, who cannot really be separated from it.  The perspective here is quite similar to that of the New Historicism, which also posits the inclusion of the socially and historically situated interpreter within the topic being interpreted. To better explain what I mean, let’s take the example of the extraordinary popularity of social media.  While a sociologist and an anthropologist would focus entirely on the behavior of carefully selected and scientifically surveyed subjects (producing data that are most certainly relevant to the semiotician), the semiotician can also usefully explore his or her own experiences with social media.  I ask myself, for instance, what are my exact emotions as I check my email, or, in the days when I was once quite active on a hobby-related web forum, what were my emotions when I posted to the site and when my posts were responded to?  By looking at my own behavior and emotions, I am much better able to grasp what is going on with others.  For much as I prize my individuality, I can find many common patterns in the behavior of others that I find in myself, and, recognizing them, I can better explore what they signify. In the case of email, I recognize a certain state of suspense and excitement—almost a sense of adventure.  Why?  Because, as we all know in the Internet age, there is always the possibility that someone will emerge from the fog of time past and time passing to reestablish contact.  This actually does happen with email, and, it is, of course, one of the main draws of Facebook and LinkedIn (you won’t find me there because I am not happy with their data mining practices).  Recognizing such emotions in myself, and finding them displayed by others, points me towards a wide range of interpretive possibilities that includes what it is to be a human being.  Situating my digital self-observations into a larger system that includes the effects of living in a highly mobile society that separates us from our past associations (something that did not commonly happen before the advent of the Industrial Revolution and the growth of mass society), I can understand better the extraordinary pull of social media. So, I do not shy away from including myself in my analyses.  I do try to keep my own personal opinions (ideological, aesthetic, political, or otherwise) out of the analysis (this, of course, is never entirely possible), but analyzing myself as a human subject among human subjects, and being objective about myself as well as about others (that may sound like an oxymoron, but it isn’t: it is part of the ancient tradition of “knowing thyself”) is a very useful component of my semiotic analyses, and I recommend it to others. ... View more

Our last guest blogger for this round is Rachel Hartnett.  Rachel is a first-year MA student at Florida Atlantic University, where she is studying science fiction and fantasy literature. She is also a journalist with MuggleNet.com, the number one Harry Potter fan site in the world. She lives in Lake Worth with her cat, Snidely. What I like about Rachel’s post is her reflection on what she has learned about herself as a teacher and as a student.  I think about the role of Graduate Teaching Assistants quite a bit (because we use so many of them in our program).  They often seem to occupy a deeply liminal space in the institution—neither a teacher nor a student but both.  I frequently observe some of the negative consequences of this liminality in terms of things like pay and benefits.  What Rachel reminds me, though, is that the in-betweeness of GTAs also opens a space for learning and growth. As my first semester as a graduate teaching assistant draws to a close, I thought that it would be fitting to reflect on what I learned during the term. On the first day of orientation, before the start of the semester, all of the new Graduate Teaching Assistants were told that we were not teaching our students writing. Instead we were told that we were really teaching them the skills needed to think critically. I remember thinking what a lofty aspiration that was. How could I, a first-year instructor, hope to teach critical thinking? This question haunted me on the first day of class. As I met each one of my students, I couldn’t help but think of the discussion that I was supposed to lead during the next class. When the second day of class came, I asked my students what they thought about the reading that they were assigned from Emerging, Peter Singer’s essay “Visible Man: Ethics in a World without Secrets.” What I discovered was a complete submission to the authority that they perceived Singer held as an author. None of my students were willing to disagree with Singer and most were hesitant to express their own opinions at all. This same issue arose when I read the rough draft of their first papers. Most provided simple analysis of Singer’s arguments without letting their own voice shine through in their writing. I had to explain to them that if I wanted to know what Singer thought about the issue of privacy, I would read his essay. I was reading their essays to hear what they had to say. When the time can to discuss the second reading, “Ethics and the New Genetics” by the Dalai Lama, there was a discernable difference in the class. Many more students spoke up to express opinions or ideas about the essay. And, when I asked if there were any flaws in the Dalai Lama’s argument, a few students were able to pinpoint the weaknesses of the essay. As the semester has gone by, their ability to consider each reading critically has only expanded. They can make complex connections between readings, ones I never thought possible from our first class discussion. Now, as the semester draws to a close, I realize that teaching isn’t about imparting some fundamental knowledge onto students; it’s about showing them the way. Every student already has the tools that they need to succeed in a first-year composition course. They simply need the manual to put all the pieces together. And maybe that is why graduate students are the great choices to teach first-year composition. As the students learn about their abilities, so do we. ... View more

Nick Marino, our gest blogger for this week, is a first year student in the MA program at Florida Atlantic University, specializing in 20 th century British Literature. He lives with his cat in South Florida, a place he finds oddly inspiring.I’m with Nick on this meditation about the use of personal technology in the classroom, even through Richard Restak’s “Attention Deficit: The Brain Syndrome of Our Era” argues rather persuasively that multitasking is a myth.  In the classes I teach, I encourage “responsible” use of technology like smart phones: pull it out to bring up a reading, research the author on the internet, check your calendar, or even log in to Blackboard.  Need to answer that text or call?  No problem.  Discretely step outside.  I’m always a bit amazed that students find even this rather liberal policy challenging, texting in class anyway.  Maybe Nick’s thoughts can offer me some new directions.What do you think? I don’t care if my students use their phones in class. This is apparently a bad attitude for a teacher to have. I’m told that I should care. I’m told that this stance causes my students to think they can use their phones everywhere. I’m told that letting them use their phones in class means that they won’t respect me and teachers do need to be respected. My attitude towards phones in class is a little more complicated than that. Not caring suggests that I would express no preference given the choice between having them stare at their books and my face or their phones. I don’t want my students to use their phones in class but, except in extreme circumstances, I will not stop them from doing so. I should disclose that I haven’t told my students about how I feel about cell phone use in class. I tried to be strict about it on the first day of class, while reading the policy on my syllabus. Since then I’ve barely brought it up, nor have I called a student out for looking at their phone. I haven’t had an extreme circumstance thus far, such as what happened to a colleague of mine. One of her students answered a phone call in class (unapologetically I’m told). My colleague confronted the student in a professional manner and later sent an email to the class stating that answering a phone call in class is inappropriate and will not be tolerated. This was the right thing to do because the disruption that student caused certainly affected the ability of his peers to learn. On the other hand, I don’t think that a student pawing at his Yik Yak feed distracts his neighbor enough to warrant a confrontation. There are two reasons why I don’t stop students from using their phones in class: I don’t have the disposition or visual dexterity to catch, punish and reform students who use their phones in class. Even if I did have the above and used it, my students would most likely retaliate by being reticent in class and or by filling out negative course evaluations at the end of term. My reasoning reeks of self-preservation but the reasoning behind policing phone use in the classroom is not as ironclad as it seems. I feel like teachers don’t want their students to use their phones in class because it is rude and disrespectful and because it impedes their ability to pay attention and learn. Using a phone in class is rude but rudeness is subjective. One of my undergraduate English professors considered it rude and got very offended if a student yawned in class. Yawning is a bodily function though, unlike tweeting. But how much is it our responsibility as teachers to ensure that our students learn proper manners? If one of my students passes my class and later gets in trouble for checking their phone in the presence of an eagle-eyed professor, or perhaps later on after graduation, in front of their boss, do I bear any responsibility for their sorry fate? I guess what this is about is whether a teacher can change the life of an 18 year old who did not choose to take my class and may not have even chosen to enroll in college. Or better yet, can I teach them anything that has utility beyond school in general? I think I can. I’m just not sure that I can teach them how not to be rude. I agree that it’s difficult to pay attention to someone speaking if I’m checking my phone or computer. That’s why I almost never do it. I spent a lot of time and money to get into a graduate program that pays my tuition. I want to get as much as possible out of my dual roles of teacher and student. To me this means giving my undivided attention to whomever I speak to, free from the distraction of social media (if only for a given time). But I don’t know about my students. I get the feeling that what they know about apps, social media, and pop culture greatly surpasses what I know. At any given time, roughly one quarter of my class is engaged with their phones. When we’re watching a video in class or when we’re doing peer review that figure goes down. When I’m lecturing or awkwardly trying to stimulate discussion it can go up. The interesting thing about the students that use their phones in my two class sections is that they cannot be pigeonholed. A student’s gender, ethnicity, personality (that is, talkative or quiet in class) and writing ability does not correlate with their use of cell phones in class. I have students who are strong writers and who listen to my feedback on their papers even though they frequently supplement their class time with checking their phones. I also have polite students who abstain from using their phones in class but struggle with their writing and make the same mistakes that I caution them against both in class and through written feedback. I don’t necessarily agree with the belief that my students cannot pay attention to me, the text, and their phones at the same time. Consider that today’s college student could very well have grown up using the internet as soon as they learned how to walk. It’s important to recall though that internet access is influenced by class and ethnicity, a fact that’s easy to forget on a college campus with abundant Wi-Fi. Nevertheless I think it’s significant that this generation has grown up with the internet. My students probably cannot remember when using snail mail wasn’t a bureaucratic inconvenience but the fastest way to send and receive large amounts of information. They probably cannot remember when gas stations, elevators, and restaurants didn’t have TV monitors informing them of tomorrow’s weather and the latest on the Kardashians. My students are jaded, inured to technology. When Tinder came up in class they told me the idea of it without considering the ramifications of judging someone based only on a picture that may not even be of the person who created the profile. Likewise they probably don’t see how disturbing it is that social media is obsessed with garnering approval. After all, great works and events generally arise out of some form of dissent, but dissent may not get you upvotes. Of course some of my students do express how new technology has sobering effects on society. This usually comes up in their papers but not during class discussions. Naturally I wonder whether they really feel that the effects are sobering or whether whey write what I will agree with so as to get a better grade. My students are skilled at multitasking in an age that demands it. If you’re reading this blog post with other browser tabs or programs open on your computer then you are multitasking. Even if you only have this post on your screen you still have the links and search box on the side panel competing for your attention. The days of watching TV with only the volume and channel graphics as the interface are over. What’s trending, what’s hot, what’s new; these are all part of the 21 st century zeitgeist in which distraction is inevitable. Our phones are crammed with apps that we can check at any given moment. If we use computers to take notes in class we’re prone to emails popping up as they come in, pulling our eyes away from a person’s face just for a second to check. If your phone is within eyesight while reading this then you are probably multitasking and not giving my words your undivided attention. I don’t take it personally though, since undivided attention is becoming an increasingly rare commodity. The days of paying attention to a single thing, like the page of a book or a person lecturing without the benefit of PowerPoint (or some other visual stimuli), are gone. Whether this is good or bad for our future is debatable. What’s not debatable is that the Millennial generation knows how to adapt to this reality because it’s not new to them. They aren’t awed by the internet as I sometimes am. My point is that today’s college student is attuned to this reality without consciously knowing it. And I would argue that as rude as it may be, students still can learn in my class even while being distracted by their phones. Policing the restriction on cell phones on my syllabus isn’t worth the effort because my students will find some analog way to distract themselves. One student who sits in the first row alternates between checking his phone and carefully sketching out what looks like tables or spreadsheets in his notebook. There’s no way that doing this helps him learn how to write English papers, but am I to stop him? Should I confiscate his notebook to teach him a lesson, as I’m told more strict instructors do with cell phones? I’m deathly afraid of confiscating a student’s cell phone given how attached they are to them and how litigious our society is. Perhaps there’s another reason why a sizeable number of my students use their phones in class. Maybe they are so excruciatingly bored that they cannot help it. I don’t believe that theory for a second. ... View more

My topic this time should be a familiar one to anyone involved in composition instruction:  this is the concept of “transfer,” the notion that students should take what they have learned in their composition classes about writing and make full use of it in their subsequent university career, and beyond.  Applicable, of course, to all learning in a formal educational setting, transfer is (or at least ought to be) a fundamental concern, and goal, of all educators. The fact that transfer is a subject of intense research at such places as Elon University in North Carolina reveals, however, something that most of us, I suspect, have experienced—which is that transfer is not something that happens often enough in student learning.  Students who master writing skills and conventions in their composition courses all too often do not apply those skills in their written work in their other coursework, leading to the common complaint (which I hear all the time now that I am my university’s director of academic assessment) that “our students can’t write.”  A major question (if not the major question) for researchers of transfer, then, is how to achieve it in the educational process. So what does this have to do with teaching popular cultural semiotics? Actually, a whole lot.  Because the whole point of teaching popular cultural semiotics as part of composition instruction is to instill in students a habit of critical thinking, one that they will take beyond their analysis of particular popular cultural artifacts into the realm of their entire experience, scholastic and otherwise.  Focusing on popular culture provides not only a familiar platform for developing such habits but also crosses, by definition, from the curricular to the extra-curricular experience of our students.  Students are always experiencing popular culture: by studying it critically in a classroom, they are breaking down the barriers between their “learning” and their “lives.”  All too often students, and society at large, assume that there is some sort of profound difference between the campus (too often called the “ivory tower”) and the “real world.”  Assuming such a distinction, more or less unconsciously, students thus create impediments to the fundamental necessity of transfer: the carrying into the totality of their lives what they have learned in school. So I am always very happy when students tell me that, after taking a popular cultural semiotics class with me, they cannot look at pop culture in the same way any more.  Because not only have they learned the particular skills the course is untended for, they are transferring it all into their lives.  It is appropriate that the General Education credit that they earn in the class is classified under the category of Lifelong Learning, and one might say that lifelong learning is what transfer is all about to being with. ... View more

This week’s guest blogger is Rebecca Jensen.  Rebecca is an MFA student at Florida Atlantic University where she teaches two classes of first-year composition. She worked as fiction editor for Driftwood Press, a literary magazine based in Tampa and is currently nonfiction editor for FAU’s Coastlines. After sixteen years spent living in England, Rebecca is enjoying her rediscovery of Florida, using the experience to investigate themes of travel and identity in her own creative work.  In this post Rebecca turns the question of revision back on ourselves.  I have to admit that after reading it I realize I can’t readily articulate how I revise either. “But Miss Jensen, how do you revise?” It’s my first semester as an MFA student and instructor of English, so you would think that I’d be able to answer this with ease. Yet the question posed by one of my students took me off guard. One of the most important qualities I have always looked for in a teacher is confidence, and I hope that this is what my students usually see in me. So when I was faced with this question, I hated to admit in front of them all that I don’t actually know how to do it. I don’t have a specific technique, and I don’t hold the key to the revision process. Initially, when I thought about assigning papers, I didn’t think about the time that would pass between students receiving the assignment instructions and their papers appearing on my desk. Monday morning would inevitably roll around and a stack of freshly printed and proofread papers would await me. I assume that my instructions are clear until a student email pops into my inbox, and a face peers around the door of my office. I forgot how much labor really goes into writing and revising, especially for non-English majors. I didn’t realize they would agonize over my papers, I thought of revisions as just things that happen and things that, ultimately, I would have to grade. Instead, I am constantly facing questions: how do I do it myself, and what am I doing to help my students succeed in their revision process? The way in which I tackle revision depends on the type of paper or assignment I am working on. For a creative piece of writing, it might take me hours or days just to alter a few sentences. I’ll play them over in my mind even when I’m not at my desk or in front of a computer screen. But an academic paper usually has some sort of strict deadline, so I’m rushed into making changes. Often I’m afraid to cut and delete sections of my academic work because what if I don’t come up with something else to fill the gap before my class deadline? I’m a hypocrite. I tell my students not to be afraid to remove paragraphs or restructure sentences. Do it! See what happens! Be bold! They look at me with terrified faces, imagining their essays torn to shreds, destroyed. The revision process is a personal journey. I read an article by Stephen Sutherland recently, entitled “Reading Yourself: Revision as Ventriloquism,” in which he explains that the process is something we teach, but we never see in action. The student undergoes this journey alone. The only things that my students have to guide them are their instinct and my written feedback on previous papers. I can only hope the comments I leave are useful. I’m making a conscious effort to steer away from dropping brief hints like “word choice” or “informal language” on their papers. Instead, trying to explain ways they can improve their discourse and acquire the formidable academic tone. In the classroom, I am trying to mirror my written feedback in my lectures. By discussing what it means to receive these vague comments on their drafts, I hope that my students understand that it is not a lack of concern, rather a shortness of time that prohibits me leaving comments that are detailed and fully expressed. That’s what office hours are for, I tell them. I wonder if this is enough. Am I doing everything I can to help them? Is it okay to tell my students that there isn’t one set revision technique that is guaranteed to work, that I’m stumbling through it (and so far succeeding) and so will they? Is there a right or wrong way to revise that I just haven’t discovered yet? ... View more

A few days ago, a piece of fan mail flooded in. So OK, it was really an email from a former student hoping that I would address the reaction to the Ebola epidemic.  At first I was reluctant to go anywhere near the topic (for reasons that will emerge presently), but I've come to the conclusion that this could be a very good "teaching moment" about semiotic analyses (besides, I can hardly afford to disappoint my few readers here), so here goes. The first thing is to review exactly what a cultural semiotic analysis does.  It moves from the denotation of a sign or semiotic topic (that is, what it is or what its primary significance is) to its connotation (that is, to what it suggests or signifies at a broader cultural level).  This movement proceeds by way of a placement of the denotative sign into a system of relevant historical and contemporary associations and differences. A lot of different people have already essentially done this with respect to the Ebola epidemic.  Some are arguing, in effect, that the epidemic signifies (connotatively) a failure on the part of the presidential administration.  Such an interpretation implicitly (or explicitly) accordingly situates the sign within a system that includes the upcoming November elections, the current unpopularity of the president, and a general (or, at least, widely reported) sense that things are not quite under control in this country at present.  Of course, this interpretation is politically motivated and is usually presented for partisan electoral purposes. The converse interpretation, which also often has political overtones, interprets the reaction to the Ebola epidemic as an act of mass “hysteria,” and (at least implicitly) decries those who are using it either to bash the president. Then there is the way that the mass media are using the epidemic as click bait and for other audience-generating purposes. With my local CBS news radio affiliate now including regular “Ebola Updates,” even though the disease has not appeared in Los Angeles, I can readily see how the mass media have more or less construed the sign of Ebola as something looking like this ($). But underlying the political and the commercial significations of the sign “Ebola” lies something more fundamental, which is, quite simply, fear.  It is this fear that makes Ebola something that can be exploited for political or profit making purposes, and it too needs analyzing. Ebola fear stems from a number of unknowns.  First, there is the unknown involving just what, denotatively, Ebola is.  How infectious is it?  Is it the "coming plague" that we have been warned about?  Will it mutate into something more infectious?  Could it spiral out of control? To these questions no one can offer confident answers.  This is why we see some pretty strong reactions to the epidemic that are not partisan nor a reflection of media greed.  Such reactions come from nations like Jamaica (which has banned in-flights from affected west African nations), individuals like Los Angeles's Congresswoman Maxine Waters (who has called for Ebola preparedness at Los Angeles International Airport—  ), from Mexico (which blocked the docking of a Carnival cruise ship on Ebola worries) and from colleges that have discontinued student admissions from Ebola-affected countries (like Navarro Community College in Texas). And then there are the nurses, who have been asking for better equipment and training for a long time in the wake of the epidemic.  Some of the new protocols that are now appearing (including medical hazmat suits that leave no portion of the skin uncovered, and which also call for trained observers to watch medical personnel as they take their suits off after patient care exposure) are not reassuring. When we take such things into consideration, we can see that the Ebola epidemic fits into yet another system.  This system includes all the signs that potentially fatal infectious diseases (which have been on the run ever since modern medicine began to develop both vaccines and the antibiotic treatments that floored such one-time killers as tuberculosis, pneumonia, and the casual infections that we now hardly notice thanks to antibiotics) are making a comeback.  AIDS is a signifier in this system, and so is the very real problem of antibiotic overuse that is already undermining the effectiveness of the "silver bullets" we have come to take for granted.  Within this system, Ebola can be very scary indeed. For this reason, I am inclined to withhold judgment.  I simply am not certain what Ebola is—what, that is, its full denotation will prove to be.  The sources of my information (the public mass media), give me not only sensationalized reports but also fumbling misstatements from the CDC (a lawsuit against the CDC seems to be brewing in Dallas on the part of the second Ebola-infected nurse whose actions in the wake of her initial fever her lawyer claims to have been misrepresented).  Since I do know that the Ebola virus is a really nasty killer, and that it is infectious (much more infectious than AIDS), I am not inclined to interpret Ebola fear as mere “hysteria.”  Basically, I think it is better to wait until we know more about the denotation here before moving towards connotation. ... View more

My guest blogger today, Jenn Murray, has spent the last 16 years as a Midwesterner trying to adjust to life in South Florida. After many years at home with her children, Jenn is currently in her first year of the MA program at Florida Atlantic University, where she is studying multicultural literature and trying to narrow her research interests enough for a thesis.Jenn’s post isn’t only about the stages we all go through in emerging as teachers.  It’s also about the ways in which teaching makes us better writers.  I have to admit—I never thought about this before.  But in taking a moment to reflect I realize she’s absolutely right.  When I am writing an article I have a much sharper sense of my argument and what it needs to do, a clearer sense of my organization and the moves I want to make, and a surer understanding of what evidence I want to bring to bear.  A lot of that comes from experience in the discipline but now I can see how parts of it come from teaching writing.  Cool. I know you’ve heard the saying.  We’ve all heard it at one point or another.  “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.”  It’s one of those snarky comments that get tossed around without much thought, but I am doing a lot of thinking about it right now. I have grown quite accustomed to walking to the front of the classroom at the beginning of every semester.  My tendency to daydream is well-documented—beginning in Kindergarten each report card is emblazoned with a hand-written note from the teacher, some iteration of “She is very bright, if she would just stay focused in class”—so I always used sitting up front as a success strategy. It’s sometimes awkward, but if I am up front I am less likely to daydream. In a lot of ways this semester is no different.  And yet it is very, very different.  This semester, walking to the front of the classroom does not always involve stopping at the first row of seats.  Often it means walking to the front and taking my place as teacher.   This is a whole new level of awkward. Armed with my copy of Elements (our program’s custom supplemental text) and a binder full of tips and strategies, I approached this role with quite a bit of trepidation.  “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” Sure, but what if I simply can’t teach? I walked in to that first College Writing class terrified that I wouldn’t be able to do the job.  No way would I quit, but could I actually do it? Looking at the classroom full of students, many of whom were sitting in their first college class ever, it occurred to me that we were in this thing together—and we had to make it out together. So we dove in.  We are well into the semester now, and I have managed to cover an incredible amount with my students.  We have read essays, answered contextual questions, and debated some pretty hot topics.  I am seeing improvement in the work that they are submitting. But there is something else, too. I am seeing improvement in the work that I am doing.  I am looking at my own work with a sharper eye.  I am thinking more carefully about my research and evaluating the structure of my own writing a little more critically.  I have come to the realization that that old saying may be wrong.  Those who can, do, sure.  But those who teach? Sometimes they manage to do better. ... View more

Today’s guest blogger is Jason Stephens, a native of Boise, Idaho who has recently moved to Boca Raton, Florida, where he is a first year MFA student at Florida Atlantic University. Jason has been deeply involved in bicycle touring since graduating from Boise State (where he earned his BA), which has allowed for a growing sense of importance in finding purpose for the self in all activities and interactions. Jason struggled with this post, trying to find the best ways to convey his felt sense that what he said in the classroom and how he said it directly affected what and how students wrote.  His extended meditation on the discursive formations a teacher uses in the classroom (and his plea to avoid negativity) seem to me to call us all to think about the ways in which we embody our pedagogy in the classroom. In Emerging, the preface to the instructor includes the pedagogical reasoning that “students need to be prepared to deal with emerging issues in their jobs, and lives” (vi). As a first semester instructor, I view myself as a student with a deeper understanding of those skills and a view of myself as one who is “fluid, reflective, and critically self-aware” (vi) in that emerging role as teacher. I can’t help but immediately do what the text suggests: “think critically in relation to [emerging issues in student’s lives]” (vi). Standing in front of the class, I see myself acting as instructor through the paradigm that has been created and enhanced by the teaching role that my peers are now playing. I imagine myself frozen in the act of solidarity—caught between seeing my students as the novices that they are and the inductive effect of the shells of words wrapped around our teaching community, as novices in our own right. The way we, teachers, choose to foster our discourse among ourselves influences the novices within each of us and ultimately creates a pedagogical threshold to a de-centered classroom. I’ve realized through teaching that the discourse I bring to the classroom invites students to engage in both the classroom and their writing using that same voice. My focus since the beginning of the semester has been on engaging students directly with the language that I expect them to bring to the conversations that emerge out of their reading and writing in their essays. It has, so far, been a success. The students seem to push themselves further into the language that they see associated with academic writing—in both clarity and style—and have surpassed my expectations. I feared being either too formal or too informal in my communication with them during class after I realized through their first essay that their writing (both language and structure) seemed to be molded from their perceived understanding of my expectations. I used this observation to my advantage and began to shift my discourse in such a way that it mimicked how I expect them to write. Although it has brought moments of silence to the classroom while I collect my thoughts, the outcome has astounded me in the heightened focus to audience that flows out of their papers now. In any working environment the act of adopting the language and actions present is an instinctive coping mechanism. The discourse that we adopt, not only as teachers but also as colleagues, influences the way we play our own roles in the classroom. Any chance we have to hone and perfect our pedagogical practices could be shortchanged by the chosen discourse of those loudest in their attempts to cope with this role. The act of perpetuating the loudest voice plays into adopting the mentality of a limiting teaching culture and prevents the possibility of breaking through a pedagogical threshold by replacing the educational underpinnings of an individual with the negative discourses of coping. Berating student work on its inability to accomplish simple tasks, recreating episodes of confrontation from the classroom, and highlighting the failures of students—all these acts force us as emerging teachers into solidarity with our peers above our commitment to students. I wonder, as I continue to see myself frozen between accepting my students as they enter the room, eager and expectant, and the whirlwind of negative discourse percolating into my own voice, if in order to emerge as the teacher I would want to be I must first teach myself to function behind the pedagogical veil that promotes success among my students. Distance is the wrong approach; instead as Emerson stated, “we must be our own before we can be another’s” and we must find the language and mindset that will allow for positive growth for ourselves and our students before we move to cope with the new crisis of the day in our classroom. If I catch myself in the construction of the social narrative of my peers, I take a step back and remember that I am dealing with learners and students and mold my response and reaction to moments of negativity to something that is fruitful for either the class as a whole or the individual student. If a student finds an assignment tedious, rather than being dismissive or asserting authority to quiet the dissidence I use such opportunities to explain the function the assignment plays in the overall role of the class. These opportunities to open up the course objectives to the students in real time might be passed over because of a fear of losing control or a rebellion against the function of the class. I have not yet encountered a confrontation that ended negatively after explaining the role that these tasks place in the language of the syllabus. The same lesson that we are trying to imprint upon our students—a solid dose of critical self-awareness—will allow us fledgling instructors to survive this time of daily crisis. If we move past common coping mechanisms such as perpetual negative discourse, generalization of victimized authority, and woeful indictments on the national education system into a self-conscious sensitivity to our personal sensibilities and our evolving role as instructor then we can emerge as models of what we want to impart, becoming self-actualized teachers of writing. Next time I am in the classroom I’ll be just as aware of what I say and just as curious as to how I phrase it, wondering where the seeds will find fertile soil. But, I will remember that these words are mine. It seems possible that over time my classroom discourse can crystallize with constant effort and focus. And what of your classroom and work environment? How do you see these issues manifest, positively or negatively, in the community of learners that you mediate? ... View more

Recently I received a student journalist’s request to comment on a phenomenon that she identified as a decline in traditional dating practices among millennials.  More specifically, she wanted to know what I think about certain “practice dating” groups that are forming to guide young people in how to behave during actual face-to-face dates.  “Why,” she asked me, “is there a growing need for practice dates, and why are millennials finding it harder to communicate face to face?” Wow.  Sometimes the signifiers just leap out at you. After all, one of the more nagging questions that have emerged in the age of digital communication is just what might happen to human interpersonal skills when so much socializing is conducted via virtual social networks.  The notorious prevalence of vile (and even violent) commentary on the Net is one indicator that digital communication may not be conducive to the development of basic social skills, but that alone is not sufficient evidence from which to draw any conclusions.  One could always persuasively argue, for example, that Internet bile is simply the expression of bad feeling that was always prevalent anyway but now is far easier to express to a far wider audience.  But this practice dating thing opens up whole new vistas of semiotic possibility. Consider: have you ever observed a group of people (or simply a couple) sitting together and obviously associated, but rather than looking at or addressing each other everyone is staring into a smart phone?  The scene is so common that it is difficult not to have observed it. Now, try that sort of behavior on a date. But, wait a minute, that must be exactly what is happening in today’s dating scene, or else why would young people be forming “practice date” events to help each other learn how to interact with someone face-to-face without constantly diving back into the social network?  Somehow, millennials themselves are becoming aware that their social instincts are being reshaped by technology (throw in the growing phenomenon of “sexting” and you can see how even Eros is being affected), and they are struggling to do something about it.  I can imagine sessions devoted to learning how to stare into someone’s eyes, rather than into your iPhone, or learning how just to talk with someone without tweeting or posting Instagram selfies. Now, interpreting such a cultural signifier as the practice date scene is not the same thing as criticizing anyone.  After all, my generation, the Baby Boomers, are accused of having had our attention spans shortened by another technological intervention—TV—and I believe that it is altogether likely that it is perfectly true.  The effects of technology on psychological, and perhaps even biological, evolution are profound, and as the world is swept by the digital revolution, it behooves us to pay attention to the canaries twittering around us.  And when young folks need self-help sessions in dealing face-to-face with young folks, that is a very profound tweet. ... View more

This week’s guest blogger is Katie Schipper.  Katie is a graduate student in the English department at Florida Atlantic University. She currently teaches two sections of first-year composition and believes in the value of writing as a means to express what we know and as a tool to acknowledge how much we have to learn. She also has two cats.I love that Dawn Skowczewski’s essay resonated so much for Katie; it did so for me this semester as well.  And she’s getting at an issue that I frequently return to: who gets to teach composition (and why)?  In framing her “vague” qualifications I think she’s pointing not just to her emergence as a teacher but also to deeper institutional issues.  Who teaches composition at your school?  And are they only “vaguely” qualified? One of the first things I said on my very first day of teaching, to my very first section of first-year composition students was “I’m a graduate student, so I’m vaguely qualified to teach this class.”  That might have been a rookie mistake. What’s that they say about not letting them see you sweat? But a few students laughed, and that was my goal, and more importantly it’s too late now—I mean, I said it. And the reality is, I am only vaguely qualified. I’ve done various teacherly jobs, I’ve written page upon page upon page (ad infinitum) of expository essays, and I’ve read even more—and those are my vague qualifications. I didn’t really have a vocabulary for how I was feeling until I read Dawn Skorczewski’s essay “From Playing the Role to Being Yourself: Becoming the Teacher in the Writing Classroom” in Bedford/St. Martin’s Teaching Composition. Then I saw that I was in good company. I realized all (or, to be safe, most) teachers feel like frauds at some point in their teaching careers. I also realized that maybe, like new parents who live in fear that they’ll do something terrible to their infant, I lacked the experience that comes with the making of mistakes as well as the realization that mistakes are inevitable—and vital. I think now that this little admission brings me closer to the students sitting in the classroom. When I tell them that their writing can have as much authority as the essays they read in Emerging, I mean it. When I suggest that they’re granted agency by the mere act of putting words on a page (much in the same way that I am granted agency by showing up and standing in front of a class of college students even if in some moments I feel like a vaguely qualified fraud), I mean that too. ... View more

My guest blogger today is Robert Curran, a graduate student in English at Florida Atlantic University.  He served in the Army in the field of military intelligence/interrogation but was injured before deploying overseas.  His hobbies include ghost hunting and watching cult films such as The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8 th Dimension.  While not traversing the state in search of poltergeists, Robert lives in Boca Raton, Florida, with his three-legged cat, Peg.In this post, Robert meditates on the complex emotions connected to teaching—regret, fear, joy, worry, concern, and more.  Reading it pushes me to think about my own emotional investment in teaching, a theme that I think has been developing for me this semester.  I’ve taught all the same texts in the course for first-year GTAs that Robert is taking for me, but this semester I am paying more attention to those readings that speak to the affective dimension of teaching.  I wonder…do any of you also wrestle with the emotional components of teaching composition? When I first started graduate school, I didn’t want to be a GTA.  Thanks to the G.I. Bill, I was doing fine financially and thought the added stress of teaching might overwhelm me.  That said, I did feel a tinge of regret whenever I walked past the GTA office and saw how many of my fellow graduate students were involved in teaching.  Again, I sometimes felt this way when I overheard my fellow graduate students discussing their lesson plans for an upcoming class.  Was I missing out on something?  Could teaching help me to be a better student?  Maybe I would feel more connected with my fellow graduate students if I was in the trenches alongside of them. I knew that GTAs taught College Writing I and II here at Florida Atlantic University.  I looked back at my transcript and saw that I earned C’s in both of these classes.  Would the University even want someone who did so poorly in these classes teaching them?  I also wondered if I would be up to the task of not only teaching students but also motivating them.  I replied to an email saying that I was interested in a GTA position for the upcoming semester.  After not hearing back from the University for some time, I felt that they must have chosen their GTAs and not picked me. Shortly after I had given up hope of being chosen as a GTA, I received an email saying that I was selected.  The first two emotions that struck me were joy and fear, the same sort of feeling I had when I first got off the bus and arrived at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, for Basic Training.  These two emotions oscillated wildly from one extreme to the other until I started teaching. At this point in the semester, I’ve stopped worrying about teaching before the start of each class.  I enjoy teaching (though that might be because I like hearing myself speak).  I find it surprising how quickly the class period passes.  Sometimes there doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day to accomplish all of the things I want to do.  Grading papers was a daunting task at first. I soon learned to grade a certain number of papers each day—and to limit distractions during the process.  While I used to have more time for socializing with friends, I now have to plan in advance times that I can visit with them.  Rather than sit idly during my office hours, I use that time to work on classwork and grade papers.  I was never good a planning my day but teaching has made me somewhat better at it. I wish I could better explain how I stopped worrying before classes.  I think part of it was familiarity.  I got to know my students and they began to know me.  Neither of us turned out to the scary monsters we feared.  Now worry is replaced with concern.  I want my students to do well.  That said, I will take concern over worry any day of the week. ... View more

Well, the two-year long campaign is over, the votes have been counted, and the Scots have voted to remain in the United Kingdom. The vote was both decisive, and a bit of a surprise in light of the eve-of-election polls—which predicted a much closer outcome—so close that many who campaigned for independence appear to have been genuinely confident of victory. If one had been going by the trending analytics of the #YesScotland movement, which led the #BetterTogether movement by a good three-to-one margin, according to the BBC, the outcome of the referendum would have been even more surprising. And if social media analytics were the means by which democracies make their decisions, Scotland would probably be an independent nation today. Which takes me to the point of my analysis. From reading a lot of online commentary, even at supposedly staid sites like Inside Higher Education and The Chronicle of Higher Education, I often get the impression that a lot of participants in the "comments” sections believe that if they can get the most posts in on their side of any particularly controversial topic, then, somehow, they have won something.  Similarly, if your “side” can get in more tweets with the right hashtags than the other side, then, for many people, you’ve won.  I can’t help but think that this sort of thing has been encouraged by the cultures of Facebook and Twitter, whereby one accumulates “likes,” “friends” and “followers” that are taken as genuine signifiers of popularity and/or importance.  RTV shows like American Idol, with their mass media simulacra of actual election-based voting, have also had a probable influence on this phenomenon. But as the Scottish vote can remind us, when all is said and done and the actual (not virtual) votes are counted, social media are still just that: social media, not voting platforms.  For all the glamor, money, and attention that social media enjoy in the world today (indeed, it could be argued with little difficulty that social media are the most dominant expressions of popular culture in our time), we are not at the point where democratic decision making is going to be a matter of winning the hashtag wars.  While it is not impossible to imagine a time when social media platforms may actually become venues for real-world voting outcomes, we’re not there yet. ... View more

I enjoyed having guest bloggers so much that I’ve decided to do it again.  This time I thought I would invite some really new voices: new graduate teaching assistants in our writing program. I have to admit that I’ve been teaching for so long that I don’t quite remember what it was like to just be starting out in the writing classroom.  I look forward to seeing what these teachers have to say since they’ll be bringing a fresh perspective on what, for me, has become sometimes too routine. Look for them in the weeks to come.  And if you’d like to join them and contribute some posts, please contact me.  The best way is probably to visit the FAU directory (it’s rather spam-proof). ... View more

I just finished rereading Sondra Perl’s essay “Understanding Composing” reproduced in the excellent Bedford resource Teaching Composition: Background Readings. I’m teaching Perl in our pedagogy course for new graduate teaching assistants, ENC 6700 Introduction to Composition Theory and Methodology; the essays forms part of a cluster of readings on drafting and audience. I’ve been thinking about Perl’s use of “felt sense,” the internal, somatic feelings that exist prior to and result in a piece of writing.  Perl’s use of the term certainly resonates with me as a writer when I am writing things such as this blog.  But I am wondering how (or if) I can use it in the composition classroom for expository, academic writing. That is, I am wondering to what extent felt sense relies on a writer’s investment in the project.  Does felt sense only come into operation when the writing matters to a writer?  Do we have to care to evoke a felt sense?  Or what happens when our felt sense in relation to a writing project involves procrastination, distaste, revulsion, disdain, or any number of non-generative emotions I imagine students in the classes I teach might have? I’m thinking I might explore the affective dimensions of composition in my classroom, perhaps by having students follow an exercise like the one that opens Perl’s essay: recording out loud what they are thinking, doing, and feeling as they write.  It might help some students connect to the class but more importantly it might help students who are struggling identify (and then perhaps divest) emotions related to the composing process. Have you considered the emotional dimensions of writing in your classes?  What works? ... View more