Today’s guest blogger is Kim Haimes-Korn, a Professor of English and Digital Writing at Kennesaw State University. Kim’s teaching philosophy encourages dynamic learning and critical digital literacies and focuses on students’ powers to create their own knowledge through language and various “acts of composition.” She likes to have fun every day, return to nature when things get too crazy, and think deeply about way too many things. She loves teaching. It has helped her understand the value of amazing relationships and boundless creativity. You can reach Kim at khaimesk@kennesaw.edu or visit her website: Acts of Composition.    Overview This assignment provides a fresh approach to a traditional, academic assignment: The Critical Analysis. For this assignment, students are to apply a critical lens by connecting a theme/concept that we have covered in the class to the course readings and to their own lives. Students choose and define the theory/ideas and their important characteristics, discuss relevant passages from our course texts, and finish with their own interpretation and individual relevance.   I took this type of critical response (with length requirements and defined criteria) and extended it to include the multimodal component of the Meme Theme in which students create an original meme – a visual representation-- to expand the ideas from their critical responses.   Background Resources The St. Martin’s Handbook - Ch. 7: Reading Critically; Ch. 18: Communicating in Other Media The Everyday Writer  (also available with Exercises) - Ch. 7h: Critical Reading; Ch. 20: Communicating in Other Media EasyWriter (also available with Exercises) Know your Meme – Internet Meme Database – A Database of meme examples, origins and iterations. Imgflip – Meme Generator – An online meme generator   Steps to the Assignment: Although this assignment can be modified for any themes and class concepts, I have included some themes from my American Literature class to demonstrate an extended example. Part 1 Critical Analysis: Student write a focused critical response in which they apply a theme from American Literature. Emphasize strong, interpretive reading and writing strategies that include: thoughtful interpretation; connections across texts; purposeful passages; and appropriate documentation and citation practices. Choosing a Theme: For this particular course, students can choose from the following examples/possibilities for themes/concepts and 3 of the course reading selections that speak to the ideas, and at least one passage from each the selections: Cultural Mirror Theory Invisibility/Masking Social Darwinism/Naturalism Multiculturalism The American Dream Individualism Southern Gothic Nature/Science Isolation/Alienation Coming of Age Part 2: The Meme Theme: Students create an original meme in which they extend the theme/idea they worked with in Critical Response Question.  They can use an online meme generator such as Imgflip or create their own through original images and any programs of their choosing.  The meme must include a representative image and some text that speaks to their interpretation (or some aspect) of their chosen theme.  Meme Definition: I provide a simple definition of memes that work with both text and image to communicate an idea.  Memes draw upon cultural assumptions and operate through unstated knowledge held by the audience.  We share examples to understand the structure and rhetorical strategies of the genre. Students can just conduct image searches or consult Know your Meme for a database of examples, origins and iterations. Some things to consider: The objective of the memes is to have fun, but one should know where to draw the line. I remind students to create memes that are not derogatory towards any race, culture, gender, or community.  The image and the text that must have some sort of correlation. The image and text when seen together should imply something about the interpretation that is insightful. The meme should focus on a theme and a cultural observation – not an author (although they can refer to particular selections to make their point). Remind students that although they are using images (often viral images) that it is in their unique combination of text and image that makes it original for them. It is important to explain that this is an act of authoring and if they use an existing meme (without generating their own text and/or image) it is considered plagiarism.  I want them to get creative. Create a Google Slide: Each student designs a Google slide that includes their meme and their name. The meme is accompanied by a short description of its purpose and meaning, how it is drawing upon their chosen theme and the unstated assumptions that make it effective. They should discuss their understanding of the theme and how their ideas are manifested in their memes and texts they are referencing.     Share the Show: This is the fun part.  At the beginning of class have each student submit their Meme Themes slide to a collaborative Google slide presentation and ask them to show and explain their memes to the class.  This also works very well in a virtual classroom as it creates an interactive presentation in which students participate. Either delivery method works well and provides an overview of class concepts and can act as an engaging exit activity.  Reflections on the Activity: I was excited about how well this assignment worked and the ways that it took a traditional academic assignment and asked students to create a multimodal version and revise their ideas for a different audience – their classmates (rather than just the professor for evaluation).  It brought new relevance to their ideas and pushed them to situate them in our current context. I created this multimodal extension during our first semester of the COVID crisis and found that some students found connections and themes that gave them insight to this unprecedented cultural shift.  Since I used it at the end of the semester for our final day of class, it provided a reflective review of the class and a closure experience in which every student was able to have a voice and quickly show their work in an engaging format. Click here to view some example meme slides! ... View more

The information that we are bombarded with daily through twenty-four-hour news, the internet, and social media these days can be overwhelming. We know that in addition to information from legitimate sites and real, well-meaning people, we are exposed to misinformation from foreign bots and trolls. In their enthusiasm for their beliefs, those well-meaning people also often indiscriminately pass along misinformation. The tension between liberals and conservatives is exacerbated by the fact that some logical fallacies that are floated as truth would be laughable if the stakes weren’t so high. The clash makes common ground and reasoned debate between opposing sides almost impossible.  https://flic.kr/p/8gk72r One of the easiest errors to fall into is the hasty generalization. These overstatements are rampant every day in the news and on social media. The most basic error is assuming all members of a political party or other group are the same: “Conservatives believe . . . .” “Protestors are trying to . . . .” “Democrats are baby killers.” These overgeneralizations lead those attacked to feel that they must defend themselves against a charge that is false instead of against a valid criticism. Maybe that Democrat who was called a baby killer believes that in the case where a pregnancy is not viable, even in the final trimester, the medically induced aborting of the fetus is permissible, but hardly supports the murder of newborn babies. This is the straw man fallacy—tricking your opponent into defending himself against a charge that is much more serious than what he really believes. Examples of the either/or fallacy also hamper communication and reasoned argument. You believe this, or you believe that, with no options in between. One candidate will destroy our democracy; the other will save the American way of life. If you are a patriot, you will not take away my freedom by forcing me to wear a mask. Our country has not been so divided since the Civil War. It is the extremity of the views that each party holds of the other that makes communication difficult. All three of the fallacies mentioned here are fallacies because they carry an idea to the extreme. The ad hominem attacks that one candidate makes on the other only add fuel to the fire. We are learning once again the sad truth that when reason fails—when words fail—the next step too readily becomes violence. Image courtesy of Adam Sporka, via Flickr ... View more

The continued damage that the COVID-19 pandemic is doing to the traditional movie theater industry has gotten me thinking about, well, the traditional movie theater industry and those days when seeing a movie meant "going to the movies," because that was the only way for an ordinary person to see one. My thoughts on the subject are neither personal nor nostalgic, but are, rather, of a more scholarly kind, causing me to reflect upon the truly seminal work of the Frankfurt School that—along with the semiological experiments of Roland Barthes and the collective work of The Birmingham School of Cultural Studies—pioneered the study of popular culture as a serious subject for cultural critique in the middle part of the last century. Since contemporary cultural semiotics would not be what it is today without them, I think that a brief refresher course on their attitude towards what they called "the culture industry" (with the movies especially in mind) would be useful in a blog devoted to teaching popular cultural semiotic analysis.  To get right to the point, that attitude could be best described as "mixed." For their part, Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno were decidedly hostile to what they viewed as the counter-revolutionary effect of the culture industry as a whole, and the movie industry in particular, setting out their views most famously in their classic work of cultural-historical philosophy, Dialectic of Enlightenment, whose most pertinent chapter on the subject, "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception," pretty much says it all. A sophisticated update of the old "bread and circus" critique of popular entertainment, Horkheimer and Adorno's thesis essentially holds that the culture industry pours out well-constructed pseudo-works of art designed to keep the masses happy and docile by distracting them from the realities of their lives under capitalism. On top of that, Horkheimer and Adorno especially deplored the way that the Nazis had successfully used film for propagandistic purposes. One imagines, then, that both of them would hail the current financial troubles in the movie industry as one of the few bright spots on a horizon that they argue is constantly being thrown back into dialectical darkness. But then there is Walter Benjamin, the tragic associate-without-professional portfolio of the Frankfurt School, whose equally seminal essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," argues that the fascists' use of the movies could be turned against them by a communist cinema. More subtly, Benjamin argues that film, by its very nature, is revolutionary, assaulting viewers with a barrage of rapid-fire images that discourages quiescent (or quietist) contemplation and shocks them into new ways of thinking—much as Dadaist art is designed to shock the viewer into new ways of seeing. Frankly (Frankfurtly?), I've never been persuaded by Benjamin's argument (if anything, I've always been more attuned to the way that the substance of his essay is undermined by its tone, which is plainly nostalgic for the lost "aura" of the days before mechanical reproduction), and have tended to lean more towards Horkheimer's and Adorno's, with the qualification that I think that the main goal of the culture industry has always been making money, not counter-revolutionary propaganda. Indeed, with a nod here to Thomas Frank, the culture industry will commodify anything, even social revolution, if it looks profitable to do so. But whatever one's views on the political effect of the movies, their cultural effect has been profound, having arguably done more to upend the traditional relationship between high and low culture than any other art form. At a time when movies like the Batman and Avengers franchises more effectively mediate (to use another Frankfurt School term and concept) the social conflicts and concerns of our country than anything to be found in the vanishing world of high art (which has become what I call a "museum culture" in an era dominated by entertainment and entertainers), any change in the cinematic medium in itself is something to pay attention to. So, it will be interesting to see whether the days of the movie theater—already under assault by a myriad of new technologies—are coming to an end in the face of a virus over which we have yet no control, partly due to the policies of a president who rose to political prominence in good part because of the culture industry. Photo Credit: Pixabay Image 1861459 by GDJ, used under Pixabay License ... View more

Sierra Mendez (recommended by Diane Davis) is pursuing a PhD in Rhetoric and Writing at the University of Texas at Austin. She expects to finish in May 2022. Sierra currently teaches a custom RHE 309K course entitled "Rhetoric of Texas" and serves as Assistant Director for the D.R.W.'s Digital Writing and Research Lab. In the past, she has taught "Introduction to Rhetoric and Composition" and served on the Lower Division Curriculum Committee. Before beginning her doctoral program, Sierra worked for three years for a museum branch of the San Antonio Public Library, creating educational community-based resources, installations, and programming. Her research interests concern border, material, visual, and memory rhetorics: specifically, the historical and ongoing constitution of Mexicanx bodies via narratives held both tenuously and powerfully across San Antonio’s urban space.   How will online or remote learning affect your teaching? The sudden and total switch to online instruction in the last year has been an enormous challenge for students and teachers. Luckily, I have worked at U.T.’s Digital Writing & Research Lab for four years, so I have spent time thinking about engaging, accessible online content and learning about necessary equipment and softwares. This shift is still an enormous challenge for me. I like to create malleable classrooms that respond to what is happening in the news, in student’s lives, and in our classroom in real time. In a traditional setting, I depend on face-to-face interaction with and between my students to know their struggles and interests. Moving online, however, requires content be produced ahead of time. In some ways, this is good because I am learning to be more structured and methodical (a hilarious notion, if you know me). It also means I hear more from students who are not as comfortable speaking aloud in class. In other ways, this is not good because it means my pre-recorded lectures have less room to respond to the news, to students’ lives, and to what our classroom is being. This fall, particularly, will be an enormous challenge because I’m teaching Intro to Visual Rhetoric: #2020PresidentialElection — topics that require response. How does the next generation of students inspire you? This generation of students faces enormous challenges. I am constantly moved by their willingness to engage in spite of the upheaval that surrounds them. This past spring, I fully expected after Spring Break this past year for most of my class to just say “eff this” and quit turning work in or turn in shoddy work; I wouldn’t have blamed any of them for doing so. But none of them did. They continued to participate in class activities and small group discussions via Zoom; they continued to respond thoughtfully to writing assignments, many of them turning in better work than they had previously; and they continued to seek out help through office hours and meetings. This generation of students, perhaps because of their exposure to social media and constant political chaos, seems much more willing and able than my generation to engage with complexity and to engage with humanity’s multiplicities. What have you learned from other Bedford New Scholars? I deeply appreciated learning from other instructors at Bedford New Scholars. I wish we had been able to spend more time talking one-on-one, but I know that is an experience not easily replicable online. I appreciated the group’s commitment to students as individuals. There was very real concern for who each student is and where they come from and what they need. There was very real attention to socio-economic backgrounds and issues of race, gender, and sexual orientation that produce often unchecked inequity in the classroom. Also, our guest speakers Kendra N. Bryant and Shelley Reid, were both incredible to listen to. What is exciting to you about Achieve and why? I am very excited about the feedback process enabled by Achieve. Most commonly-implemented online learning systems seem to conceive of paper feedback as an afterthought, but Achieve implements the paper into its design as an ongoing process. I am interested in how Achieve could help support portfolio-style and other nontraditional grading systems that don’t insist on the assignment of an opaque yet completely subjective letter grade.   Sierra’s Assignment That Works During the Bedford New Scholars Summit, each member presented an assignment that had proven successful or innovative in their classroom. Below is a brief synopsis of Sierra's assignment. For the full activity, see Drawing Arguments (Prewriting Activity). I like to do this pre-writing class activity in the final unit of class. It’s fun and it helps students generate ideas and structure for their final argumentative essay and accompanying argumentative infographic. Prior to this activity, students should generally know what they want to write/argue about. In this activity, to loosen up their brains, students start by drawing an object (a unicorn, Batman, whatever) for increasingly shorter increments of time. At the end of this first part, they will have four versions of the object with different degrees of detail and, somewhere in there, something recognizable as the essence of the object. I always let them talk to each other about what they’ve made/discovered and share with the class if they want. This kind of drawing and forced quick thinking gets their brains moving and raises room energy. It also helps them think about the pieces that make a thing. The activity then asks students to go through the same steps again but, this time, writing about their argument for increasingly shorter periods of time. When they are done, they will have their topic, something like a thesis, primary paragraph claims, and key details and evidence. I’ve done this activity with undergraduate and graduate students. It seems to help most people think more creatively and openly about their argument. ... View more

L. Corinne Jones(recommended by Lissa Pompous Mansfield) is completing her PhD in Texts and Technology with an emphasis in Rhetoric and Composition at the University of Central Florida (UCF), where she expects to finish in Spring 2021. She currently teaches Composition II (Writing about Writing and Research Writing); in Fall 2020, she anticipates teaching Business and Technical Communication. She also works as a legal writing adjunct at Barry University (Law School). Previously, she has taught Composition I (introductory writing) at UCF, as well as First-Year composition for conditionally admitted students at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Additionally, she has worked extensively in writing centers. Her research interests include digital rhetoric; circulation studies; digital, qualitative, mixed methods and methodologies; and feminist and queer studies.   How does the next generation of students inspire you? The next generation of students inspire me in so many ways. While I have only had the pleasure to teach this next generation of students for a few years now, I am particularly impressed with not only how resilient and determined my students are, but also how civic-minded and socially and politically active they are. My own students have faced incredible challenges both before and during the transition to online learning, and they have all overcome those challenges with both grace and tenacity. However, my own students and the next generation of students generally have consistently not let their challenges define them; instead they have turned these challenges into rhetorically and civically productive spaces for change. In my limited experience, this next generation of students is concerned with not only earning a passing grade, but with developing skills to use as they become agents of larger systemic changes.    How do you hope higher education will change in the next ten years? Relatedly, I hope that higher education responds to this next generation of students and their needs, both at their local institutions and more systemically. Though my students have proven that they can overcome challenges, I recognize that suggesting that success is achieved solely through individual will and hard work overlooks the neoliberal ideologies about individualism and the white supremacist systems that undergird higher education. So, I hope that higher education will respond to students’ stated needs, and I hope that higher education will work to actively change policies that negatively impact current students, prospective students, and the communities in which colleges and universities are embedded. This might include rethinking things like standardized tests, as we are already seeing some universities do. Ultimately, I hope that higher education both reflects and serves the larger community.  For those who work in higher education, I would also like to see higher education shift to recognize and value different types of labor and to compensate non-tenure track faculty and graduate student workers fairly and according to this unrecognized labor. Part of this change might also include shifting to valuing interdisciplinary work that traverses traditional disciplinary boundaries and expectations.    What is it like to be a part of the Bedford New Scholars program? Being part of the Bedford New Scholars program was an enlightening experience; first, I had the opportunity to learn about other programs and approaches to teaching writing. I loved having the opportunity to learn about the other scholars’ creative and smart assignments that they created to address their particular institutional contexts and students. Just as importantly, I appreciated hearing their rationales and reasoning behind their design choices as their explanations sparked new ideas for me and my own classroom assignments and practices. They all challenged me to rethink and reevaluate my own practices to try to better meet the needs of my own students.  Second, I appreciated learning about the publishing process. I found it helpful to learn about the layered decisions that publishers make when choosing a topic for a textbook, as well as when deciding on the content, chapters, and skills covered in those textbooks. It helps me to know more about the decisions, affordances, and constraints, which educational publishing companies face in developing new materials because now I have a better understanding of what to expect.    How will the Bedford New Scholars program affect your professional development or your classroom practice? The Bedford New Scholars Program has affected my professional development and classroom practices in a number of ways. First, and most obviously, it has given me a lot of new ideas and things to think about as I move forward on my own pedagogical path. As I noted above, I was very impressed with the fellow scholars’ assignments, as well as their thoughtful approaches to classroom practices more generally. Moving forward, I would like to adopt some of their practices in my own classrooms, and I hope to draw from some of their ideas presented in the institute and posted here on the Macmillan English Community (with credit, of course!).  Second, while I have been interested in the challenges of online pedagogy and been an online student myself, participating in the Bedford New Scholars program online has made me think more critically about how to approach online pedagogy in the fall semester. I now know more about the work and the cognitive load (switching between screens, etc.) from a student perspective. The experience reinforced my belief that students will need grace and understanding from teachers in the upcoming semester.     Corinne’s Assignment that Works During the Bedford New Scholars Summit, each member presented an assignment that had proven successful or innovative in their classroom. Below is a brief synopsis of Corinne's assignment. For the full activity, see Rhetorical Velocity: A Game of Strategy and Chance. At my university, GTAs use Writing about Writing, which uses complex writing studies texts to get students thinking metacognitively about their rhetorical choices. Sometimes, students struggle with the readings, so I try to ground some of the dense readings in in-class games. For this assignment, students read about the concept of “rhetorical velocity,” which broadly refers to how online rhetors strategically compose texts for rapid Internet spread and re-appropriation (Ridolfo & DeVoss, 2009). Importantly, rhetorical velocity is beyond the control of the rhetor, thereby disturbing the concept of the singular author. After a scaffolded discussion defining terms, students put the concept to use in a game. In the game, students get onto teams and select attributes which can add to the rhetorical velocity of their online compositions in fictive scenarios. However, when selecting these attributes, students are unaware of consequences of their online compositions, some of which lose their team points. After the game, students discuss the rhetorical velocity of their texts and the extent to which they had control (and responsibility) over those texts and their consequences. Once students understand the concept of rhetorical velocity, they can use it in their own literacy narratives or profiles of other authors. ... View more

Photo Credit: Kyle BrettSarah Heidebrink-Bruno (recommended by Jenna Lay) is pursuing her PhD in English, with a concentration in literature and social justice pedagogies, at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA. She expects to finish her degree in 2020 or 2021. She teaches a range of composition and rhetoric courses, including English 1, 2, and 11, in addition to interdisciplinary courses in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies as well as Africana Studies. She has also taught online courses in English and WGSS, with a focus on pop culture themes, including modern relationships. Her research interests include restorative justice practices, women's literature of the 1960s-present, feminist theory and praxis, and writing center tutors' instruction.   How do you hope higher education will change in the next ten years? In the next ten years, I hope to see folks in higher education intentionally divorce themselves from the “ivory tower” image and embrace education as a truly equalizing experience — by prioritizing access to the most vulnerable and historically marginalized among us, including BIPOC, LGBTQIA folks, and differently abled, faculty, and staff. I would like to see a concerted effort to serve the community in which colleges and universities are located, in ways that the community deems desirable and appropriate. Moreover, I’d love for all of the stakeholders in colleges and universities to have a greater focus on holistic students’ experiences — ideally, academic and student affairs would work in tandem to recognize students as complex young adults, rather than essentializing one aspect of their identities in one space.    How does the next generation of students inspire you? I am constantly inspired by my students. Though my colleagues have sometimes suggested that students are generally apathetic and only interested in getting good grades/a degree, I think this stereotype ignores the larger structural issues that students must face in order to not feel the pressure to just “get it done.” In my experiences, I have been lucky to see students blossom through their research and writing processes into conscientious young adults who have strong values and ideas about the ways in which education — and the world — can change. They constantly amaze me with their curiosity and their willingness to ask difficult questions and challenge ideas that seem untrue or unjust.    What have you learned from other Bedford New Scholars? I relished the opportunity to learn with and from my fellow Bedford New Scholars during our summer orientation meetings. Specifically, I really liked learning about the different writing assignments and classroom activities that my peers have used — which I am eager to try myself! I learned a lot from their feedback and insight on my work, which I intend to use to improve my teaching this coming semester. Finally, it was reassuring to hear that we are all facing similar struggles, especially at this difficult time, and that they were willing to share different solutions and moral support for dealing with these challenges.    What is it like to be a part of the Bedford New Scholars program? I really appreciated the chance to meet and work with the dedicated staff at Macmillan who organize the BNS program. I admit that I had little insight into the publishing world and the process that scholars undergo as they progress from an idea to a fully-formed reference guide or handbook, etc., but I enjoyed learning about the inner mechanisms of the publishing world and the ways in which writers seek feedback from their peers as well as their editors throughout the process. (Admittedly, it was also cool to see exclusive content prior to its public release!) It was clear to me how much the editors and staff members really care about the authors they work with and that they are dedicated to producing thoughtful and helpful teaching materials (among other products).   Sarah Heidebrink-Bruno’s Assignment that Works During the Bedford New Scholars Summit, each member presented an assignment that had proven successful or innovative in their classroom. Below is a brief synopsis of Sarah’s assignment. For the full activity, see Student Information Sheet. For my “assignment that works,” I shared a version of my Student Information Sheet, a form that I typically hand out during the first week of class as a way to  Establish the tone of the course; Get to know more about my students and their learning needs;  And finally, gather information that I then use when I am lesson planning.  In the sheet, I ask them about their preferred names (if any), their pronouns (if they feel comfortable sharing that information with me), and what kinds of learning environment and activities they prefer. For example, I include a list of possible activities, such as Think-Pair-Share, answering questions in small groups, Check Out tickets, and more. They can either check off boxes in the list of options or add additional suggestions. After everyone has completed the sheet, we then discuss how we best learn and what kind of learning spaces have been the most impactful. I tell them about my own learning and teaching techniques that have worked for me in the past, with an explicit emphasis on the fact that I need and expect for them to give me feedback on pedagogical choices and activities in the classroom to make sure that I am reaching folks where they are. I will note that although I’ve used a hard copy of this form in the past, it would be very easy to create a version in Google forms (or another digital space), which would also allow the instructor to easily see what the most popular choices are. The instructor could then use that information for an ice-breaker activity or discussion at the beginning of the next class. ... View more

Michael S. GarciaMichael S. Garcia (recommended by Kimberly Harrison) is pursuing his MFA in Creative Writing at Florida International University. He expects to finish in April 2021. At FIU, he has taught Writing and Rhetoric, Writing in Action, Essay Writing, and Creative Writing: Forms and Practices. He has also taught 11th and 12th grade English at a Title I high school. As a writer, he has published short stories, essays, web articles, and poetry.   What is the most important skill you aim to provide your students?  We are currently living in an important social and political moment—a time rife with conflict, strife, and disinformation. Never before has there been so much (mis)information coming at us from all sides, all the time. I believe my most important role as a writing and rhetoric teacher is two-fold: I must teach students how to evaluate information through a critical lens, so they can filter out the noise and arrive at well-informed opinions; simultaneously, I must empower my students with the skills, knowledge, and confidence to express themselves in an accurate, thoughtful, and ethical way.    How will online or remote learning affect your teaching? While teaching remotely is not ideal, I have chosen to view it as a learning opportunity, a chance to grow into a more effective teacher. Keeping students active and engaged can be a challenge in the very best of times, but now, with all our teaching happening through digital tools, it is more crucial than ever to focus on student engagement. In my in-person classes, I really focus on trying my best to implement lessons and activities that engage students and keep them interested, but it is so easy to become distracted or fatigued when meeting through digital platforms like Zoom, so this aspect of my teaching will be even more important now than ever.  Also, while I already make use of digital tools and platforms in my usual in-person teaching, I will rely on them now more than ever before. I suspect that I will become more adept at using a variety of digital tools as part of the teaching process.  I anticipate that what I learn from remote teaching—not just in terms of student engagement and technology, but perhaps in other areas I haven’t considered yet—will turn this challenging time into a net-positive for my development as an educator, increasing my effectiveness as a teacher in the long term.  What is it like to be a part of the Bedford New Scholars program? The Bedford New Scholars program has turned out to be an invaluable experience for my personal and professional development. I have learned about the process behind creating and publishing educational materials, something I had very little idea about beforehand. The program also gave me the opportunity to collaborate with a great group of accomplished scholars from around the country that I may not have met otherwise.  Additionally, the opportunity to preview and give feedback on upcoming Bedford/St. Martin’s texts and tools that are currently being worked-on is a really cool experience. It’s great to see the thought and care that the people at Bedford/St. Martin’s put into their projects, and how important it is to them to collaborate with a varied and diverse group of educators—I think this collaborative approach helps ensure Bedford/St. Martin’s texts and tools are effective and relevant to both teachers and students.   What projects or course materials from Bedford/St. Martin's most pique your interest, and why? I was very impressed by the wide array of texts Bedford/St. Martin’s offered in my subject area; it seemed there was a text for every approach, something I wasn’t aware of before the Bedford New Scholars project.  The project I was most interested in was the Achieve learning platform. I think it’s great how the platform empowers instructors to create effective, multimodal assignments, while also encouraging and enabling collaboration—not only between the student and their instructor, but among students and their peers. It is intuitive and easy-to-use while also having depth in what it is capable of. I’m excited by the opportunities and possibilities that Achieve presents, not only in the composition classroom, but in teaching the subject of English overall.  Michael’s Assignment That Works During the Bedford New Scholars Summit, each member presented an assignment that had proven successful or innovative in their classroom. Below is a brief synopsis of Michael's assignment. For the full activity, see Discourse Community Profile.   My “Assignment That Works” is the Discourse Community Profile, the first major assignment I assign as part of the first of FIU’s two-course introductory writing sequence. For this assignment, students are asked to write a profile on a discourse community of their choice; this involves describing the discourse community, citing specific examples of discourse from this community and where it occurs, and examining what can be gleaned about this community from analyzing its use of language. Students are asked to conclude the profile with a reflection on their relationship to this discourse community, why they chose to write about it, and what they learned in the process.  The assignment sheet is designed with question-and-answer format to make the assignment prompt as clear and concise as possible. We spend the first unit of the course scaffolding up to this assignment with foundational lessons about rhetorical awareness, rhetorical strategies, how to choose the appropriate genre (this is where they learn what a “profile” is), and code-switching. Students are asked to submit a “first steps” topic proposal to ensure they understand what is being asked of them. They submit a low-stakes first draft for instructor comments and peer review, giving them time to polish their work before the final draft is due.  ... View more

Allison Dziuba (recommended by Jonathan Alexander) is a PhD candidate in English at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). She teaches courses in the lower-division writing sequence, in person during the school year and online during the summer. She also teaches the Summer Bridge writing lab, a pre-college course for incoming UCI first-years. She has served as the editorial assistant for College Composition and Communication and Rhetoric Society Quarterly. She is currently the Campus Writing & Communication Fellow at UCI. Allison's research interests include college students' self-sponsored literacy practices and extracurricular rhetorical education, and intersectional feminist approaches to rhetorical studies.   What is your greatest teaching challenge? Time management. Whether I’m teaching a 50- or 80-minute class session, the time seems to fly by. I was advised early on to plan lessons around just one main point or activity. Planning more concise lessons allows me to better explain what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. It also provides space for students to shape each class with their questions and interests. As a teacher, I want to better adapt to my students’ needs, to let them drive the agenda. In sketching out the full term, it’s important for me to set reasonable goals, too. Because my university is on the quarter system, we only have 10 weeks together as a class. I have to tailor my expectations based on this relatively limited time frame and prioritize the skills and experiences I hope will be most valuable to my students (more on this below). What is the most important skill you aim to provide your students? I teach lower-division writing, which means that, for many of my students, our class is their first college-level writing experience. It’s often the smallest class that they’ve taken so far (around 20 students), so they have an opportunity to get to know their instructor and peers. Understanding that this is a potentially crucial moment in their undergraduate careers but also a brief and largely introductory one, I focus on rhetorical flexibility. That is, we aim to address the question, how does a rhetor craft messages in different genres and modes to communicate their purposes? I care deeply about what my students have to say, and so my hope is that helping to cultivate their rhetorical know-how will allow their voices to reach a variety of audiences. Students explore how they can shape communications and how messages move through the world; in so doing, they engage with the often overlapping communities to which they belong—home, college, local/regional, transnational, etc. This process of discovery animates my dissertation research as well—how do college students develop their rhetorical educations and their sense of belonging within campus and broader ecologies? What is it like to co-design or work with the editorial team at Bedford/St. Martin's? I’ve enjoyed working with the English composition editors because they’re knowledgeable about the world of writing instruction and they’re attentive to the needs of instructors. These traits, combined with their close familiarity with the Bedford catalogue, make for generative working relationships. For example, one of the workshops during the BNS summit was about developing writing assignments that are transparent in their aims—a topic that I and other teachers think about a lot—paired with a preview of a forthcoming book focused on tackling writing problems. Special kudos to Leah Rang and her team for organizing a virtual summit experience this summer that ran smoothly, covered a wide range of topics, and provided both graduate students and editorial staff opportunities to get to know one another and to ask each other productive questions about composition pedagogy. What have you learned from other Bedford New Scholars? I value the creativity and generosity of my BNS colleagues. In particular, I’m inspired by the assignments they’ve shared and their explanations of how these activities function in their classrooms. A few examples are Corinne’s gamification of teaching about the (potentially unintended) circulation and re-appropriation of texts, Kalyn’s step-by-step approach to analyzing rhetors’ source synthesis, and Sierra’s engagement of visual composition practices, as inspired by her pre–grad school career. I plan to incorporate elements of these activities into my own teaching practice. Overall, gathering this group of inquisitive, like-minded folks together for the summit lead to fruitful discussions about teaching and what we care about as teachers. These conversations and my peers’ commitment to their students will help to sustain my academic journey, and I hope to continue to cultivate these connections. Allison’s Assignment that Works During the Bedford New Scholars Summit, each member presented an assignment that had proven successful or innovative in their classroom. Below is a brief synopsis of Allison's assignment. For the full activity, see Opinion Barometer Activity  I’m sharing the “Opinion Barometer,” an in-class activity that aims to help students recognize the knowledges that they bring to the classroom and to explore nuances of rhetorical stances, beyond mere pro/con. I credit a fellow graduate student writing instructor with the spatial and interactive structure of the activity, and I’ve developed it over time to align with course assignments and to be relevant to the populations of students I’m teaching. Students are given statements or claims and are asked to move to a point in the classroom to indicate how much they agree or disagree with the statement. I’ve used this activity with first-year students who are encountering college-level courses and college life for the first time; the sample questions are crafted particularly with new college students in mind. I feel that the Opinion Barometer facilitates honest discussions about my students’ goals and expectations for their college careers. I’ve also used this as a warm-up activity before diving into an op-ed assignment. My intention is to boost students’ perceptions of their own expertise and to begin brainstorming topics that they have opinions about. I’d like to think more about how this activity could be adapted for an online teaching environment. Thanks to my fellow Bedford New Scholars for considering possible modifications. For instance, Sidney recommended gauging students’ opinions via an online poll and then asking them to write brief rationales for their positions. ... View more

Sidney Blaylock (recommended by Kate Pantelides) is pursuing his PhD in English with a concentration in Rhetoric and Composition at Middle Tennessee State University. He expects to finish in May 2021. He teaches Expository Writing and Research and Argumentation. His research interests include multimodality, rhetorical analysis, new media, cultural rhetorics, digital rhetorics, film, and afrofuturism.   What is the most important skill you aim to provide your students? The ability to understand how to critically read and assess both texts and situations. Higher education should give students the ability and the resources to evaluate information and ideas that they come in contact with and to make informed choices. This practice should not only extend to what students read or write but to their daily lives. I want students to understand that the ideologies of close reading can give them strategies that can inform their interpretation of popular culture texts in addition to great literature, which helps them find meaning in the texts they interact with on a daily basis. I also want students to understand that the idea of the rhetorical situation undergirds human activities and human communication whether it is as important as giving a presentation to colleagues on the job or as mundane as ordering a coffee at Starbucks, so that they can navigate the world as successfully as possible. Without being able to critically read and assess texts and situations, I feel that students are at a disadvantage, especially from those seeking to misuse power or misrepresent facts and situations.   What is your greatest teaching challenge? Getting students to understand that opinions, especially those that confirm a student’s own beliefs, are not facts, and cannot be relied on without question. I want students to challenge assertions found on social media, something many seem reluctant to do. I want students to look at the author of the information and to see if that person is credible--are they an expert in their field or a normal person, do they have a particular bias that you can determine, or do they seem impartial? Where does the information come from--an academic journal with multiple authors or one person’s social media account? How old is the information? My greatest teaching challenge revolves around getting students to ask questions and not simply take the information presented as fact. All humans have biases, things that they like or dislike, and I want students to understand that our biases, along with the biases of the person who is communicating with them, all are aspects of communication that must be negotiated before one can make a cogent and reasoned decision about a subject.     What have you learned from other New Bedford Scholars?  While there were many things that I learned from my fellow New Bedford Scholars during our time together at the Summit, there are three that I thought were highly important. First, like myself, I learned that getting students to learn critical thinking skills is a primary focus for all of us. We want students to understand the richness of thinking for themselves and learning how to critically evaluate information. I also learned that we each have diverse interests and experiences that inform our instruction. It is in this diversity that our strengths as educators come to the fore. I learned that my fellow Scholars have a wealth of knowledge and resources that I can draw upon to help better my own teaching. This was especially true in looking at the variety of assignments presented during the Summit. It was amazing to see the various types of assignments that integrated multimodal ways of learning. Seeing all of this amazing work helped to inspire me for the upcoming semester. I, too, want to create innovative and highly multimodal assignments that my students will see as fun, challenging, and inspiring, in addition to being informative.     What is it like to be a part of the Bedford New Scholars program? It is an amazing experience! Not only are you working with the editorial team at Bedford/St. Martin’s, you also have access to nine other scholars who are in your field. This allows you to collaborate and interact in order to help shape the future of student learning. The editorial team at Bedford/St. Martin’s are an extremely knowledgeable and friendly group of people to work with, and are exceedingly helpful by explaining the reasons behind the decisions that are needed in the publishing world. Moreover, they also listen, which is a rare quality these days. They actively solicit feedback and truly want to know when something is working well, so that they continue it or expand it. However, they also want to know when something isn’t working, so that they can find a way to address the issue and fix it so that it works better the next time. Finally, being part of the Bedford New Scholars program is fun! The editorial team made sure that we found time to socialize and to collaborate in several fun and interesting ways--even on Zoom.   Sidney Blaylock Jr.’s Assignment that Works During the Bedford New Scholars Summit, each member presented an assignment that had proven successful or innovative in their classroom. Below is a brief synopsis of Sidney's assignment. You can view the full details here: "Go Forth and Find" “Go Forth and Find” is a short lesson, designed to be mostly done over a class meeting or two. At the beginning of the unit discussing genre, I ask students to pair off and use their phones to take pictures of various “genre” items in the room, in the hall, in the building, and around campus (this can be modified to safe areas for virtual learning). I ask them to find information/instructions, a bulletin board, a poster, a graphic/image, a sign, and a “wildcard” (which can be any interesting item they found during the search). We then come together and discuss the various items that we’ve found, specifically noting the various affordances and constraints of the genre — looking for ways the items follow convention or the ways in which they deviate from the norm. This assignment tries to encourage critical learning and thinking in a fun way that helps students learn from (and with) their peers. Also, since the assignment happens early in the semester, it is a great way to, hopefully, form the bonds that will allow the class to grow into a strong learning community together.  ... View more

This blog post was originally posted on May 7, 2020. Before the pandemic, I had never heard of Zoom. What a difference a couple of months can make! Now, like most of you I expect, I find myself “zooming” on a daily basis: Boards I serve on meet via Zoom; community volunteer groups gather via Zoom; classes convene via Zoom. Last week I even “zoomed” with the four young men who rescued me and two friends from the Christ Church Cathedral when it was destroyed in a 2011 earthquake in New Zealand; with a former student and his two young children; and with a group of women who were sharing, virtually, wine and cheese. I feel a bit zoomed out! During these sessions, I’ve also had an opportunity to see myself in the little Hollywood Squares boxes—or sometimes on full screen—and it’s been sobering. Of course I look my age—it is what it is!—but to me I look WORSE, sometimes much worse, than in real life. Have you or your students had the same experience? Thinking about this screen presence reminded me of a “media prep” session I was part of eons ago when I was on the MLA Executive Council. A media consultant came in to coach us on how to present ourselves on TV. I remember the consultant telling us that on television, the camera exaggerates everything: “if you barely lick your lips,” she said, “it will look like your tongue is all the way out of your mouth.” And she showed us what she meant! She also coached us to lean slightly forward when looking into the TV camera, telling us that even a slight backward lean would come across as “slouching.”  I don’t remember anything else, but these tips came back to me as I was looking at a Zoom session (or Skype or FaceTime or . . .). What can I do, I wondered, and what can I recommend that instructors and students do to make the most of Zoom and similar sessions? Some ideas came quickly to mind: Make sure you’re in a quiet and uncluttered space so that nothing distracts from what you’re saying. Pay attention to where the light is coming from so that it’s not shining directly down on you, creating weird shadows, or washing everything out. (Some people recommend using a selfie ring light, but I don’t have one of those so I look for places where the natural light is soft and clear.) If you’re using a laptop, prop it up on books so that you can look slightly up and into the camera rather than down at it. And remember to actually look into the camera—something I constantly forget to do! Dress simply in clothes that don’t glitter or glisten. (I learned this tip before a TV appearance where the host insisted I change clothes entirely because the suit I was wearing had a sheen to it which caused a lot of glare on camera. Who knew?!) I’m sure professional media folks can offer a lot more tips, and you probably know more too. (Please send them to me!) In this new world of living online—which we may be doing for the rest of this year—I for one need all the help I can get. So here’s looking at you, kid—on Zoom! Image Credit: Pixabay Image 5059828 by Tumisu, used under the Pixabay License ... View more

Morgellons, the controversial disease at the heart of Leslie Jamison’s essay “Devil’s Bait,” differs from COVID-19 in significant ways. And yet Jamison’s central question seems usefully relevant to the current pandemic and its concomitant quarantine measures. She writes: This isn’t an essay about whether or not Morgellons disease is real. That’s probably obvious by now. It’s an essay about what kinds of reality are considered prerequisites for compassion. It’s about this strange sympathetic limbo: Is it wrong to call it empathy when you trust the fact of suffering, but not the source?  I’ve been thinking about empathy quite a bit in relation to social distancing. On the one hand, social distancing is a selfish act: it keeps me safe from infection. On the other hand, though, social distancing is an ethical duty. It’s as much about protecting others—others I may not even know—as it is about protecting myself. Part of what enables me to make the sacrifices required of social distancing is empathy, much like the empathy Jamison comes to feel for the sufferers of Morgellons disease. And empathy hasn’t simply enabled social distancing; it’s also engendered prolific acts of kindness in response to the pandemic.   What I like about using Jamison in this context is that her essay offers a kind of limit case for empathy. With COVID-19, the suffering is all too real, all too visible. But Morgellons is a disease that may not be a disease. As the quotation above makes clear, Jamison works from the reality of suffering to formulate an empathetic response and that’s a useful maneuver for students to consider.   There are, too, some other interesting connections between Jamison’s discussion of Morgellons and the COVID-19 pandemic: Like Morgellons, some still insist that COVID-19 is a hoax or caused by 5G cellular towers. Like Morgellons, there currently is no cure for COVID-19 Like Morgellons, the pandemic has prompted dangerous bogus treatments, including zinc and tonic water, colloidal silver, and, sadly, fish tank cleaner. Jamison’s experience with sufferers of Morgellons, like so many people in the pandemic today, reminds us that fear and desperation are themselves contagious and deadly.   Here are some writing assignments you might consider: Using Jamison and one other reading (from class or that you have located on your own), write an essay about the role of empathy in mitigating epidemics and pandemics. Considering the ambivalent report about Morgellons from the Centers for Disease Control and the self-activism of those with Morgellons, write a paper about the respective responsibilities of governments and individuals in response to disease. What are the best strategies for distributing reliable information about a disease? Use Jamison and any research you might want to do on COVID-19 to support your response. How is the experience of dealing with a chronic disease different from other kinds of disease? Use Jamison, and if you have a chronic disease yourself, your own experience.   Empathy is one of the core concepts in this edition of Emerging. It’s times like these that really demonstrate the value of thinking and writing about it. Emerging Intelligence      Image Credit: Pixabay Image 4939288 by geralt, used under the Pixabay License ... View more

I’ve always been a fan of NPR, and of Scott Simon’s Weekend Edition, but I haven’t usually had time to just sit and listen attentively to it. In this time of sheltering in place and social distancing, however—and on a cold, bleak, and rainy Saturday—I tuned in and followed the entire program. As usual, it was full of stories that intrigued and sometimes alarmed me, like one about the scarcity of clean water on the Navajo nation or one about a group promoting dark humor as a response to the coronavirus. But the day’s show also featured interviews with three authors: Terry McMillan, Julia Alvarez, and C. Pam Zhang. Now I have three new books on my “must read” list: McMillan’s It’s Not All Downhill from Here, Alvarez’s Afterlife, and Zhang’s How Much of these Hills is Gold. So I am ordering these books from my local independent bookstore, which is closed now but fulfilling online orders, and I hope to write about them in future posts. Today, though, I wanted to share parts of the Zhang and Alvarez interviews, which especially captivated me by calling for expanded or re-definitions of writing and reading.   I’ve written in the past about the difficulties of defining writing—and ended up with such a convoluted definition that I had to laugh out loud. I haven’t written for publication about defining reading, but I have thought for a long time about the word’s derivations and its relationship to closely related words that originally meant “to advise.”   So I like thinking about how we define these two words that are so central to the work that we do, and I was fascinated to hear two novelists suggesting expanded ways of thinking about and/or defining writing and reading. Scott Simon asked if Zhang was currently writing and Zhang first responded that she was not, but then went on to expand: I think we have to expand our definition of writing. I’ve taken to saying in recent years that walking is writing. Crying is writing. Talking to your friend is writing. All these experiences help you give shape to what you’re thinking about the world, and that will come back to the page eventually, even if you’re not able to form words right now. I like this expanded view of writing, which certainly fits with my own experience. And doesn’t it seem that such a definition would be reassuring to struggling writers or to multilingual writers trying to coax words in unfamiliar languages? I can imagine students making a list of all the activities they would include in their own definitions of “writing.” I bet cooking would be on those lists. And biking and running and so much more—all activities that free up thinking and lead to writing. So thank you, C. Pam Zhang!   Later in the show, Simon spoke with Julia Alvarez about her new book, which she says is her first written as an “elder.” I’ve had the pleasure of sitting with Alvarez in Vermont and listening to her talk about her commitment to students, to teachers, and to learning, so I leaned in especially close to this interview. Toward the end, she and Simon started talking about the current pandemic and the way it has utterly changed our everyday lives—social distancing; sheltering in place; staying home, often alone—and about reading during this time of forced isolation. Alvarez paused and then said, It’s always been something that reading is about, you know? It’s about being together apart. I’ve thought a lot about that, because that phrase has been bandied about, and I thought, well, now that’s a definition of reading. What a wonderful way to expand our understanding and definition of reading: being together, apart. Perhaps that’s why reading—and writing—are such a comfort to me during this time of national crisis, because they allow me to feel closely connected to others even though I am very much alone, apart. Thank you, Julia Alvarez.   And thanks to every teacher out there who is using writing and reading to connect to students and who is reaching out to assure them that their teachers are there—even when we are apart.   Image Credit: Pixabay Image 690584 by Free-Photos, used under the Pixabay License ... View more

It’s now completely official: the august Modern Language Association, for most of a century the maker of writing rules and guidelines, has posted an update on The MLA Style Center website and declared in “The Source,” their newsletter: “Using the singular they is a way to make your language more inclusive and to avoid making assumptions about gender.” MLA acknowledges that this violation of “grammatical agreement” was long frowned upon, but today they argue that it is not just acceptable but preferable. They cite Merriam-Webster, whose online dictionary now includes a new definition for “they” that says the term can be used to refer to persons whose gender identity is non-binary. MLA accepts this definition and adds that “they” should also be used to refer to a person whose gender identity is “unknown or irrelevant to the context,” as the new seventh edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association puts it. MLA stresses that writers should “always follow the personal pronouns of individuals they write about,” and then goes on to give examples of how to use it both for a specific person whose pronoun is “they” and as a generic third-person singular pronoun.   I (and my textbooks) agree with MLA, which declares that singular “they” “has emerged as a tool for making language more inclusive… and the MLA encourages writers to accept its use to avoid making or enabling assumptions about gender.” Can’t get much more clear and direct than that!   To many writers, including me, this usage does not come trippingly off the tongue: it takes consistent practice and attention to take up this new and important convention. So I’m grateful to MLA for this latest update on The MLA Style Center site and for all the detailed examples they offer there. You may want to invite your students to check it out here.   I’m also grateful for our language, which keeps changing and adapting and evolving. It’s one of the reasons it’s so much fun to teach writing and speaking today!   Image Credit: Pixabay Image 2178566 by Pexels, used under the Pixabay License ... View more

Students are experts at seeing through assignments that waste their time. And thank goodness. We are at our best when we live up to students’ expectations for meaningful engagement on topics that matter. This recent social media exchange between two graduate students captures all that goes wrong when we require students to go through the motions of scholarly conversations. A long stream of commiserating comments followed, including this pitch-perfect parody of an online discussion post. This response racked up the most “likes” and made me laugh out loud: Whether or not you teach online, I’ll bet you recognize the requirement behind this performative exchange. The instructor gives points for students to respond to one another, and students perform, right to the word count, even if there’s not much to say. Sometimes, students give us exactly what we deserve. There are plenty of analogous exercises inside the classroom that deserve skewering in this manner, too. For example, sometimes, we ask questions that are thinly veiled checks on whether students have done the reading rather than asking what they think about what they have read. I have gleaned many insights about meaningful exchanges in the classroom from linguistic anthropologist Dr. Susan D. Blum, author of I Love Learning; I Hate School: An Anthropology of College (Cornell University Press, 2016). Following Blum on Twitter (@SusanDebraBlum) is a daily pedagogical delight, as in this recent exchange Blum shared between Danica Savonic and Cathy Davison on what happens when we ask students to set the conversational agenda in the classroom: Now, those questions are worthy of our students’ time and attention, and they promise to deepen the instructor’s understanding, too. We can invite students to participate in rote facsimiles of academic conversations or we can welcome them into the deeper world of significant meaning-making. Both approaches take energy and time. One approach fosters a skill that can last a lifetime. As Stuart Greene and I finalize the details for the 5th edition of From Inquiry to Academic Writing, I am grateful we are including Susan D. Blum’s wise, student-centered writing to inspire students and instructors alike. Who are you following on social media for pedagogical inspiration? What are your favorite insights for meaningful student engagement in class or online? ... View more

Today’s guest blogger is Kim Haimes-Korn, a Professor of English and Digital Writing at Kennesaw State University. Kim’s teaching philosophy encourages dynamic learning and critical digital literacies and focuses on students’ powers to create their own knowledge through language and various “acts of composition.” She likes to have fun every day, return to nature when things get too crazy, and think deeply about way too many things. She loves teaching. It has helped her understand the value of amazing relationships and boundless creativity. You can reach Kim at khaimesk@kennesaw.edu or visit her website: Acts of Composition Overview I recently attended the Conference on Community Writing in Philadelphia. This wonderful conference recognized many community engaged projects in which students move beyond the walls of the classroom to contribute to the greater good of their communities through writing. The vision of the Coalition for Community Writing supports: Writing as a mindful, creative, and social practice, forged in community partnerships, to promote socially, economically, and environmentally resilient communities. We are reimagining how communities write themselves; how writing is used as a tool for public awareness and expression, for dialogue across difference, and for community building; and how higher education and communities can collaborate toward these ends. We envision a transformation of higher education to encourage impactful curricula and research as essential outputs of institutions that serve as a vital part of their communities. I attended many thoughtful, passionate sessions in which teachers from a variety of institutions presented on writing projects that focused on immigration, homelessness, social justice and other important community partnerships. I was moved by understanding the impact we can make through including these kinds of hands-on learning opportunities in our writing classes. Many universities now include community engagement and service learning to promote this kind of involvement for their students as part of their institutional missions. Digital writing and multimodal composition provide many opportunities for students to create artifacts that contribute to awareness campaigns for all kinds of community engagement. Students can work with their campus communities, community partners, and participate in online conversations through social media campaigns and participatory journalism. Some of these projects are ongoing and supported by our institutions and others are one time, limited projects that support an immediate community need. I have included examples in the resources section below for consideration and brainstorming. I have worked with many types of community-engaged projects (large and small) throughout my career that focused on different populations, organizations and community issues. Sometimes I have students come up with projects on their own and other times I come to them with established partnerships. Here is one example of an ongoing partnership in which, over the past couple of years, my students have worked with an organization, Rescue Dog Games that brings awareness to the importance of pet adoption: Rescue Dog Games brings these strong pet rescues and organizations together to bring awareness to the need in the Atlanta area “to adopt—not shop.” This group works together with local and national rescue organizations to create partnerships and promote awareness for pet adoption along with an annual festival that “shines a light on the importance of pet adoption and encourages people to get outside and PLAY more with their dogs.” For this project, my students collaborated with Rescue Dog Games and 20 of their community partners for a rescue dog event to promote awareness and create community connections between rescue organizations. Students created digital content for each organization to tell the stories of the organizations and to promote the festival. Each student created an interactive feature article and a digital story. The students worked in content design teams to organize, edit, and manage project components. These stories now appear on the Rescue Dog Games website story page and are used by the partner organizations to showcase their stories and to promote their goals. This relationship with this organization has gone beyond this single class and semester as subsequent classes created digital stories of the event day and have started a digital story archive for adoption stories that feature individual dogs that have found their “fur-ever homes” in new families. Background Readings and Resources Students Doing Good: Top 10 College Service Projects Do Something Change.org CCC Statement on Community Engaged Learning   The St. Martin’s Handbook: Ch 11e: Conducting Field Research – Conducting Interviews, Part 7- Ch 32: Documenting Sources- MLA Style The Everyday Writer(also available with Exercises😞 Ch 10h: Conducting Field Research Appropriately, Ch 54: The Basics of MLA Style Easywriter (also available with Exercises): Ch 11f: Doing Field Research, Ch. 15: MLA Style Assignment Overview: Goal: To work with a community partner to create a human/dog interest digital story and interactive feature article written and produced to be used on the Rescue Dog Games website and in the Rescue Dog Games social media and other media outlets.   Interview and Visual Content Curation: Each student coordinates an interview with the community partner to research the group and curate visual content for the story.   Compose, Revise and Edit feature articles and digital stories   Content Design Teams will work together to give feedback, revise and edit the content to deliver to the client. Teams responsible for organizing communication, tasks, goals and deadlines. Teams create a Google drive team space to keep minutes of their meetings, curate images, storyboards, scripts, peer response and final deliverables.   Note: All content must adhere to professional communication practices including citation and attribution, sourcing of images (that are not original) and the use of copyright free music. Reflections on the Activities I have found that when students work with real-world community partners, their sense of engagement and ownership is increased. Not only are they contributing to larger conversations about important issues, they also get the opportunity to work in real professional settings that require them to shape strong professional communication and work ethics. They learn about deadlines, client feedback, style guides and professional collaboration. This kind of work also moves their classroom work into public spaces and allows them to create showcase pieces in their developing writing portfolios. More than ever, employers are looking for the kinds of skills students gain from these kinds of projects. What better use of our classroom time than engaging students to use their writing skills to contribute to the greater good? ... View more