Shannon Butts (recommended by Creed Greer) received her PhD in English with a concentration in Rhetoric and Writing Studies at The University of Florida in August 2019. Shannon teaches courses on digital rhetoric, multimodal composition, professional communication, technofeminism, and first-year writing. She also serves as the Assistant Coordinator of First Year Writing and mentors graduate instructors. Shannon's research examines how digital and mobile writing technologies, such as augmented reality, locative media, and 3D printing, author new literacy practices for public writing and community advocacy. How does the next generation of students inspire you?    The students coming through my courses seem to have a hustle that understands the larger ecology of work, play, and education. College is not necessarily their end game but part of a growing skill set that will position them for more opportunities in the future. And that looks different for different students. People coming in from high school are hustling to make grades, get internships, start businesses – hustling to participate in an economy that has diversified the paths that people can take to make money and be successful. Similarly, students coming back to school or working on graduate degrees are hustling to build a portfolio of experiences that will help them advance in their current careers or start new ones. The hustle can be tiring, or seem disorganized. Yet, most of the students that I see are working to create a well-rounded set of skills to be not only competitive but happy in their work and life. The hustle includes physical fitness, growing plants, joining clubs, taking days off, having families, developing apps, caring about public issues, and fighting for equality and balance in new ways. The students I see now inspire me to hustle for both myself and others.    What is the most important skill you aim to provide your students?   I want the students in my classroom to understand that writing is a process that grows and changes throughout their lives. As such, I want students to develop analytical skills that evaluate the nuances of any rhetorical situation or ecology. If students understand the complex components of an issue, then they can best evaluate how to respond and make change. Learning how to analyze arguments, identify evidence, and trace the connections between conversations can help students actively participate in the public sphere—where they not only receive or disseminate information but understand how to assemble new publics, to read and write for change, and to evaluate information for accuracy as well as applicability. If writers can map rhetorical ecologies and trace the relationships between evidence and argument, then I think they are better prepared to understand the complex systems that we all read, write, and participate in.   What is it like to be a part of the Bedford New Scholars?   Participating in the Bedford New Scholars programs provides a look behind the curtain of educational publishing. More than merely understanding how to test or market a text, the program has shown me how Bedford works to identify what is important to students, writers, and teachers in different schools and demographics. Through online resources, publishers have new opportunities to create platforms and curate content that works for diverse groups of students and instructors. While institutions may adopt one central text or program, Bedford has shown us how to work within the larger system to find what can best help students and instructors meet their goals for a classroom or course. By showing us multiple texts and platforms, the Bedford staff creates a forum for helping us understand the publishing process, but also gives a voice to the people who are in the classroom everyday. They not only wanted my feedback on existing projects but my critique and suggestions for change, and Bedford New Scholars offers an opportunity to participate in shaping emerging resources.    What have you learned from other Bedford New Scholars?   I found the Bedford New Scholars experience empowering. Not only did I get the chance to meet some incredible teachers and scholars from different fields and institutions, but I also was challenged to continually evaluate my own teaching strategies and tools. By sitting down around a table and discussing the different dynamics of each Scholar’s school and experience, I was able to consider how my pedagogy might change while also affirming many of the common issues that instructors currently address: How can I make my classroom more inclusive and accessible? How can I empower my students through public writing? What kinds of emerging tools can help address inequality in the education system? The Bedford New Scholars offered a range of experience and insight and created a small community where instructors could share methods, critiques, tools, and camaraderie.   Shannon’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 Shannon’s assignment. You can view the full details here: Know Your Meme: Finding the Exigence.    The “Know Your Meme” activity draws on research, analysis, evaluation, and remix skills to transform popular memes into detailed claims. Composing arguments requires an attunement to exigence—understanding an issue, problem, or situation and how best to address a public to motivate a response. For this activity, students are introduced to several popular memes asked to find the first time the meme was used as part of an argument. Instead of focusing on the isolated image, students should look to the rhetorical ecology of how a meme responded to a particular issue or idea. By asking questions like “What are the basic elements of the issue?” and “How does the meme engage a key component of an argument?,” students begin to define the exigence for the meme and the specifics of the rhetorical situation. Practicing good research skills, students can analyze the different arguments surrounding an issue and evaluate how their meme engages specific viewpoints.   After analyzing how a specific meme has responded to arguments in the public sphere, students gain a familiarity with the media as well as the details of the involved arguments. Memes are fairly simplistic in construction and can reduce complex arguments to pithy forms. The next step has participants evaluate memes for missing elements or logical fallacies and rewrite the media as a more complex claim with supportive details. Focusing on one specific use of their meme, students can ask, “What is missing to create a detailed response to the issue?” Drawing on their own research, students can then address the exigence of an issue by rewriting a meme as an argumentative claim with supportive details. Paying attention to research, exigence, and arguments, students learn to map the larger rhetorical ecology of public issues and craft detailed claims that participate in evolving conversations.   Learn more about the Bedford New Scholars advisory board on the Bedford New Scholars Community page.   ... View more

I’ve recently been working on revisions of some of my textbooks and have been reading more and more about how easily images can be manipulated or falsified. I remember reading Kenneth Brower’s galvanizing essay “Photography in an Age of Falsification” in The Atlantic over twenty years ago, and it’s an essay I often taught for the cogent argument it makes. But that seems like more than a lifetime ago now: I was concerned then about the issues Brower raised (he offered fascinating examples of images being manipulated, even in National Geographic, to make them “better”), but I couldn’t have imagined—and I don’t expect Brower could have imagined—the proliferation of technologies to aid in producing fake videos and altered images of every conceivable kind. It now seems important—imperative even—for us to ask students to examine their own use of images and to talk about and explore the ethical implications of the choices they and others are making today.   Among the books and articles I have read, Paul Martin Lester’s work really caught my attention. He is a professor at the School of Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication at the University of Texas at Dallas and has written widely on the ethics of photography. In an interview, he says he begins every class by describing what he calls the most unethical photo he ever took: he was assigned as a young photographer to cover a reunion of two long-lost brothers at an airport. He was there, with all his cameras, waiting for the brothers to emerge from the plane when a very famous movie star emerged. When she saw him and the cameras, he says, she screamed and turned her face to the wall before pulling herself together and walking toward him. Stunned, he automatically snapped photos of her in this very vulnerable pose, an action he has regretted ever since.   So I ordered his book, Visual Ethics, and have read it with great interest, even though it is intended for students and practicing photographers. In it, he describes what he calls every photographer’s “personal journey” and opens with this question: “How can you possibly be expected to be objective and subjective, impassive and emotional, uninvolved and engaged given the physical constraints, technological changes, and sociological pressures that the mass communications profession offers?” His one-word answer: “Ethics.” The key to produce work that aids the common good and satisfies your need for storytelling is a continual, inquisitive, and consistent path toward ethical behavior. (xii)   Lester uses his own journey as an example throughout the book, but in addition it is crammed with additional examples drawn from his long career in the field, many of them mini-cases that make for challenging class discussion and examination. He also deals with issues of misinformation, focusing in chapter 7 on infographics and cartoons and sowing how inattention to detail, sloppy design, and overpowering “decorations” can mislead and confuse audiences, even if the designers are not intentionally doing so.   Lester concludes with a meditation on empathy—the complexities surrounding the concept and its embodiments, the need for more of it in all aspects of our lives, and the challenge to those he teaches. They should, he says, always attempt to 1) be empathetic, and 2) be ethical. The Professional Photographers Association of America agrees, and they have developed a code of ethics as a result. It makes for very interesting reading too—and provides additional material to bring to students, who need to be thinking hard (along with the rest of us) about how their own use of images and visuals follows such guidelines.   Image Credit: Pixabay Image 1239384 by Robert-Owen-Wahl, used under the Pixabay License ... View more

Caitlin Martin (recommended by Elizabeth Wardle and Jason Palmeri) is a PhD candidate studying composition and rhetoric at Miami University (Ohio), where she also serves as graduate assistant director of the Howe Center for Writing Excellence. She has taught courses in composition theory and business writing in addition to face-to-face and online first-year composition and advanced writing courses. Her primary research interests include threshold concept theories and conceptions of writing, writing-related faculty development, and writing assessment. What is the most important skill you aim to provide your students? No matter what class I’m teaching, my ultimate goal is to help students develop as reflective practitioners (Shon). Reflection isn’t just crucial to learning about writing, it’s crucial to most learning situations we all encounter. I want the students I work with to be able to ask good questions about their knowledge and experiences so they can determine how to bring that to bear on their current and future educational experiences. When I first started teaching, I struggled with teaching this because I had never really been given adequate support to reflect on my own experiences. I studied reflective self assessment in order to teach for transfer for my MA thesis, and it helped me to think about reflection not as a genre I ask students to write, but as a strategy that is useful at all stages of writing a given product. Providing multiple opportunities for reflection also helps me learn about my students and meet them where they are, which is important to me as a teacher. How do you hope higher education will change in the next ten years? One change I hope to see in all education, not just higher education, is a shift away from deficit models of learning. Instead, I hope more educators will adopt strength-based models of education. Elaine Maimon, President of Governors State University in Chicago, explains this model as “building on what is right about students rather than fixing what is wrong” in her book Leading Academic Change: Vision, Strategy, Transformation. Instead of focusing on what students can’t do, it can be really powerful to think about what they can do and to consider how a course might build on that existing knowledge or set of experiences. This model also more accurately reflects how learning works. People aren’t empty vessels waiting to be filled with knowledge. They have lived experiences that influence how they encounter the worlds, and then they integrate new experiences, ideas, beliefs, and values with those experiences. It doesn’t serve learning when we as teachers only focus on what someone isn’t currently capable of doing.  What do you think instructors don't know about educational publishing but should?  When I was offered the opportunity to be a Bedford New Scholar, I didn’t know much about the publishing world except ongoing conversations about rising textbook costs and some skepticism about the publishing industry’s role in developing curricula. I imagine that other instructors, especially those who haven’t had the opportunity to meet and work with publishers, might view the industry similarly. I was really excited to learn how Bedford/St. Martin’s values disciplinary expertise when developing its textbooks and products. The editors I’ve worked with care about helping authors translate their research into textbooks meaningfully. I was also completely unaware of the amount of focus group research they conduct when developing new projects. They have really committed themselves to responding to teacher needs by finding a variety of ways to figure out what those needs are and to work with experts who can help meet those needs. I don’t think that’s something most of us think about when we consider whether to adopt a textbook. What's it like to be a part of the Bedford New Scholars program? Being part of the Bedford New Scholars program has been a great opportunity to learn about the educational publishing industry and learn from other New Scholars about how writing is taught in a variety of contexts. But most importantly, it was a really energizing and validating experience. Of course, it’s always nice to be recognized for my work by my mentors who nominated me. But there was a really awesome sense of encouragement as we shared our Assignments that Work during our summit in Boston, and I left the summit being really excited about my scholarship and my teaching because of the ideas I’d heard from others and the feedback I’d gotten on my own assignment. I have enjoyed this opportunity to meet and learn from others who I otherwise might not ever cross paths with.  Caitlin’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 Caitlin's assignment. You can view the full details here: Teaching Revision and Research through Full-Class Collaboration. I chose to share my approach to teaching research using full-class collaboration, which I explored in a first-semester composition course that focused on research-based writing, typically by developing a research project over multiple stages throughout the semester. The first time I taught the course, I saw my students struggle with using sources in their papers and discovered that most of them had never been taught how to take notes, so I created an assignment in which we read and took notes on the same resources together and then wrote an argumentative paper as a class. Students then revised the draft on their own by trying out what I call “radical revision”: rewriting everything in a given paragraph except one sentence. This assignment doesn’t fit with the FYC curricula I teach now, but the semester I used this approach is still one of my favorite teaching memories, and I try to find ways to bring successful aspects of this assignment into all the courses I teach. Learn more about the Bedford New Scholars advisory board on the Bedford New Scholars Community page. ... View more

Recently, several colleagues have asked me about my grace period, which is part of my late policy on student work. Their interest encouraged me to write an update on how it’s been working. I began using a grace period in 2013, and I’ve used it ever since. When we talk about students and their requests for extensions, someone usually talks about the number of family deaths that students mention in their requests for more time to get their work done. I’m happy to report the grace period means that I never read that kind of an extension requests. That’s right! No grandmothers are killed in my classes! So how does the grace period work? Below is the statement that I include in my syllabus for the summer session. Canvas, which is mentioned in the policy, is our course management system (CMS): Late Policy (Grace Period) My late policy includes a grace period that should cover most problems that come up, whether academic conflicts, an illness, a religious holiday, or a personal issue. It applies to most graded work and can be used multiple times. You do not need to ask in advance or explain why your work is late. Just take advantage of the grace period, as explained below, for any work OTHER than your final exam: The due date is the day that your work is due (usually Fridays). Every student has a 3-day grace period after the due date during which the project can still be submitted. The grace period occurs between the due date and the deadline. Work submitted during the grace period will be marked as late in Canvas; however, there is no grade penalty for work submitted during the grace period. The deadline comes 3 days after the due date (usually Mondays) and is the final moment that Canvas will accept a project (listed as the “available until” date in Canvas). There are no extensions on deadlines. If you do not turn in your work by the end of the grace period, you receive a zero for that activity, and you cannot revise. Unlimited, punishment-free revisions are NOT intended to support those who never did the work in the first place. Final Exam: There is no grace period or make-up option for your final exam. Your final exam must be submitted by the due date (11:59 PM on Saturday, August 17) so that I can turn course grades in on time. If you have three exams on Saturday, August 17, let me know and we can make alternative arrangement. Extenuating Circumstances: In the case of extenuating circumstances, let me know immediately. I understand that things happen. To pace course work for everyone, I will not post work early to resolve a conflict. If you let me know reasonably ahead of time, we can find a solution. As long as you are honest and timely in letting me know what’s going on, we can try to work something out. Religious Holidays & Events Please take advantage of the grace period explained in the Late Policy section above if the due date for any work in this class coincides with a religious holiday that you celebrate. Please let me know before the holiday if the grace period will not be adequate, and we will come up with an alternative plan. I have learned a few lessons in the six years that I have used the Grace Period system. After some experimentation, I settled on three days as the length of the grace period. Longer grace periods interrupt progress on the work students need to do. At one point, I used a week-long grace period. Unfortunately when a student turns in a rough draft a week late, she can’t use any of the revision strategies we are talking about during the next week of the course. Three days seems to be just right. I also learned to warn students not to use the grace period to procrastinate. We will begin working on the next project as soon as the due date passes. During the grace period then, students will end up working on two projects at once. If they procrastinate too much, they may be behind all term. I advise them at the beginning of the class to try to keep up with the due dates, and I remind them throughout the term to try to catch up if they do fall behind. Others have described this system as humane and supportive. Those are great advantages to be sure. I’m selfish though. I created this policy for myself. I no longer have to weigh the believability of student excuses nor respond to those email messages asking for extensions. The grace period is one of the best policies I’ve made as a teacher. Do you have a policy that has made a big difference in your teaching? I’d love to hear about it. Tell me in a comment below. I look forward to hearing about what works in your classroom. ... View more

Video Link : 2458 Public Domain video from FedFlix Duck and Cover! by the Federal Civil Defense Administration If you ask your students to create video projects, today’s post is for you. Showing students where to find public domain videos will give them thousands of free-to-use videos that they can clip or embed fully in their work. These resources exponentially increase their options beyond what they can gather by filming their own footage and using short clips from copyrighted material under Fair Use. As I explained last month, Public Domain Assets have no copyright restrictions, so students can use these resources in their own work without worrying about permissions or take-down notices. All they need to do is cite their sources in an appropriate way. NASA’s Videos and Ultra Hi-Def Videos and the National Park Service, Multimedia Search from my last post, for instance, provide high-quality video footage that students can use freely in their projects. Last week, I shared where to find public domain images, and in today’s post, I’m giving you details on some of the best public domain video resources available. These collections are arranged by the different kinds of resources that they offer, so students may find footage relevant to their subject areas at any of them. Public Domain Search Sites and Collections Prelinger Archive This archive focuses on ephemeral films, which the site defines as advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur films. The collection includes a subset of home movies and has a variety of search filters that can help students find relevant footage for their projects. Feature Films, from the Internet Archive Moving Image Archive These public domain videos include feature films, short films, silent films, and trailers, such as the William Castle film House on Haunted Hill. The collection does include nudity (such as shorts featuring strippers) and graphic images (such as a U.S. Department of Defense film on Nazi Concentration Camps). FedFlix, from the Internet Archive Moving Image Archive A collection of videos from the U.S. government, this archive includes a variety of historical movies (like the Duck and Cover! video above) as well as movies related to such areas as the military, the FDA, and law enforcement. U.S. Government Agencies, on YouTube Many government agencies post their public domain videos on YouTube, making them widely accessible for student projects. Here are some examples that are worth sharing with students: National Park Service Federal Trade Commission The Obama White House Department of Transportation National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) HealthCare.gov on YouTube Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Department of the Interior National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) United States Geological Survey (USGS) Veterans Health Administration (VA) Students can embed videos from these collections into their projects, but they cannot download the videos without violating YouTube’s Terms of Service (unless the video has a download option). Final Thoughts If students are working on documentary projects or narrative projects, these public domain collections are likely to include resources that they can use. The ways that they can use the footage vary, so check the details on the sites to ensure that students abide by the policies of the collections they are interested in. If you know of additional collections of public domain videos that are appropriate for student projects, please share them. The more resources available for students to use, the better! Just leave the details in a comment below. I look forward to hearing your experiences with using public domain resources in the classroom. ... View more

Nina Feng (recommended by Jay Jordan and Andrew Franta) is pursuing her PhD in English with an emphasis in Writing and Rhetoric Studies at the University of Utah. She expects to graduate in May 2021. She teaches Intermediate Writing, Writing in the Social Sciences, and Write4U, a course for transfer students. Her research interests include game pedagogy, multimodality, sensory rhetorics, and critical race theory. What is your greatest teaching challenge? I’ve faced many difficult situations and made many mistakes throughout my teaching career. It’s taught me that I have to continue educating myself on student needs and working towards recognizing my own biases, which is a process that I hope to always engage in. One of the greatest challenges I’ve faced in teaching is to be self-aware and unafraid to relinquish control, along with previous ideas of success in writing. I try to be thoughtful about how I expect students to respond, or how the lesson should go because if we allow students to claim authority and show us unexpected ways to approach assignments, we can give them space to grow in confidence and develop their own aims and strengths.  How do you hope higher education will change in the next ten years? I hope that more and more teachers and institutions will adopt translingual approaches, emphasizing the acts of translation and interpretation that happen when we communicate, destabilizing curriculums that depend on standards of white supremacy. I think we’re seeing more of that happen in many fields, and we’re beginning to embrace language difference as potential, rather than deficit. What do you think instructors don't know about educational publishing but should? I think instructors should know that there are meticulous processes and engaged conversations happening with publishers and educators on the ground. Many of the materials that are created can be extremely useful, in supplementary ways and beyond composition classrooms as well. It’s worth considering and looking through potential textbooks to see what might help new instructors, in particular. What have you learned from other Bedford New Scholars? I was very fortunate to work with an incredible group of graduate students, and I learned so much from each one of them. I realized how much social justice work is happening at multiple institutions, and also how we’re all trying to reinvent similar assignments, ones which depend on basic, durable rhetorical models but need innovative modifications to address student needs. I also learned how many brilliant ideas are brewing in the minds of individual instructors — we could all benefit from a larger network of closer connections across institutions. 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 Nina’s assignment. Nina’s Assignment that Works: Rhetorical Synthesis of Multimodal Works For this assignment, students are asked to choose four pieces of media/readings we’ve been studying during the first month of the semester, and to write a synthesis focused on the similarities and differences between rhetorical strategies utilized among the pieces. The pieces range from radio clips to short films to video games, encouraging students to become more aware of the mediums and modalities that contribute to rhetorical effectiveness. In an effort to help students think about the various tools, people, histories and contexts involved in communication, I think the more diverse the modalities and media we present, the more visible we can make the multiple layers of communication processes.  Learn more about the Bedford New Scholars advisory board on the Bedford New Scholars Community page. ... View more

A couple of weeks ago, I shared my Daily Discussion Post (DDP) activity, which asks students to read materials that are related to the course activities and respond to them. This summer I plan to design some new ways for students to respond to these posts. As I use the posts now, each one typically ends with a question meant to kick off student discussion. Some weeks, the questions seems repetitive. After all, there are only so many ways to ask, “What do you think of this idea?” On the other hand, I try to avoid asking such specific questions that there appears to be only one answer. I also want to steer clear of questions that only allow for one way of thinking or looking at the topic. I want to ensure that students have options for how they respond. The first option I have designed uses a tic-tac-toe layout to provide a variety of response options for an entire week. The activity, included below, states the instructions, provides the tic-tac-toe board, and adds short descriptions for each of the nine options on the board. Tic-Tac-Toe Discussion Challenge This week, I challenge you to choose your DDP response strategies from the tic-tac-toe board below. Just as in a game of tic-tac-toe, your goal is to choose three in a row, three in a column, or three diagonally. Reply to three different DDPs, choosing three different kinds of responses from the board (a different one for each DDP). Additional information on each option is listed below the board. Tic-Tac-Toe Response Board Cite the textbook Critique the ideas Question for the author/speaker Demonstrate the idea with your project Relate to a prior experience Cite another DDP Make a recommendation Cite another student Share a related website Details on the Response Options (listed alphabetically) Cite another DDP Connect the post you are responding to with another post. Be sure to link to the other post and explain the connection fully. Cite another student Connect to another student’s comment on the original post, OR to another student’s comment on some other post (be sure to link to it). Either way, be sure to explain the connection completely. Cite the textbook Add a quotation from the textbook that relates to the post. It can support the idea or challenge it. Tell us why you chose it, and explain its relationship. Include the page number where you found the quotation. Critique the ideas Think about the ideas in the post, and tell us what you think—What good ideas does it share? What bad ideas did you notice? Provide specific explanations for how your opinions on the post. Demonstrate the idea with your project Write a before-and-after reply. Take a passage from your project as it is, and then show it after you revise to apply the idea in the post. Make a Recommendation Advise someone on the topic the post considers. Recommend whether to follow the advice in the DDP, and provide supporting details that show why someone should follow your recommendation. Question for the author/speaker Imagine sitting down with the author of the video or article linked in the DDP. Tell us what you would ask the author/speaker, explain why you’re asking, and suggest how you think the person will reply. Relate to a prior experience Explain how the ideas in the DDP relate to a personal experience that you have had in school, in the workplace, or somewhere else. Your experience can match the post or be different. Share a related website Tell us about a web page you have found that talks about the same ideas as the post. Include the name of the page, and provide a link. Assessment You will report the three replies you completed from the Tic-Tac-Toe board in your journal. You will earn credit for your replies by indicating you have completed this task on the Weekly Self-Assessment Quiz. Final Thoughts The assessment plan for the activity places the burden of the work on the students. After all, they know where their three responses are and which squares they intend them to correspond to on the Tic-Tac-Toe board. If I had to search out the posts for all 88 students I teach in a semester, the activity would take my time away from giving students feedback on their projects. Letting students report their work makes the activity easy to manage. Do you have effective discussion activities that you use with your students? I plan to create some additional activities before classes start again in the fall. Will you share your ideas in the comments below? I would love to hear from you. Photo credit: Playground tic-tac-toe and square by Sharat Ganapati on Flickr, used under a CC-BY 2.0 license. ... View more

Matt Switliski (nominated by Christina Ortmeier-Hooper) is completing a PhD in English with a concentration in Composition at the University of New Hampshire. He has taught First-Year Writing, Introduction to Creative Nonfiction, Professional and Technical Writing, and other courses. His major research interests are writing centers and creative writing. His secondary interests include response, stylistics, and craft books. Matt was a 2018 Bedford New Scholar.   In the First-Year Writing classes I teach, I often ask a series of questions on the first day of the semester to get students involved and to access some of what they already know about writing. “What were you told to do (or not do) in writing?” generates plenty of ideas and usually some disagreement. The answers encompass the expected (Your thesis should be in the first paragraph) and the surprising (You can’t start a sentence with “because”). For as many times as I’ve asked that question, I’ve never had a student ask, “What kind of writing?” To shake up their ideas about school writing being one universal variety, I try to integrate discussions of genre throughout the term.   Some context: At the University of New Hampshire, our one-semester First-Year Writing (FYW) course is the only requirement for all students regardless of program (save those with appropriate transfer or AP credit). While individual instructors have a lot of flexibility, the course is generally structured around three major assignments—an analytical essay, a researched persuasive essay, and a personal essay—with a rhetorical emphasis throughout. The first assignment asks students to rhetorically analyze an argument, integrating the appeals of ethos, logos, and pathos. That language bridges nicely to the next essay in which writers make their own arguments, supported by evidence. It’s in the early days of the researched persuasive unit that I raise the matter of genre with the assignment linked here.   One way I’ve introduced genre is to have students brainstorm as many different kinds of writing as they can. I encourage them to be as broad with it as possible. If it contains language, it’s fair game. As students call out ideas—Lyrics! Menus! Lab reports! Poems!—I scribble them furiously on the board, both to signal that their contributions are valuable and to give us a powerful visual of the diversity of writing. Breaking into groups, they discuss what’s common and what’s distinctive about each of these sorts of writing, sharing their findings as a whole class afterward. (I realize there are much more nuanced approaches to genre, as in the work of Amy Devitt and Anis Bawarshi, but I’m not even sure I understand those views as well as I should. Besides, this exercise is really just scratching the surface of a much bigger topic.)   From there we consider the research papers they’ve written in the past, whether those are a genre themselves or if they include a range of genres. Some have written diverse work that integrates research, but many more have written a kind of generic research paper that just gathers information and solders it together without opinion, without audience, without purpose. That, I tell them, is not the case here. The research will help them make a point that they believe. And in doing so, they get to experiment with genre.   As you can see in the assignment, I provide students with the introductions to three approaches to the same basic research topic. The audience for each is different, however, as is the evidence used. In the past I’ve given them the choice of writing their research paper as an op-ed, a report, or a letter, though I do like the idea of making it entirely open-ended; that way, they would not only need to research material to help them make their arguments, but they’d also need to research how to write whatever genre they choose, something they will need to do in the future as FYW cannot prepare writers for every contingency. (Here I align myself with Downs and Wardle in rejecting teaching a “universal academic discourse” as a goal for FYW [553].)   While each example obviously differs in style and structure, I emphasize audience, purpose, and evidence. The letter addresses an individual, the report a larger group, and the op-ed the largest. Given those audiences, we discuss what issues are relevant to each of these audiences and, if we don’t know, how to find out. What the audience cares about changes the angle of the argument and thus demands different evidence. We discuss what each argument is asking its audience to do and if that course of action is within their power—something I expect them to address in their own writing. And we talk about evidence not just as it relates to the audience and purpose but what seems appropriate for the genre. A report probably won’t have much room for pathos, whereas a letter or an op-ed might. The ethos of the writer can sometimes be relevant for an op-ed and almost always is in the case of a letter. As for logos, well, that’s key to nearly any argument, something they generally notice when writing their own rhetorical analyses.   How do you bring up genre in writing classrooms? How do you work against the ubiquitous generic research paper?   References Bawarshi, Anis S. Genre and the Invention of the Writer: Reconsidering the Place of Invention in Composition. Utah State UP, 2003. Devitt, Amy J. Writing Genres. Southern Illinois UP, 2008. Downs, Douglas, and Elizabeth Wardle. “Teaching about Writing, Righting Misconceptions: (Re)Envisioning ‘First-Year Composition’ as ‘Introduction to Writing Studies.’” College Composition and Communication, vol. 58, no. 4, 2007, pp. 552-584.   To view Matt’s assignment, visit Persuasive Genres. To learn more about the Bedford New Scholars advisory board, visit the Bedford New Scholars page on the Macmillan English Community. ... View more

Those who read these posts know that I’m wont to talk about style and about its crucial importance to writers today. Responding to one of my posts, Tom McGohey wrote: Took me years, but I eventually discovered that the key to integrating style in a meaningful way was tying it consistently to student writing throughout the semester, in daily informal reading responses and class exercises, and in papers. From day one, we discussed rhetorical situations and strategies. In particular, I emphasized ethos, and how style contributed to ethos, and how that in turn contributed to the impact of a piece in a particular rhetorical situation. With every reading assignment, we spent some class time examining how style and ethos affected their response to a writer and the advantages and drawbacks of a style. When and why did the writer employ this style in particular passages? All along, I encouraged them to consider their own style/ethos on the page and how they might make more conscious use of it. I encouraged them to imitate a writer’s style they really liked during in-class writing exercises. Tom reported that such careful integration of style paid off and that “on the whole, students liked doing all the style work. It gave them a sense of control over their prose, and seeing an immediate payoff in their writing, even if it were just one small area like shifting from passive to active voice or punctuating a long sentence perfectly, spurred them to pay more attention to style.”     I’ve had much the same experience with students over the decades, finding that taking time to get a sentence just right, to use an analogy to striking effect, to attend to the rhythms of prose, eventually got student writers excited: they too can “make sentences sing.”  So I wrote back to Tom thanking him for his comments and in return he generously shared an assignment he gives, called “Stylish Writing.” Here’s Tom’s prompt: Rhetorical Situation: You’ve been invited to submit an essay to a professional journal titled Stylish Writing explaining your own development as a “stylish writer.” This journal is read by practicing writers who take a great interest in the craft of writing and who like to learn from other writers about the joys and frustrations of struggling to write well-crafted sentences. With your essay, you will be entering a larger conversation about the role and importance of style in writing. Tom goes on in the assignment to give students a series of questions to help them begin to analyze and describe their own writing styles and to link their stylistic choices to the establishment of ethos and to the rhetorical effects achieved by those choices. Throughout the assignment, he encourages students to experiment, to take risks, and to have FUN.   This is just the kind of playful but serious assignment students can really shine on. Indeed it may be one you might like to try, or modify, in your own classes. Tom has generously allowed me to share it here. If you have an assignment that engages students with style and stylistic choices, please send it along!   Image Credit: Pixabay Image 1209121 by Free-Photos, used under the Pixabay License ... View more

Brody Smithwick is the founder of Lion Life Community, a non-profit organization that offers educational services inside of jails in North Georgia. He is also a graduate student at Kennesaw State University working toward a Master’s Degree in Professional Writing with concentrations in both Creative Writing and Composition and Rhetoric while teaching First-Year Composition courses at KSU.   Let’s be honest, teaching how to compose and use an annotated bibliography is not something that often induces uncontrollable excitement in our students. However, it is a necessary and useful instrument to put in their academic toolbox. While the formatting and summarizing components are important, getting students to analyze and synthesize their sources is where the magic happens—or doesn’t. In this assignment, we’ll take a look at how you can use podcasting to supplement your annotated bibliography assignments to get your students to engage in quality analysis and synthesis.   Background Reading for Students and Instructors The St. Martin’s Handbook: Ch. 6, “Working with Others” The Everyday Writer (also available with Exercises😞 Ch. 14, “Evaluating Sources and Taking Notes” EasyWriter (also available with Exercises😞 Ch. 12d, “Synthesizing sources”   Assignment: Analyze and Synthesize Sources via Podcasting Assignment Learning Outcomes Integrate appropriate source material for a variety of rhetorical contexts Read and analyze a rhetorically diverse range of texts Compose a variety of texts using key rhetorical concepts Synthesize source material   In this assignment, students will learn how to engage in quality analysis and synthesis by creating a podcast about their annotated bibliography sources. Put students into groups of twos or threes. With completed annotated bibliographies in hand, your students will pick two or three sources to discuss in the podcast. They will create a podcast script as a deliverable that also aids in ensuring the podcast runs smoothly. If you want, you can give them some stock questions to ask one another during the podcast that you know will guide the conversation towards strong analysis and synthesis. While not a necessity, I think this assignment works best if there is an overall theme to the class or if you group students together who are writing on similar topics.    Assignment Steps Introduce the Assignment and Explain the Technology Link your expectation of the production quality of the podcast to how much time you are willing to spend on explaining software/hardware and editing tools. Sure, some students will be tech gurus and produce something ready for BBC on the first go. On the other hand, many students will struggle greatly with the technology component. That being said, you can either spend ample time in-class or make yourself available beyond the classroom to teach the technology side. Or simply lower your production quality requirement.   Here is a list of the free technology and other resources I provide to my students. I let them use what they are comfortable with even if I’m not familiar with it. Instead of requiring them to submit their podcast via our university’s learning management system, I ask that they turn in their work via email with very specific instructions on what to put in the email subject and how to name their files. This method has worked wonderfully for me so far.   You will also want to set a time limit on the podcasts. You would be surprised at how long these podcasts can run if you do not put a cap on them. I require a minimum of 20 minutes and a maximum of 30 minutes.     Have Students Complete an Outline of a Podcast Script  By giving students an example outline, or Podcast Script, you will get a much higher quality podcast, especially because not all students regularly listen to podcasts. While podcasts can often sound like two or three pals simply shooting the breeze on the latest trends in quantum mechanics, they are not completely effortless and take time to produce. In fact, my students are often surprised that a podcast script is a real thing. The podcast script also gives you a chance to provide feedback mid-composition if you have students turn the script in before they create the podcast.    Emphasize the Importance of Making Connections and Asking Questions During the podcast should talk about how each source specifically pertains to their topic. Although they have already completed their annotated bibliography, their co-hosts will need a brief summary of the source. From there, you’ll want to coach them to explain how this source is functioning as a piece of evidence that supports their claim and how they specifically plan to use it in their essay. They’ll need to be familiar enough with the source to be able to field questions from their co-hosts. This where your stock questions can really come in handy for students that may struggle with coming up with questions off the cuff.     An example of how a discussion may unfold could look like the following: If Jim’s essay “Weimaraners: The Intelligentsia of the Canine World” is arguing that Weimaraners are the most intelligent breed of dog on the planet, one of his sources for the podcast might be a book about William Wegman’s amazingly talented Weimaraners. Jim briefly tells his co-hosts that Wegman is a popular American artist whose photography and art of Weimaraners dressed in human attire gained him a considerable reputation in the Seventies and Eighties. His art has been displayed in the Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney, and The Smithsonian American Art Museum just to name a few. Jim has made the connection that this breed’s high intelligence allowed Wegman to create the portraits he is now so famous for. Jim plans to use Wegman’s work as a primary example of how Weimaraners have accomplished feats that shaped modern culture and that no other breed could possibly be capable of. At this point in the podcast, questions from the co-hosts will typically ensue.   Encourage your students to go where the conversation takes them and to become curious in one another’s work. Let them know that they should feel free to ask questions or challenge their co-hosts arguments--respectfully of course. This assignment puts students in a position of authority, as they are the expert on their topic and sources during the podcast. Many students seem to thrive when given that position. I think they truly feel as if they have a voice and something to add to the larger conversation.    Reflection   In so many ways, talking is composing. Aiding students in discussing their sources with their peers, without the presence of the professor, yields rich conversations full of more in-depth analysis of their sources. Students move naturally into synthesizing their sources when their peers inquire about certain components of their research project or source. The podcasts my students create are often full of wit, humor, heated debates, and brilliant insights. After completing an annotated bibliography and doing this assignment, the general consensus of my class is that they feel well equipped to tackle their research projects. I like this assignment because it can be dressed up or down depending on your desired outcome. I plan to always incorporate podcasts into my course designs going forward. ... View more

Writing in The New York Times in 2011, Neil Genzlinger bemoans “the problem of memoirs,” opening with this notable illustration by Timothy Goodman. Genzlinger is ostensibly reviewing four recently-published memoirs, but he spends most of his time elaborating on four principles for would-be memoirists: that you had parents and a childhood does not qualify you to write a memoir; readers don’t want to “relive your misery”; don’t jump on the memoir bandwagon just because it’s there; and “if you must write a memoir make sure you are the least important person in it.”   This is not bad advice, but potential memoir writers seem not to have heeded it. In 2011, Genzlinger notes that if you want to browse memoirs on Amazon, you better be in a comfy chair since you will get 60 to 120,000 “hits” depending on how you search. Today the number is even greater.   Why the avalanche of memoirs? Genzlinger attributes it to “me-ism,” an age of narcissism. While there is no doubt some truth in that assertion (pretty much all of us, after all, like to talk about ourselves), I think it ignores other important factors. I first noticed the huge uptick in memoirs about 20 years ago and often commented on it and discussed it with my students. After years of worrying the issue, we came up with two factors that seemed to be associated with the rise of this particular genre. First is the resistance to what Lisa Ede and I have called “radical individualism” by theorists of many different stripes, who point out that the long-held assumption that we were the “masters of our fates, the captains of our souls” is belied at every turn, that we are rather shaped by forces far beyond our control. Hence “the death of the author” and the concept of “author functions” that so exercised theorists in the 80s.   These were frightening concepts to many, and the ensuing culture wars stirred up passions on all sides. Feminist rhetoricians and compositionists noted a bitter irony: just at a time when women and people of color were able to come to voice, establishment theorists told them that such voices were really constructions, not results of their own agency. And many in society at large felt vaguely that the concept of selfhood as they had known it for centuries was called into question.   In addition, the 21 st century brought with it enormous advances in artificial intelligence and robotics, moves that presaged something like the industrial revolution on steroids, with huge categories of jobs being taken over by machines. As I write, Andrew Yang, an entrepreneur running for the Democratic presidential nomination, is criss-crossing the country, demonstrating in graphic detail how many jobs—indeed entire professions—are already being taken over by robots and other machines and talking about how to “save jobs from automation” while at the same time facing the necessity of introducing a guaranteed monthly income for all.   These changes are threatening on an existential level—to many, they threaten the sense not only of self but of self-worth. In such times, it is no wonder that we see signs of writers trying to reclaim a traditional sense of self, of saying with every new memoir published, “Here I am. Look at me. I count. I really count.”   Students today are caught in this maelstrom of change, this industrial revolution on steroids. But far too little of what they talk about and study in college acknowledges these realities or engages students in responding productively to them. That doesn’t need to be true of writing programs and courses, however. We are well positioned to tackle these issues with our students, to engage them in tracing challenges to traditional notions of the self as well as technological change in order to better understand the relationship between the two. We are also well positioned to ask students to write about their own relationship to these issues. They might even decide to do a bit of memoir-writing themselves, focusing throughout not on ME ME ME but on how to understand self always in a web of contextual relationships that includes other people as well as other important factors in their environments, including machines with which (or whom?) they may well find themselves engaged in more ways than they can imagine.   To pursue these ends, teachers of writing might well begin with a recent essay in Rhetoric Society Quarterly: “The Ethics of Memoir: Ethos in Uptake.” In this essay, Katherine Mack and Jonathan Alexander show how the concept of ethos “illuminates memoir’s rhetorical potency and its dubious ethics,” noting particularly the way that the over-personalization of memoir bemoaned by Genzlinger can yield to a critique that insistently embeds the ethos of the memoirist within “larger social, cultural, and political debates” like those I have been describing. Mack and Alexander put their recommendation into very good practice in an analysis of two very recent memoirs, J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy and Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me. They conclude that we need many more critical studies of memoirs and especially in the context of “uptake,” that is, how readers “talk back” to them: “At a time when the ‘personal’ and ethos are used to justify a variety of often contradictory positions, a revitalized study of the genres of the personal, such as memoir, and their rhetorical deployment, strikes us as more pressing than ever” (68).   Mack and Alexander’s astute analysis will give teachers of writing a lot to think about—and provide another way to engage students in examining, critically, the “problem of memoirs.”   Image Credit: Pixabay Image 1149959 by Free-Photos, used under the Pixabay License ... View more

One of the most common logical fallacies in argumentation is the either/or fallacy. We see this fallacy a great deal these days because our two-party political system is as deeply entrenched as it has ever been, and each party accuses the other of the most extreme positions on hot topics, as if no center ground is possible. Often, the either/or fallacy leads to the straw man fallacy, as the other side finds itself defending against a much more extreme position than what it truly supports.   President Trump wants a wall on our southern border. That leads Republicans to support the unfair assumption that anyone who opposes the wall is for open borders; Trump even went so far as to accuse House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of supporting human trafficking because she opposes the border wall. However, immigration is not an either/or proposition. Both sides are in favor of border security, but if the Democrats must defend themselves against the false charge that they want no restrictions at all on immigration, they waste time and energy that could be spent on reaching common ground. Thus the straw man that Democrats are distracted by and find themselves attacking instead of the real issue.   New York’s new legislation about abortion is another example that can be examined in light of either/or logic. Some of those who oppose abortion assume that those who cheered the passage of the legislation must be willing to accept killing an infant in the process of being delivered. The law actually stipulates very specific circumstances under which a late-term abortion can be performed. That “if” clause is what opponents of abortion do not hear. The either/or fallacy comes in accepting that either one opposes abortion under any circumstances or accepts it under any circumstances. If those who support a woman’s right to choose have to defend themselves against the charge that they think it is okay to kill a baby during delivery, they are attacking a straw man rather than addressing the real issue of why a woman would choose a late-term abortion.   Any time a speaker or writer argues that if you don’t believe this, you believe that, it is worth pausing to consider if that dichotomy really exists. Is it true that anyone who supports gun control wants to take all guns away from every law-abiding American? Is it true that parents who allow their children to be vaccinated do not care about their children’s welfare?   The whole idea behind Rogerian argument is that it seeks common ground from which to work toward reconciling opposing or differing positions. That’s not easy when the issue is something as heated as abortion or the killing of black men by white police officers. It’s not easy because the first step toward reconciliation is being able to accurately state your opponent’s position. As long as every statement is weighed first in terms of its political impact, that step toward common ground will be slow in coming.   Photo credit: “Democratic Donkey & Republican Elephant - Caricatures” by DonkeyHotey on Flickr, 2/12/14 via a CC BY 2.0 license. ... View more

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about style and delivery. Listening to the President’s hour-long rambling, free-associating announcement of a “national emergency,” I wondered again how his style—bullying, belligerent, antagonistic, dogmatic, and clipped (he often speaks in tweets)—seems to appeal to so many people. And yet it clearly does appeal to many, who seem eager if not to be bullied then to be told what to think, do, and believe. Elsewhere I’ve analyzed passages of his speeches, which reveal that he speaks on about a third or fourth-grade level, using a limited vocabulary, relying on stoking fears of “others,” and using tropes like paralipsis or occultatio (saying what you intend to say by insisting you won’t say it).   It’s surely worth asking our students to carry out analyses of style and delivery (looking at not only the words, phrases, images, figures of speech, and so on, but at body language as well) both in order to sharpen their critical skills and to help them analyze their own styles and patterns of delivery. Many writing centers now even provide ways for students to get presentations video-taped so that they can analyze these performances, often with the help of a speaking/presenting consultant.   On a recent visit to Stockholm, I was reminded of a very different kind of style and delivery: that used by teenager Greta Thunberg in her call to arms against the deadly emissions that are affecting the environment. You have probably heard of Thunberg—a sixteen-year-old (who started her campaign two years ago) who leaves school every Friday in Stockholm to sit in front of the Swedish parliament, admonishing leaders to act.   Thunberg is sitting in this photo, but she is more often standing and delivering speeches that challenge those listening to her to act. Speaking softly and clearly, enunciating every word (and often speaking in her second or third language, English), she has a message that is anything but soft. Like America’s current president, she uses repetition—but not like a baseball bat and instead like a drumbeat that intensifies in urgency as she moves through her talk. Take a look, for instance, at a speech she delivered to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this year. (She got there after an arduous train trek since she refuses to use the emissions-heavy airlines, and she noted the hypocrisy of those who come in “private jets” to talk about what they are doing to reduce emissions.) You can find a transcript and watch clips of the speech here, but for now here is a brief excerpt of the beginning and end of her speech: Our house is on fire. I am here to say, our house is on fire... Adults keep saying: “We owe it to the young people to give them hope.” But I don’t want our hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is.                         There is much to talk about in her speech: the explicit, plain language that makes her message absolutely and unequivocally clear. The very short sentences (like the last one, “Because it is.”) offset by some as long as 40 words that help achieve a dynamic and steady rhythm. The use of direct address (“I want you to act.”). The stark contrast between ineffective, dithering “adults” and young people on a mission. And, again, the use of repetition, which she uses throughout but perhaps most notably in the last part of the speech: “I don’t want; I don’t want” followed by “I want,” “I want,” “I want,” “I want,” “I want.” Thunberg stands straight and tall before her audience, looking directly at them and speaking as if without notes. “I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is.” Here her use of repetition is artful, expressive, intensifying with each clause. Soft spoken, steady, often understated—but carrying a big message.   Our students could learn a lot from watching one of Thunberg’s presentations and then studying the transcript with care. In an age of “optics,” when images reign supreme and sound bites dominate, she offers some of her own that are truly memorable.   I like to challenge students to take a subject they are passionate about and to prepare a brief oral presentation, using examples like this one from Thunberg (or other speakers) to inspire them to concentrate on style and delivery. Because they matter, perhaps more today than ever.   Image Credit: Photo by Leonhard Lenz [CC0] via Wikimedia Commons ... View more

Most teachers of writing I know are concerned, along with their students, about using inclusive language in (and out of) the classroom, and especially in acknowledging that the traditional male/female binary doesn’t come close to adequately addressing the fluidity and range of human gender and sexuality. These insights have been a long time coming. As a white woman raised in the south, I grew up with that binary firmly fixed and would never have thought of questioning it—until I got to college. I was an avid student and eager to take advantage of every lecture, concert, or other cultural event offered at my state school, so I found myself one evening in a big auditorium to hear a talk by philosopher Alan Watts. I remember that he drew an imaginary line across the stage and then said that it represented human sexuality, and that every point along the line was different, that the range of our ability to experience sex stretched literally from sea to shining sea. I don’t remember much else about the lecture, which occurred over half a century ago. But I do remember sitting in the auditorium at the end of the talk feeling as though I were looking over an abyss and understanding, for the first time, just how much I had to learn about what it meant to be human.   Well, that’s why we go to college—and I hope students everywhere are being led to question their own assumptions and to expand their ways of thinking. So I’ve been a big advocate of the use of gender neutral language. In the latest edition of Everything’s an Argument, we talk about pronoun preferences and quote Peter Smagorinsky: “It may well be that “ze” and “zir” will replace current pronouns over time" (as "Ms." has replaced "Mrs." or "Miss"). And of course the use of singular “they” is now regularly accepted, as in “Jamie called me and so I called them back.” The important point is that writers and speakers need to be sensitive to difference and need to choose terms (like pronouns!) appropriately.   That goes for identity labels as well, and in this regard I was interested to read an essay by Jonathan Rauch called “Don’t Call Me LGBTQ: Why we need a single overarching designation for sexual minorities” in the January/February 2019 issue of The Atlantic. Rauch argues that “LGBTQ is coalitional and inclusive. But no matter how many letters are added, one group is pointedly excluded.” After much thought, he says, he has come to the conclusion that “the alphabet-soup designation for sexual minorities has become a synecdoche for the excesses of identity politics—excesses that have helped empower the likes of Donald Trump.” So Rauch urges us to “retire the term” and replace it with a single letter: Q. . . . the term would be understood to encompass sexual minorities of all stripes. When we speak of ourselves as individuals, we would use gay or lesbian or transgender, or whatever applies. When we need a blanket term, we would simply call ourselves Q. As in: the Q population and Q equality. Q is simple and inclusive, and carries minimal baggage. When we speak of Q equality, we are saying that discrimination against sexual minorities—or for that matter sexual majorities—is not the American way.   As writing teachers, we have an opportunity to engage students in exploring terminologies and labels of all kinds—and to help them to use language in describing others that is inclusive and sensitive to difference. In doing so, we help them become more conscientious and effective communicators. And as always, we stand to learn a great deal from their discussions.   Image Credit: Pixabay Image 3751930 by SharonMcCutcheon, used under the Pixabay License ... View more

“I heard it on NPR” is an often-spoken truth among my friends, as we tend to listen to our local stations and compare notes. Recently, I “heard on NPR” a story about a bridal boutique in England that put a wedding-dressed mannequin sitting in a wheelchair in their window display. The store itself didn’t seem to think the display was “a big deal.” But a lot of people who saw it disagreed. One woman, who uses a wheelchair, tweeted: The new wedding shop in town has a wheelchair using mannequin and it shouldn’t be exciting but it’s the first time I’ve ever seen disability portrayed in a shop window. pic.twitter.com/N5sco2fLJf — Beth Wilson (@doodlebeth) January 9, 2019 Her tweet went viral as people around the world tweeted and reposted. As the shop’s co-owner said, their display had created “an absolute frenzy and this outpouring of messages on this debate that more shops should follow suit.” Indeed. I expect (and hope) that more shops everywhere will follow the lead of this bridal boutique.   But I was taken with this story because of a serendipitous coincidence: as I was listening to NPR in the background, I was working on a revision of one of my textbooks, The Everyday Writer, and in particular on a section dealing with language and identity. I was working with an illustration that’s been created for the new edition showing a young woman in the foreground at a protest rally—using a wheelchair. The speech bubble above her head says “I am a bilingual woman and a student activist.” I’m asking students to look at the illustration and analyze it for what it says about language and identity—and then asking them to think carefully about what words and images they would choose to illustrate their own identities—and to take a careful look at the words they tend to use to describe the identities of others: what assumptions may underlie those word choices?   With this particular image, I ask students to begin by observing it attentively. Then, make some notes, answering these questions: What is your eye first drawn to, and why? What is in the background of the illustration, and how does the background inform the image in the foreground? How would you describe the mood or atmosphere of the illustration? How does color contribute to establishing that mood? How would you describe the facial expression of the woman in the foreground? Look again at the speech bubbles: what words has the person chosen to describe herself? What do those words suggest about what she identifies with? How might the words differ from what you might have expected, and why?    So perhaps textbooks will join Britain’s bridal shop in depicting people as people, rather than people with disabilities. If so, I’m very happy to be in their company! Image Credit: Pixabay Image 2588238 by StockSnap, used under the Pixabay License ... View more