This week I want to share an additional resource that I’ve written to help students understand how my labor-based grading system works. First, though, I want to review the materials that students already had available. I explain the grading system on the course website, on the Requirements page (from the current semester). To help students understand how they are doing in the course, I have a page that outlines How Grades Are Recorded in the course grade book. I also share two infographics to further the explanation. One describes what happens When Your Grades Are Based on Labor. Another provides a flowchart that shows How Project Feedback Works in a course with unlimited revision. Even with these resources, students have told me in comments on course evaluation forms that the grading system I use can be confusing. To address the ongoing questions, I created the following FAQs that answer the questions directly: Grading System FAQ Why do you use a labor-based system? I believe that a system that allows you to keep working until you get the results that fit the workplace is more humane than a system that punishes you if you aren’t perfect on the first try. I know there are lots of situations in the workplace that require perfection. If you submit a bid to a client that has errors, for instance, you may not get a second chance—but that’s in the workplace. You are still in the classroom. The labor-based system allows you the chance to learn and improve. You can make mistakes and try again. You can take risks, and if they don’t turn out, your grade will still be okay. How does this system relate to the workplace? I have worked in quite a few places, and in none of them did I ever receive a letter grade for the work that I did. Never ever. It just doesn’t work that way. Sure, my writing was read by others I worked with. Sometimes it was good enough to go out to the intended reader right away. Other times it had to be revised first. Grades just weren’t part of the system. In the workplace, you are assessed on how hard you work and what you accomplish. Managers expect you to show up, put in your best effort, and accomplish the goals that your company sets. If you do nothing or the bare minimum, you will be reprimanded or fired. Grades in this course are based on a similar system. You earn your grade based on your labor—on the time and intensity that you put into your writing and collaboration. You are not punished for making mistakes as long as you work to improve throughout the term. What’s the research behind this system I adapted this strategy from Asao Inoue’s work on contract grading, labor-based grading, and anti-racist assessment strategies. You can find additional publications on anti-racist assessment and on grading students’ labor on Inoue’s Academia.edu page. Why is this system better for students? The most important benefits of this system are explained in the When Your Grades Are Based on Labor infographic. To summarize those benefits, a labor-based grading system allows you to Focus on Ideas (Not Mistakes). Write for Yourself (Not for Me). Take Risks (Don’t Play It Safe). Have Do-Overs (No Penalty). This labor-based system allows you to continue working on your projects until your work reaches the level that would be acceptable in the workplace. Your grade is not affected by what you haven’t learned yet, and you are free to try out ideas as you like. Why is there no partial credit? Work in this class is either ready to use in the workplace (and graded Complete) or it’s not ready (and graded Incomplete). Think of it as a binary system. There can only be 1 or 0, Complete or Incomplete. There isn’t any middle ground, so there isn’t partial credit. The thing to remember is that when a project is returned as Incomplete, you can always revise it until you do have a piece that is ready to use in the workplace. There is no punishment in the system if your work isn’t quite ready, but there’s no credit either. How are labor logs part of this system? You document the time you spend on activities and the level of intensity you put into your work in your labor log. You can think of tracking your work in your log as a parallel to tracking billing codes for what you do in the workplace. I have no way of knowing what you are working on or even how much you are working in an online class. In a face-to-face classroom, I would see you working in the classroom. I could tell if you were working intensely, working at an average pace, or not working at all. Since I cannot see your work myself, I need you to tell me what you’re doing. Additionally, you will use your labor log to gather details about your work when you write your final exam. Keeping track of what you do in your log is easier than trying to remember the details of what you did at the end of the term. Why is there so much emphasis on peer feedback in this system? In the workplace, you will find yourself reading and commenting on the projects of your coworkers frequently. The peer feedback activities you complete with your writing group give you the chance to learn more about that process. Writing in the workplace is as much about what you write as it is about how you help others with their writing. Just as importantly, peer feedback helps you improve your own writing in two ways. First, and maybe most obvious, you get advice on your draft that you can use to revise your document. Second, by reading drafts written by your classmates, you can see strategies that will help you improve your own work as well as notice errors that you can later check your own work for. Naturally, you cannot copy other people’s work; however, you can see useful ideas that you can make your own. For instance, you might read a draft that does a great job with headings. When you return to your own draft, those headings will stick with you, and you can use their example as you revise your own draft. So what do you think? I haven’t added any details that are not included elsewhere on the site; but perhaps the question-and-answer format will help students find the information. Do you have any suggestions for clarifying the system? How do you explain your grading system to students? I would love some suggestions from readers. Just leave me a comment below.   Image credits: Screenshot Excerpt of Canvas Grade Book by Traci Gardner on Flickr, used under a CC-BY-SA 2.0 license. ... View more

Like millions of other comics fans, I am eagerly anticipating the release of Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther, starring Chadwick Boseman and a truly all-star cast. In fact, I’ve just been catching up by reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’s three-volume Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet, the first volume of which contains a map of Wakanda, an interview with illustrator Brian Stelfreeze, a Black Panther chronology, and other background information. These comics are page-turners for sure, with lots of the usual superhero battles and conflicts but also with lots of meditations on questions of the best kind of governance and the responsibility that those who govern owe to those governed. As someone who has studied collaboration throughout my career, I was especially struck by how the leader(s) and people collaborate to choose the best solution for Wakanda and to make sure that the solution “cannot be written in blood and fire.”   Until the film reaches our little movie theater here on the remote northern California coast, I’m enjoying reading about students’ experiences seeing it. You’ve probably heard of the Black Panther Challenge, launched by New Yorker Frederick Joseph to raise money to take kids from Harlem to see the film. That challenge has spread across the country, and just today a retired teacher friend of mine who mentors young women of color in a high school in Tampa wrote to say that one of her mentees had gone with a group of 30 other students to see Black Panther; she is being joined by thousands of other students having a similar experience and returning to their schools to talk about what the film means and HOW it means.   Which leads me to think about what a very fine teachable moment we have here, all across the U.S. The opportunities for students to do some serious research on the origins of the Black Panther Marvel series as well as on the Black Panther Movement, which began several months after the first Black Panther comic in 1966, are many indeed (and the irony that the series was created by two white men gives further food for thought). Broadening the scope a bit, students can also do research on other Black superheroes (like Icon) and on the history of such heroes, as well as on the evolution of the series, on the evolution of the role women play in the series, and so much more. I can easily imagine an entire first-year course developed around these ideas and texts, one that would challenge students to think deeply not only about the adventures, trials, and tribulations of the hero but also, and more importantly, about the message(s) that he sends to us today.   Ordinarily, I am happy to be retired. But today, I would love nothing better than to design a new version of the research and writing-based comics course I taught for so many years. And I know right where I would begin!   Credit: Pixabay Image 1393153 by emiliefarrisphotos, used under a CC0 Creative Commons License ... View more

“Yet one must also recognize that morality is based on ideas and that all ideas are dangerous — dangerous because ideas can only lead to action and where the action leads no man can say.” Student-selected quote from “Stranger in the Village” by James Baldwin (Notes of a Native Son 1955).   The following activity is adapted from several journal entry assignments that students were invited to write as part of preparing to draft the first essay of our spring semester course, the second semester of Stretch. Many of the students spent the fall semester of Stretch reading and writing about Baldwin, and some had requested that we continue this work in the spring. Because several new students joined our cohort, we began the semester with new material from Baldwin, a refresher for students enrolled in the fall semester and an introduction for students new to the cohort in the spring semester. We began with the often-anthologized essay “Stranger in the Village,” then continued with “Letter to My Nephew,” which serves as a model for the first writing assignment in the course.   ASSIGNMENT Our first writing project asks you to write a letter to a younger audience about a contemporary issue of significance to you and to future generations. An example of this genre is James Baldwin’s “Letter to My Nephew,” first published in The Progressive in 1962, and republished in 1963 as part of Baldwin’s book The Fire Next Time.   James Baldwin uses this genre to introduce his main idea to his immediate audience (his nephew) and his wider audience (the general public and readers of The Progressive). After reading this letter, return to the first three paragraphs to observe how Baldwin creates an extended introduction.   The first paragraph details Baldwin’s writing process and shows Baldwin’s relationship to his nephew and to his nephew’s father (who is Baldwin’s younger brother). Baldwin also introduces his main purpose for writing. The second paragraph describes Baldwin’s relationship to his brother. The third paragraph elaborates on Baldwin’s purpose for writing.   You can model your own opening paragraphs on this template: First paragraph = direct connection to audience Describe your writing process Discuss your relationship to the audience Introduce your purpose for writing   Second paragraph = background about why I am writing (choose from the following or add your own): Events as you imagine them to be in the future Current or recent events Historic events that still hold relevance   Third paragraph = develop your specific purpose for writing: To describe a specific problem faced in the current moment To discuss a specific hope for the future To create a specific plan for the future   The following is a student’s draft of a first paragraph, based on the model.   I have tried writing this letter and have evidently struggled to find the words to express the importance of words. It’s strange that something used in our daily lives could be so influential and important if used correctly. Words can either damage or heal and most importantly change the world. My hope is, dearest readers, that you never lose the fire in your soul. That you face the monsters under your beds with the utmost confidence and vaporize them with the power of your voice.   We workshopped this paragraph as a whole class, and discussed specific revisions: We pointed out the main idea of the paragraph (in bold), and suggested revising the paragraph to clearly present this main idea We were concerned that “dearest readers” was too broad an audience for the specific focus needed for this assignment. Our suggestions here centered on finding a more concrete audience, even if that audience was imaginary for traditional-aged first-year students (grandson, grandniece, great-grandchild of my best friend, etc). ... View more

In a New York Times op-ed piece, Thomas B. Edsall asks “Is President Trump a Stealth Postmodernist or Just a Liar?” Intrigued by the question, I scrolled through the article, finding that writers on both the left and the right have linked Trump to postmodernism. For the left, Jeet Heer connects Trump’s appeals to nostalgia (“Make America Great Again”), his fragmented and fragmentary tweets, and his conflation of make believe and reality as “the perfect manifestation of postmodernism.” And on the right, David Ernst sees the rejection of truth and embrace of relativism as clear signs of postmodernism at work.   While it’s impossible to imagine Trump reading about—or knowing anything about—postmodernist thought (impossible!!), the popular understanding of postmodernism as positing a rejection of objective truth and as agreeing that “anything goes” or “everything is relative” is widespread and featured in various bouts of culture wars in the last couple of decades. Edsall notes that “scholars of contemporary philosophy argue that postmodernism does not dispute the existence of truth per se, but rather seeks to interrogate the sources and interests of those making assertions of truth.” Had Edsall consulted scholars of contemporary rhetoric and writing studies, he might have learned much the same. Kenneth Burke spoke (and wrote) out repeatedly against what he called “vulgar relativism,” all the while showing how humans together make or construct or build truths that can be accepted as “true,” but “true” without a capital T. Rhetorical theory offers doxa as a useful way to think about knowledge and opinion, presenting doxa as that knowledge that can be taken for granted, or that is widely agreed upon. For Aristotle, doxa was a useful early step in the path to knowledge, a place to begin constructing what can be assumed true through the process of argument and counterargument. As such, doxa is important to the working of a democratic society. Later in his article, Edsall notes the work of Lyotard, who defines postmodern as “incredulity toward metanarratives’” rather than as an abandonment of any semblance of objectivity or truthfulness. He also refers to Andrew Cutrofello, a professor at Loyola University Chicago, who says that “In the present political climate truth and power have become uncoupled to a certain extent” so that it’s natural to wonder whether the notion of truth has been undermined. But Cutrofello suggests instead that rather than losing the category of objective truth, we are mired in “a battle over who has objective truth on their side.” Which brings me back to the President and his seeming indifference to truth and to the norms that have guided writers and speakers for generations. As E. J. Dionne, Norman Ornstein, and Thomas Mann put it in One Nation after Trump, we’ve never had a president who aroused such grave and widespread doubts about his commitment to the institutions of self-government, to the norms democracy requires to the legitimacy of opposition in a free republic, and to the need for basic knowledge about major policy questions and about how government works.  Rhetoric, so often maligned as “just hot air,” is the discipline and art that helps us to understand how norms develop, whose ends they serve, and how they can be used in the pursuit of knowledge and action that come as close to truth as it’s possible to get. As a rhetorician, I took the lessons of postmodernism that made sense from a rhetorical perspective (that truths are constructed, that our understanding is often flawed and fragmentary, and that grand narratives and essentialism are dangerous roads to travel). But I did not give up attempts to build knowledge that aims at truthfulness, that tries to establish common ground on which people with opposing views can stand, and argue, and counterargue.  While President Trump seems to understand, viscerally, how to say what he believes people want to hear, and while he employs some rhetorical techniques effectively, he does not do so in the pursuit of truthfulness. He does not use doxa to build toward such informed and agreed-upon knowledge. So perhaps rhetoricians would agree with Johanna Oksala, professor of social science and cultural studies at the Pratt Institute, who wrote in response to Edsall’s question, “I don’t think Trump should be called a postmodern president, but simply a liar.” For all his power, neither should he be called a rhetor or a rhetorician.   Credit: Pixabay Image 166853 by PDPics, used under a CC0 Creative Commons License ... View more

A friend whose daughter is in seventh grade told me recently that her class was known to be very “rowdy” and difficult to control (his daughter is not part of the difficult group!). So, the teacher has instituted a system of punishment: when several students misbehave, the entire class has to write something like “I will never do X again” one hundred times. The whole class. One hundred times. Writing as punishment. Where have we heard this story before?   Research over the last fifty years has repeatedly shown that writing is affected by prior experience—in fact, that’s one of composition’s threshold concepts. My own informal research bears this out: for some twenty years, I asked every group I spoke with to call out their earliest memories of writing. And for twenty years, those early associations were very often about punishment: being made to write “I will never X again” over and over, being made to sit on their left hands if they were left-handed so they’d be forced to write “right,” or being ridiculed for something they had (or had not) written. For others, many people’s first memory of writing is learning to write their names—there’s something about seeing that name—YOU—inscribed on paper or a board or a stone that brings a sense of agency. Yet many of these memories are also marked by feeling that parents or grown-ups laughed (no doubt often kindly but not so to the child at the time) at these early attempts. So for many people, prior experience with writing had been negative, and this attitude and these feelings went with them as they went on in life so that they dreaded writing or felt inadequate when they had to write.   Fortunately, such prior experiences and associations can be mitigated, and that often happens as writers become more confident or encounter more positive experiences with writing, though the early experiences linger on. I believe that many of our students arrive with such negative prior experiences and that it’s in our classrooms that they can begin to move beyond these experiences and to build more positive associations, and hence gain more agency. And I know that many writing teachers talk with students about these issues, drawing them out on their early experiences and systematically helping them construct more successful encounters with writing.   How I wish I could speak with that seventh grade teacher and share the research evidence with her, that I could explain that writing should be used for celebration, for self-expression, and for creating knowledge—not for punishment. But I don’t have an opportunity to do that, and right now what I know is that my friend complained to the teacher about the assignment and especially about making students who were not misbehaving in any way share in the punishment. In response, the teacher said that this was a “tried and true method that works.” Tried for sure. But true? I doubt it. And while it may “work,” it works toward negative ends.   What I can and will do is spend some time with my friend’s seventh grade daughter, which will be a big treat for me. We will do some storytelling and writing together and I’ll do what I can to show her that writing is fun and meaningful, that it’s a way for her to voice her thoughts and share them with others. And I will be grateful for all the writing teachers across the country who are working with students and with other children they know to experience the gifts writing can bring.   Credit: Pixaby Image 2290628 by purpleshorts, used under a CC0 Creative Commons License ... View more

On January 15, I attended a celebration of the life and work of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., as I try to do every year. Held in our community center, the event draws a full house of people from the Mendonoma coastal communities, from little ones to oldsters like me, all who want to remember King and to be inspired, again, by his words and deeds. Local supermarkets and bakeries donate food and drink (including a very large birthday cake) to sample as we listen to local musicians, singers, poets, and speakers. This year I was particularly struck by a poet who read a piece called “Strapless Dresses.” In it, she tells about being a clerk in a department store in the South in the days of segregation and struggles against it. In vivid and terse language, she paints a picture of two African Americans who come in to the store, much to the disapproval and disregard of most of the staff. The poet steps up, though, encouraging them to look at dresses and to try them on. This they refused to do, but they did indeed buy one of the dresses, which the poet saw as an act of true courage, one she still remembers well over fifty years later. During a brief break, I walked around the room, looking at photos of King and some of his closest associates and reading passages from his speeches, the words ringing in my ears from memory. But I didn’t need to depend on memory for very long, since one of the presenters, Peggy Berryhill, founder of the Native Media Resource Center and General Manager of our local public radio station (KGUA), spoke about her own connection to King and his legacy, as well as her work in support of indigenous people and languages, racial harmony, and cross-cultural understanding. More to the point, she introduced us to drummer, singer, activist, and artist Sheila E. and her August 2017 song/video “Funky National Anthem: Message 2 America,” which was filmed in San Francisco’s Mission District and directed by her brother. According to Gail Mitchell in Billboard, Sheila E. was granted the right to use King’s likeness and his words in the video, along with those of other past leaders. In Sheila E’s words, We are living within a web of deceit and lies, but the essence of America still remains… It’s time to take a stand for the freedom we speak of, for all Americans and the world. A time to embrace those ideas and words that have come from great voices of guidance to us in other turbulent times. Voices of our past, which can still lead us to a better future. Then we watched the video, most of us rising to our feet as the momentum built, as we were carried along by words and images that took us back fifty years to King’s time—and pulled us forward to work that must be done today. It was one of those moments of group solidarity that people experience in communities all the time, but what struck me so powerfully was the thoroughly multimodal nature of the experience: the video with images and music and voices; the room we were in with posters, quotations, flyers, challenges ranging around the walls; and our own voices joining in with those in the video. So, two points to make here: first, if you haven’t seen "Funky National Anthem," do so right now! But second, think of this performance and think again of why our students want to create such multimodal projects; why they not only want but demand to develop and produce them: because they reach audiences in ways that go so far beyond what a traditional print text can do. Perhaps most important, such multimodal productions can feature real people’s spoken voices, in all their richness and diversity, along with images that remain in viewers’ minds and memories for a very long time, and that can bring events from fifty years ago alive again to instruct, challenge, and inspire us. Credit: Pixabay Image 516061 by jensjunge, used under a CC0 Creative Commons License ... View more

As I gear up for the new semester, I’m finalizing my course syllabus, and again, as before every semester, I find myself curious about the best strategies to balance my desires to convey important information to my students and to create an engaging document that students will read. This school year, I’ve focused on two components of the syllabus: the content/structure of the syllabus and the use of the syllabus after the first day of class. Inspired by strategies David Gooblar presents in “Your Syllabus Doesn’t Have to Look Like a Contract,” I carefully consider the visual choices I make in presenting syllabus content. Depending on the course, I model the writing and structure of documents that I expect my students to create throughout the semester. Then, I provide other necessary course information. In my fiction workshop I ask my students to write letters responding to their peers’ work as well as their own, and so my syllabus for the course begins with a letter from me to my students. In the brief letter, I outline the three units of the course, provide an overview of our workshop structure, and make the final portfolio requirement clear. On the other hand, in my professional writing course, my students create professional documents, from emails to grant proposals to memos, and so I open the syllabus with a memo to my students. The memo format models the genre conventions of memo writing, and it clearly and succinctly conveys introductory information, including course structure, contact information, and office hours. Many of my students have been under the impression that the syllabus is a single-use document, forgotten or discarded after the first day of class. To counter this, I make clear, both verbally and in writing, my expectation that the syllabus be a guiding document—a road map—to follow throughout the semester. I ask my students to bring their copies of the syllabus to each class and each class I return to it. Specifically, I speak to the course goals and student learning outcomes, sections I include in every syllabus I write, regardless of course. (Many instructors, I’m sure, are required to include similar sections.) I find each is useful in helping students see the expectations I have for their learning and the tangible work we will do to achieve those expectations. For example, when introducing or reminding my fiction students of their reading responses, I’ll ask them to return to the syllabus with me and recall the established goal of “understand[ing] primary and advanced tools of engaging creative writing.” Then I guide them to the corresponding learning outcome: “craft thoughtful responses to assigned readings, identifying the tools used in each.” I find this practice useful near the end of the class when I ask students to review what they’ve learned and I remind them about their homework. I find the regular use of the syllabus serves several purposes. When I encourage students to use the syllabus as a functioning, working document in class, I find they turn to the syllabus for questions they might have about the course—my office hours, major assignment deadlines, etc.—before asking me. Students also return to the letter and the memo when looking for examples of document structure and design. Finally, since we continue to use the syllabus and reiterate course goals throughout the semester, when I ask students to identify what they’ve learned at the end of the course, they are able to, with specific examples. With these approaches to the syllabus, it lives throughout the semester as useful and important as it was on the first day of class. ... View more

Today’s guest blogger is Tanya Rodrigue‌, an assistant professor in English and coordinator of the Writing Intensive Curriculum Program at Salem State University in Massachusetts.   Over the past couple of decades, Writing Studies scholars have become increasingly interested in exploring aurality and promoting the teaching of writing with sound. The aural mode affords instructors the opportunity to teach writing and rhetoric, and more generally, strong communication abilities.   I recently orchestrated an in-class mini-project that alternates between sound analysis and sound writing. The project calls for students to engage in critical listening to identify sonic rhetorical strategies and their effects, then work to concretize and expand that knowledge with their own sound writing. By the end of the mini-project, students will have collaboratively produced a chart that identifies the potentialities of sonic rhetorical strategies, which can later be used as a reference for a high-stakes audio project. Also, they will have individually composed a low-stakes aural representation of a photograph, which is intended to teach them more about rhetoric, sonic rhetorical strategies, sound interaction, and the value of play and experimentation in audio composing.   Context The following activity has multiple steps: instructors may choose not to do all of them or assign some of the in-class work for homework. In its entirety, the mini-project requires approximately 4-6 hours of in-class time, depending on the class level and students’ previous knowledge, and two homework assignments. The activity, as it stands, assumes students will have already learned about the affordances and constraints of the aural mode and sonic rhetorical strategies as well as how to use basic editing techniques in Audacity, a free audio software program.   Activity Step #1: Ask students to compose an alphabetic description of a personal photograph for homework, then bring the description to class. Explain the mini-project and its purpose. Supply them with a blank version of the below chart; the chart I’ve included here is for instructor reference and includes some of the rhetorical potentialities of the five sonic rhetorical strategies explained in Rodrigue et al’s “Navigating the Soundscape, Composing with Audio.”   Music Silence Sound Effects Sound Interaction Voice 1. Establishes tone, atmosphere, and setting 2. Creates mood 3. Evokes emotion 4. Functions as a transition (that juxtaposes and bridges sound) 5. Situates something in a particular culture or moment in history 6. Evokes personal associations 7. Triggers collective cultural and generational memories 8. Captures and preserves personal memories 1. Evokes emotion (on its own or via stark contrast with another sound) 2. Brings awareness or demands attention 3. Allows time for audience to construct meaning, make connections, reflect, think, and ask questions 4. Provides structure (like paragraphs do in an alphabetic text) 5. Indicates shifts in time, location, or perspective 6.Signals change 1. Provides information about a scene 2. Serves as a cue reference 3. Assists in mood creation 4. Evokes emotion 5. Triggers memories 6. Denotes an idea 7. Functions as a symbol 8. Works as a transition 9. Provides coherence   1. Juxtaposes sound 2. Creates harmony among sounds 3. Creates emphasis 4. Constructs tone 5. Builds meaning 6. Provides cohesion 7. Creates an environment or denotes place, space, or location 8. Provides transitions between/among rhetorical strategies   1. Conveys emotions 2. Produces different effects based on vocal qualities (for example: vocal tension creates sarcasm; soft and breathy voice conveys intimacy; tense and unwavering voice elicits emotional detachment) 3. Establishes a person’s identity   4. Builds a connection with the audience 5. Denotes a setting   Step #2: Divide students into groups and assign each group a sonic rhetorical strategy. Ask them to return to the reading on their assigned strategy (music, silence, sound effects, sound interaction, or voice) and begin filling in the chart, identifying the rhetorical effects discussed in the article.   Step #3: Voice Analysis and Voice in Sound Writing Play excerpts of audio that work with voice in unique and interesting ways. I recommend using Erin Anderson’s “What Hadn’t Happened” and Love + Radio’s “A Girl of Ivory.” (These two examples prompt interesting discussion about voice mixing, voice merging, and giving voice to those who do not have one, and their rhetorical impacts). Facilitate a discussion about how voice functions rhetorically in each example, adding or clarifying the student-identified rhetorical potentialities of voice in the sonic rhetorical strategy chart. Ask students to open up a new file in Audacity and begin composing the aural representation of their photograph with voice. Students can use their own or someone else’s voice. They can record using Audacity, a cell phone voice app (voice memo or TapeACall to record phone calls), or provided recorders. Alternately, they can rip audio from the Internet (click here for tutorials and resources). Remind them to be thoughtful about how they are rhetorically employing voice. In a free-write or brief discussion, ask students to respond to the question: What did this step in the activity teach you about voice?   Step #4: Music Analysis and Music in Sound Writing Play excerpts of audio that work with music in unique and interesting ways. Alternately, you might show them this brief video on the rhetorical nature of music. (Thank you to Kate Artz for introducing me to this resource.) Facilitate a discussion about how music functions rhetorically in each example, adding or clarifying the student-identified rhetorical potentialities of music in the sonic rhetorical strategy chart. Ask students to incorporate music into their aural representation, using a song downloaded from Bensound or Adobe Music Loops & Beds. Remind students to be rhetorically thoughtful. Ask them to take notes responding to this question: How might the strategies function individually and together to help you achieve your rhetorical goals? In a free-write or brief discussion, ask students to respond to this question: What did this step in the activity teach you about music and sound interaction?   Step #5: Sound Effects/Silence Analysis and Sound Effects/Silence in Sound Writing Play excerpts of audio that work with sound effects or silence in interesting ways. I recommend using Danah Hashem’s A Week in March for sound effects and Kate Artz’s “The Conversation” for silence. Again, facilitate a discussion about how sound effects or silence functions rhetorically in the example, adding or clarifying the student-identified rhetorical potentialities of sound effects or silence in the sonic rhetorical strategy chart. Ask your students to incorporate sound effects or silence into their aural representation, again reminding them to be thoughtful about the rhetorical effects they’d like to achieve with this strategy. Ask them to take notes responding to this question: How might the strategies function individually and collaboratively to help you achieve your rhetorical goals? In a free-write or brief discussion, ask students to respond to the question: What did this step in the activity teach you about sound effects or silence and sound interaction?   Step #6: At this point, students should have a complete aural representation of their photograph. Instruct them to save the Audacity file and export it as an mp3 file. Now, ask students to take up their aural representation and do something to alter its original form for a different or the same rhetorical purpose. Students may choose to add, edit, delete, or modify an asset, or remix the project or parts of it. In preparation for this step, I encourage instructors to facilitate Using Play to Teach Writing in efforts to teach students about the value of play in audio composing. In a free-write or brief discussion, ask students to respond to the question: What did this step in the activity teach you about revision, play, and experimentation with sonic rhetorical strategies and audio in general?   Step #7: The final step in this mini-project is an alphabetic homework assignment that asks students to reflect on these questions: What did this activity teach you about the affordances and constraints of the aural mode, sonic rhetorical strategies, and rhetoric and writing in general terms? What kinds of insights, questions, or challenges emerged during our collaborative analysis of examples, mini-discussions, and/or the creation of your aural representation? After students submit the homework, I encourage teachers to facilitate a discussion about what students wrote in their reflections. ... View more

This Thanksgiving, I’m having some trouble giving thanks. The increasing horror of mass shootings and senseless loss of life; the revelation of unthinkable acts of sexual harassment; the moral and spiritual decay in Congress; the combination of incompetence, corruption, and mean-spiritedness of the Trump administration; the ugliness, racism, and hatred unleashed through fake news, misinformation, and outright lies online; the cataclysmic natural disasters—all leave me feeling on the verge of hopelessness and despair.   But I don’t think I can give in to that hopelessness and despair. And so I turn, as I so often do, to one of my favorite poets, Emily Dickinson, who reminds me that           “Hope” is the thing with feathers -           That perches in the soul -           And sings the tune without the words -           And never stops - at all – That “never stops - at all –” becomes a mantra for me, and it takes me to another thinker I admire and often turn to on dark days. Cornel West, Professor of Public Philosophy at Harvard and Professor Emeritus at Princeton, has written and spoken extensively and eloquently on the need for hope, as in this excerpt from a commencement address he gave at Wesleyan University: Last, but not least, there is a need for audacious hope. And it's not optimism. I'm in no way an optimist. I've been black in America for 39 years. No ground for optimism here, given the progress and regress and three steps forward and four steps backward. Optimism is a notion that there's sufficient evidence that would allow us to infer that if we keep doing what we're doing, things will get better. I don't believe that. I'm a prisoner of hope, that's something else. Cutting against the grain, against the evidence. William James said it so well in that grand and masterful essay of his of 1879 called "The Sentiment of Rationality," where he talked about faith being the courage to act when doubt is warranted. And that's what I'm talking about. What particularly lifts me up in this passage is not just the emphasis on hope but the linking of hope and courage. In a tweet on November 21, 2013 (right around Thanksgiving time), West wrote, “Faith, hope and love are the three pillars of deep spirituality -- yet it is courage that enables all three.”   Those words have what my grandmother called “stick-to-it-iveness”: they stick to me like they are a part of me, tattooed on my heart. It’s not enough to hope, or to be a “prisoner of hope.” Rather, we need to activate that hope through courage. And in this regard, I begin to feel more hopeful and more full of thanks: for the good, decent, strong women (and men) who have the courage to run for local and national offices for the first time ever; for the very few in Congress who have the courage to speak truth to power; for the teachers all over the United States who have the courage to enter their classrooms day after day full of hope and love; and to the women (and men) who have the courage to come forward and name those who have sexually harassed and abused them. In all these cases, it is the courage that enables hope that allows for hope.   And that’s a lot to be thankful for this season. I wish peace and hope and love—and courage—for you and your students this Thanksgiving, and always. Credit: Pixaby Image 2261476 by andreahamilton264, used under a CC0 Creative Commons License ... View more

The arrival of the authors' copies of the ninth edition of Signs of Life in the U.S.A. prompts me to reflect here on the history of this—at least for Sonia Maasik and myself—life-changing project. So I will do something a little different this week, and return to the original purpose of the web-log, which was to write something along the lines of a traditional journal or diary entry rather than an interpretive essay—a remembrance of things past in this case.  To begin with, Signs of Life did not begin its life as a textbook. Its origins lie in a book I wrote in the mid-1980s: The Signs of Our Time: Semiotics: The Hidden Messages of Environments, Objects, and Cultural Images (1988). That book was a product of pure contingency, even serendipity. I was seated at my departmental Displaywriter (an early word processor that was about the size of a piano and used eight inch truly floppy disks) completing my final draft of Discourse and Reference in the Nuclear Age (1988)—a technical critique of poststructural semiotics that proposed a new paradigm whose theoretical parameters underlie the applied semiotic lessons to be found in Signs of Life—when my department chair drifted by and casually asked me if I would like to talk to a local publisher whom he had met recently at a party and who was looking for someone to write a  non-academic book on semiotics for a non-academic audience. As a young professor, I was ready to jump at any book-publishing opportunity, and, having found myself doing a lot of spontaneous interpretations of the popular culture of the 1980s (especially of stuffed toys like Paddington Bear and the celebrity Bear series—anyone remember Lauren Bearcall?), I was ready with a book proposal in no time. I soon had a contract, an advance (with which I purchased an early Macintosh computer that didn't even have a hard drive—it still works), and a tight deadline to meet (that's how things work in the trade book world). And that's also how Discourse and Reference and The Signs of Our Time came to be published in the same year.   A few years later, Sonia discovered that composition instructors were using The Signs of Our Time as a classroom text, and I found that chapters from the book were being reprinted in composition readers (the first to do so was Rereading America 2/e). So Sonia had a brainstorm: having worked with Bedford Books on other projects, she suggested that we propose a new composition textbook to Bedford based upon The Signs of Our Time. Looking back, it looks like a pretty obvious thing to have done, but this was the early 1990s, and America was hotly embroiled in the academic version of the "culture wars"; not only was the academic study of popular culture still controversial, but no one had attempted to bring semiotics into a composition classroom before. Still, Chuck Christensen—the founder of Bedford Books—who was always on the lookout for something both daring and new, was interested. He also wanted to know if I could provide a one-page description of what semiotics was all about. So ordered, so done, and we had a contract for a composition reader that would combine a full writing instruction apparatus with an array of readings, alongside unusually long chapter introductions that would both explain and demonstrate the semiotic method as applied to American popular culture.   That part of the matter was unusually smooth. But there were bumps in the road on the way to completion. For instance, there was our editor's initial response to our first chapter submissions. Let's just say that he was not enamored of certain elements in my expository style. But thanks to a long long-distance phone call we managed to clear that up to our mutual satisfaction. And the good news was that Bedford really wanted our book. The bad news was that they wanted it published by January 1994—a good deal less than a year away and we were starting practically from scratch. It was published in January 1994 (just in time for the big Northridge earthquake that knocked my campus to the ground). I still don't know how Sonia and I did it (the fact that we said "yes" to Chuck's invitation to do another book—it became California Dreams and Realities—in that same January, giving us six months to do it this time, simply boggles my mind to this day, but, as I say, we were a lot younger then).   Well, all that was a quarter of a century ago. In that time we have improved upon every prior edition of Signs of Life, listening not only to the many adopters of the text who have reviewed it over the years in the development stage of each new edition, but adding changes based upon our own experiences using it in our own classes. Of these changes, the most important to me are the ongoing refinements of my description of the semiotic method—the unpacking of the often-intuitive mental activity that takes place when one interprets popular cultural phenomena. There is an increasingly meta-cognitive aspect to these descriptions, which break down into their component parts the precise details of a semiotic analysis—details that effectively overlap with any act of critical thinking. And, of course, every new edition responds to popular cultural events and trends with updated readings, updated chapter introductions that introduce fresh models of semiotic analysis, and the introduction of new chapter topics altogether. And in the case of the 9th edition, we have added plenty of material for instructors who may want to use the 2016 presidential election as a course theme or topic. But perhaps the most important refinements for those who adopt the text are those that Sonia brings to each new edition: the expansion and clarification of the writing apparatus in the text that guides students in the writing of their semiotic analyses.   As I draw to an end here, I realize that I could write an entire blog just on the history of the covers for Signs of Life. Maybe I will in my next blog entry. ... View more

Over the course of my career, I’ve served on a number of strategic planning initiatives, and inevitably, the issue of “branding” or “rebranding” comes up: usually the university, college, department, or program wants to establish a public image of itself that will be instantly recognizable and that will convey a particular idea or “feel.” Sometimes the work of branding is invigorating and fun—when we launched the Stanford Writing Center (now the Hume Center for Writing and Speaking), we took out a full-page ad in the campus newsletter announcing “a new Stanford tradition” and used words and images designed to get as far away from any idea of remediation as humanly possible. We pursued this theme, knowing that Stanford students would not identify as “remedial” no matter what, and it worked. The Center is now used by students across the campus and across the years, with usage by graduate students (sometimes professors, too) growing every year.   In this case, we were looking for a very positive brand for our Center. But branding can be negative—and often highly destructive—as well. No one knows this better than our current President, Donald Trump, whom the New York Times refers to as the “master brander.” In a recent article, Emily Badger and Kevin Quealy reported on their analysis of two years of Trumpian tweets (beginning in June 2015 and continuing six months into his presidency), finding that Trump “is much better at branding enemies than policies. And he expends far more effort mocking targets than promoting items on his agenda.”   Badger and Quealy’s analysis reveals the strategies Trump uses in this negative branding. Repetition, simplicity, consistency, and essentializing all work together to brand Trump’s enemies with words and phrases that stick in our minds. In his hundreds of tweets about Hillary Clinton, for example, he used “crooked” and “crooked Hillary” like a drum beat. Tthe simple, memorable, insistent phrase became associated with Clinton in many, many voters’ minds, as did the phrase “Lyin’ Ted Cruz,” “goofy Pocahontas” (aka Elizabeth Warren), “little” Marco Rubio.   The use of essentialism—the notion that one characteristic or trait is inherent to a person rather than the result of circumstances or a complex combination of factors—is particularly effective. Ted Cruz is not just a liar but rather he is essentially a liar: in Trump’s orbit, lying is a deep-seated, central and identifying characteristic that trumps all others.   Trump brands himself positively, of course, as a “winner” and “deal maker,” though he has not been particularly successful at branding policies, partially because he changes his mind so frequently about them (and perhaps because he isn’t as interested in policy as he is in personality).   It seems important to me that we share analyses like the one done by Badger and Quealy with students, that we alert them to the power of simple, consistent repetition and of essentializing to mark both people and policies in particularly negative, or positive, ways. Research in psychology shows that these strategies are very effective and that we are often unaware of their power over our thoughts and ideas. Being a critical reader and writer today means understanding how branding works and being able to interrogate it thoroughly.   I suggest reading “Trump Seems Much Better at Branding Opponents than Marketing Policies” on The New York Times July 18, 2017 edition and discussing it with your students. There, you can see excerpts from Trump’s tweets with the repeated word or phrase highlighted: it’s an eye-popping experience!   Credit: Pixaby Image 292994 by LoboStudioHamburg, used under a CC0 Creative Commons License ... View more

Today's guest blogger is Jeanne Bohannon‌ (see end of post for bio). As I travel back from a trip to Northeast Normal University (NENU) in Changchun, China, I am thinking about Andrea’s Top 20 Student Grammar Mistakes, which I explored with first-year students at NENU. I have employed the indomitable Top 20 in my digital grammar courses each semester but was a bit pensive taking it “on the road” to a class of students who major in English in a School of Foreign Languages. Before my arrival at NENU, my colleague, Professor Fuhui Zhang, took a poll of her fifty students, asking them to rank their own grammar challenges out of the Top 20. Here’s what they came up with: NENU Class Supper and Grammar Practice Among student-reported mistakes, faulty sentence structure (especially complex ones with two or three or more subordinate sentences) and wrong word are number 1 and number 2, respectively.   Anecdotal Results of Grammar Attitudes The results showed a few commonalities with their American counterparts. The Top Ten below represents elements of grammar reported by all students, in order of descending occurrence. Faulty Sentence Structure Wrong Word Problems with Quotations/documentation Vague Pronouns Unnecessary/Missing Punctuation Unnecessary Shift in Verb Tense Unnecessary Comma Sentence Fragment Pronoun/Antecedent Agreement Fused (run-on) Sentence   Interestingly, #4 (pronouns) was close on the list with my American students in 2017 (#4), when I posted about my students’ Grammar Diagnostics when I last measured these grammar elements for this blog. Comma usage showed up #1 for American students, but for Chinese students ranked at #7. Both sets of students still report issues with verbs, semicolons, and specific uses of punctuation.   Professor Zhang further confirmed that she has noted the same issues in students’ writing. Together, she and I determined to employ a learning strategy that, while completely new to students, might increase their application of grammar and help them to not only recognize mistakes, but avoid them. We landed on a flipped class model.   Context Learning grammar in a flipped class model is a low-stakes opportunity that uses traditional grammar tools to create dialogic growth between students in a class and helps students take ownership of their grammar challenges by teaching others. Students at NENU reviewed a PowerPoint presentation adapted from Stanford’s Hume Center for Writing and Speaking that detailed The Top 20 list prior to my arrival, which they used to rank the list based on their own writing experiences and grammar challenges. They narrowed their choices down to a Top 10 to fit within our class time parameters.   Measurable Learning Objectives Examine results of the Top 20 for areas of improvement Compare attitudinal results to others’ in an open discussion forum Synthesize content-meaning through a flipped class model   Background Reading for Students and Instructors Acts of reading and viewing visual texts are ongoing processes for attaining learning goals in dialogic, digital writing assignments.  Writer's Help 2.0 for Lunsford Handbooks: “Diagnostics” The St. Martin’s Handbook: “The Top Twenty” The Everyday Writer: Ch. 1, “The Top Twenty: A Quick Guide to Troubleshooting Your Writing” Writing in Action: Ch. 1, “The Top Twenty: A Quick Guide to Troubleshooting Your Writing” EasyWriter: “The Top Twenty”    What We Did in Class Students began by posting and discussing their perceived Top 10 grammar issues in their course LMS, called “QQ.” They then participated in the interactive PowerPoint, guessing answers to prescribed mistakes, sometimes reciting correct answers and at other times writing them on the chalkboard. Students also chose to participate on Weibo and WeChat, two Chinese social media platforms where they hashtagged #ProfessorJeanne to post their reflections and view others’ thoughts on the grammar lesson.  After working with students to vocalize their Top 10 grammar challenges in Mandarin first and then English, I encouraged them to step behind the instructor podium and teach content, demonstrating a deep understanding of each grammar element. Did Students Appreciate Our Flipped Class? Out of twenty-five students, twenty-one reported that they learned more about their own specific grammar pitfalls and how to avoid them by participating in the interactive lecture, social media posts, and flipped class. Accordingly, all of them thought their syntax-level American English grammar improved because they knew their specific concerns up-front. Students flipping the class Students further narrated their thoughts on postcards: Learning the Snow App   My Reflection  For me, strategies such as flipped classes engage students in participatory learning, without fear of grading or making mistakes. This assignment is multimodal because students use real-time ed-tech to see a snapshot of their grammar issues and then participate in face-to-face interactions with other students with similar concerns, supplemented by social media. “Flipped Grammar” counts for me, in terms of multimodal composition, because it encourages students to reflect on their own grammar challenges and become active participants in community-driven, digital conversations about writing. Try the “flip” and let me know what you think!   Do you have an idea for a Multimodal Mondays activity or post? Contact Leah Rang for a chance to be featured on Andrea's blog.   Jeanne Law Bohannon is an Assistant Professor of English in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Kennesaw State University. She believes in creating democratic learning spaces, where students become stakeholders in their own rhetorical growth though authentic engagement in class communities. Her research interests include evaluating digital literacies and critical engagement pedagogies; performing feminist rhetorical recoveries; and growing informed and empowered student scholars. Reach Jeanne at jeanne_bohannon@kennesaw.edu and www.rhetoricmatters.org ... View more

Off and on (mostly on) since 1990, I have spent a good part of my summers at the Bread Loaf Graduate School of English, near Middlebury in Vermont’s Green Mountains. You are probably already aware of this MA program, certainly so if you have read my posts over the last six years, and know that I am a big fan of Bread Loaf—especially of the teachers who arrive each summer to pursue the study of language, literature, writing, rhetoric, and performance.   This summer I am not teaching (I’m now supposed to be retired!), but I spent a week on the mountain reading, writing, and talking with teachers about their students, about student writing and reading, and about their plans for this next school year. As always, I came away deeply inspired by what I learned. While I could talk glowingly about the Ken Macrorie writing centers, which I helped to start a few years ago and which are thriving under the leadership of Beverly Moss, or about the fabulous courses Brenda Brueggemann is teaching about disabilities and literature and about writing pedagogy, or about the brilliant production of Othello that the theater group mounted from scratch, I came away most excited about the Next Generation Leadership Network, an initiative of the Bread Loaf Teacher Network (led by Beverly and Dixie Goswami), Middlebury College, and Georgia Tech’s Westside Community Alliance (spearheaded by the incomparable Jackie Royster).   Funded by the Ford Foundation, the NGLN will engage young people, ages fifteen to twenty-one, in underserved communities across the nation. The program will help in developing robust knowledge and leadership, as well as organizing networked social, civic, and academic activities aimed at strengthening public and community-based education. The leaders of this project draw on grass roots initiatives in Lawrence, MA; Atlanta, GA; rural South Carolina; Appalachian Kentucky; the Navajo Nation; and rural Vermont to form social action teams aiming to change the national narrative about the capabilities, passions, and dreams of youth often viewed as deficient—or simply ignored. Through youth-centered think tanks, where young people and their mentors will gather physically and electronically, the teams will develop strategic plans for individual and collective social action. NGLN is founded on a deep and abiding belief in the strengths of young people to create and share knowledge, to build from experience, and to engage in strategic problem solving that can deeply enrich our understanding of 21 st century literacies as multimodal and action centered performances.   Thanks to the determination and very hard work of people like Dixie Goswami, Jackie Royster, Beverly Moss, Lou Bernieri, Ceci Lewis, Brent Peters, Rex Lee Jim, and a host of others, the Next Generation Leadership Network is gearing up for a year of organizing and meeting—and, most of all, listening to young people across the country as they discuss how they hope to realize their potential as national leaders in literacy education. I am expecting big things from all of them!   Credit: Pixaby Image 2286442 by rawpixel, used under a CC0 Creative Commons License ... View more

This academic year, I am a member of a learning community that is exploring strategies for inclusive pedagogy. As a result, I’m thinking about ways to include issues of diversity and accessibility in my teaching. Most recently, I have been developing materials that address racial discrimination, particularly ethics and race. I shared three scenarios and a moral compass technique September 5th, and three more scenarios last week. This week, I’m sharing the last four ethics scenarios for discussing race and discrimination, completing a serialized list of ten.   The Scenarios You have been asked to create a diversity policy for the use of images in your advertising materials. There have been recent complaints about racist and sexist images, so your company is especially interested in ensuring that all ads in the future celebrate diversity. After examining the problematic images, you decide that it will be best to describe the best kinds of images to use, rather than to list everything that would not be acceptable. Your coworkers disagree. They worry that without an understanding of the specific things to avoid, employees will continue to choose inappropriate images. Despite their feedback, you decide to go with your own feeling. You believe that listing all the possible wrong images would be impossible and that it could easily offend employees. Did you make the right choice? Is there a better strategy? Your company encourages employees to dress in costumes for Halloween every year. Last year, some employees wore inappropriate costumes that offended other employees and clients. Most of the problem costumes generically adopted culture as costume (e.g., Native American princess, Mexican bandito, geisha). While your company’s executive director is all for Halloween costumes and a bit of fun, she is worried about a repeat of the inappropriate costumes from last year. She emails all employees an announcement of a Halloween party during the company’s afternoon break. She invites everyone to wear costumes to work. To address the inappropriate costume issues, she adds this information to her email: “Please remember to choose an appropriate costume. If you are worried that your costume may not be okay, ask someone in HR about it.” Did she choose the right way to handle the situation? The employees from your division go out for lunch to celebrate a coworker’s birthday. While you are all waiting for your orders, the group is chatting about family and plans for the weekend. Doug speaks up, saying, “You know that reminds me of a joke.” He then tells a racist joke. Most members of your group laugh outright. A couple appear bothered by the joke. You consider speaking up and pointing out that the joke is inappropriate and that Doug should not share such things at work. It appears though that most people did not notice that the joke was offensive. You decide to avoid the issue and say nothing. Everyone is out to have fun, and you don’t want to make everyone uncomfortable. Did you make the right decision? Is there a better way to handle the situation? You handle customer service through your company’s social media accounts. The company has launched a series of television and online commercials that show diverse families enjoying their products. In response, protesters are complaining about these depictions on social media in posts filled with stereotypes. Some protesters admit they buy your company’s products but will find alternatives if the diverse images are not stopped. The large volume of protests is distracting you from your main task of providing customer service. You tell your manager about the situation, and she instructs you to block and report all protesters. You disagree with her, arguing that the protesters are still customers and that blocking will bar them from getting support. You disagree even more with reporting these protesters, who you believe have the right to complain. Your manager is not convinced. She states that you can block and report the protesters or she will find someone who will to take over your job and assign you elsewhere. You bow to her request and begin blocking and reporting all protesters. Have you made the right decision? Has your manager?   The scenarios above are phrased for technical and business writing classes (since that is what I am currently teaching). They could be used “as is” in first-year composition, or they can be customized. For instance, students could consider a diversity policy for images used on the university’s website and in printed promotional materials.   This week, I also tried to create scenarios that could turn into writing assignments. After discussing the first scenario, students can write their own diversity policy for the use of images. For a business or technical writing course, students can focus on company documents, such as the use of images in advertisements, slideshow presentations, and website resources. First-year composition students can create policies for clubs or groups they are involved with, for the university, or for the texts they write for the course. Whichever kind of policy they compose, students will have to balance specific explanations of the policy with persuasive strategies that will convince readers to follow the guidelines.   I hope you find the ten scenarios I have shared this month useful. If you have questions or suggestions about them, please leave me a comment below.     Credit: Ilford 1973 by Jussi on Flickr, used under a CC-BY 2.0 license. ... View more

The following message was written by Professor Jenn Fishman from Marquette, who was my research partner in the Stanford Study of Writing. Jenn expresses so beautifully the aims of that study, which began shortly after 9/11/2001, and of our deep belief in the power of writing to connect us to others.    Jenn has given me permission to post her message here and I do so with gratitude.     In early September, 2001, I was a graduate student and a member of the Stanford Study of Writing research team. At that time, we were preparing to recruit a cohort of entering students for a 5-year longitudinal study of college writing. Members of the Stanford Class of 2005, including the 189 first-year students who joined us, were among the first travelers after the attacks. Since Stanford is on the quarter system, many needed to fly or drive significant distances to reach campus on time for orientation. While all study participants completed surveys and contributed examples of their writing over the next 5 years, a small group also agreed to be interviewed by us annually. Sandy, the student whose reflection is attached to this message, was among that group.  For me, remembering the confluence of events 16 years ago underscores the importance of writing in the face of tragedy, both in the moment and in reflection years later. As Hurricane Irma wreaks destruction on Florida and Hurricane Jose gathers force; as everyone affected by Hurricane Harvey, the recent earthquake in Mexico, and unprecedented flooding across South Asia works to rebuild their lives; as changing US immigration policies threaten thousands of DREAMers including Marquette's own, I hope we can help students find both refuge and agency in their own and others' writing.  I share Sandy's words with her permission. A reflection on starting college immediately after 9/11 Written by Sandy*, a participant in the Stanford Study of Writing and a member of the Stanford Class of 2005. Shared by Jenn Fishman with permission. September 11th was a Tuesday. I was wrapping up my summer job at my dad's office, making plans to drive from SoCal to Stanford for freshman orientation on September 21st. I was scared - everybody was. That day, I didn't know if all of America was going to blow up; I didn't know if Stanford would start on schedule. But Stanford did, and my dad and I drove north the next week. We stopped in Sacramento to spend a day rafting on the American River, before heading to Stanford. On September 20th, driving from Sacramento to Palo Alto, we stopped at a small seafood restaurant in Berkeley, CA. The TV was on in the bar, and everybody stopped eating when President Bush addressed Congress. The President pointed his finger to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda that night, as well as to the Taliban in Afghanistan. He announced the new Department of Homeland Security. He said, "Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done." He said we would fight the "War on Terror," and that it would have "decisive liberation of territory and a swift conclusion." I realized this meant we would go to war; I was scared. Freshman orientation was a whirlwind. I remember sitting on the quad hearing a university official speak about the attacks and what this meant for Stanford. I remember this person talking about Stanford's commitment to diversity and against racism. In less than two weeks, mass racial profiling of young Muslim men had already begun. School started and the days whizzed by. There was so much to take in that it was hard to think about the world beyond Stanford. I wanted to get involved in journalism, so I found Stanford's radio station, KZSU. At the News Department's first meeting, I invented my own assignment. I decided to attend a Muslim prayer vigil in the courtyard of Old Union. I was proud that the station loaned me brand-new recording equipment. I sat at Old Union during the vigil, wondering about the nature of Muslim American communities and what terrorist organizations actually were, and fearing for my fellow students about the racism that they would encounter. Four years later, I sat in the Quad again, but this time, I was graduating. The student spoke of entering as a freshman right after September 11th. I knew this had colored my college experience, but it was hard for me to imagine what college would have been like if September 11th hadn't happened. Now, two and a half years out of college and almost done with law school, I'm beginning to get more perspective. Attending college in the shadow of September 11th made me deeply aware of cultural differences and inspired me to search for ways to bridge them. However, now I also realize how much government propaganda I bought into at the time, for instance, thinking that there was at least some sense to a war in Iraq. It's taken me over two years of studying law to begin to get a sense of how much the government has used September 11th as an excuse to violate our civil liberties in ways that have no bearing on the "War Against Terror." Now that more time has passed, I've awoken, and I want to be an immigration lawyer and immigrants' rights activist, so that our country treats its newcomers decently. *  Sandy (a pseudonym) was a member of the cohort we interviewed between 2001 and 2006 for the Stanford Study of Writing. Her experiences as a college writer are also referenced in "Performing Writing, Performing Literacy" (CCC 57.2). Sandy's reflection exemplifies using writing to process significant events and connect with others. How have you encouraged your students to use writing to connect? Credit: Pixaby Image 2142402 by joergwunderlich, used under a CC0 Creative Commons License ... View more