Now that the semester is over for me, I can put more energy into my work to improve discussions in my online classes. As I have discussed in earlier posts, I plan to spend more time preparing students for discussion, and I intend to increase low-stakes discussions in an effort to encourage more conversation. This week, I want to consider what I need to do myself to improve students’ discussion.   Each week, I asked students to discuss various topics. Sometimes, they responded to webpages or infographics. Other times, they shared drafts and gave one another feedback. Just as I would do in the face-to-face classroom, I checked on all of the groups. Since the class was 100% online, I skimmed through their discussions, paying attention to who contributed and noting any questions that came up. Occasionally, I answered a specific question or left some emoji thumbs-up feedback.   At the end of the week, students reported on their work by completing a weekly checklist that provided links to their Slack posts and replies. I used my spot checks of the discussions and the weekly checklists to gauge the success of the discussions. I hoped that feedback on the previous week’s contributions would improve the conversations during the next week. Unfortunately, discussion stayed rather flat, with students completing only the bare minimum to meet the requirements.   During the last weeks of the course, students were working on a large group project. There should have been a lot of discussion in Slack to coordinate drafting, feedback, and revision. I decided to ask them directly, using a version of this question in each team’s channel: How are things going with your project? I see several of you have posted recently, but I know there are 11 people in the group. I'd like to hear from all of you so I can tell that you’re on track! Students began responding almost immediately, telling me what they had accomplished, asking questions about their work, and sharing plans for finishing their project. The Slack channels were alive with conversation for a few days that week, and I suddenly realized my own failure in making our online discussions successful.   In the face-to-face classroom, students know you are there watching them. Although I was constantly reviewing what students were posting in my online classes, they had no idea that I was there. While I answered questions and added some happy-face feedback, I wasn’t doing enough. I needed to engage students with questions, feedback, and encouragement more frequently. In retrospect, it seems completely obvious. I wasn’t talking to students. Why would they talk to each other?   Going forward, I realize that I need to get much more involved. The best option is to add comments frequently that respond to students. Those comments will depend upon the context of the discussions, so it is hard to guess the exact comments to add in advance. To prepare, I have gathered some potential discussion starters that I can customize when the time comes:   Ask students to check in and tell me how their work is going Respond to a specific student (e.g., What do the rest of you think of Pat’s analysis?) Request details on current projects (e.g., What questions do you have about the assignment? Anyone need help?) Ask for clarification and explanation (e.g., Can you explain this idea more?) Call for examples (e.g., What are some examples from the document? Can you show me what you’re talking about?) Request synthesis after students share ideas (e.g., Okay, how can we tie all these ideas together? What’s the take-away?)   There are more discussion starters in the article “50 Questions To Help Students Think About What They Thinkhttp://www.teachthought.com/critical-thinking/questioning/metacognition-50-questions-help-students-think-think/.” While the article focuses on younger students, the questions can work for any level. To prepare even further, I want to take all these discussion starters and organize them into potential scenarios (like questions for peer feedback or questions for responding to an infographic). That project is on tap for another week. For now, I feel like I’m making good progress. I would love to know what you think. Please leave me a comment on how you engage students or what you use as discussion starters.     Credit: Preparing for presentation by Bill So, on Flickr, used under a CC-BY-SA 2.0 license ... View more

As I revised Elements of Argument recently, for the first time I had to take a close look at the new MLA documentation guidelines. I found the use of the new term container a bit clunky, if perhaps useful. I can imagine a group of bibliographical scholars sitting around a conference table saying, "There has to be a better word for the . . . CONTAINER the documented information comes from." Apparently their conclusion was that there isn't.  I can remember back in the old days holding a book or journal and telling my students, "Give credit to the source that you held in your hands." That seems like an old-fashioned idea these days, indeed. For those of you who have avoided looking too closely at the new MLA,  the container is the book, journal, or magazine that ideas or wording comes from, but it also has its electronic forms. The container can be a web site or an online newspaper or a television series. The MLA was attempting to set up guidelines based on core elements that could be used for bibliographical entries, no matter what the source, rather than depending on numerous examples of any form that source might take. The generic term container makes it easier to provide a consistent format, even though the container varies widely from one citation to the next.   I can understand my students' confusion with the old MLA guidelines regarding how to cite some types of sources. An article, for example, appears in the New York Times, but the student reads it on nytimes.com. The article is the same (usually), but the container is different. The availability online  of so many sources is making parenthetical documentation less useful than it used to be because seldom are there page numbers. The line is even less clear, though, when there are, because then we may have a journal article that appeared in hard copy merely reproduced on the screen, page numbers and all. The new MLA doesn't solve that problem. It may help, though, for students to think about which container they accessed.    Hyperlinks to the sources they used would perhaps make more sense in our digital world. However, sites come and go and change, so a link that works today may not work tomorrow. In preparing essays for inclusion in my textbook, I ironically find myself more and more having to replace hyperlinks with old-fashioned parenthetical citations.    The changes in the 2016 MLA are an acknowledgment of the complexity of dealing with documentation in a cyber world and a step in the right direction.   ... View more

In the early years of the Internet, one of the most commonly heard slogans of the time was, "information wants to be free."  This ringing affirmation of the uninhibited flow of speech, knowledge, and news was one of the grounding values of that heady era when the Net was known as the "electronic frontier," and was regarded as an unfenced "information superhighway."  Those were the days when the web log (better known in its shorthand form as the "blog") was born, and the opportunities for virtually unfettered communication opened up in ways that the world had never experienced before.   That was twenty and more years ago now, and while a superficial glance at things would seem to indicate that nothing has really changed, a closer look reveals quite something else; deep down, the Internet has been fenced, and the superhighway is becoming a toll road.    To see how, we can consider the history of the blog itself.  Yes, blogs still exist, but they have often morphed into what were in the past called "editorials," as online newspapers slap the label onto the writings of pundits and even those of news feature writers.  What you are reading right now is called a "blog," though it is really a semi-formal essay devoted to professional musings and advice, rather than being some sort of online diary or journal.  The blogs that still hew to the original line of being personal and unrestricted communiques to the world still exist, of course, on easy-to-use platforms like WordPress, but most have been abandoned, with their last posts being dated years ago.    Where has everybody gone?  Well, to places like Facebook, of course, or Instagram, or Reddit, or whatever's hot at the moment.  But this is not a mere migration from one lane of the information superhighway to another; it is an exit to a toll booth, beyond which some of us cannot go, not because we cannot afford the cost (the toll is not paid in dollars), but because we are unwilling to make ourselves the commodity that "monetizes" what now should be called the "electronic data mine."   Thus, I have seen personal blogs that I used to follow because I was interested in what I learned about their writers, fall fallow because they had moved on to Facebook.  For a long time, some such pages could be accessed by the likes of me if their authors chose to make them public, but they have now all been privatized by Facebook itself.  When I try to visit even the pages of public organizations, a moving barrier fills my screen, ordering me to open an account.  A free account, of course: all I have to do is sell whatever last shred of privacy I have left in order to sign on.   Yes, I know that Google is following me, even if I am not using its search engine: it gets me when I visit a site.  But signing on to Facebook (Google too, of course) involves an even deeper surrender of privacy.  This is demonstrated by the fact that Facebook feels that it cannot get enough data on me simply by noting that I have visited one of its subscriber's pages.  And I am not willing to let Facebook have whatever that extra information on me it wants.   I realize that I may sound here like someone who is demanding something for free.  I don't mean to sound like that: I realize that the Internet, like commercial television, has to be paid for somehow.  But I'd rather watch an advertisement (indeed, the ads are often better than the programs) to pay for my access than present to corporations like Facebook private information that it will sell to anyone who is willing to pay for it.  And I mean anyone, as one of the new readings in the just-completed 9th edition of Signs of Life in the U.S.A. (with a publish date of November 2017) reveals: Ronald J. Deibert's "Black Code: Surveillance, Privacy, and the Dark Side of the Internet."   Not that I am missing much, I think.  The thoughtful blogs that folks used to write have vanished into Facebook personal news bulletins—more like tweets and Instagrams than developed conversations.  It is not unlike what has happened to email, which I gather, is very uncool these days.  Much better to text—a non-discursive form of shorthand which, paradoxically, one does have to pay for in hard cash. ... View more

At this year’s CCCC meeting in Portland, I held a workshop/discussion with a group of about 15 teachers on how best to teach students in a world of fake news and radical distortion of “facts.” We were all concerned with the sheer amount of misinformation—and even outright lies—bombarding students every day, especially from social media sites like YouTube and Facebook and Twitter, sites where any kind of traditional vetting or fact-checking is missing. Participants in the workshop came from across the country and from many different types of institutions, from high schools to research universities and community colleges: all saw a crucial need for increased attention to careful reading, fact-checking, and “crap detection,” and all agreed that our major writing assignments need to engage students in these practices.   In addition, we agreed that we can help students by encouraging them to make a point of listening carefully and openly to those with whom they don’t agree, of practicing what Krista Ratcliffe calls rhetorical listening, rather than staying only in the safe circles with those who hold very similar views. I came away very impressed with the thoughtfulness of colleagues in this workshop and inspired by the writing assignments they shared.   After the conference, several of us posted our assignments at to a public Google Drive folder in order to share them with each other, and with you. Please check them out, and let me know what you think of them!   Credit: Pixaby Image 336378 by Unsplash, used under a CC0 Public Domain License ... View more

We are entering the last week of class prior to final exams, and once again I sense a growing dread: in two weeks, I must enter one of five letter grades for each student into our data management system. The deliberations and angst which accompany this process have not diminished—in fact, they’ve increased—after over twenty-five years of classroom experience. Granted, it really isn’t appropriate to reconsider how a grade is calculated at this late point in the term. The right time for devising a system for course grades is prior to the start of the semester, during the construction of the syllabus. Our dean has often reminded us (and I have reminded new teachers) that we are bound to follow the guidelines of the syllabus, so we need to compose that document with thought and care. And I do – each term I make adjustments to course policies, assignments, revision procedures, and the overall grade percentage for each assignment. With each tweak, I wonder if I will have landed on just the right balance, just the right approach. And now, as every semester, I am planning for the next set of adjustments. Part of the problem, of course, is that grades mean different things to different stakeholders.  At my community college, those stakeholders include the department and teachers of subsequent courses my students must take, the division, the college as a whole (since part of our funding is determined by successful completion rates in developmental and gatekeeper courses), our transfer institutions (our students generally transfer to one of five or six universities), employers who fund coursework, federal workforce grant programs, parents, and of course, students.  In my particular local context, these stakeholders variously interpret a grade as evidence of mastery of learning outcomes, certification of readiness for the next level, completion of a certain number of required activities, engaged participation in the learning process, evidence of progress (in relation to the student’s starting point), an indication of academic promise, and evidence of effort (or even personal worth—which is often how my students see these marks). Indeed, each stakeholder not only interprets that grade differently, but he or she may use that grade to make decisions with very real consequences for the student. A “C” grade, for example, is generally accepted by a transfer institution, while a D grade is not. But an employer only requiring that a student pass a course would accept the D grade. A grade of D will permit a student to take the next course in the sequence at the college, but if that D was something of a “gift” to keep a student from losing financial aid, the student could be sent forward under-prepared for the next course. The desire to help a hard-working student maintain financial aid often motivates adjustments – adjustments which we tacitly accept but rarely discuss.  And regardless of the intersecting realities that led to a grade, the final record is a highly decontextualized transcript.  A student who has made tremendous gains despite an inappropriate incoming placement could legitimately see a D as a mark of success, but the narrative that defines the grade as a success will not appear on the one official document that the student may present as evidence of learning. Many of my students need more time, and repetition of a course might be the best option; unfortunately, the F grade (and even the less stigmatized R or “re-enroll” grade in a developmental class) can mean loss of financial aid, loss of employer support, or problems with visas. There is an ongoing national discussion about community college student success, a discussion that is telling a story of failure, especially for those that begin in developmental classrooms. That story includes data—an incredibly large amount of data that have led to the implementation of “data-driven” policies and reforms.  We certainly need data. But data don’t make sense of themselves; we need theory, experience, and careful thought in order to use data wisely, as emphasized in the Community College Data website. What we do with these data affects not widgets but students, as Adam Bessie and Dan Carino have demonstrated so beautifully. The other community college “story” focuses on the students: students who don’t necessarily fit data patterns or trends, students for whom established courses and time sequences don’t quite work, and students whose needs conflict with well-intentioned and data-driven policies and procedures. The intersection of these competing stories captures the quandaries I face in grading. So in two weeks I will look at my own evidence –my students’ work throughout the term—in the context of my college and my syllabus. And I will think of the students’ stories. And I will enter a grade. But it won’t be easy. Want to offer feedback, comments, and suggestions on this post? Join the Macmillan Community to get involved (it’s free, quick, and easy)! ... View more

Just returned from eight days in Paris with my grandnieces, Audrey (almost 13, about which enough said) and Lila (9), and oh, what a treat to see the city of light through their eyes. Of course we did lots of touristy things, first among which was a trip to the top of the Tour Eiffel, full of ooohs and aaahs and gasps, and games of trying to identify sites from that height. A boat ride down the Seine let us see famous buildings from a new perspective, and long walks around our neighborhood in Montmartre (just around the corner from Sacré-Cœur) introduced them to the 18 th arrondissement and to street life there. Audio bus tour—check. Portraits at Painters’ Place—check. Chocolate tour—check. Notre Dame and Sainte-Chapelle—check.   But what I enjoyed most were the art museums. Both girls draw and are interested in art, and they were, of course, most eager to see the Louvre. We made the obligatory climb to see the Mona Lisa (“Oh, but it’s so small! Oh isn’t she beautiful . . . and look at her eyes. . . .”) But what fascinated Audrey most were the Egyptian and Greek antiquities, which we explored for hours, taking notes so that we could do some more investigating when we got back to our apartment. She loved the Caryatides, and the Venus de Milo—and got down on hands and knees to touch some of the original foundation of the building. All the statues and the huge paintings of battle scenes freaked Lila out, however, and she declared she was “scared of museums.” A problem.   Still, we persevered, and convinced her to go with us to see Monet’s water lily paintings at l’Orangerie. Lucky for us we were there on a light day, so we had plenty of time and space to sit and soak up the peace and quiet and beauty of those magnificent paintings. Lila decided that she was no longer scared of museums, and Audrey was, to say the very least, overcome: she went from one huge curved painting to the next, examining brush strokes and color combinations, saying over and over she wished she could stay there forever. We read about Monet’s gift of the gallery and the paintings to the people of France after World War I, a gift of peacefulness and quiet. Audrey said this must have been the “best gift ever.”   The Musée d’Orsay offered other treats—we saw a lot more of Monet as well as other impressionists, and took notes on several Manet paintings that seemed mysterious to us. Later we read about them on Wikipedia and listened to short lectures about them on YouTube.   What struck me then (as it so often does when I am with young people) is how perceptive they are, how intellectually curious, and how eager to open up to new experiences and new ways of looking at the world, as presented to us by so many wonderful artists. Audrey said she thinks all paintings tell stories, and, though the stories can sometimes seem different from viewer to viewer, they also bring people together in sharing them. As we sat holding hands and immersing ourselves in Monet’s “Green Reflections,” I thought how very right she is.   Over the decades, I’ve had opportunities to take students to many artistic events, from exhibitions and lectures to musical performances, plays, and films. These engagements with art enrich their lives and their understanding of the world; if every child in the U.S. could have even two or three such experiences, I am certain they would benefit, both from seeing art and then producing it themselves. Yet our government wants to radically cut funding for the arts in America, even eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts. If you have had experiences like mine with young people and engagements with art (and I know you have!) I also know you will join in doing everything in our power to eliminate these cuts. Please join in supporting the arts in America! Credit: Photos by Andrea Lunsford ... View more

I have been working this year to shift my assessment practices toward grading students less on error and more on the labor that they bring to their writing for the courses that I teach. Ever since I heard Asao Inoue’s plenary on “Racism in Writing Programs and the CWPA” at the Council of Writing Program Administrators Conference last summer in Raleigh, North Carolina, I knew that I wanted to give the strategy another try. What is Labor-Based Grading? It is a pedagogical tactic that I have been developing on and off since my first year of teaching. At this point, I am in an in-between place: I am currently blending in some of practices that Inoue describes, and I am developing resources for a more complete conversion by the fall. Recently, I have been focusing on that ways that the grading system is discussed. The contract that Inoue used at Fresno State is long and, well, contractual. It’s a three-page document that outlines everything about how the work in the course is assessed, beginning with the approach and ending with details on requirements and logistics. As you would expect of a syllabus-style discussion of course requirements, it is explicit and detailed. Approaches for Students to Consider for Labor-Based Grading Remind students that your course is based on your labor - which is the time and intensity that they put into their writing. Students will not be punished for making mistakes as long as they improve throughout the term.  This grading system will not be what they are used to, so you can share the following guidelines on how they should approach their assignments: Focus on Ideas Focus on your ideas and what you are trying to say. Forget about the pressure to be perfect. Focusing on perfection can distract writers from developing their ideas. Because students are graded on labor, mistakes won’t undermine the grade.  Write for Yourself  You’re studying the kinds of writing that are important in your field and developing a sense of what makes that writing effective. Don’t worry about impressing me (the instructor). Write what will make you successful in the workplace.  Take Risks Try kinds of writing that stretch your abilities to help you learn new things. There’s no need to play it safe. After all, the safe, easy route doesn’t push you to improve your writing.  Have a Do-Over If you take a risk and it doesn’t turn out, you can always try again. Just as in a game, you have unlimited do-overs. Making mistakes is part of the learning process. As long as you are trying to improve your work, you can’t fail.  Put In the Effort You will write, rewrite, start over, and try again. All this work counts, as long as you listen to feedback, incorporate what you hear, and reflect on how to improve.  Wrap Up & Additional Resources on Labor-Based Writing Obviously, courses need this kind of document, but I wanted to break the explanation up into a series of shorter pieces. To begin, I wrote When Your Grades Are Based on Labor, a webpage that introduces the key aspects of the system from a student’s perspective. As I explained last month, I have been using Infographics as Readings in an effort to align course materials with students’ reading styles, so I also created the infographic on the right to present the ideas. My goal is to list the basic details in the infographic, with additional information explained on the webpage. I would love to get some feedback on whether I’ve succeeded in the comments below. Additionally, if you would like to know more about this assessment strategy, read Inoue’s publications on anti-racist assessment and on grading students’ labor on his Academia.edu page. Credits: Infographic was created on canva.com. Icons are all from The Noun Project, used under a CC-BY 3.0 license: report by Lil Squid, Fluorescent Light Bulb by Matt Brooks, analytics by Wilson Joseph, aim by Gilbert Bages, Switch Controller by Daniel, and Gym by Sathish Selladurai. ... View more

 Today’s guest blogger is Kim Haimes-Korn (see end of post for bio).   This week I have an important assignment for multimodal composers. When we have students work in digital spaces as content creators, there are often questions about ethical citation and usage practices and how to share content. Although we have many great resources, these notions are complicated when students share content, post images, and embed links on blogs or within other projects. Digital writing involves remixing and sharing content, but it complicates issues of plagiarism and ethical use. Even when you look for examples, you will notice that there is disparity and a great variety of possibilities. It is by no means an exact science. I like the idea of having students create a Style Guide for Digital Citation and Usage that becomes the class reference for these practices. In addition to their handbook, I start them with some readings that address the subject. I also show them sites like Creative Commons and other ways to find copyright-free images that are in the public domain or labeled for reuse. It is also important to show them that large blogging sites have usage guidelines that are specific to their situation. In order to be a good digital writer you have to have the knowledge and motivation to dig a little deeper. For example, the site Hubspot has plenty of content to share and is happy to have people use it according to their Content Usage Guidelines. These guidelines explain usage and permission rights along with expectations defined by the group. It also gets complicated when you want to share data or ideas that have been repurposed multiple times. It is important for students to critically read these sources to try to get to the original source rather than citing the last place they found it. In the worlds of digital writers there is a term, newsjacking (coined by David Meerman Scott), in which authors pull stories trending in the news and add them to their own sites for marketability. Basically, it is a way to draw on the Kairos of an existing situation to boost and enhance your own content. The Assignment Images are essential to successful online content. Students need to know not just how to cite them but where to find them. This exercise asks students to share copyright-free image sites and other strategies for understanding the usage guidelines. For example, when you conduct a Google Image search, you can go to the tools menu for a drop down list of usage rights where student can choose from a list of suggestions. When they choose, “labeled for reuse,” Google filters those images that fit the category. The internet has a lot of information on these topics, such as this infographic created by the Visual Communication Guy, Can I Use that Picture, which provides a visual representation of these concepts. It is useful to have students go to these different types of sources (textual and visual) to try to make sense of and enter the conversation. This assignment helps them to think critically about the choices they make as content creators. Have students read and review online sources (articles, infographics, blogs) for citation practices and usage guidelines. Put them in small groups to discuss what they found, looking for overlaps and distinctions. Discuss the ways these definitions are communally constructed. Ask each student to summarize a source on a presentation slide and present it to the group. As a group, assimilate the information and create a collaborative style guide slide that simplifies and defines the citation and usage practices for the particular classroom context from the summarized sources. Place this slide at the front of the presentation for easy future access. Share the presentation with the class – revise and shape through feedback. Publish the style guide in a place where students can access it for reference for future writings in the class. Reflections on the Activity It is always easier for students to remember information when it is communally constructed on their own terms. This exercise allows students to critically explore these issues in relation to their own real needs and expectations. The assignment defines a consistent methodology for these practices within a single classroom but also makes students aware that these practices are fluid and constantly changing. The class style guide invites them into the conversation and makes them aware of their ethical responsibilities as digital writers. Guest blogger Kim Haimes-Korn is a Professor in the English Department at Kennesaw State University. Kim’s teaching philosophy encourages dynamic learning, critical digital literacies and focuses on students’ powers to create their own knowledge through language and various “acts of composition.” She likes to have fun every day, return to nature when things get too crazy and think deeply about way too many things. She loves teaching. It has helped her understand the value of amazing relationships and boundless creativity. You can reach Kim atkhaimesk@kennesaw.edu or visit her website Acts of Composition. ... View more

Flying home to SFO after this year’s CCCC gathering gave me time to reflect on this conference and its long history as well as on its evolution. Bigger than ever (I gave up trying to count the number of sessions) and replete with poster sessions, think tank sessions, and caucus meetings, the program offered more than any attendee could possibly say grace over. Yet in spite of the profusion of panels, I missed some of the excitement I used to feel in looking through the program for sessions of particular interest to me. There was very little on history or historiography, very little on rhetorical history, theory, or practice, few student voices. In recent years, at least as near as I can tell from looking at CCCC programs, our field has turned away from rhetoric as our foundational discipline; and for that, I am sorry.   Still, I came away very glad to have been in the company of so many smart and dedicated scholars and teachers and, as always, I learned from inspiring work. I will write more in another posting about some of the great sessions I attended, but today I want to share just one presentation that taught a powerful lesson. The presenter was Dion Simmons, from the University of Kansas, and he spoke (with eloquence and passion) about what he termed “interrogative feedback,” starting with its importance to his own learning. He told of his experiences at a primarily white institution, where, as a beginning undergraduate turning in essays for his composition class, he fell back (as we all do) on familiar and comfortable ways with words. He remembers that he had an affinity for the phrase “I just feel like,” which helped him get started, to get into a topic, or to sum up a response. This phrase was his, and he liked it, though he hadn’t thought much about it. But his teachers didn’t agree, responding with comments such as “Your feelings don’t matter” or “This is opinion; I need facts.” These comments told Simmons, loud and clear, that this wasn’t a good phrase, that he should not use it.—but nothing more. Then, as I recall the story, he moved to an HBCU, where he once again turned in an essay including this familiar phrase. This time, however, his instructor did not offer criticism or warnings but instead one simple word: WHY? That one word, that “interrogative feedback,” led him to think hard, not only about why he felt a certain way but why he used that particular phrase, and subsequent discussions with his instructor, who went onto become his mentor, led him to understand that he was trying to get his own voice into his writing, to use it to establish some authority, however tenuous. He kept asking “why” as he grew as a writer and thinker and as he completed his undergraduate studies and began pursuing his Ph.D. Now he is teaching students of his own, asking them questions and using these questions to help students learn why they make the choices they do, where those choices come from and what implications they hold.   This was a lesson I can never learn too often, especially because it’s an easy one to forget: rather than leveling a criticism, why not ask a question that will allow student writers to explain what they are doing and why? Looking back, I realize I first took this lesson to heart when I read Mina Shaughnessy’s Errors and Expectations, in which she demonstrates over and over again that listening to students, asking them about their choices, and taking in their explanations, is the key to teaching them effectively. Ask questions. And then listen hard. That’s the way to open the door to learning.   Credit: Pixaby Image 1870721 by 38344328, used under a CC0 Public Domain License ... View more

4c17‌englisheditorblog‌ Assignment design can be rough. It's one of those talents teachers of writing develop over time with coffee, a sense of humor, and reflection. Too few of us get the mentoring we need to build successful writing assignments--the kind that are scaffolded enough to provide authentic learning moments and to produce writing aligned with course goals, but also the kind that engage and inspire writers. I admire the tenacity of Bri Lafond, who teaches at Riverside City College and CSU San Bernardino. In her 2017 CCCC presentation "Thinking Outside the 'Box Logic': Curating Context in the FYC Classroom," she described multiple attempts at a single assignment and semester after semester of reflecting and tweaking. Courageous work. She asks her students to pick a year in history, locate primary sources (a song, a news story, a work of art), juxtapose the sources, and produce a multimodal composition in which they analyze patterns and make an argument. She admits it hasn't gone well. She's changed up the requirements now four times to account for students' lack of knowledge of 20th century history, struggles with information literacy, and lack of experience with analytical writing. What I loved about Lafond's presentation is that she didn't end with a "Ta-da!" moment. She didn't present a perfect assignment for the taking. She presented a process-- a messy, head-scratching, sometimes-head-banging process. She presented a case study in reflection. And she presented, I think, an argument for more attention to assignment design and development in teacher training and mentoring programs. ... View more

At my school there’s continued pressure to offer fully online classes. The state has issued a mandate that 40% of state university undergraduates be enrolled in online classes by 2025.  Our Center for eLearning is well-funded, we’ve moved to Canvas as our online learning management system, and we’ve started placing more and more degree programs fully online.  My own experience with online teaching has been decidedly mixed and the class I am teaching online this semester, an introduction to interdisciplinary studies, has only confirmed that.   I’ve always felt that the challenge in teaching writing online is that writing courses are process courses and not content courses, and the best way to teach process is a lot of guided practice.  When I hear about teaching writing online it sounds as challenging to me as teaching violin or painting online (though, of course, such courses exist).  Continued evolution in technologies will, no doubt, assist but I am wondering how people have faced the more fundamental process versus content challenge.  I know any number of writing programs offer classes online so I am also wondering how you do it.   If you have experience teaching writing online I’d love to hear about it.  We’re offering some small test sections online here at school but additional advice or insight would be great.  What’s your experience been? ... View more

One of my former colleagues was angered recently when NBC Nightly News on March 1st announced its story about President Trump’s speech to the joint houses of Congress with a banner that read, “Rhetoric & Reality.” His response on Facebook: “No no no! I can’t stand this Platonic framing anymore. Rhetoric and Reality are not opposed! Rhetoric and reality are on the same side, and lying and falsehood are on the other!  Even a basic understanding of rhetoric could have saved our country from so much turmoil. However, when those on the side of lying and falsehood understand the power of rhetoric better than the average voter, rhetoric does become the enemy of reality and truth. The fact that the average voter was often getting his or her “news” via relatively new social media led to a victory of false rhetoric over the truth of the sort that has happened in the past only when other would-be dictators realized that shaking people’s faith in standard news media gave them the power to make people believe anything.   During the election, all of us saw things that we wanted to believe. Many of us did what has to be done when a claim is put forward: we looked to see what evidence there was behind that claim and what warrants it was based on. We looked at the source and the reliability of that source. Hopefully, we did this before we hit “share.” Politicians and supporters on all sides of the issues seem to understand the willingness of the American populace to hit “share” without questioning the source or the validity of the argument far better than most of us, even those of us educated in the field of rhetoric.   What does it take to shatter that belief in a single source of “truth”? The immediate future of our country depends on our ability to find an answer to that question. Those who believe that their single source of information are not willing to hear the arguments on the other side. They may be truly ignorant, but many of them are also willing know-nothings. Their faith in their “truth” is reinforced by one good speech that stays on track and sounds presidential. They can see and hear the support for the claims they want to believe, but opposing arguments are seen as only sour grapes because the other candidate didn’t win. One of the most frightening responses is the attempt, through bizarre unconstitutional legislation, to silence opposing voices. If they feel that campaign promises are being kept, they close their eyes to the effects of carrying out those promises. Three sources of hope: we can hope that some eyes will be opened to the truth when promises kept start to negatively impact those who wanted to believe in those promises—when the absence of illegal workers starts to affect agricultural businesses, when families lose their health care, when the next would-be shooter is able to buy a gun because there is no legal reason he can’t, in spite of his mental illness. We can hope that some eyes will be opened to the truth when promises are not kept —when the next terrorist is homegrown and not stopped by new immigration laws, when new pipelines are not built using American steel, when jobs are not saved. We can hope that truth will win out when there are indisputable facts proving collusion with our enemies, indisputable facts proving that power in our country can be bought and sold, indisputable facts proving that the American public has been lied to. True, those most willing to accept false reasoning have not yet been swayed by facts. The tipping point will come when enough of those in power and enough of those who hold the power of the vote over them listen to the voice of reason, listen to rhetoric in its finest form, and stand up for it. https://www.flickr.com/photos/tyrian123/1563378956/in/photostream/ Credit: View from the press seats by JoshBerglund19 on Flickr, used under a CC 2.0 License        ... View more

I’m a bit behind on my journal reading, but I finally got around to the December 2016 issue of CCC. It’s a good issue—with Joyce Carter’s powerful 2016 CCCC Chair’s address on “Making, Disrupting, Innovating”—but one article especially stood out to me: Jerry Won Lee and Christopher Jenks’s “Doing Translingual Dispositions.” This essay builds on Horner, Lu, Royster, and Trimbur’s “Language Difference in Writing: Toward a Translingual Approach” (College English, 2011, 303-21), which defines translingual disposition as one distinguished by “a general openness toward language and language differences.” Lee and Jenks go on to say This disposition allows individuals to move beyond preconceived, limited notions of standardness and correctness, and it therefore facilitates interactions involving different Englishes. Considering the historical marginalization of ‘nonstandard’ varieties and dialects of English in various social and institutional contexts, translingual dispositions are essential for all users of English in a globalized society, regardless of whether they are ‘native’ or ‘nonnative’ speakers of English. (319) I see the lively conversation around translingualism as one very positive outgrowth of the work done forty-five years ago by the group of scholars working on "Students’ Right to Their Own Language," first as a resolution and later as an NCTE publication, with full documentation. It’s worth remembering this resolution, voted on in 1972: We affirm the students' right to their own patterns and varieties of language -- the dialects of their nurture or whatever dialects in which they find their own identity and style. Language scholars long ago denied that the myth of a standard American dialect has any validity. The claim that any one dialect is unacceptable amounts to an attempt of one social group to exert its dominance over another. Such a claim leads to false advice for speakers and writers, and immoral advice for humans. A nation proud of its diverse heritage and its cultural and racial variety will preserve its heritage of dialects. We affirm strongly that teachers must have the experiences and training that will enable them to respect diversity and uphold the right of students to their own language. The last sentence in the resolution touches on what I have always thought of as “attitude,” that is, the attitude of teachers of English toward varieties of English as well as toward other languages. Often it’s easier to pass a resolution (though this one was vehemently oppose d by some members at the time) than it is to change attitudes. And in spite of this resolution and the research and scholarship that supported it, attitudes changed slowly: teachers of writing could and did talk the talk but didn’t yet come close to walking the walk. But we kept working at it: I can remember taking a cold, hard look at my syllabi, at the readings I chose, at my assignments, and noting the many many ways that attitudes regarding “proper” English were there inscribed. So I kept trying to make what I felt were my attitudes toward language variety (all upbeat and favorable) show forth more clearly in my classroom. And roughly twenty years ago, I wrote a new chapter for one of my reference books, on “Varieties of Language,” the first such chapter to appear in a composition handbook and one that argued for the validity of all varieties of English and of all languages.   So I’ve been thinking about these issues for most of my professional life, and I am encouraged by recent developments to recognize and nurture “translingual dispositions.” What I especially like about Lee and Jenks’s essay is that they see clearly that our field hasn’t yet worked out a strong pedagogy for teaching translingual dispositions, much less for teaching what Suresh Canagarajah and others call code meshing. But they persist in paving the way for such a pedagogy, showing that “even students who can be considered monolingual in the most traditional sense of the term have the capacities to develop translingual competence and do translingual disposition” by sharing research that demonstrates some students beginning to make the move toward such new dispositions.   Lee and Jenks are also clear-sighted about the role that teachers of writing must play in developing such dispositions: it won’t be enough for us to embrace this concept intellectually. Rather, as their title suggests, we have to DO translingual dispositions. I’d say that nearly fifty years on from the Students’ Right resolution, it’s time we take that step. And thanks to Lee and Jenks for moving us in the right direction. Credit: Pixaby Image 705667 by wilhei, used under a CC0 Public Domain License ... View more

I’m returning to the past—for this semester at least. Years ago now, as the First-Year Writing Program at NC State was in the midst of transitioning from a civic argument (first course) and study of literature approach (second course) to a WID-based model of writing instruction, our faculty grappled with ways to incorporate writing from a range of disciplinary communities into our courses, especially the second course. One of the ideas that emerged during that period of experimentation was to frame students’ experiences of literary texts with disciplinary arguments. We employed arguments from other disciplines, generally in the form of scholarly journal articles or book chapters, as lenses through which students could experience literary texts. This, we reasoned, was at least a way to have students engaged with writing from other disciplines in what was otherwise a course in the study of literature. Baby steps. The instructional approach of our writing program eventually underwent an entire overhaul, but I’ve maintained a unit on reading and writing in the humanities in my WID-based course. I’ve also held fast to the expectation that this unit would introduce students to the basics of knowledge construction in the fields of the humanities, emphasizing the value of close reading and interpretation as integral elements to meaning-making in the humanities. To that end, one of the major projects I routinely have students respond to asks them to construct an interpretation of an artistic text, generally a literary one. An Insider’s Guide to Academic Writing provides substantial support for such a project; Chapter 6 guides students through the process of crafting an interpretation of an artistic text while attending closely to rhetorical features conventionally associated with this frequently assigned genre. To offer my students opportunities to engage with and study more routinely writing that occurs in other disciplinary domains, I’m mixing things up this semester and returning to the past. Though I’m maintaining the expectation that students will compose an interpretation of an artistic text (Assignment Framing Interpretations of Artistic Texts)  as a major project in the unit, this time around I’m asking students to frame their interpretations with other disciplinary arguments, as we did years ago at my institution. This approach is explored in detail in Arguing through Literature (2004), by Judith Ferster, a former Director of our First-Year Writing Program. Here’s my plan to support this old/new approach to teaching the interpretation of an artistic text. I’m putting together some small readings clusters, or themed subunits. In each cluster, we’ll read two to three selected literary texts (though one or more of these could easily be substituted with other kinds of artistic texts). These artistic texts will be paired with a disciplinary text (scholarly journal article or book chapter) that, as a model for application, we can use to frame our exploration of the artistic texts themselves. Here’s a brief example of what one of these subunits looks like:    Reading Cluster A: War and Militarism Disciplinary Frame Eibl-eibesfeldt, Irenäus. “Warfare, Man’s Indoctrinability, and   Group Selection.” Ethos: International Journal of Behavioural   Biology, vol. 60, no. 3, 1982, pp. 177-198. doi: 10.1111/j.1439-   0310.1982.tb01079.x Artistic Text Tim O’Brien, “The Things They Carried” Artistic Text Luigi Pirandello, “War” Artistic Text Ernest Hemingway, “Soldier’s Home”   Based on my past experiences, students’ success with this approach depends a lot on guided practice. Such practice begins by helping them read, grapple with, and understand the disciplinary frame. Once they have a solid grasp of the frame, then they are typically able to read the artistic text through the lens of the disciplinary frame with success. Although I provide examples of frame texts, and we practice the application of disciplinary frames to their interpretation of various literary texts in my reading clusters, my students will ultimately find their own frame text and create an original interpretation of their chosen artistic text in light of their understanding of the disciplinary argument. I see a number of advantages to returning to this approach from my past. First, it provides another opportunity for students to interact with authentic disciplinary arguments, potentially from a wide range of academic fields. Secondly, this approach fosters originality in students’ interpretations. Since students must locate their own disciplinary frames, their interpretations are necessarily original. Most likely, no one else has ever before applied the same frame to their target artistic text. Additionally, there’s a flexibility that allows space for students’ own areas of interest to guide their interpretations; as a result, the students themselves may be more invested in the project overall. I’d be interested to hear what you think of this approach. Are your students writing interpretations of artistic texts? What challenges do you/they face? What do you think of using disciplinary arguments as interpretive frame texts? ... View more

In Alice in Wonderland, Alice and Humpty Dumpty have a conversation about words:  “’When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ `The question is,’ said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ `The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master – – that’s all.’” Danielle Kurtzleben recently wrote an excellent article for NPR about how President Trump has mastered the term “fake news,” making it mean what he wants it to mean, and thus demonstrating his disturbing power. Trump has changed the meaning of the term from even a few months ago, when it still meant news that was presented as truth but that was false. Now when Trump uses the term, he is referring to any unfavorable news coverage. Kurtzleben writes, “The ability to reshape language—even a little—is an awesome power to have. According to language experts on both sides of the aisle, the rebranding of fake news could be a genuine threat to democracy.”   Could something seemingly so simple actually pose a threat to democracy? After all, can’t people see through what Trump is doing? Therein lies the rub. Trump has tweeted the term “fake news” fifteen times in February and used it seven times in his February 16 th news conference. In one tweet he stated that “any negative polls are fake news.”  Kurtzleben quotes Berkeley linguist George Lakoff, who explains, ”A fake does not have the primary function, but is intended to deceive you into thinking that it does have that function, and hence to serve the secondary function. A fake gun won’t shoot, but if you are deceived into thinking it is real, it can intimidate you.”  Kurtzleben adds, “By Lakoff’s logic, putting most modifiers in front of the word news—good, bad, unbiased, liberal, conservative—still implies that the news is still somehow news. It is in some way tied to that main purpose, of being tethered to reality, with the intention of informing the public.” Trump’s use of the word “fake” means something different. It  implies that “the story is intended to serve something other than the public good, and that the author intended to falsify the story.” When people believe that—as some Trump supporters apparently do—the function of truth in a democracy is undermined. If people are convinced that the news media are not to be believed, how do you make them see the truth? Trump has proved himself a master at making his supporters believe that what he says is the truth, and facts be damned. Kellyanne Conway was ridiculed for coining the phrase “alternative facts,” but so far Trump has succeeded in building a campaign and now a presidency on just such alternative facts. It is amazing to notice how many headlines from a variety of news sources openly refer to Trump’s lies. It was noteworthy recently when he did tell the truth about the crime rate in Chicago. After his February 16 th news conference, even commentators on Trump-friendly Fox News were dumbfounded by what they had heard. When will people who believe Trump when he says not to believe the media see the truth? Perhaps only when what he says is contradicted by what they see in their own lives. It may not matter, to them, that Trump misrepresented how his number of electoral votes compares to the number gained by other recent presidents. It may not matter how he ranked in his college class. It may not matter that he referred to a terrorist attack in Sweden that never happened. After all, ICE is rounding up illegal aliens and trying, against the opinion of the courts, to block terrorists from entering the country. He is purging key federal departments of those who ran them under Obama. He is reversing policies set by Obama and making America great again. Kurtzleben cites George Saunders and his theory that America is now divided between LeftLand and RightLand. The fact that different Americans can see the Trump presidency so differently reinforces Saunders’s contention that these two countries within a country “draw upon non-intersecting data sets and access entirely different mythological systems.” In fact, they inhabit increasingly different realities.   Credit: Fake News AVI by Nikko on Flickr, used under a CC 2.0 license ... View more