As I have written in my last two posts, I presented on the ways that image macro memes (the memes that usually consist of an image and a text caption) at the Computers and Writing Conference in June. Specifically, I focused on political memes and how these memes are a form of activism as the people who make and share them spread their message. As Limor Shifman explains in her book Memes in Digital Culture (2014), memes are a way of expressing opinions in political conversations, undertaking advocacy and grassroots action, and participating in political movements. Given these functions, political memes are perfect for the classroom: They ask students to use critical analysis, persuasion, and argument in authentic conversations. Encourage students to think about the use of memes beyond Internet sharing by examining this version of the Distracted Boyfriend meme, updated to focus on gun control: The meme was shared in a Tweet from @rachel_handler. It shows the distracted boyfriend with the object label “Trump,” looking back at the woman in red who is labeled “NRA,” while his girlfriend who is labeled “Our Lives” looks at him in disgust. Under the meme, the political protest poster states, “We call BS!” The text of the Tweet provides the context where the meme was shared: “great sign my little sister sent me from today’s #nationalschoolwalkout pic.twitter.com/i0WqRMdaDF.” What interests me about this image is that the Internet meme is no longer bound by the Internet. Instead, as was also the case with the Grumpy Cat protest poster I shared previously, the meme has been recreated in an analog world, printed out in this case and glued to a piece of poster paper with an additional line (“We call BS!”) to emphasize the message. The shift from Internet meme to protest poster seems a natural one. What works for political advocacy online can make a similarly strong message in an analog situation. While some Internet memes would not translate to nondigital messages (think of animated gifs and memetic videos), image macros make the transition smoothly. For more examples of memes on protest posters, check out the Medium post “Teens March With Memes.” After students examine a meme that has crossed from the Internet to an analog existence, ask students to consider these questions: Why would someone use a meme on a political protest poster? How would the purpose of a political protest influence the kind of meme someone would choose? What audience(s) would a political poster using a meme target? Consider specific posters and the memes they use. Why do you think the poster maker made the choice of the specific meme for that specific poster? What underlying messages does the meme on a particular protest poster communicate? Think about the assumptions and “unspoken” messages in the poster. What existing meme template would be a better (or worse) choice for this message? Why would someone use this Internet meme on an analog poster? What can you say about how it transitions from the Internet to a poster? What guidelines would you propose to help someone choose and customize a meme for a political protest poster? As you may guess, these question work students toward creating a rubric for effective memes, which can then be applied to their own political memes. My post last week offered a range of online tools that students can use to create memes. Do you have ideas for using memes in the classroom? Do you have questions that you would like me to consider in an upcoming post about memes? Just let me know by leaving a comment below. I can’t wait to hear from you. ... View more

LOLcat defining Politics, with captions, Politics: n - frum Greek. Poli - many, tics - blood sucking parasites Last week, I shared a Political Meme Scavenger Hunt activity, one of the resources that I also shared at the Computers and Writing Conference in East Lansing, Michigan last week. My session focused on how political memes work and strategies for using them in the classroom. Today I am sharing another resource from the session: online meme generation tools. The tools listed below all create image macros, the kind of meme that consists of an image and usually some text caption. An image macro can also include an emoji or other drawing as part of the message. The LOLcat on the right is an image macro. Constraints of Online Meme Makers The meme generators I collected are free and offer many options. Those strengths come with a down side however. The sites appear to do little review of the memes that are generated and posted. Since the sites are free, they are wide open to anyone who wants to create an image-based meme. Some of the memes on the sites are problematic. You will find images that are racist, sexist, and graphic. Some of the meme templates are also problematic, relying on stereotypes or questionable images. You will also find that trolls can attack a site, either making it inaccessible or overloading the site with questionable content. The screenshot below shows the recently created memes on the Meme Generator site at the time I was writing this post: The page was flooded with a pencil meme and text that taunt the website managers. The top left meme includes the caption, “The entire main page will be nothing but this meme.” Other messages on the page continue the theme, criticizing the website and boasting about the attack. This example demonstrates the problems what you may encounter with using these sites. To address these issues, I suggest the following guidelines: Review the site(s) you want to use well, and then narrow the list down. Choose the site(s) that best match your needs and local expectations for classroom appropriateness. Recognize that these sites can and do change in a matter of seconds. A site that may have been fine when you checked the night before class could have a flooded homepage, like the Meme Generator site shown in the screenshot above. Have a backup plan. If a site is down or has problem images when class meets, have an alternative ready. Before asking students to make memes, discuss the nature of the site(s) with students so that they will not be surprised if they encounter problematic content. Explain the ground rules for your class use of the resources—what students should do if something problematic appears on their screens, and what kind of content is appropriate for their own memes. Generators for Specific Memes One way to avoid problematic meme templates is to send students to specific generators that match the topic you are discussing and that do not begin with an inappropriate image. All of the generators listed here could be used by those who attended my conference session to make political memes: What If I Told You Generator Willy Wonka Generator Doge Meme Generator Distracted Boyfriend Meme Generator Trump Bill Signing Meme Generator Marked Safe From... Meme Generator Who Would Win Meme Generator Laughing Men in Suits Meme Generator All the Things Meme Generator Uncle Sam Meme Generator Presidential Alert Meme Generator Warning Sign Meme Generator Meme Generators These links take you to templates with a range of options. Some of the images may be inappropriate, but these sites give students the widest number of options. Another way to avoid problematic meme images and templates is to choose one of the sites that allows the upload of students’ own images. Students will need to take photos or find images to use, but avoiding the templates does limit the likelihood of encountering inappropriate content. Meme Generator (for iOS & Android) ImgFlip Blank Meme Templates ImgFlip Meme Generator (allows upload of images) QuickMeme Cheezeburger Builder (allows upload of images) Imgur Meme Generator (allows upload of images) Kapwing Meme Generator (allows upload of images, details on options) Kapwing Meme Templates Final Thoughts Image Macro Memes give students a chance to combine social media and cultural knowledge with visual rhetoric. To be effective, the image and text have to work together to communicate their message. Students typically have experience with the genre. They know what makes a meme successful and what makes one fail, so their prior knowledge make image macros a strong tool for introducing the design and visual composing strategies that build upon their expertise. Have you used memes in the classroom? Do you have advice to share or examples that you love? Add a comment below to tell me more. I’d love to hear from you. ... View more

Protest Poster showing Grumpy Cat holding an Ethernet cable, with the message, “#NSA Killed My Internet. Now I have to build a GNU one.” Sometimes a LOLcat is just a humorous comment on life. Other times, there is a specific social, political, or cultural message behind it. Take the Grumpy Cat protest poster on the right. The description on Flickr explains that the image is from “the ‘Freedom not Fear’ protest rally against global internet surveillance at 7.9.2013 in Berlin, Germany.” This Grumpy Cat poster is part of a presentation I will give at the Computers and Writing Conference in East Lansing, Michigan this summer. To provide some background, the proposal for my session, “Making Memes that Work for Change,” explains: Political messages in the news and on social media timelines frequently borrow from the strategies of familiar Internet memes, like the captioned images we see on Facebook and Twitter. The rhetorical choice of memes for these political messages enables their authors to respond pointedly to issues that affect them, for as Limor Shifman (2014) explains in Memes in Digital Culture, “[P]olitical memes are about making a point—participating in a normative debate about how the world should look and the best way to get there” (121). In short, political memes work to persuade, to engage, and to move the public to action, all as the authors work to communicate their views of the possibilities for the future. In the case of this Grumpy Cat poster, a well-known Internet meme (Grumpy Cat) is used to communicate the protesters’ dissatisfaction with Internet surveillance. To kick off my presentation, I will ask participants to try the following scavenger hunt activity that I use with students, using the Grumpy Cat as inspiration. The goal is to provide a quick introduction to the political moves that are used in these memes and build a collection to use as the class (or presentation) explores deeper issues. Political Meme Scavenger Hunt Class Activity Find political image-based memes that feature An animal (cat, dog, bird, etc.) A new take on a well-known meme Puns or other word play A stock photo A still from a video (movie, tv show, YouTube, etc.) Be sure that the memes you find are appropriate to share with the entire group. Aim for an image that would be appropriate for a PG-13 movie, and language that is no worse than an R-rated movie. While you are free to share your political beliefs, what you share must align with the Virginia Tech Principles of Community. If you are unsure about any meme, ask me. I’ve included details in this activity to avoid potential problems that can arise when students examine memes. First, I suggested five specific kinds of memes that students should find to keep them from searching endlessly. They need to find five, so they have to use their time wisely. Second, I provided standards for the images and language that are acceptable. I want to avoid some of the gruesome memes I have seen, but I did not want to censor topics. For example, there are some graphic abortion memes that I find unacceptable for the classroom. I want to avoid anything of this sort that might trigger students. The movie rating system has always worked well for me. I do make sure that everyone is familiar with the system, as there are occasionally international students who are used to different ratings standards. Finally, I don’t want to force students to approach topics from any particular stance. They should be free to share any position: pro, con, or somewhere in between. That said, there are some topics that are not appropriate. Students usually understand that things like hate speech are off limits, but my reference to the Virginia Tech Principles of Community reminds them. I did not include details on how the memes will be shared in the activity. The particular class circumstances and resources determine what will work best. Options I have used include the following: Share the memes in a discussion forum, especially if students are doing the activity for homework. Post the images in a collaborative Google Document or Slides file, which is useful for small group work (give each group its own document). Paste the images in an online white board, like Padlet or Note.ly, which is fun for real-time, whole-group discussion. Email the memes to you (the teacher) and then choose those to share in class, which allows you to review the images beforehand. Enter the link to and name/title of each meme in a Google Form, which will create a list of the memes that you can use later in the course. Once the memes are collected, you can use them to discuss argument and persuasion, the underlying political messages, symbolism, language strategies, and visual rhetoric. They also provide the background knowledge for a meme-making assignment—and I will share resources for making memes next week, so be sure to come back! Meanwhile, if you have a suggestion or reaction to today’s post, please leave me a comment below. Credit: Grumpy Cat by Frerk Meyer on Flickr (CC-BY-SA 2.0). ... View more

Writing a simple email message can turn me into an overthinking scaredy-cat. Am I using the right phrase? Do I sound like I’m apologizing too much? Am I oversharing? Am I being too vague? Ugh. I end up evaluating, re-evaluating, revising, writing, and then erasing any time I have to send an important message. What should be an easy message telling someone my manuscript will be late or I can’t make a meeting becomes agony. Imagine my joy when a friend shared Dani Donovan’s “E-Mail Like a Boss” matrix on Twitter. Even better, her “Write This, Not That” style suggestions are a perfect model for a classroom activity. In the image below, Donovan (@danidonovan) concentrates the kinds of sentences I struggle with into short, direct ideas that avoid unnecessary apologies or padding: For students, this matrix can demonstrate two things. First, there is the obvious face value of the information: students gain some stronger ways to say things in emails and elsewhere. Second, each pair demonstrates the value of revision, showing stronger ways to phrase the same idea. To use the matrix in class, I would follow these steps: Students can work in small groups or as a whole class to discuss how the suggested alternatives improve on the original. Together, brainstorm other email sentences and messages that can be difficult to write. Students are sure to come up with some ideas immediately, such as telling a professor that they are ill and won’t be in class. While you will want to keep the scenarios they come up with appropriate for the classroom, try to push students to get beyond simple scenarios. If time allows, students can search their email for messages that they have struggled with and add those ideas to the list. As a class, review the brainstormed lists and identify nine situations to focus on. Assign each of the situations to a small group or pair of students. Ask students to create their own “Write This, Not That” style suggestions, using Donovan’s matrix as their model. The groups can record their suggestions in a shared class document if desired. Once all the groups have completed the task, ask groups to present their recommendations to the class, and arrange for everyone to have a copy of the suggestions for future use. To go beyond the original matrix, students can think about other writing situations that they encounter frequently, creating “Write This, Not That” suggestions for other tasks they complete, such as description, persuasion, and research essays. As another option, students can review their own drafts, identify sentences or phrases that they have struggled with, and then work together to create “Write This, Not That” alternatives in a group peer review activity. Final Thoughts If you use this “E-mail Like A Boss” image with students, be sure to share Donovan’s ADHD Explained Using Comics collection as well. Donovan explains these ADHD webcomics this way: ADHD can be difficult to explain, and even harder to talk about. We're creative, friendly, and misunderstood by a lot of people. My hope is to help people with #ADHD feel understood and seen, and be able to share their experiences with others. Her comics can inspire other writing activities as well as discussion of how to communicate ideas that readers may not be familiar with. If your class is exploring comics and graphic novels, this collection demonstrates how a comic designer has used the genre to share her message with readers. If you try any of these activities, I would love to hear from you. Please leave me a comment to tell me how it worked in your classroom or share other ways to use these resources. ... View more

Today's featured guest blogger is Shane Bradley, Administrative Dean, Writing Program Director, and Assistant Professor of English at Erskine College.  The following dictum still bothers me: “Just write what comes to mind. Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation. Write what you feel.” This vague instruction does little for student writers who need to develop academic thinking and writing skills. In reality, what students need is less “do what you want” and more “here’s a specific set of guidelines.” Instructors turn to the ubiquitous journal assignment for any number of reasons: to begin the class, to transition from one standard to the next, or to consume time. While students often meet this much-clichéd strategy with disapprobation because they’ve been “journaled to death,” by providing a few specific objectives, both students and teachers can benefit from an otherwise mundane activity. Working with first- and second-year college writers clarified two (among others) distinct realities:   Students need more instruction about how to organize body paragraphs. Students have been allowed too much time to write what they feel, not why they feel.   Many students leave high school having spent hours and hours expressing their opinions without having to justify (or support) those ideas. “I believe this law should be changed.” “Why?” “Because I don’t like it.” “Why don’t you like it?” “It doesn’t work.” “Can you provide examples of how and when that law doesn’t work?” That’s usually where that dialogue ends, for asking students to justify their opinions with logic and fact also means not blindly validating what they think simply because they think it. While changing said law might be necessary, the student bears the responsibility of being able to think and write critically about those ideas. Our blind assertion that students’ feelings must be spared in our efforts to give them voice discounts the reality that many are leaving high school without the foggiest notion what critical thinking is. Professor Digory Kirke in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe laments this fact when he asks, “Don’t they even teach logic in schools anymore?” Unfortunately for our students, life today depends heavily on emotion and feeling while routinely discounting logic. In order to prompt students to understand an organizational structure that can help them begin to critically analyze, I use a specific template for in-class journal responses (which most often come in the form of body paragraph practice): topic + support + analysis The topic consists of the points that support the thesis. The support (evidence) comes from poems, plays, short stories, novels, movies, songs, National Geographic articles, etc. The analysis, the most difficult part, starts with students’ ability to think logically and critically about specific issues. While the analysis component will take time to cultivate, the topic and support can begin immediately. The journaling assignment can be simple: How does Gwendolyn Brooks’s “We Real Cool” exemplify a theme from the Harlem Renaissance? Students’ responses will vary, and much of what they write may feel like simple summary; however, as the instructor exuberantly lends guidance - maybe walking from desk to desk, peering over shoulders – old habits begin to crumble, newer, effective writing strategies taking root: topic + support + analysis. Students begin to focus on why instead of what. Instructors can add increasingly structured guidelines to the template: the use of signal phrases to announce quotations (support); weening students off their dependence on the second-person you; employment of the third-person point of view when responding to literature; more developed transitions (beyond the tired standbys like first, second, finally, for example, and in conclusion) that utilize diverse syntax and punctuation; and more attention to spelling, punctuation, agreement, and usage.   Give it a try. Educators already know that students perform better when they know their boundaries. Provide some guidelines and watch students’ thinking and writing skills grow. At the very least, the final product of journaling with a purpose will be more palatable when you’re wading through that stack of papers next weekend. ... View more

With television's arguably most prominent dramatic series ending amidst the ashes of King's Landing and the outrage of many of its most loyal fans (including a remarkable Change.Org petition demanding an entire Season 8 redo), I find myself reminded of Frank Kermode's classic study, The Sense of an Ending (1967). Exploring the ways that human beings use storytelling in order to make sense of their lives and history, Kermode focuses his attention on the "high art" literary tradition, but the same attention can be paid to popular art as well in ways that can explain, at least in part, the extraordinary reaction to GoT's final two episodes. Here's how. First, let's note that fan pressure on creative artists is nothing new. Charles Dickens' readers pleaded with him, in the serialized run-up to the climax of The Old Curiosity Shop, to please not kill Little Nell, while Arthur Conan Doyle was successfully lobbied by disappointed readers to bring Sherlock Holmes back from the dead after apparently killing the popular detective off in "The Final Problem." And movie producers routinely audience-test their films before making their final cuts. So all the popular uproar is not really different in kind from things that have happened before, but it may be different in degree, which is where its significance lies. Because no one, except for the series' writers and actors, appears to be fully satisfied with what finally happened after eight long, and violent, years in the battle for the Iron Throne. The most common complaint seems to be that Daenerys should have been allowed to follow her "character arc" to become not only Queen of the Seven Kingdoms but also a kind of messiah. However, it isn't my purpose to wade into the controversy to offer my own opinion about what "should" or "shouldn't" have happened, for that's an esthetic, not a semiotic, question. Rather, I want to look at the extravagance of the negative response to what did transpire and what it tells us.   To understand this response we can begin with the fact that Game of Thrones ran for eight years as a continuous narrative—conceived, in fact, as one gigantic movie: a TV "maxi-series" if you will. Eight years is a long time, especially for the show's core audience of millennials who effectively entered adulthood along with GoT's main characters. This audience largely overlapped with the generation that grew from childhood to adolescence as the Harry Potter novels were published and filmed, and who also were on hand for the definitive cinematic Lord of the Rings: the fantasy novel to beat all fantasy novels first raised to cult status by baby boomers and turned upside down and inside out by George R.R. Martin to create A Song of Fire and Ice.   Such a long wait, at such a formative period of life, is simply bound to build up a great load of gestaltic expectation, a longing for the kind of ending that would redeem all the violence, betrayal, and heartbreak of this essentially sadistic story ("Red Wedding" anyone?). Both The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter novels prepared viewers for such an ending, one in which, to quote Miss Prism from The Importance of Being Earnest, "The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily." Instead, everyone got something more along the lines of King Lear.   And there you have it, for as Miss Prism tartly adds, happy endings are "what fiction means”—or as Frank Kermode might put it, the triumph of the hero and the defeat of the villain is one way that our story telling makes sense of (one might say, makes bearable) the realities of human experience.   But that isn't what George R.R. Martin—who knows full well how the triumph of the House of York only led to Richard III, whose defeat, in turn, brought Henry VIII and Bloody Mary to the throne—ever appears to have had in mind for his epic saga. Mixing historical reality with a lot of Tolkiensque fantasy, Martin (whose own conclusion to the tale is yet to come) thus put the show's writers into quite a bind. Because a completely conventional "happy" ending would have contradicted the whole point of the story, while a completely dismal one (say, Cersei triumphing after all) would have really enraged the customers. I use that word deliberately, for in popular culture audiences really are customers, and they expect to get what they pay for (the complaint on the part of some fans that by making GoT's producers and actors rich they were entitled to a better wind up than they got is especially significant in this regard). So Benioff and Weiss essentially compromised in the way that pop culture usually does. The really bad villains do end unhappily, and the Starks do regain power after all, but Martin's fundamental thesis that power itself is the problem is preserved in the madness of Daenerys at the moment of achieving absolute control.   It wasn't a bad compromise in my view, but it quite clearly hasn't been a successful one either. Still, because of the odd reversal in the relation between novel and film, with the film being concluded before the novel was, the game isn't over. If the novels ever are concluded, I suspect that Martin will have more shocks up his sleeve, beginning, I suppose, with King Bran turning tyrant and bad trouble between Jon and Sansa.   Photo Credit: “Game of Thrones Paperback Book” by Wiyre Media on Flickr 7/15/17 via a CC BY 2.0 License. ... View more

Google Forms make an easy task of collecting information from students for class discussion and writing activities. Just gather student responses your Google Form, and use the collected responses as the basis of class discussion and related activities. All you need is a Google Drive login and one question, meant to gather information on the projects that students are working on or their recent reading assignments. For demonstration purposes, I’m using the question, “What is the title of your report?” I’ll suggest some other questions at the end of the post. Once you log into Google Drive and have your question ready, it’s a matter of these three basic steps: Step 1: Create Your Form Set up a one-question survey that asks for no personal or identifying information. Since responses are anonymous, you avoid any FERPA complications. Once you log into Google Drive, create a new blank form. Give your survey a title, replacing the default “Untitled Form.” Replace the default “Untitled Question” text with the question you want students to respond to. Change the type of question to “Short answer” if Google does not change the type automatically. Note: Google tries to interpret your question and adapt the form, so it may make this change for you. If desired, click the palette icon on the upper right corner of the page to change the colors and add a background image. With your form ready to go, give students the link to your form. Click the SEND button in the upper right corner of the page to choose one of several options: Send via email Get a link to share Copy code to embed the form on your page Post to Facebook Send out as a Tweet Once you send out the link, all you have to do is wait for students to respond. You can look at my Title Survey to see an example of a student-ready form. Step 2: Check the Responses Once students have submitted their answers, spot check the questions to prepare for discussion and to check for any problems. Log into Google Drive. Open the Form you created. Click “Responses,” as indicated by the red arrow in this screenshot: The form will switch to show the responses that students have submitted. You can select the list and copy it, so that you can edit it in your word processor if you like. You can also have Google Forms show the responses in a Sheets spreadsheet. Read the Response to determine the likely topics for class discussion and to remove anything that doesn’t belong. For example, the Responses to the Title Survey show that students would benefit from revising for length and wordiness and should review the rules for capitalizing titles. There is also a title that shows the student has chosen a topic that does not fit the assignment, so I would remove that response to avoid any embarrassment in class. I would write to that student privately before class. Step 3: Lead Your Class Discussion Kick off class discussion by sharing the Responses to the question. You can share a link to the responses or a link to the word processor document you created with the responses. Give students several minutes to review the list, and then let their observations guide the discussion. Begin by asking students what they notice about the Responses. Encourage them to look for patterns and idiosyncrasies. Try sorting the answers alphabetically to group similar responses. As a class you can collaborate to revise Responses if appropriate. Final Thoughts I used this activity to ask students to examine and strengthen their document titles. You could use a similar Google Form to ask questions such as these: What is your thesis statement? What is your favorite sentence in the paper (or in a reading)? What is the biggest question you have about the assignment? What do you emphasis in your conclusion? What is the first sentence of your document? How would you summarize today’s reading? In addition to asking student to respond to these questions by thinking about their own papers, you can have peer review partners respond with their observations as well. This activity is simple but powerful. Students can quickly see how everyone has responded to a particular task, and then they can make observations about what works and what doesn’t. By asking students to add their information to the Form, you can concentrate on what you want to talk about, rather than the busy work of setting up the list of responses. Do you use Google Drive in the classroom? Have you used Google Forms? Tell me about your experiences by leaving a comment below. I’d love to hear from you. ... View more

This blog series is written by Julia Domenicucci, an editor at Macmillan Learning, in conjunction with Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl.     Today’s blog post is the last one for the spring semester! To send students off into the summer months, we’ll look at some easy-to-confuse words that they might use in day-to-day communications.   Podcasts have been around for a while, but their popularity seems to increase every day—and for good reason! They are engaging and creative, and they cover every topic imaginable. They are also great for the classroom: you can use them to maintain student engagement, accommodate different learning styles, and introduce multimodality.   LaunchPad and Achieve products include collections of assignable, ad-free Grammar Girl podcasts, which you can use to support your lessons. You can assign one (or all!) of these suggested podcasts for students to listen to before class. Each podcast also comes with a complete transcript, which is perfect for students who aren’t audio learners or otherwise prefer to read the content. To learn more about digital products and purchasing options, please visit Macmillan's English catalog or speak with your sales representative.  If you are using LaunchPad, refer to the unit “Grammar Girl Podcasts” for instructions on assigning podcasts. You can also find the same information on the support page "Assign Grammar Girl Podcasts." If you are using Achieve, you can find information on assigning Grammar Girl in Achieve on the support page "Add Grammar Girl and shared English content to your course." If your English Achieve product is copyright year 2021 or later, you are able to use a folder of suggested Grammar Girl podcasts in your course; please see “Using Suggested Grammar Girl Podcasts in Achieve for English Products” for more information. Podcasts about Commonly Confused Words Affect versus Effect [9:15] Between versus Among [4:00] Can versus May [4:29] If versus Whether [3:05] Less versus Fewer [6:34] Jury-Rigged or Jerry-Rigged? [3:45] Riffle versus Rifle [2:34]   Students can do a lot more with podcasts than simply listen to them. Use one of the following assignments to encourage students to engage further with the Grammar Girl podcasts.   Assignment A: As a class, listen to one or more of the above podcasts. Discuss what it is about these words that make them easy to confuse. Is it their meanings? Their spellings? A combination of the two? Some other reasons? Then, strategize ways to remember when to use the correct word.   Assignment B: Ask each student to find an example of a word they’ve used incorrectly in a recent paper or another form of writing, such as a text message or post on social media. (Alternately, select an example for the class to look at together.) Have each student write a short paragraph explaining how the word was used incorrectly, what word should have been used instead, and ways to remember the correct word in the future.   How have you used podcasts about word usage in your class? How else do you discuss commonly confused words? Let us know in the comments!   Credit: Pixabay Image 1767562 by qimono, used under a Pixaby License ... View more

As the academic year ends, it’s time for me to turn to revising Elements of Argument and The Structure of Argument. What do I have to keep in mind about argument in the headlines as I look ahead? Given the political situation in America, it would be easy to say that there is no such thing as logical argument anymore. Emotion sometimes so far outweighs logic that it is almost naïve to give any credit to the seemingly old-fashioned notions that were at the heart of teaching classical rhetoric. Partisan politics so distorts people’s thinking that common ground seems impossible to reach. Family members have in many cases given up trying to reason with each other and have had to agree to silently disagree—or to unfriend each other. News is condemned as fake, and journalists are labeled enemies of the people. People of all ages depend increasingly on social media for their news and their opinions about it, and we now have an idea how much those opinions were shaped the last presidential election by a foreign government. Religious leaders dictate public policy, and the system of checks and balances built into our federal government seems to be dangerously out of balance. The next editions of my textbooks will be published shortly before the 2020 elections. I will write them not knowing how the elections will turn out. That shouldn’t make any difference, and ultimately it doesn’t. I can’t ignore the fact that young people, more than ever, need to be able to construct an argument to defend their opinions and to deconstruct an argument to reveal its flaws, even if the other side seems unwilling to listen. In looking at the current editions with revision in mind, reviewers stressed that we need to keep in mind that there are often not just two sides to an argument. We too often think in terms of a debate, pro and con. An issue like abortion cannot be reduced to those terms. Even gender cannot be viewed as a simple binary anymore. We need more emphasis on finding common ground. In some cases, it is not which side wins but what compromise can be reached. That was the idea behind having whole chapters in Elements entitled "Multiple Viewpoints." From the time our students started using the Internet to find sources to document their writing, we have had to teach them to evaluate sources. It was so easy—and quick—to accept the first source that popped up online. Now that is most often Wikipedia, in which entries can be written by anyone. Students used papers by students no more advanced than themselves as sources. We have to teach our students to investigate the source for legitimacy and for authority. While we have always had to do that, it was a little easier when an opinion had passed the bar of finding its way into print. We aren’t very likely to force our students back to using solely print sources. After all, many print sources are available online as well. Instead, students need to learn to question who wrote the words on the screen and what authority those writers have. They need to research the organization behind a web site, not just accept information uncritically. They need to understand the biases of sources. It seems so simple, but we have to teach our students that there still are such things as truth and facts. Yes, photos can be doctored, as we all know, but when multiple sources have on video a person making a statement, it is pretty hard to deny those words came out of his or her mouth. Facts about funding sent to victims of natural disasters, troop deployments, crowd size, voting records, redistricting, numbers of votes cast, numbers of crimes, citizenship status of those convicted of crimes—the list could go on and on—can be verified. Biased as our news sources have become, there are still facts that arguments can be built on. Sure, a writer may have to do some digging to find them, and definitely will have to consider the source, but facts are facts in spite of what anyone says. There is no such thing as an alternative fact. We have to hold our politicians, and everyone else, to a standard of truth. Textbook authors have acknowledged for years that critical reading goes hand in hand with argumentative writing. Students need practice in understanding arguments and seeing flaws in them before and while they are learning to write their own. They need to go beyond the headlines to read whole opinion essays, to see carefully structured and well supported arguments. And those do exist, from classical readings to the most recent editorials. They need to go beyond the surface of the news to see the reasons behind it. And they need to read opinions that differ from their own. The first steps toward the common ground that we are eventually going to have to find are understanding another point of view and recognizing that on any given subject there may be more than two opposing points of view.   Photo Credit: “Calendar*” by Dafne Cholet on Flickr, 01/20/11 via a CC BY 2.0 license. ... View more

In two days I will be in Vancouver for the meeting of the Canadian Association for the Study of Discourse and Writing held at the University of British Columbia, where I taught from 1977 to 1987. What a treat it will be to be back in that glorious city! The topic I’m working on is a rethinking of the relationship between speaking and writing, and I have been having a lot of fun tracing this relationship from ancient times to the present. I’ve been pondering the effects that the hegemony of writing has had and the recent resurgence of speaking and orality/aurality as major means of communication, not to mention the importance of sound and soundscapes to understanding, learning, and knowing. (I have also re-read, with admiration, Cindy Selfe’s dynamite article from a decade ago, “The Movement of Air, the Breath of Meaning: Aurality and Mjultimodal Composing” in CCC, June 2009.)   And I am puzzling over the contrast between Plato’s notion of speech as “the living word of knowledge, which has a soul” and the work of artificial intelligence to bring us talking robots and digital assistants who speak to us and seem, according to my students, “almost real.” What to make of these innovative “speakers” and the voice recognition technology that offers both powerful opportunities and perilous pitfalls. How will teachers of writing and speaking define “talk” now that speech is clearly “post-human”?   I will be writing more about these issues soon. But first, I am going to go to Vancouver and immerse myself in its beauty, see old friends, and walk around the campus I once knew so well. And then, I am going to take a bit of a summer break. I’ll be working on writing projects, for sure, but I will also be catching up on the latest Louise Penny books, taking long soaks in the hot tub, and being grateful for all the summers I’ve enjoyed—and hoping for more!   I wish you a summer of rest and restoration, and some happy reading and writing!   Image Credit: Pixabay Image 3076954 by Nietjuh, used under the Pixabay License ... View more

What are your scholarship and professional development plans for the summer? Like many colleagues, I relish the opportunity to focus on research projects, reading, and course development during the summer “downtime,” when I am teaching only one course. Such summer work informs our pedagogy for the academic year to come, whether we are full-time, part-time, tenured/tenure-track, or contingent—and whether or not our institutions and the legislatures and governing boards that fund them recognize the value of this particular academic labor.   Perhaps our summer efforts do not always appear as work to those outside academia because these activities can be so varied. Just consider the possibilities. I’ve got colleagues who have done or will do the following:    Plan and conduct research Travel as part of research work Finish writing an article or book chapter Attend a conference (perhaps a regional CCCC event?) Read a book (Paul Hanstedt’s Creating Wicked Students: Designing Courses for a Complex World was recommended to me recently, for example.) Create a virtual or F2F reading group (I’m in a group reading John Warner’s Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities.) Participate in a syllabus or assignment swap Catch up on reading journal articles Actually write one or more of the essays they typically assign students (Have you brushed up your own literacy narrative lately?) Participate in a webinar Revamp an online course or participate in a course review Take a course in a field outside their own discipline Participate in departmental assessment or course redesign efforts Review textbooks for publishers or the department Revise or develop a new edition of a textbook (which is on my agenda this summer) Serve as an abstract reader for conferences or peer reviewer for a journal Join a writing group Take training in technology, course accessibility/design, etc. Learn how to create video content (or another use any other technology that is new to them) Get involved in a cross-disciplinary SoTL (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning) group Plan an undergraduate research experience for students Become a mentor Apply for a grant Host a summit or roundtable session to support adjunct faculty Join or create a composition teaching circle with faculty from high schools, two-year schools, or four-year schools (or participate in a National Writing Project event)   What are your summer plans? Is there a book you would like to recommend, a conference that you’re planning to attend, or a virtual group that others could join?  Share your recommendations with us. ... View more

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

Today’s guest blogger is Tanya Rodrigue‌, an associate professor in English and coordinator of the Writing Intensive Curriculum Program at Salem State University in Massachusetts.  A couple of weeks ago, I found myself in a bit of a pickle. I was working on a textbook proposal and had to draft a table of contents. The pickle: I've never written a table of contents. Not only have I never written a TOC, but I have never put one second of thought into the genre itself or how to write one. So what did I do? I did exactly what I teach my students to do when they approach a new writing task: I conducted a genre analysis. I took out a bunch of textbooks from my bookshelf, lined them up, and studied them (photographic evidence below!). I wrote down similarities. I wrote down differences. From there, I made a list of possible rhetorical moves I could make when composing the TOC. I identified the options that I thought would work best in my particular rhetorical context, and I drafted two different TOCs that corresponded to the textbook ideas. My co-writer and I got together, looked at the versions I created as well as the versions he created, and—voilà—we achieved our writing task. Teaching students how to conduct a genre analysis is invaluable in the writing classroom. The identification of genre features and patterns helps students gain genre and rhetorical awareness/knowledge and helps them to determine the moves and strategies they need to make in order to write effectively in a given genre and rhetorical situation. Genre knowledge provides students with a reflective process for approaching a writing situation: students who have the ability to activate their genre awareness and conduct a genre analysis are able to build themselves a guide for how to approach any given writing task.   In writing classes, instructors can support students in learning about genre and how to conduct a genre analysis in low-stakes or high-stakes assignments. Below, I offer a low-stakes assignment that I’ve used with students to build genre knowledge and practice genre analysis in a fun and easy way. I often facilitate this activity immediately before I pass out guidelines for a high-stakes writing assignment. This activity usually takes between 45 minutes to an hour.   Genre Analysis Assignment   Step #1: Give students three take-out menus from three different restaurants.   Step #2: Instruct students to read through the menus and look at them in relation to one another in small groups. Ask them to note commonalities in terms of content, structure, organization, language, design, and rhetorical strategies.   Step #3: Facilitate a class discussion. Ask students to identify the common situation in which a take-out menu emerges, noting why they exist, who engages with them and why, and the multiple purposes they may have. Record their responses on the board. Next, ask students to identify the commonalities they noted among the menus in their small groups. Record the information on the board.   Step #4: Now ask students to turn a focused eye on one menu. Ask them to return to their small groups and work to identify the common moves in the genre, the unique moves made in this particular menu, and the unique factors of the rhetorical situation (this may involve a bit of quick research).   Step #5: Debrief as a large class. Ask students to share their findings and record student responses on the board. Facilitate a class discussion focused on what the activity has taught students about writing and how they might approach a given writing task.   Reflection Most students find this activity enjoyable and valuable in learning how to conduct a genre analysis. In my experience, most students have an easy time identifying common and unique rhetorical moves as well as the rhetorical context of one single menu, especially when it’s a local restaurant. It’s a great warm-up activity to do prior to a high-stakes genre analysis assignment or a high-stakes writing (of any kind) assignment. Often times, I conduct this activity immediately before giving out a high-stakes writing assignment: I add an optional Step #6, wherein I ask students to identify a process for how they might approach composing in the particular genre as dictated by the assignment and the kinds of skills, abilities, and/or knowledge they may need to enhance or gain in order to effectively complete the assignment. ... View more

Topics for popular cultural analysis can spring out at you at the most unexpected times—in fact, that is one of the goals of cultural semiotics: to attune oneself to the endless array of signs that we encounter in our everyday lives. Take for example the catalog from a Minnesota-based outfit called The Celtic Croft that I came across quite by accident recently. A mail-order/online Scottish clothing and accessories emporium, The Celtic Croft offers its clientele not only traditional Highland gear but "officially licensed Outlander-inspired apparel and tartans," along with authentic Braveheart kilts. Which is where popular culture, and its significance, comes in. I admit that I had to look up Outlander (of which I have only rather vaguely heard before) to understand what the catalog was referring to, but what I learned was quite instructive. Based upon a series of historico-romantic fantasy novels by Diana Galbadon, Outlander is a television series from the STARZ network that features the adventures of a mid-twentieth-century Englishwoman who time travels back and forth between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries as she leads a dual life among the Highland clans and the post-World War II English. Something of a breakout sensation, Outlander has recently been renewed for a fifth and sixth season. To grasp the cultural significance of this television program—and of the clothing catalog that is connected to it—we can begin with constructing the system to which it belongs. The most immediate association, which is made explicit in The Celtic Croft catalog, is with the Oscar-winning film Braveheart, but the Highlander television and movie franchise is an even closer relation. More broadly, though set in the eighteenth century, Outlander can be regarded as a part of the medieval revival in popular culture that began with J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, and which led to the whole "sword and sorcery" genre, encompassing both Harry Potter and Game of Thrones with its emphasis on magic, sword play, and a generally romanticized view of a pre-industrial past. The current controversy raging within medieval studies over its traditional focus on the European Middle Ages—not to mention its cooptation by avowed white supremacists—reveals that such a system is fraught with potential political significance, and it is highly likely that a complete analysis of the phenomenon would uncover elements of conscious and unconscious white nationalism. But, if we limit ourselves here to The Celtic Croft catalog and its Braveheart and Outlander-inspired merchandise, we can detect something that is a great deal more innocuous. To see this we can begin with a tee-shirt that catalog offers: a black tee with white lettering that reads, "Scotch: Makin' White Men Dance Since 1494." Now, I can see how this slogan could be taken as a kind of micro-aggression, but it can also be seen as something similar to the "white men can't jump" trope: expressing what is actually an admiration for qualities that are not conventionally associated with white people—especially in relation to stereotypes of Anglo Saxon self-repression and ascetic Puritanism. What the dancing Celt signifies is someone who can kick up his heels over a glass of whiskey and who is decidedly not a stodgy Saxon. This interpretation is supported by the larger context in which The Celtic Croft universe operates. This is the realm of Highland Scotland, whose history includes both biological and cultural genocide at the hands of the English, who themselves become symbols of brutally oppressive whiteness in Braveheart and Outlander. It is significant in this respect that William Wallace's warriors in Braveheart were conspicuously portrayed with the long hair and face paint of movie-land Indians, while the British of Outlander are depicted as killers, torturers, and slave traders. So what we have here is something that might be called an "escape from the heritage of oppressive whiteness," by which white audiences/consumers (who do not have to be actual Scots: even Diana Galbadon isn't) identify with the Celtic victims of Anglo history, finding their roots in such historical disasters as the Battles of Falkirk and Culloden. Purchasing the once-forbidden symbols of the Highland clans (kilts and tartans were banned for years after Culloden), and watching movies and television shows that feature the heroism of defeated peoples who resisted Anglo-Norman oppression, is thus a kind of celebration of a different kind of whiteness, one that rejects the hegemonic variety. In other words, rather than reflecting white supremacy, the Celticism (I think I just coined that) of The Celtic Croft and its associated entertainments expresses a certain revision of the traditional American view of history away from Anglo-centrism towards an embrace of its victims. At a time when differing experiences of historical injustice are rending our country, this is no small recognition, because it could potentially help create a ground for unity rather than division.   Photo Credit: Pixabay Image 349717 by PublicDomainArchive used under the Pixabay License. ... View more

Valexa Orelien, me, Autumn Warren, and Vrinda Vasavada at the 2019 Lunsford Oral Presentation of Research Awards. Well, I’ve just enjoyed one of my favorite days of the year—the annual Lunsford Oral Presentation of Research Awards. Now in its 9 th year, this award honors the students whose presentations have been judged the strongest in Stanford’s second-year writing course, PWR 2. Students are first nominated by their instructors, after which a panel watches and evaluates the presentations, which have been recorded. The five students with the highest scores—the finalists—then present their research live to another panel of judges from both the Program in Writing and Rhetoric and the Oral Communication Program. As Marvin Diogenes explained, the judges look first for quality and timely arguments that demonstrate the presenters’ innovative contributions to the research conversation in which they are participating, and that draw on substantive evidence and methods for support. Second, judges are looking for engaging delivery and rhetorically effective use of media that adds clarity and interest to a presentation.   The awards ceremony honors all students who have been nominated, so they are recognized and thanked, along with the teachers who nominated them. Then as the five winners are introduced, their instructors take the stage to describe their work and its significance and to present them with several books they have especially chosen for them (the books go along with a certificate and a generous check, which always gets a big smile). This year’s winners included Haley Hodge for “The EPA’s Actions Speak Louder than Words: The Neglect of the RV Community on Weeks Street,” written in her course on “Comics for Social Justice”; Vrinda Vasavada for “Fighting Tech Addiction,” for her course “Language Gone Viral”; Sofia Avila Jamesson for “Murder, Music, and Machismo: Analyzing Gender-Based Violence,” for her course “Hear/Say: The Art of Rhetorical Listening”; Caelin Marum for “Searching for Olivia,” written for her course on “Race, Gender, Power, and the Rhetoric of the Detective”; Valexa Orelien for “Exploring Linguistic Power Structures in Haiti,” written for her course “How We Got Schooled: The Rhetoric of Literacy and Education”; and Autumn Warren for “You Don’t Sound Black: The Connection between Language and Identity,” for her course on “Language, Identity, and Power.” Instructors Lisa Swan, Norah Fahim, Irena Yamboliev, John Peterson, Csssie Wright, and Jennifer Johnson were outstanding in their descriptions and discussions of the student work, helping us to understand the contributions each student has made. The range of topics excited me as I thought of all the research and thinking that went into making these arguments.   Finally, two of the student winners gave their presentations for the assembled group of students, friends, family, and instructors crowded into the performance space of the Hume Center for Writing and Speaking. Vrinda Vasavada, a computer science major, was eloquent on the need to recognize “tech addiction” and to find ways to ameliorate it. Her research shows that 89 percent of students used their phones during their latest social interaction, that 75 percent check their phones within five minutes of getting up, and that this behavior results in distraction, lack of focus, and depression. She offered several suggestions for reducing time on screen and urged that all students adopt them, but she didn’t stop there. She went on to identify the model social media companies currently use to generate revenue and marked this model as one of the major causes of “tech addiction.” She then called on companies to shift from quantity back to quality of communication, to reduce the number of intermittent rewards, and to enable users to take control of their own attention. And, she said, her Gen Z group will be very receptive to such changes, noting that 53% of this group report preferring face-to-face over digital communication. So she ended on a positive note.   Valexa Orelien gave another winning presentation on linguistic power structures in Haiti. Valexa is Haitian and so speaks Haitian Kreyol as well as French and English, and she made a very strong case for moving to Kreyol as the language of instruction in Haiti today. In terms of power, she noted the overwhelming dominance of the French-speaking minority. Today, she told us, 90 percent of the inhabitants are monolingual Kreyol speakers and 50 percent of the children don’t attend school. It’s no coincidence, she said, that only 10 percent go beyond grade 1 and that 10 percent speak French as well as Kreyol. Tracing the long and tortuous colonial history of Haiti that resulted in what Valexa referred to as “linguistic apartheid,” she noted that only in 1987 did Kreyol become an official language alongside of French, but even then it was discriminated against; the government provides French textbooks only, for instance. With the funding of the Akademi Kreyol Ayisyen, Michel Degraff began an initiative for “bilingualism without loss of culture” and for the use of Kreyol as the language of instruction and French as a foreign language. Valexa also closed on an optimistic note, hoping that this movement will continue to gain proponents in Haiti. Kreyol is so clearly the language of Haiti—“French in language but African in spirit.”   I expect that many if not most teachers reading this post have attended similar celebrations sometime this spring: for me, the season would not be complete without honoring the imaginative and thoughtful work of our students. So congratulations to all of them: they are what keep me going in these very dark days of our democracy. I look to them, their critical thinking abilities, their cogent writing, and their eloquent speaking as the answer we all seek. ... View more