Today I have a classification activity that asks students to use visual design as they compare items by creating categories based on the visual qualities of the items they classify. The activity builds on designer Haik Avanian’s classification of 2020 presidential campaign logos, shared a few weeks ago by my colleague Shelley Reid. In his Twitter update on the classification, Avanian explains that the logos are “loosely organized by visual qualities.” The original image included an incorrect logo for Tulsi Gabbard, so I have included the revised version (click the image to see an enlarged version): Share the image with your class to begin the activity, asking students to consider the categories and their effectiveness for organizing the logos. Encourage students to think of other visual categories that would fit the logos. The point is not to focus on the politicians behind the logos. Have students look at the designs and categories only. Naturally, if your class is discussing political issues, you can ask students to consider how political issues influence the logo choices as well. Make Updates Have students update the images as possible. Several of the campaigns have alternative versions. In particular, you will find color versions for most of the logos that are shown as black and white only. Students can consider whether the color versions fit the existing categories, making changes to the categories as appropriate. Evaluate the Logos Expand the discussion by sharing some of the replies that appear on Avanian’s Twitter update. Avanian analyzes some of the logos further in the replies, declaring Cory Booker the winner of the logo competition. In reply to a question, Avanian also explains this definition of visual qualities in art: “Visual qualities are essential elements that an artist uses in his art work. These are qualities that are visible and are used to express or convey the artist’s idea of his work. Visual qualities include color, shape, texture, form, etc” (emphasis Avanian's). Expand to Other Political Campaigns Finally, show students the collection of 2018 U.S. Congressional campaign logos from The Center For American Politics And Design. While the collection of logos is useful as it stands, the filters on the site allow students to narrow the collection by design features such as logo color, iconography, and font, as well as by features such as political party and the state represented. Using the site, students can assemble their own custom collection of logos and then create their own classification systems for the logos. Move Beyond Political Logos To extend the activity beyond political campaigns, ask students to apply these same analysis and classification strategies to other logos they encounter. Since nearly every business has a logo of some kind, students can likely find a focus that relates to their personal interests. Here are some ideas that come to mind: Professional sports logos Restaurant logos Department store logos Bakery logos Extracurricular club logos Sporting goods logos Technology company logos Automobile logos Game app logos Television network logos Alternatively, you can ask students to ignore what item or organization the logos relate to by collecting logos that share a design feature, such as red logos or logos featuring a typography. Once they have their collection of logos, students can work to classify their logos, using some of the same ideas that were applied to the political logos. Final Thoughts One of the biggest advantages of this activity is its flexibility. You can use it to talk about visual design principles, advertising, politics, and classification systems. Adapt the activity further by looking at changes to logos over time (e.g., how a corporate logo has changed), and consider why the logos have changed. Have students look at political campaign logos from another country, and ask students to consider how culture influences the logo design. What ideas do you have for using this logo activity? I’m sure there are many more options, and I would love to hear what you could do with these resources. Share your ideas by leaving a comment below. ... View more

Today’s guest blogger is Kim Haimes-Korn, a Professor of English and Digital Writing at Kennesaw State University. Kim’s teaching philosophy encourages dynamic learning and critical digital literacies and focuses on students’ powers to create their own knowledge through language and various “acts of composition.” She likes to have fun every day, return to nature when things get too crazy, and think deeply about way too many things. She loves teaching. It has helped her understand the value of amazing relationships and boundless creativity. You can reach Kim at khaimesk@kennesaw.edu or visit her website: Acts of Composition.  Overview Although a relatively new phenomena, podcasts take us back to early media technologies (before television and computers) as audiences gathered around the radio to listen to stories. They also remind us of childhood memories in which we listened to stories read aloud to us before we could even read ourselves. Now, digital technologies provide easy access to expansive collections of stories where authors can create experience, develop characters, and engage through aural storytelling.   Studies suggest that audio stories are potentially more impactful than other media forms in which visual dramatizations direct the storyline. In this kind of participatory media, audiences engage their imaginations through individual visualization and are less likely to be influenced by preconceived depictions – an important part of oral storytelling. In the article, Inside the Podcast Brain: Why Do Audio Stories Captivate, Communications Professor, Emma Rodero, argues that,    Audio is one of the most intimate forms of media because you are constantly building your own images of the story in your mind and you’re creating your own production, and that of course, is something that you can never get with visual media.   When teaching digital storytelling I want students to experience this genre and explore stories that might interest them. I direct them to This American Life, a massive collection of weekly public radio podcast episodes that offer many possibilities for interest and engagement. With an extensive archive of over 6,000 stories that reach back to 1995, the podcasts combine the human interest of journalism and the engagement of stories. Their website explains: “Our favorite sorts of stories have compelling people at the center of them, funny moments, big feelings, surprising plot twists, and interesting ideas. Like little movies for radio.”   This multimodal assignment asks students to choose a podcast series of at least five related episodes of a subject of their choosing. They listen and review series in an interactive blog post in which they present an overview, review each episode, and connect to larger ideas through the lens of their own perspectives.  Background Readings and Resources   The St. Martin’s Handbook: 11c: Finding Library Resources (Searching Databases and Catalogs), Ch. 18b: Planning Web-Based Texts The Everyday Writer (also available with Exercises😞 Ch.13c: Find Library Resources, Ch. 24c: Plan Features of Texts EasyWriter (also available with Exercises): 11d: Using Library Resources (Indexes and databases)   Steps to the Assignment   Brainstorm: Brainstorm and create a list of ideas, themes, and subjects of interest. Review the site: Explore the webpage for This American Life. Choose a series of podcasts: Have students choose five related podcast episodes that fall under a similar theme, subject, concept or idea that they want to explore and consider from multiple perspectives. The challenge is to build a series and expand their ideas through an exploratory search for related, connected subjects. Their overview section will demonstrate the process of this search and connect to the related episodes. Encourage them to explore the many ways to search the site in different ways: - Recommended: This is a good starting place for some interesting podcasts that are categorized for you. It also has folks recommending their favorites. - Related: Each of the podcasts generates a list of related subjects below. This will help you to add to your list. - Keyword Search: Use the search function to generate keyword searches that group your ideas. - Archive: You can browse the archives by date. Each week has a different theme that can help you shape a direction. Start with those and then add according to keywords or related subjects. Assignment Details and Requirements On their blogs, students create a landing page with their overall review of their series and an exploration of their idea/concept/subject. They should create links and a drop-down menu to separate pages for each episode.   The overall review should be 500-800 words and include: an overview/review of purposes and connections that make up their series; a written review for each episode with direct links to the podcasts; at least five purposeful, related links (exploratory paths); at least two multimodal components (images, videos, etc.); and a list of references. Each episode review (200-300 words) should include: at least two embedded links; and at least one multimodal component.   Reflection on the Activity One of the most interesting parts of this assignment is when students research to find the subjects and podcasts for their chosen series. They often start out with one idea that morphs into something completely unexpected as they find related stories to make up their series. For example, Lydia explored “Reruns” as a metaphor for life, history, and personal perspectives.  Sean looked at “situations where we don’t belong” and explored podcasts on environmental, psychological, and physical dimensions of the subject. Others, like Emily, focused on a particular time – middle school – and explored personal connections, brain development, and external cultural influences. Sarah whose subject of “Prisoners” opened up to “prison as family,” “therapies with prisoners,” to DNA exoneration. Nick looked at the ways we interpret coincidences as signs and how unexpected situations draw us together. This assignment expanded their ideas on research and the learning potential in stories. In the reviews, students provided substantiated recommendations and reflected on the connections between these stories and the ways they contributed to their thinking and learning on their subjects. ... View more

If your Internet browser of choice is Firefox, then you are familiar with the way it provides you with a selection of readings when you visit its home page. I presume that my selections are based upon data-mined algorithms based upon my search history, because I get a lot of stuff from the Atlantic and the New York Times, as well as a lot of science readings. I'm not complaining, because while a good deal of what I see is simply clickbait, I have also learned some useful stuff from time to time. But what is perhaps most useful to me is what I am learning by conducting a semiotic analysis of the general themes that dominate my "feed." Probably the most common theme I see appears in all the "how to succeed in business" articles that are always popping up: how to ace that interview, how to find that perfect job, how to choose the career that's best for you…that sort of thing. Tailored to sensibilities of the digital age, such advice columns belong to a long tradition of American "how to" manuals calibrated to a competitive capitalist society. Calvin Coolidge (who once famously quipped that "the chief business of the American people is business") would feel quite at home here, so I don't want to read too much into all this. But I do think that the preponderance of such pieces may well reflect a growing anxiety over the possibility of attaining a rewarding career in a gig economy where opportunities for middle-class advancement are drying up. Some evidence for this interpretation lies in the remarkable number of articles relating to mental depression that also appear in my feed. Some of them are scientific, while others are also of the how-to variety, mental health division. The latter texts have recently been emphasizing the healing properties of the natural world, and I'm good with that. After all, that's where I go to soothe jangled nerves. But what, semiotically speaking, does this trend tell us? My take on the matter is that even as Americans worry (with very good reason) about their career opportunities, they also are becoming increasingly depressed in the face of a constant barrage of signals from the traditional mass media and digital social media alike, all pushing them to compare their lives to the lives of everyone else. David Myers, over in the Macmillan Learning Psychology Community, has been exploring this phenomenon recently, especially with respect to teen-aged girls, and I am quite in sympathy with his interpretation. I would simply expand the scope of the problem to include pretty much everyone, who, facing a daily bombardment of images and stories about the fortunate few who seem to have everything that life can possibly offer, experience a depressing discontentment with their own lives. And here is where nature comes in. Nature is not only filled with beautiful forests, mountains, rivers, lakes, seashores, deserts, meadows, canyons, valleys (pick your own favorites), it is not filled with people—or, at least, isn't supposed to be. "Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees," John Muir once said, and his words are even more cogent today than when he wrote them over a century ago. But to achieve that peace, you need to get past the crowds, and, more importantly, all that social pressure that drove you to nature in the first place. It is therefore quite ironic that one often sees people in natural surroundings wholly absorbed in their iPhones, or taking selfies. This kind of hetero-directed behavior not only threatens to disrupt the healing powers of the natural world, it also signifies how, for many people today, social media have created an addictive spiral from which they cannot escape. Think of it: going to nature to escape the depressing impingements of social existence, only to seek approval from other people, and then, perhaps, to be depressed if you don't get quite the reaction you hoped for on Instagram. Hence, the title of this blog. Photo Credit: Pixabay Image 489119 by kelseyannvere used under the Pixabay License. ... View more

Tuesday, May 7, 2019, is National Teachers’ Day so I’m thinking about how I can thank teachers I know for the remarkable work they do every single day. I’ll start with my sister, Liz Middleton, who teaches high school in one of the poorest counties in Florida. I know that Liz literally saves the life of at least one student every year, some years more. I know that she continues to challenge them to reach beyond their grasp. I know that she expects the best they can do, every single day, and that she finds ways to help them do that best. I know that she cares. So thanks to Liz and to the tens of thousands of other teachers like her, working every day, at low pay and with few rewards, to offer opportunities to the young people around them.   You may know of The Academy for Teachers in New York, founded and led by Bread Loaf friend and extraordinaire Sam Swope. Sam started the Academy as a way to recognize and thank teachers, to “share the love” as he says and to celebrate good teaching. His dream is to establish a foundation for teachers—and he even dreams of a big building to house the Academy, a material place to signify that teachers matter, that what they do is crucial to national health and security.   The Academy sponsors master classes for teachers nominated from their schools. The classes are led by brilliant writers and thinkers who give their time to work with the teachers, and every May the Academy has a major celebration of teachers in New York City, usually featuring many celebrities and authors, all there to thank teachers. Since I don’t live in New York, I don’t get to attend these events. What I do receive as a contributor to the Academy, however, are copies of little chapbooks they publish, each written by a noted writer.   Recently I received one by Julia Alvarez, noted novelist (How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, Before We Were Free, and many others), whom I have met on several occasions on the Vermont Bread Loaf campus. Hers is called “Falling in Love” and begins this way: Growing up in the Dominican Republic, I was a terrible student. I flunked every grade through fifth. The whole premise of going to school seemed so unfair: having to spend sunny days on a tropical island indoors. Then, after seven hours of this torture, I was released to go home and do my homework. Homework?! In my first and only recorded piece of writing before our departure to America, I handed my teacher a note: Querida profesora, I love you very much (start with the positive) but why should I work when I can have fun?   Alvarez’s grandmother agreed with her—girls did not need education, but her mother took another approach, and after they moved to New York she managed to get her two daughters scholarships to a boarding school in Massachusetts. That’s where Alvarez fell in love (puppy love, someone called it) with one of the teachers, Mr. Barstow, in whose classes writers began “casting their spell” on her. She ends the year with an A in English and accolades from Mr. Barstow and concludes her little chapbook by saying that “Sometimes we begin by falling in love with a teacher and land on what we love.”   I expect that all readers of this post have teachers they would like to thank, teachers from their past like Alvarez’s Mr. Barstow as well as ones from the present like my sister Liz. If so, May 7 offers a good opportunity to do so. This May, let’s all “share the love” of good teachers everywhere.     Image Credit: Pixabay Image 2093744 by Wokandapix, used under the Pixabay License   ... View more

April is National Poetry Month! We've asked some of our LitBits bloggers to discuss how they approach poetry with their literature and creative writing students. Today's guest blogger is Daniel Lambert, an educator, writer, editor, proofreader, and photographer. He teaches English courses at California State University, Los Angeles and East Los Angeles College as well as an online Literature course for Colorado Technical University. He was nominated for the Distinguished Faculty of the Year Award in 2017 from CTU and is the recipient of The Shakespeare Award for poetry from the City of Torrance, California. When National Poetry Month comes around each year, I think back on the first time I taught poetry as part of a college composition class. It was nearly twenty years ago, and the class was English 102 (a second-year composition course at East Los Angeles College). I taught everyone from Yeats to Langston Hughes in 102 (and still do). My poetry assignments usually fall into one of two categories: literary criticism or rhetorical analysis. Asking students to identify a poem’s major theme and explain how the poet uses symbol, tone, syntax, and other elements to convey that theme to the audience can be a valuable exercise. I now teach writing at three different institutions, and I still enjoy discussing poetry with my students. It wasn’t until very recently that I realized I was ignoring an important literary subgenre--the poetry review--when asking students to write about poetry. I was re-reading a review that I posted to Amazon.com on April 13, 2010. It was, of course, National Poetry Month, and it was a review of Ms. Anhthao Bui’s poetry collection, Yellow Flower. (Full disclosure: Ms. Bui is now my wife). After re-reading my review of Anhthao’s collection (which weighs in at a mere 3 paragraphs), I thought about how asking students to review a poem (or a poetry collection) could help them formulate and support an argument. After all, isn’t a review an argumentative form of writing? The author is essentially asking the reader to read (or not to read) the piece in question. Such an assignment would require students to utilize rhetorical techniques as well as identify literary elements such as form and symbol. My review of Anhthao’s collection begins with a catchy title (“Anhthao Bui’s Flowering Talent”) that ties in with her title poem’s central image (the yellow flower). I provide a clever but obvious “hook” in my first paragraph by alluding to a quote from Emily Dickinson that Anhthao uses in her collection: “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” I go on to identify several of the themes I believe are at work in Anhthao’s poetry, including the struggles of immigration, the heartache of love gone bad, and the dichotomy between the personal and the universal.  The final paragraph of my review begins with a question: “Is Bui the Yellow Flower of her book’s title?” I don’t attempt to answer the question, but I conclude on a positive note, calling Yellow Flower “a deftly-conceived poetic portrait of a woman’s life.” My review is not perfect by any means, but it could provide an interesting subject for a rhetorical analysis by my students. Such an analysis could be followed with an opportunity for the student to write their own poetry review. I plan to try this with my students next semester. I will report back to let you know how it goes.  How do you use poetry in your composition classes? How do you help your students engage with poetry? I look forward to hearing from you.                      ... View more

April 23rd, 2019 will be William Shakespeare’s 455th birthday. Centuries later, this poet, playwright, linguist, and actor is still celebrated as one of the most influential and brilliant writers in history. To honor the “Bard” of Stratford-upon-Avon, here are some lesser-known facts about him and his works: Shakespeare has given many words (estimate of 1,700 – 3,000) to the English language. This includes “lackluster,” “swagger,” “unaware,” and “bandit.” Shakespeare’s collective plays contain 200 references to dogs and 600 references to birds. The epitaph on Shakespeare’s gravestone is a poem and also a curse for anyone who dares to move his bones (this is unfortunate for the apparent graverobber who was speculated to have taken his skull in 2016). Shakespeare had penned many modern (and amusing) phrases such as “wild goose chase” and “in a pickle.” “William Shakespeare” might not be his true name. It was spelled over eighty different ways and the Bard himself usually signed own his name “Willm Shakp.” Although he only lived to fifty-two, Shakespeare and his body of work are still discussed, debated, and dissected in and out of the classroom. Of Shakespeare’s thirty-seven plays, which one is your favorite? Let us know in the comments! ... View more

We know what composition curricula looked like as far back as Aristotle’s time. Students were taught to present their compositions orally, but the compositions themselves, even that far back, were introduced in an order that matched the development of cognition. The narrative and descriptive assignments we used to teach at the beginning of the first-year writing course are now relegated to the first twelve years of education, but there has long been the acknowledgment that these assignments are the least challenging cognitively. Then comes exposition, followed by argumentation. James Moffett, in works such as Teaching the Universe of Discourse, taught us to constantly cycle back through the easier modes of writing as we built into the increasingly challenging ones. He reminded us why some assignments are harder than others, relating each to time. A narrative looks at the past—what happened. Exposition looks at the enduring present—what happens. Argumentation looks at the future—what could or should happen. No wonder writing arguments is challenging. A part of argumentation is establishing that a problem exists; the other part is predicting how a suggested change would solve the problem. Having come of age as a teacher under Moffett’s influence, I tend to have students write three essays on the topic they choose to research. Having inherited Annette Rottenberg’s Toulmin method with Elements of Argument, I have to adapt that sequence to accommodate claims of fact, value, and policy. It’s not too much of a stretch to see that writing a claim-of-policy essay is the most challenging because of its future orientation, while claims of fact and value are less challenging. Students can accumulate a body of research and first write an essay supporting a factual claim about it, incorporating as few as two sources to start to establish their knowledge of the subject. Then they can support a value claim about it, going beyond the basic information to express an opinion. With those preliminaries behind them, they are better prepared to support a claim of policy—and to have worked out problems with documenting sources before the last assignment in the course comes along and it’s too late. An example: One of my students wanted to write about the use of thalidomide as a treatment for cancer. Anyone tackling that subject must know the history of thalidomide’s use. If nothing else, the writer must be aware of, and inform the reader, that in the 1950s and early 1960s thalidomide caused thousands of birth defects when it was taken during pregnancy. An essay supporting a claim of fact could establish why the drug, understandably, fell out of favor. An essay supporting a claim of value could argue that the use of thalidomide under carefully controlled circumstances is worth the risk. An essay supporting a claim of policy would turn this research into an argument in favor for or against the use of thalidomide. There would be similarities among the essays. They would draw on the same body of research. Whole sections of an earlier essay might be incorporated into a later one. And they would get more practice getting the documentation right. Too often in the “real world” we find out the hard way what should have been done. There is seldom an opportunity to write about the should-haves, to practice getting it right. It’s hard to write a policy against possible future outcomes. I think of the tragic death of a young student at the University of South Carolina who got into the wrong car, thinking it was her Uber. Along with his condolences, the university president sent USC students and parents a list of ways to avoid a similar tragedy. Students may have gotten similar warnings when they arrived on campus. Lyft and Uber are implementing new safety policies. However, the narrative of Samantha Josephson’s death and the generalization that it could have happened to anyone reinforced what should be done in the future. It’s clear now – too late – what claims of policy should be implemented.   Photo credit: “Summ()n – Exploring Possible Futures” by cea+ on Flickr, 2/7/12 via a CC BY 2.0 license. ... 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.   In this blog post, we’ll go back to some apostrophe basics.   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 Apostrophe Basics Apostrophe Catastrophe 1 [8:12] Apostrophe Catastrophe 2 [5:50] Apostrophes: Is the Word a Possessive Noun or an Adjective? [4:37] Contractions [6:24]   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: Have students listen to a podcast on apostrophe basics, such as “Apostrophe Catastrophe 1” and then have them write a short response discussing and reflecting on the experience. (Remember that all Grammar Girl podcasts come with transcripts in LaunchPad—students can also read the podcast transcript to inform their response.) Have students consider the following questions: How is listening to information about apostrophes different from reading about them? How is it the same? What does the host do to connect with the listener? What new information did the student learn about apostrophes? Can they pinpoint any element of the podcast that helped them remember this new information?   Assignment B: Ask students to all of the suggested podcasts. Have them also read at least one transcript. In addition to the questions above, have them write a response considering the following: How do the podcasts compare? Does the information about apostrophes overlap, and if so, where? What is different about the coverage of apostrophes in each podcast? What content or information is conveyed through audio that does not appear in the transcripts? Is any additional information found in the transcripts that is not apparent from just listening to the podcast?   How have you used podcasts about apostrophes in your class? How else do you discuss apostrophes? Let us know in the comments!   Credit: Pixabay Image 2557399 by StockSnap, used under a Pixabay License ... View more

To continue our celebration of National Poetry Month, we're re-posting the following blog from Phillip Chamberlin professor at Hillsborough Community College. This post originally appeared on LitBits on October 23, 2018.    “I lost six friends and neighbors—all under 25 years old—to suicide. And since then, I’ve lost about five friends to heroin overdoses and suicide. It’s just like this cluster of death that surrounds me, surrounds my neighborhood. It’s kind of a desperate thing.” –John Ulrich, college student from Boston   The young man quoted above stands on his apartment building as he gazes into the lens of the camera. He’s about to recite his favorite poem, “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks. His personal connection to the poem is obvious, as is his passion.  The rhythm of his performance varies greatly from that of the author's, but no matter—it’s a valid reading, and he’s moved by the poem, and so are we.   This video and many others like it are featured in the Favorite Poem Project, a project founded by Robert Pinsky, former Poet Laureate of the United States, that features compelling videos of ordinary people introducing and then reciting their favorite poems. The website describes the participants as being “Americans from ages 5 to 97, from every state, representing a range of occupations, kinds of education, and backgrounds.” Most of the people on camera are quite ordinary—they may have interesting stories, but rarely are they overtly eccentric. Because the participants are not famous poets or academics, they could perhaps be called outsiders. But that would be missing the point: In the world of poetry, there are no outsiders.   I teach at a community college that serves a population almost as diverse. Some of my students are younger than sixteen (as participants in high school dual enrollment programs) and some are older than sixty. Some have never had a day of employment, and others are changing careers. Some have disabilities. Some are multilingual. Some are already avid readers, and some avoid reading as much as possible. Some even write their own poetry. Others think they hate it.   In my experience, these Favorite Poem Project videos have had a welcome role in many of my courses, at least the ones that discuss literature (whether in depth or as part of a brief overview). In elective literature classes, which tend to be full of students already passionate about reading, they work. In prerequisite composition classes, which tend to include a population of students with a much wider range of skills and academic preferences, they also work. Whether I teach in traditional classrooms or in online environments, they work. Students invariably find something intriguing and relevant in these ordinary people, their favorite poems, and their interpretations.   Sometimes I assign specific videos, like the Jamaican-American photographer who finds himself surprised by his connection to New England poet Sylvia Plath, or the construction worker who finds inspiration and comfort in the words of Walt Whitman, or the law student who responds enthusiastically to the world view of Wallace Stevens. Sometimes I encourage students to select videos on their own.  Either way, assignments involve viewing, ruminating, responding, writing, and discussing.   In face-to-face classes, sometimes I assign groups of students to present a video to the class—that is, they respond to a response and continue the conversation. In online courses, these videos serve as the basis for at least one of our weekly discussions. Even when students don’t respond favorably to a video, something interesting happens: They begin to see poetry in a new light. And to be honest, sometimes I do, too.   Imagine where instructors could take these activities to make them even deeper, more involved, more challenging. Instructors could even ask students to create their own videos. (They would need to be brief enough to be digestible for contemporary audiences yet deep and meaningful enough to be worthwhile—a worthy challenge.) Or, instructors could ask students to base an extended essay project about these poetry fans and their responses. The essay project itself could have a multimedia component. The possibilities are exciting, and resources like the Favorite Poem Project will continue to keep poetry relevant for students from many different walks of life. ... View more

This will be a brief posting as I am out of the country right now, sailing along what used to be medieval trade routes and learning all about trading patterns, trading wars, and cultural clashes of nearly a millennium ago. So I am learning a lot about the economic climate that surrounded the literature of the time, which I know fairly well. And enjoying every minute of this vacation!   Perhaps somewhat incongruously, I brought along reading not about medieval trade but about very contemporary technological issues, in the form of Clive Thompson’s new book, Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World. I’ve been following Thompson’s work for a long time since he was an early writer in Wired, and I very much admire his Smarter Than You Think: How Technology Is Changing Our Minds for the Better, which seemed to me an astute and prescient read especially of how young people are using technology today.   I’m reading the new book slowly, enjoying jumping around in it (the chapter “The ENIAC Girls Vanish” is a favorite!) and then going back to re-read passages that stuck with me. In short, Thompson takes us inside the world of the people who have changed our world dramatically in the last couple of decades; coders, he says, are “the most quietly influential people on the planet.” Thompson’s detailed and intensive interviews with such coders helps us to see well beyond the stereotype of the young white male slouched over a computer and wearing a hoodie. Here we meet the architects (including, to my delight, a woman) of Facebook’s news feed, a revolutionary set of code that changed communicative practices forever, exploring the psychology and mindset of this group, with their near obsessive attention to efficiency and speed. He also reveals their (growing) concerns over ethical issues, including the need to engage many more people of color in this work. Thompson sees these concerns as pressing, but he is generally optimistic about the future of code and coding, noting the need for what he calls “blue collar coding,” that is the coding done by ordinary people to help improve their everyday lives.   I still have about a third of this fascinating book to read, but already I feel I understand the culture of coding in a more nuanced and helpful way. So I’ll keep reading as I sail along the trade routes of the middle ages. Happy reading to you too!   Image Credit: Pixabay Image 1839406 by Pexels, used under the Pixabay License ... View more

If you attended CCCC last month, you probably heard a land acknowledgment statement, which offered respect to the indigenous peoples upon whose lands the conference took place. For example, Asao B. Inoue began his #4C19 Keynote (video) with this statement: To open, I humbly make a land acknowledgment I would like to recognize and acknowledge the indigenous people of this land: the Lenni Lenape, Shawnee, and Hodinöhšönih (hoe-den-ah-show-nee)—the six Nations, that is, the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, Cayuga and Tuscarora (tus-ka-roar-ah). We are gathered today on Jö:deogë’ (joan-day-o-gan’t), an Onödowa'ga (ono-do-wah-gah) or Senaca word for Pittsburgh or “between two rivers”: the welhik hane (well-ick hah-neh) and Mënaonkihëla (men-aw-n-gee-ah-luh). These are the Lenape words for the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, which translate to the “best flowing river of the hills” and “where the banks cave in and erode.” While a land acknowledgment is not enough, it is an important social justice and decolonial practice that promotes indigenous visibility and a reminder that we are on settled indigenous land. Let this land acknowledgment be an opening for all of us to contemplate a way to join in decolonial and indigenous movements for sovereignty and self-determination. I recently added a similar land acknowledgment statement to my course materials, thanking the Tutelo/Monacan people upon whose land Virginia Tech stands. Inspired by a graphic from Northwestern University, I also created the draft image (shown on the right), which I intend to add as a poster on my office door after I receive feedback on whether it is appropriate. I admit it has taken me too long to add these statements to my course materials. Angela Haas, from Illinois State University, shared the first land acknowledgment statement I ever heard at a Computers and Writing Conference session several years ago. I was impressed by the statement and wished I could add one to my own work. At the time however, I wasn’t sure how to construct a land acknowledgment statement, so I didn’t try. I was and am ashamed of my behavior. I let my privilege as a non-indigenous person serve as an excuse, telling myself it was better to say nothing than to piece together an acknowledgment I wasn’t sure was appropriate. I want to share some resources readers can use to add a land acknowledgment statement to their publications, events, and course materials. Check your campus for an existing land acknowledgment statement. Check with American Indian and Indigenous Studies student groups, cultural centers, and departments. If such resources do not exist, contact your office of diversity and inclusion. A research librarian at your school can also help. If you are working in Canada, such a statement is likely to already exist, so check with your colleagues. Take advantage of existing resources if you plan to write your own land acknowledgment statement. If a statement does not exist, use the Guide to Indigenous Land and Territorial Acknowledgments for Cultural Institutions from New York University and the #HonorNativeLand Guide from U.S. Department of Arts and Culture to get started. Again, a librarian at your school can also help you find relevant resources. Review land acknowledgment statements from other institutions. Check peer institutions your school uses for benchmarking purposes. Also look for examples from schools and cultural centers from your geographical area, which likely share the same tribal lands you do. These Example Land Acknowledgment Statements demonstrate the range of details and styles used in the genre. Learn how to pronounce the names of the indigenous peoples included in your statement. As Kyllikki Rytov pointed out on the WPA-L listserv, “[I]n terms of erasure, getting names right is paramount.” Land acknowledgments must include pronouncing names with respect. The #4C19 statement above includes parenthetical pronunciation information, which can serve as a model for your own statement. If you are unsure how to pronounce a name, check with local tribal members or with campus American Indian and Indigenous Studies cultural centers, student groups, or departments. Your library’s research staff can also help you find pronunciation information. Ask local tribal members or other experts to review your work. As I suggest in relationship to my image above, you need to check any land acknowledgment statements you create to ensure your words and images are appropriately representative of and respectful of the tribe(s) whose land you are acknowledging. If you have an American Indian and Indigenous Studies cultural center or department, ask them if they can give you feedback. Once you have a land acknowledgment statement, use it and encourage others to use it as well. Open your events with your land acknowledgment statement. Add a land acknowledgment statement to your research and other publications. Include a land acknowledgment statement on your course materials. Remember that a land acknowledgment statement is only the first step. It doesn’t immunize you against social injustice or colonial practices. Examine your reading lists to ensure they include indigenous authors. Include indigenous issues in your discussions. Invite students to explore indigenous readings and events in their work. Encourage them to add land acknowledgment statements to their own projects. Call out actions that demean native peoples. Make the arts, cultures, and concerns of native Indian and indigenous visible in your courses, research, and events. I hope these resources will help you add a land acknowledgment statement to your work. The documents from the second bullet point include details on why land acknowledgments are important. You can use these resources to help students understand why you use the statements and help them learn strategies to make their work diverse and inclusive. If you have a land acknowledgment statement you would like added to the Example Land Acknowledgment Statements document, please share it in a comment below. If you have other suggestions for acknowledging indigenous people, please let me know. ... View more

Senioritis blooms along with the forsythia, magnolias, and flip-flops, and is hardly restricted to seniors. This time of year, half the challenge of teaching seems to be convincing students to still give a … well, we’ll go with “hoot.” One remedy — and also a student-centered classroom ideal — is to structure the semester’s end so that students take increasing ownership of class time as the semester draws to a close. Students should be able to answer the “So, what?” question, not only for their own writing, but for their learning in the course, and for their time in the classroom. How have you structured the semester’s end to center student voices, and with what results?   Here, I’ll share some strategies I’ve used:   Task students with designing a final class teach-in, and invite friends and family I often invite students to plan a final class day as a “teach in” that we open up to friends and family (to raise the stakes of a real audience). We think of it as an idea-engagement event, in which every student has to participate in some way. They might read aloud a short, provocative passage of their writing, share some resources on a course theme, offer civic action tools related to the course, or even provide a playlist of songs related to the course theme. This teaches students to engage with multiple ways of learning designed to explain their key insights to a fresh audience, and to offer specific action steps in response. For these “teach in” events, my students have designed bookmarks with key ideas as takeaways, set up photo “booths” with informational props and frames to share out on social media, created civic action kits for writing to representatives about topics, designed temporary tattoos and bumper stickers, printed out recipe cards with activist steps, provided course-themed coloring pages, and on and on. I often provide a bit of food and a bigger space for the final day, to make it feel like a celebration. Students can name the event, advertise on social media and with flyers, and in general turn the last class day — so often a let-down or a hurried final presentation day — into a celebration of intellect and engagement that they can look forward to and own.   Upping the Ante in Peer Writing Workshops If a final-day celebration doesn’t fit into your writing classroom schedule, you might also be more mindful about handing over student ownership of peer writing workshops. In From Inquiry to Academic Writing, my co-author, Stuart Greene, and I offer specific guidelines for writers and readers of early, later, and final drafts. As students approach the final draft of an essay, I often require them to set the agenda for the peer-group discussions, so they can take ownership of what writers need in the final stage of the revision process. Handing students the chalk (or the marker) at the front of the room and having them crowd-source the questions that should drive the day’s workshops gives them ownership of the revision process (which is, after all, what we hope they’ll take from our classes), and gives you as the instructor some crucial insights about what they’ve gleaned about the writing process. Once they’ve set the agenda on the board, students can use their peers’ guidance for their writing groups, with each writer benefiting from the peer group’s focus on each draft, one at a time.   If your students need a bit of prompting, here are some guides for student peer-group discussions of later drafts: Working with later drafts To what extent is it clear which questions and issues motivate the writer? What is the writer’s thesis? How effectively does the writer establish the conversation — identify a gap in people’s knowledge, attempt to modify an existing argument, or try to correct some misunderstanding? How effectively does the writer distinguish between their ideas and the ideas that are summarized, paraphrased, or quoted? How well does the writer help you follow the logic of the writer’s argument? To what extent are you persuaded by the writer’s argument? To what extent does the writer anticipate possible counterarguments? To what extent does the writer make clear how the writer wants readers to respond? What do you think is working best? Explain by pointing to specific passages in the writer’s draft. What specific aspect of the draft is least effective? Explain by pointing to a specific passage in the writer’s draft. And here’s what we suggest for final drafts: Working with final drafts For writers: What is your unique perspective on your issue? To what extent do the words and phrases you use reflect who you believe your readers are? Does your style of citation reflect accepted conventions for academic writing? What do you think is working best in this draft? What specific aspect of the essay are you least satisfied with at this time?   For readers: How does the writer go about contributing a unique perspective on the issue? To what extent does the writer use words and phrases that are appropriate for the intended audience? To what extent does the style of citation reflect accepted conventions for academic writing? What do you think is working best? What specific aspect of the essay are you least satisfied with at this time?   Ultimately, students will remember their ownership of ideas and their confidence in transferring ideas from your course into other classes and beyond. Like any effective piece of literature, our courses should offer our students a clear answer to the question, “So what?”   How do you do this in your own courses? What do you hear back from your students about the skills they leave with, and use?     Photo Credit: April Lidinsky ... View more

Many years ago, during the panic-riddled days prior to my dissertation defense, an experienced friend encouraged me to see the defense procedures as a celebration of scholarship, something to be savored, not a hurdle to be feared or dreaded. While I was not able to embrace that perspective fully (especially the night before), I sensed a shift from “grilling” to intellectual debate after just a few minutes into the defense, and that shift came with a growing sense of confidence: I was ready. I had done the work, and I had something worthwhile to say. Those who attended listened, questioned, and affirmed.   My first-year writing students have reached the final two weeks of the semester. As they are finishing projects and final reflections, I can see distress rising – many of them are taking three, four, or (in some cases) five other classes, and they have families, work, or even high school rites of passage that compete for their attention. As I conferenced with students this week, I listened to their stories, fears, and questions. I realized they need a context in which to finish well; I need to make the final two weeks a reminder of what they have accomplished and to celebrate the progress they have made.    What specific steps create that context for finishing well? I look back and remember what contributed to a positive ending on my dissertation: time to do the work and reminders of how that dissertation fit into the larger picture of my education and training. For my students, time means our class meetings will be devoted to the projects they are working on: workshops, small group and one-on-one conferences, and peer review. And the big picture includes feedback, reminders of how concepts we’ve circled around all semester are relevant to these final projects. When a student asks me, for example, if I think her opening move makes sense, I first affirm the value of her question as evidence of her growth as a writer. When a student asks me how to cite an interview he conducted with another professor, I remind him that his view of source material has changed since we began, and then we think about resources for MLA citation rules. Another student tells me her thesis for the final project “just doesn’t feel right yet,” and I commiserate with her—while applauding her choice to listen to that intuition. Our workshops will provide a platform for her to talk through why her thesis draft is not working for her. Our talk about writing over these two weeks, while centered on their specific drafts and needs, will touch on the threshold concepts that have framed the entire course.   In one of my classes, students will write a final reflection letter during the final exam slot, and in the other, students will present their final projects in a poster session. While they have not finished their educations, they have completed a significant first step.   Our final sessions will be a celebration of finishing well.    What do you do to help your students end well? ... View more

Every now and then, while driving to work, I've turned on the radio and have come in on the middle of a hauntingly beautiful, if rather grim, acoustic song sung by a gravely-voiced singer who seems to be singing about heroin addiction, or something of the sort. Knowing nothing about the song I've kind of assumed that it was about the nation's opioid epidemic and left it at that. But one phrase from the song really got my attention, and I finally entered the words into a search engine a few days ago to see what I could find out about it. Okay, you know where I'm going now. I've used it in the title for this blog. The song is "Hurt," as recorded by Johnny Cash in 2002. But I was quite surprised to learn that it was written a decade earlier by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, whose own recording of it in 1994 is on a different sonic plane entirely, and even more nightmarish than Cash's dark retrospective. Wow, country meets industrial pop. There's nothing new, of course, in an artist from one musical genre covering a song from another. After all, that's one way that music evolves: through a continuous mixing and fusing of different styles into new forms. And it isn't that Johnny Cash hadn't done this sort of thing before – this is the country icon who teamed up with Bob Dylan back in the days when Merle Haggard was still "proud to be an Okie from Muskogee," and country music fans tended to be openly hostile to just about everything that folk and folk rock stood for. Whether he put it in such terms to himself or not, Cash's collaborations with Dylan tapped into a common system of tangled roots from which country music and folk/folk rock emerged: the lives of the poor, the downtrodden, and the oppressed. Within this tradition lies the outlaw, a defiant (and often idealized) figure who breaks the rules in despite of society's laws. And so Johnny Cash went to Folsom Prison in 1968, thereby jump-starting his flagging career, and (along with Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and David Allan Coe), establishing outlaw country as a thriving musical sub-genre. It's important to note that country music isn't the only popular musical form with an outlaw tradition these days. Rap, particularly in its Gangsta' incarnation, has its own outlaws, and its own taproot into the lives of the people. "Country rap," a rather uneasy and tentative fusion of country and hip hop, has even emerged to explore the possibilities of this common ground. Given the highly fraught state of social relations in America today, I don't really expect that country rap will make much of a difference politically, but to get to where we want to go, it is always useful to know where we came from.   Photo Credit: Pixabay Image 687631 by Ana_J, used under the Pixabay License. ... View more

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