I recently led a workshop on working with multilingual writers in IRW and corequisite composition courses, and I was asked how best to handle peer review when there are multilingual writers in the classroom. Several participants expressed concern about the efficacy and practicality of writing workshops, especially in very diverse classrooms where background knowledge, linguistic traditions, and experiences with academic writing vary widely. Could such workshops serve to marginalize multilingual writers? I would suggest, in fact, that diversity offers the potential for a richer workshop experience for all students, although you may need to spend more time preparing students for participation and guiding them throughout the workshop, especially at the beginning of the course.     I usually introduce workshops with a discussion of the purpose of the peer review process. Most of my students will have had some experience with peer review, and I ask them to hypothesize about the purpose, based on their experiences. Most affirm that peer review is supposed to “make the paper better” or “find the problems.” When pressed, most students equate peer review with a process very similar to “grading”:  point out flaws, tell people what to fix, make evaluative comments. To highlight the similarities, we may create a chart connecting what they’ve experienced in peer review and what they’ve experienced in teacher feedback or grading. Comments in these early discussions reveal the reasons so many students (and faculty, in some cases) are wary of peer-review: they believe they are expected to take on the role of expert in the process—an expectation they cannot meet. In response to this perceived expectation, multilingual students (depending on background) may adopt an overly critical or directive stance, engage in enthusiastic but unhelpful cheerleading, or simply withdraw from the process. Having discussed the purpose of workshops, I like to show students examples of peer feedback that I’ve been given, from colleagues and from editors at Bedford/St. Martin’s.  While most agree that the feedback is still targeted to “make the writing better,” they see quickly that the comments I’ve received lead to improvement not by telling me what to do, but by giving me information that I can use to make decisions about my writing. The feedback generally occurs in the form of reader responses, questions, I-statements, and clarification requests. In early drafts, I may also have questions about why information appears where it does. In short, I am getting descriptive and analytic feedback that allows me to make decisions about how to revise, much like a chef would gather feedback from taste testers to improve a dish or the way a producer might gather focus group feedback before creating the final version of a film. The underlying aim of feedback, then, is to provide information authors can use to make writing decisions – and ultimately, information that will help authors evaluate their writing decisions. And unlike the role of expert, providing a reader’s perspective is an expectation that all students can achieve in a workshop setting.  Once we’ve established the purpose of the workshop, we begin the process of practicing.  The following principles guide our practice.  I provide specific guidance on acceptable formats for response. In most of my classes, that means that students don’t generally comment on grammar, at least not in the early stages. I also demonstrate how to make “I-statements,” how to request clarification, how to describe a gut reaction, and how to ask content questions. I may ask students to annotate drafts for specific elements that we have been discussing in class, such as stance strategies, transitions, showing evidence, or efforts to engage the audience. We spend some class time discussing how to use the feedback. One option is to have writers organize feedback as a set of issues to review, and then they can identify options open for addressing those issues. I ask students to determine what feedback is most helpful and to use that information to be proactive in their workshops. As the term progresses, students create a “what I want from feedback” statement to share along with their drafts in the workshops. We try feedback in different modes: small group discussion, shared annotations of Google Docs, writing directly on printed copies, using sticky notes, etc. As the semester progresses, classes can request specific types of workshops, based on what has worked well for them. I offer students an opportunity to reflect on every workshop experience (usually through quick surveys or anonymous comments), and we make adjustments in the format and composition of workshop groups throughout the term.   Students in IRW/corequisite courses, especially those from multilingual and diverse backgrounds, may have had negative experiences with peer workshops. But eliminating workshops from our IRW/multilingual/corequisite courses altogether may reinforce mistaken beliefs that writing is a solitary process, that the only source of feedback is a teacher, and that the only gauge of a text’s effectiveness is the grade it receives. Integrating writing workshops in multilingual classrooms, on the other hand, builds a sense of community that values the contributions of each member. ... 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 As educators, we recognize the value of experiential learning – learning that becomes deeper as students move up the ladder of abstraction towards synthesis, application and other high-level processes of thinking. The term, experiential learning, was originally defined by educational psychologist, David Kolb, as "the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience. Knowledge results from the combinations of grasping and transforming the experience." So, it is not enough to simply have an experience. Instead, Kolb suggests that students must “transform” the experience through understanding, connecting and reflecting. He goes on to identify the “concrete experience” that involves hands-on, sensory participation and “reflective observation” in which we work to complicate and make meaning of our experiences.  Similarly, in digital writing and online spaces, we hear the term “immersive experiences” that involve writers and readers into a “mixed reality” in virtual spaces. These can take the form of video games that simulate worlds, high tech VR technology, and interactive content, but we can broadly understand them as any virtual relationship in which the audience is actively involved through participation or engagement. Essentially, immersive experiences create environments that make readers feel like they are part of them through sensory or exploratory content. Since digital writing is also non-linear, writers can create paths of inquiry and exploration in ways that traditional writing does not. Even following a link, playing a video, or enlarging an image offers audiences some level of participation, exploration, and interaction. When we view content online, we often look for some replication of reality and opportunities to immerse ourselves in environments even though we do not occupy that physical space. As teachers, we can offer students opportunities (fieldwork, community engagement, cultural observation, etc.) to get out of the traditional classroom and explore “concrete experiences” and have them transform them for others through “reflective observation.” The Experiential Review assignment asks students to immerse themselves in real-life experiences and recreate them (in multilayered ways) for their audiences.    Background Readings and Resources The St. Martin’s Handbook - Ch. 11e: Field Research; Ch. 18: Communicating in Other Media The Everyday Writer (also available with Exercises) - Ch. 13e: Conduct field research; Ch. 24: Communicating in Other Media EasyWriter (also available with Exercises) - Ch. 11f: Doing Field Research   Assignment: The Experiential Review Have students choose a place that they want to visit to immerse themselves. They must choose a place where they can physically go rather than reflect on a place they have visited in the past. Sometimes I encourage them to go to a place they have never been before and other times a place with which they are familiar. Students choose restaurants, museums, parks, and community events. I usually have them brainstorm ideas with classmates to come up with interesting and creative sites for observation. Discuss ideas surrounding the “kaleidoscopic” nature of experience -- where things happen simultaneously and through many layers and perspectives (Britton). Bring in ideas about place and space and talk about the ways “experience overlays landscape” (Harmon). I introduce them to the participant/spectator relationship and the difference between concrete and reflective experiences. We identify different lenses for viewing experiences such as geographical, sociological, and psychological. Basically, we complicate the term, experience, and come with examples and strategies for observing their place. Have students visit their site and immerse themselves in the layers of experiences. I want them to be aware of the environment, atmosphere, context and specific details -- to look at small details and the big picture (micro to macro). I encourage them to talk to people, take pictures, shoot video, and take written field notes along the way.  Finally, students write up the experience as interactive content (blog, website, linked document, etc.) with the goal of trying to recreate the experience and immerse their audience. Instruct them to describe their experience, along with their perspective (review), and to include background along with their experience. Encourage them to describe the atmosphere and provide evidence and examples for their ideas and perspectives.   Assignment requirements: Length: 800-1000 words (interactive blog post)  Images: At least 3 captioned, original images Links: At least 3 purposeful embedded links Multimodal components:  At least one beyond original images (maps, article, video, etc.)   Composing considerations: Background Atmosphere Specific Details Evidence and Examples Exploratory pathways (embedded links) Supplemental Content Sections Engaging Voice Perspective/Critique Captioned Images Multimodal Components Reflection/Connection Layers of Experience   Reflection I use many variations of the Experiential Review assignment. Sometimes I send students out individually to discover their own places and other times I arrange field experiences for the whole class. Sometimes I send them all to one particular kind of place (restaurant reviews) and other times I engage them in “sense of place assignments” where they have to explore the multiple layers within a geographic boundary. I have found that students almost always enjoy these assignments because they push them to interact and try on new lenses for critical observation that gives them practice in interactive digital writing. They also enjoy the genre of the review that pushes them beyond a neutral reportage towards observations that include their own perspectives. I also have students share their assignments publicly with the class in which they share their places and encourage others to try them out for themselves.   References Britton, James N. Language and Learning: The Importance of Speech in Children’s Development. Heinemann, 1993. Harmon, Katharine. You Are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination. Princeton Architectural Press, 2004. Kolb, David A. Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Pearson FT Press, 2015. ... View more

When I first started writing about popular cultural semiotics in the 1980s, the Cabbage Patch Kids were the biggest thing going in children’s consumer culture. Not too many years later there was the POGS pandemic, followed by the Pokemon outbreak, which has since crossed its original generational boundaries to continue on as what may be the most lucrative gaming phenomenon of all time. The common thread running through all these mega-fads is the way that they all were disseminated—at least in their beginnings—via a mysterious children’s grapevine unknown to adults, a vast international playground of sorts in which word about the Next Big Thing got passed without the assistance of social media. And now that the grapevine has gone digital, as it were, the propagation of new kiddie fads is accelerating at Warp speed, with unsettling results. A couple of recent articles from The Atlantic and the New York Times provide a case in point. Describing the apparition of an online poltergeist called "Momo" who pops up unexpectedly on social media and dares kids to, among other things, commit suicide, they tell of a burgeoning panic among parents, police departments, and major news outlets around the globe. The new fad is called "the Momo challenge," and it would be pretty scary—except that it's a hoax. Taylor Lorenz sums up all the confusion rather nicely: On Tuesday afternoon, a Twitter user going by the name of Wanda Maximoff whipped out her iPhone and posted a terrifying message to parents. “Warning! Please read, this is real,” she tweeted. “There is a thing called ‘Momo’ that’s instructing kids to kill themselves,” the attached screenshot of a Facebook post reads. “INFORM EVERYONE YOU CAN.” Maximoff’s plea has been retweeted more than 22,000 times, and the screenshot, featuring the creepy face of “Momo,” has spread like wildfire across the internet. Local news hopped on the story Wednesday, amplifying it to millions of terrified parents. Kim Kardashian even posted a warning about the so-called Momo challenge to her 129 million Instagram followers. To any concerned parents reading this: Do not worry. The “Momo challenge” is a recurring viral hoax that has been perpetuated by local news stations and scared parents around the world. This entire cycle of shock, terror, and outrage about Momo even took place before, less than a year ago: Last summer, local news outlets across the country reported that the Momo challenge was spreading among teens via WhatsApp. Previously, rumors about the challenge spread throughout Latin America and Spanish-speaking countries. The Momo challenge wasn’t real then, and it isn’t real now. YouTube confirmed that, contrary to press reports, it hasn’t seen any evidence of videos showing or promoting the “Momo challenge” on its platform. If Momo is a hoax, why, then, has she produced such a panicky reaction? John Herrman's take on the matter is instructive. "Screens and screen time are a source of endless guilt and frustration" for modern parents, he writes, "so it makes sense to need to displace these feelings on a face, a character, and something, or someone, with fantastically evil motives, rather than on the services that actually are surveilling what the kids are up to, to ends of their own." In other words, if "Momo" isn't real, the way that the corporate Net is invading our privacy, "mining" our data, and leading our children down a Pied Piperish path (one which makes the exploitations of traditional television look like a nineteenth-century Fourth of July parade) is, and grownups are accordingly getting very jumpy. "Momo" may be a hoax, but Slender Man wasn't, and therein lies the real "Momo challenge": the Internet is growing faster than our ability, or even desire, to shape it to human needs, rather than corporate ones. And the kids, who usually know what's going on before their parents do, could actually be the canaries in a creepy digital coal mine. Photo Credit: Pixabay Image 2564425 by StockSnap, used under the Pixabay License ... View more

When this blog posting goes up, I will be in Pittsburgh at CCCC celebrating Cheryl Glenn’s brilliantly deserved Exemplar Award and reveling in what looks to be the most diverse and exciting program in years: bravo to Vershawn Young!   I will surely be writing about the conference in the weeks to come, reporting on what I have taken away from as many sessions as I can possibly attend. But for now, I am thinking of Stanford’s students at this time of year: what I call the end-of-winter-term-doldrums. They are up to their ears in midterms and working furiously to finish up their research-based multimodal arguments that I always assign. They have spring break to look forward to but after that is the long, slow slog of spring term, which stretches well into June. So they are often in a fairly desperate mood—and could use some comic relief.   I was thinking of these students when my 14-year-old grandniece told me that she had finally gotten to see BlacKKKlansman and it was Spike Lee’s genius use of humor that kept her from screaming throughout the film: “it’s the most impactful movie I’ve ever seen,” she told me. I was also thinking of students during a Saturday Night Live sketch when the brilliant Kate McKinnon and Aidy Bryant could not keep themselves together and broke up while playing the owners of “Smokery Farms Meat Gift Delivery Service” who complained about way too many heartwarming stories about animals, like “Pig Teaches Deaf Dog to Bark.” The audience was in stitches, whether over the characters McKinnon and Bryant were playing or the fact that they couldn’t keep a straight face while delivering these joke lines. I hope a lot of students were watching in and got one of the best gifts of life, which is a good, long laugh.   I’ve found that loosening up the syllabus a little during this time of the term and asking students to have some fun always pays off by giving them some comic relief that can release some of the stress they are feeling. So we might take that joke headline from Bryant and McKinnon and write joke headlines of our own, comparing them to ones we can find in The Onion or fake/clickbait headlines we can find online. The funnier, the better. Trying our hands at parody can also be lots of fun: a group of students in one of my classes made a parodic video of our class that left us all laughing with and at ourselves.   At other times I might go for an imitation exercise, asking students to imitate an author they really admire (or really can’t stand) and to do so by writing the opening of a children’s story in the style of that author. Here’s one student (a chemistry major!) telling the opening of “The Three Little Pigs” in the style of Edgar Allan Poe: It began as a mere infatuation. I admired them from afar, with a longing that only a wolf may know. Soon, these feelings turned to torment. Were I even to set eyes upon their porcine forms, the bowels of my soul raged, as if goaded by some festering poison. As the chilling winds of November howled, my gullet yarned for them. I soon feasted only upon an earnest and consuming desire for the moment of their decease. This student had read four or five Poe stories, noting vocabulary choices and figures of speech like similes, and he read the stories aloud trying to capture some of the rhythm. Then he wrote his imitation—much to the delight of everyone in the class, many of whom tried to outdo him with their own over-the-top imitations.   Taking a light-hearted break from the grinding demands of the quarter system always paid off for me and my students. It gave us a chance to take a deep breath, enjoy some good laughs, and then return to the end of term rigors feeling at least a little bit refreshed. As Shakespeare demonstrates in his most devastating tragedies, some comic relief is good for the soul.   Image Credit: Pixabay Image 2193585 by Alexas_Fotos, used under the Pixabay License ... View more

When I create an assignment, I intend the information I include about research requirements to suggest starting points and to encourage exploration. Instead, students probably use that information to determine the bare minimum required, doing only the research described instead of jumping off into deeper exploration. Alison J. Head and Michael B. Eisenberg (2010) examined “How Handouts for Research Assignments Guide Today’s College Students,” finding that students use assignments less as a guide and more as a road map. If the assignment handout calls for three sources, students use only three sources. Directed by the assignment handout to use at least two books and an online site, students meet the requirement and find little or no more. In an earlier study, Head and Eisenberg (2009) reported that “Almost every student in the sample turned to course readings—not Google—first for course-related research assignments. Likewise, Google and Wikipedia were the go-to sites for everyday life research for nearly every respondent” (3). I’m left with a conundrum: I want students to look beyond the course textbooks, Google, and Wikipedia, but I don’t want to prescribe the kinds and number of resources they should consult. My ultimate goal is to teach students how to thoroughly research a topic on their own, choosing the best tools to use and gathering relevant sources for their research projects. I designed the following activity to kick off students’ research. In it, I ask students to evaluate the available research tools and then plan how to use those tools to conduct their research project. The activity below has some minor changes to remove specific information that is relevant only to the students in my classes. I took the six kinds of research tools from a list from the course textbook, Markel and Selber’s Technical Communication (12th edition). You can easily customize the activity for your class by using the list of resources from your own textbook. Any textbook that covers writing research projects will include a similar list. Finding Useful Research Tools for Your Project The section on “Understanding Research Tools” (pp. 121–122) in Markel and Selber’s Technical Communication discusses the following six kinds of resources you can consult when you conduct research: Library catalogs Online databases Newspaper and periodical indexes Abstract services Web search engines Reference works For each of the six research tools, provide the information below. Your answer will map out how you will conduct research for your project. Step 1: Determine the Usefulness of the Research Tools Indicate how each of the six research tools is (or isn’t) appropriate for your research project by responding to the following questions. What specific research tools in the category are available for your topic? For example, name the online databases that are appropriate for your topic. What kind of information are you likely to find using the particular tool? How relevant is the information to your research project? Based on your evaluation, how appropriate is the kind of tool for your research project? Step 2: Plan Your Use of the Research Tools For each tool that is appropriate for your research project, explain specifically how you will use the tool. What keywords will you use with each tool? What kind of research sources will you look for with each tool? How will you manage the sources that you find? In other words, indicate how you will save or borrow the sources. The answers to these questions may be similar for the different research tools. Try using a table to organize the information to simplify your response. You do not need to use full sentences for Step 2. I’ll supplement this activity with links to some specific resources from the campus library, such as these Research Guides for Various Subject Areas. I will also suggest that students consult a librarian for help. I think my assignment meets my goal. It encourages students to research beyond the familiar sources like their textbook and Google. At the same time, it guides students toward easily accessible resources without telling them exactly what to do. Next week, I will share a follow-up activity that asks students to report on the specific resources they have discovered. Do you have an activity to share that helps students engage in deeper exploration when they conduct a research project? I’d love to hear from you. Tell me about it by leaving a comment below. Photo credit: All She’s Armed With Is Research. by Markus Binzegger on Flickr, used under a CC-BY 2.0 license. ... View more

Skye Roberson (nominated by Katie Fredlund) is pursuing her PhD in Composition Studies in the English department at the University of Memphis. She is currently the graduate assistant director of the Center for Writing and Communication. Prior to that, she taught first-year writing at the University of Memphis and Arkansas State University and served as a writing consultant for five years. Her research interests include feminist rhetoric, history of composition and rhetoric, labor inequality, and writing centers. Her most recent publication, “'Anonymous Was a Woman:’ Anonymous Authorship as Rhetorical Strategy” will appear in the edited collection Feminist Connections: Rhetorical Strategies from the Suffragists to the Cyberfeminists. Scaffolding multimodal assignments is essential in pedagogies that embrace inclusivity. It’s tempting to assume that students in the first-year writing program are digital natives, and therefore have a wealth of pre-existing knowledge about technology. Those assumptions risk harming students from marginalized backgrounds who may have limited exposure to technology, including students from low-income areas, non-traditional students, or those whose physical or mental disabilities are barriers to access. By scaffolding multimodal assignments, it puts each student in the class on equal footing and increases their confidence when working with digital tools. One of the major assignments in the second sequence of the first-year writing program at University of Memphis is the New Media Project, where students transform their written researched arguments into digital compositions. Before this assignment, roughly halfway through the semester, I assign the Multimedia Group Presentation, a low-stakes collaborative project that provides scaffolding for the New Media Project. I dedicate two weeks for them to work on the project in-class. During this time, they learn how to interact with a digital tool of their choice, build a small sample project, and prepare a presentation on the strengths and weaknesses of the tool they selected. I act as facilitator while they work as groups. On the final day, students lead presentations followed by Q&A sessions where the class has opportunities to ask deeper questions about how the digital tools work. This assignment provides layers of scaffolding for the more difficult New Media Project at the end of the semester and accomplishes the following: The process of learning and sharing digital tools helps students understand how they work, which (for me) is the hardest part of teaching a course steeped in multimodality. This gives the students the essential knowledge they need to develop their own projects later in the semester. The freedom of the assignment introduces time for play and exploration in the classroom. Students are allowed to use unstructured class time to test out their tools without worrying about being graded or judged. The purpose is to promote possibility rather than perfection. By discussing the strengths and weaknesses of a given tool, students begin thinking critically about the functionality and potential applications of multimodal platforms. They shift from being passive learners to critical thinkers. This project signals my changing role in the classroom, giving more authority to students as the semester progresses. For this assignment, they control what happens during class time. As the semester goes on, I assume a more decentralized position as a facilitator, and they have greater control of how we use class time. The Multimedia Group Presentation is the only scaffolding I have built in before the New Media Project. Each semester, I wonder if I’ve done enough to prepare my students to work on their own. Even though students typically rate the Multimedia Group Presentation as their favorite assignment, there are still some who struggle when working alone. I worry most about students who have never done a multimodal project because they can become demoralized when they can’t figure out how to solve problems alone. A similar problem is that students sometimes limit themselves to the tool they learned to use in the group project rather than embrace the options presented by their peers. Since I last taught this assignment a year ago, I have wondered how these issues might be addressed. An idea I’ve considered is having students work in collaborative units where they learn to use a new tool each day. Rather than have them do a formal presentation, the project will end with a class discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of each tool. By doing this, each student is equally exposed to the digital tools at their disposal. This is something I’m considering when I teach this course next semester. What kind of scaffolding do you use in a multimodal composition course? How do you make digital tools accessible? How do you promote access in your pedagogy?  To view Skye’s assignment, visit Multimedia Group Presentation. To learn more about the Bedford New Scholars advisory board, visit the Bedford New Scholars page on the Macmillan English Community. ... View more

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

I am continuing to look at suggestions for working with multilingual students in FYC and IRW corequisite classrooms. One area of concern for many instructors is plagiarism and patchwriting with multilingual writers. A number of researchers and pedagogical experts have weighed in on the causes of this particular challenge and ways to address it (see articles by Howard, Serviss, and Rodrigue, as well as Pecorari, for example). I would echo one of their findings: for many multilingual writers, patchwriting often results from a novice attempt at paraphrase – an attempt that can be improved with an increased focus on instruction and practice.  I begin a discussion of paraphrase early in my FYC and corequisite courses, since much of our text-based writing requires integration of source material via summary, paraphrase, or quote. When I introduce the concept, I ask students to consider how they are already making use of paraphrase in their daily lives. Multilingual students frequently negotiate conversations in multiple languages, and paraphrase is a strategic resource they deploy when moving between languages and audiences. We talk about the quizzical look we might get in our daily conversations, a look that signals that we have not communicated well. So we try again: we re-phrase, and we paraphrase. We also put paraphrase to work in teaching, coaching, parenting, mentoring, training, and encouraging—roles many of my multilingual students are quite familiar with.  What students are able to see quickly is that paraphrase outside of the classroom is not about checking a box on a rubric; it’s all about communicating a message so that a particular audience can understand it. Our purpose is explanation, and the goal is comprehension. What we do in writing is essentially the same thing: we encounter interesting and sometimes challenging concepts and ideas from the texts we read, and our goal is to communicate those ideas clearly for our own readers.  Having established the purpose of a paraphrase, students note quickly that paraphrase requires an understanding of the information being shared. The first step is successful paraphrasing is reading for understanding – often reading many times.  I next tell students I am going to tell them how NOT to paraphrase. I take a sentence or two from a difficult text we are working with, such as this one from Elizabeth Wardle’s essay in Bad Ideas about Writing. We talk about what it means to “put something in our own words,” and I show them a strategy that doesn’t work: we go through and substitute synonyms or related words for each major content word in the passage. Students may use a thesaurus or translator for this activity. Then we look at the results we get. I ask the students to consider whether or not the paraphrase is successful, and most will readily agree that it is not: it doesn’t explain, and it makes no sense. Our criteria for judgment is not how many words are copied before one is changed; rather, it is the effectiveness of the paraphrase in explaining the ideas in the original text.   We also take a look at paraphrases generated by online paraphrase tools, which usually produce a word salad akin to the paraphrase we generated in our first version. We wrap our introductory overview of paraphrasing by looking at a variety of successful and no-so-successful paraphrases, with example of patchwriting thrown in. Setting up the discussion with the purpose of paraphrase allows students to focus first on the meaning communicated in the paraphrase, and second on the language used to convey that meaning. Finally, I have students work in collaborative groups to practice. I ask a targeted question about a concept from something we have read, and I ask the students to draft a paragraph in which they first quote from the target text to answer the question and then paraphrase the quote they’ve chosen. Finally, they extend the paragraph with an example from their own experience, and we review the paragraphs to see if readers can identify the parts (quote, paraphrase, and expansion) and the boundaries between them. In peer responses to the paragraphs, students get one more shot at practicing paraphrase: they read a classmate’s paragraph and attempt to paraphrase the topic sentence (main idea), using the following frame.              “Let me get this straight. You’re saying that __________________, right?”   This intensive practice prepares students to work with blending partial quotes, paraphrases, and summaries later in the term. While the class sessions devoted to paraphrase practice early on do not fully eliminate patchwriting and plagiarism, they provide students with a strong base for continued practice and discussion. ... View more

Recently I needed a resource to help students understand brainstorming. I knew that they generally understood the idea, but I wanted to encourage them to try some new strategies and stretch their invention skills a little. After a few disappointing Google search results, I found myself at the “Tips & Tools” page of the UNC-Chapel Hill Writing Center site. There, I found perfect resources to share with students, including a Brainstorming tip sheet and this Webbing video: Video Link : 2374 I quickly realized that the site had much more to offer. The “Tips & Tools” page features nearly a hundred resources, organized into four categories: Writing the Paper Citation, Style, and Sentence Level Concerns Specific Writing Assignments for Contexts Writing for Specific Fields The handouts range from ideas on Thesis Statements to basic strategies for working on a Dissertation. Some of the resources focus on general writing advice, such as dealing with Procrastination and Writing Anxiety. Others address topics frequently heard in the writing classroom, like how to use Gender-Inclusive Language and ways to work with Writing Groups effectively. Perhaps one of the best things about the site is that the handouts are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 License. That means, as the site explains in the footer, “You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.” If you need a supplement for your class or a specific student, these “Tips & Tools” have you covered. Have you found an online resource that is particularly helpful in the writing classroom? Please share your recommendations in the comments below. I’d love to see the sites you use with students. ... View more

Today’s guest blogger is Jeanne Law Bohannon, an Associate Professor of English and the Interim Director of Composition at Kennesaw State University. She believes in creating democratic learning spaces, where students become stakeholders in their own rhetorical growth through authentic engagement in class communities. Her research interests include evaluating digital literacies; cultivating community engagement pedagogies; and growing informed and empowered student scholars. Reach Jeanne at jeanne_bohannon@kennesaw.edu and her KSU Faculty Page. As I have reflected on some recent tweets calling out Spike Lee for his Oscar acceptance speech, I’ve also thought about how we, as teachers of writing, can affect positive rhetorical growth for our students as they too reflect on social justice and turning their thoughts into scholarly action. Our students depend on us to provide mentoring and writing opportunities that help them engage at cultural points of need. In today’s post, I want to invite readers to check out and contribute to an assignment series that engages students as public, digital researchers with a topic connected to civil and human rights.   Context for Assignment By researching historical civil rights movements and then developing digital content curating the rhetorical activities within these movements, students gain a deeper understanding of human struggles and are able to insert their own voices into recovering and analyzing them for 21st-century contexts. Measurable Learning Objectives for the Assignment Investigate a civil or human rights campaign Apply peer review as recursive writing process Create digital texts in a blogging genre for public audiences Background Reading for Students and Instructors Acts of reading and viewing visual texts are ongoing processes for attaining learning goals in dialogic, digital writing assignments. Below, I have listed a few foundational texts. You will no doubt have your own to enrich this list. The St. Martin’s Handbook: Ch. 27, “Writing to the World”; Ch. 28, “Language that Builds Common Ground” The Everyday Writer (also available with Exercises😞 Ch. 26, “Writing to the World”; Ch. 27, “Language that Builds Common Ground” EasyWriter (also available with Exercises😞 Ch. 19, “Writing across Cultures and Communities”; Ch. 20, “Language that Builds Common Ground”   Digital Deliverables for Classroom Use Sample Feedback Criteria/Rubric Blogging Guidelines In-Class/Out-of-Class Work Students watch excerpts from a Civil Rights History video to introduce them to some key people and places connected to the 1960s movement. As a class group, students then choose two topics connected to the movement. Our class chose the Rich's Department Store sit-ins in Atlanta. Then, students di vide into groups to craft two blog posts per group on people and places connected to their chosen civil rights topic (from either of the above sources), using the Blogging Guidelines. Drafting blog content can occur outside of class, but revision and editing are best-completed in-class. Use the Feedback Checklist to maximize effective peer time. If you can't get a computer lab (a frequent occurrence on my campus), host a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) day. Some of my students' best revisions are made on their tablets and phones! Budget time for at least one revision and two editing sessions, where students collaborate to research and insert tags, refine their conversational tones, design multimodal elements, check for accessibility and even integrate SEO analytics.  This assignment lends itself to digital, democratic learning and unique contributions across types of classes, because students choose their methods of composition, reflect on their process, and have the opportunity to present their work to their peers and publics.    Student Blog Examples Atlanta Student Movement Profile: June Davis – Luke Gardner Women in the Movement: Gwen Middlebrooks – Erin Fink Defending Student Activists: Donald Hollowell – Tiffany Davis   Check More Out... Our class took these blogs a bit further and curated all of the blogs into a website: Anyone Sitting Here. Please also view a sample page: The Rhetorical Activism of Lonnie King. If your students have more content to add to our website, send it along, and we'll help get it published! Our Reflections and Continued Work Our class community engaged authentically with this assignment and it generated sustained work, writing and designing texts. The work brought all twenty of us together as a group, each person contributing expertise and learning from everyone else. Our research has resulted in a living digital archive and a student-produced visual timeline of the Movement’s genesis (special thanks to Kelly Key, John Phelps, and Madison Urquart). As Andrea Lunsford has taught us: our writing is valuable when we share it with the world. Try this assignment and get in touch with us to contribute to our academic website   Want to offer feedback, comments, and suggestions on this post? Join the Macmillan Community to get involved (it’s free, quick, and easy)! ... View more

Use this example to guide your own notes on the research sources you have found as you check for variety. Books Markel, M., & Selber, S. A. (2017). Technical Communication (Twelfth edition). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s. Includes a chapter on instructions with examples. Will use for basic characteristics of the kind of writing. Oliu, W. E., Brusaw, C. T., & Alred, G. J. (2016). Writing That Works: Communicating Effectively on the Job (Twelfth edition). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s. Includes a chapter on instructions with details on using “Visual symbols and signal words.” Will use for basic characteristics of the kind of writing and to explore the use of illustrations and signal words.  Government Documents Redish, J. (Ginny), & Laskowski, S. J. (2009). Guidelines for Writing Clear Instructions and Messages for Voters and Poll Workers (No. 7596). National Institute of Standards and Technology. Retrieved from https://www.nist.gov/sites/default/files/documents/itl/vote/032906PlainLanguageRpt.pdf Provides specific details on how to write directions, with examples of what to do and what not to do. Will use both for information on how to write instructions and for examples and demonstrations it includes. ... View more

For quite some time now I have been intimating in this blog that entertainment may not be the most effective way of achieving political goals, due to the way that it can distract its audience from the task of actual political engagement. Thus, I was inevitably struck by Steve Almond's forthright argument to this effect in a recent op-ed for the Los Angeles Times. But while reading Almond's essay I found myself beginning to question my own position, and while I'm not quite ready to abandon it entirely, I do believe that it may need some modification in the light of recent developments in American political culture.   To see why, let's start with Almond's thesis. Arguing that the superb political comedy that has erupted in the wake of the Trump presidency has only played into the hands of a man "who relishes and exploits his beefs with comedians . . . [and who] doesn’t see them as degrading the office of the presidency so much as transforming that office into an adjunct of the entertainment industry, where what matters most is your ratings," Almond suggests that the "towering irony here is that the essential mission of comedians in the Age of Trump is identical to that of the man they mock." Thus, both Trump and his opponents "preach that our political and media classes are essentially corrupt. Both use shtick to convert our distress at this dysfunction into disposable laughs. In other words, both turn politics into show business." The upshot of all this, Almond concludes, is that "Halfway through his reign, Trump has reaffirmed a truth that extends from King Lear to Norman Lear: A kingdom that relies on court jesters to confront mad rulers is doomed. The Fool is not a redeemer. His role is to defuse, by means of laughter, the moral distress that presages redemption." In short, comedians like the cast of SNL and Steve Colbert are making their audiences feel too good to actually go out and do anything (like vote). But there's a certain paradox here, for if Trump used comedy to capture the White House, so too can his opposition. In other words, if Almond's argument is right, it's also wrong. What worked for one side can work for the other. Maybe SNL and Steve Colbert (et. al) can help lead the revolution. Only the future will reveal whether this will prove to be true, but for now we can take away one surety from Almond's essay: America's entertainment culture has engulfed our entire society so thoroughly that none of the old barriers between "high" culture and "low" truly exist anymore. Popular culture, with its mandate to entertain, is our dominant culture, for better or for worse.   Image Credit: Pixabay Image 3774381 by mohamed_hassan, used under the Pixabay License ... View more

It’s no secret that I am a fan of style and of teaching style, the third canon of rhetoric and, by any measure, an extremely important one today. So I’ve focused on style in all my textbooks and done a fair amount of research and reading about the history of style and about the fusion of style and “content.” More recently, I’ve thought long and hard about why style seems so important to me today and so necessary to teach our students to think about and to experiment with.   I’ve been deeply impressed with rhetorician Richard Lanham’s The Economics of Attention, which I’ve read twice and refer to often: in that book, Lanham argues that style is of the utmost importance to writing and speaking today because it is through style that we can get and hold an audience’s attention. Lanham traces the move from a “stuff” economy (think industrial revolution, Fordist principles, and manufacturing) to a “fluff” economy that deals not so much in concrete material objects but in immaterial ideas and information. Add to this shift the enormous changes wrought by technology, changes that make information more available to us than ever before, and the problem Lanham discusses comes into view: the ideas and information that will be effective and successful (often in monetary terms) are those that people attend to. Thus the “economics of attention” Lanham sees at work everywhere today. His analysis is astute and his advice straightforward: if you want to be heard in today’s society, you have to get people’s attention. And the major tool you have to do so is style.   Media consultant Howard Rheingold also writes extensively about the difficulty of getting and holding attention in Net Smart, another book I have learned a great deal from reading and studying. These two books are fairly old now, but they still strike me as prescient and accurate. Now I see “attention” commanding attention everywhere. In a recent issue of Wired, James Vlahos notes that “[In] the economics of the online world, …attention is everything,” and everyone from business CEOs to medical practitioners are talking about the “crisis” of being able to get their messages across and to capture the attention of audiences. Some of these folks are simply interested in building the bottom line or in making more and more money. But not all. Vlahos, for example, worries that the tech world’s search for “the perfect single answer” promised by Alexa and Echo and company (not quite there yet, Vlahos says, but very close) will reduce options and leave us at the mercy of single answers that have been chosen for us—and in that way choosing what we are able to pay attention to. Others like Lanham and Rheingold worry about how the truth (small “t”) can hold its own in getting attention with clickbait and lies.   As teachers of writing, we have a big stake in these debates and discussions, as do our students. In the long run, rhetoricians and compositionists need to be in on this conversation, carrying out research that can contribute to it in important ways. In the shorter run, we need to alert our students to the issues and especially to the need for them to focus on style as a means of getting and holding attention, and thus of having a chance to get their voices out there where they can and will be heard. Luckily, we know a lot about rhetorical strategies that can help command attention: everything from crafting electrifying titles and opening sentences to syntactic structures and word choices that pull readers/listeners along, to the use of visuals and graphics to hold attention, to the power of figurative language, and to the equal power of silence.   Still, I find that many teachers of writing say that there’s just no time to focus on style, that helping students with invention, with critical thinking, with organizational frameworks and drafting—all time-consuming and very important goals—seem more fundamental than style. I think it’s time, though, to question this assumption and to look at style as inseparable from inventing, thinking critically, drafting, and organizing. And then to create curricula that allow for this integration.   I would very much like to hear responses to these ideas and especially to hear of ways in which teachers of writing are already responding to the move I’m calling for. Please leave a comment below or write back to me directly at lunsford@stanford.edu. And thank you!   Image Credit: Pixabay Image 2365812 by rawpixel, used under the Pixabay License ... View more

I love the “Thinking Visually” resources in Mike Markel’s Practical Strategies for Technical Communication (2nd ed.). The example shown in the screenshot on the right outlines the six major characteristics of a technical document. As you flip through the pages of the textbook, these full-page graphics stand out, catching students’ attention with their strong contrast and reader-friendly presentation of the information explored in more detail in the text. The textbook’s “Preface for Instructors” explains the goal of this new feature: Reflecting the increasingly visual nature of today’s learners and of technical communication itself, the Second Edition includes new “Thinking Visually” graphics, developed with feedback from instructors. This feature provides an accessible, modern take on key principles and concepts throughout the text. The feature this quick summary presents definitely stands out, even in a highly visual textbook like this one. [NOTE: The “Thinking Visually” infographics mentioned in this post are available in the short version of the text (mentioned above), Practical Strategies for Technical Communication.They are not included in the full version of the text, Technical Communication.] I decided to create my own infographic resources to persuade students to think visually about the concepts in Technical Communication. I’m starting with documentation. Students typically struggle with that topic, and its coverage in most textbooks is dense and text-heavy. I began with this page (shown as an image) on the question, “Why Use Documentation?” It is also available as a Google Doc or a PDF to provide full accessibility to students. The three reasons that documentation is important listed in the resource come from the Appendix on “Documenting Your Sources.” The infographic is rather simple, but I hope clear and direct—just like those from Practical Strategies for Technical Communication. Tell me what you think. I plan to make several more before students begin their major research projects in a few weeks, so I can definitely use some feedback. Just leave me a comment below.   NOTE: Practical Strategies for Technical Communication has just been published (2019) in a third edition, but I only have access to the second edition presently. The “Thinking Visually” are included in the third edition as well. ... 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. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve had several conversations with faculty and graduate students about "buy-in" in the classroom.   Current and future teachers wonder: how do I get students to buy-in to the idea that writing and learning how to write well is important?   I’ve posed this question to myself many times over the course of my career and have actively sought different ways to foster student buy-in. Some ideas have worked and some have not. While there are many factors that play a role in the extent to which instructors can foster student buy-in, I have had success at different institutions with the activities and strategies below. Discuss the importance of writing inside and outside of the classroom For a 15-20 minute in-class activity, ask students to respond to the following questions in a freewrite.   What do you want to do after you graduate from college? What kind of writing do you think you’ll do at your job? What do you think might happen if you’re unable to communicate effectively at your job? What do you think might happen if you’re really good at communicating effectively at your job? Based on these questions, why do you think writing and learning how to write is important? Ask students to share what they wrote and make a list of responses on the board. Orchestrate a conversation wherein students engage with the list and brainstorm about what we need to learn and practice in class to in order to strengthen our writing abilities. I encourage instructors to be transparent about how the skills, abilities, and knowledge gained in the course are transferable across writing situations, including the situations they’ll encounter in the future workplace. (I usually have this discussion on the first or second day of class, but it’s never too late to do so.)   Assign lots and lots of low-stakes writing assignments Ask students to write every day in class and out of class. For example, you might provide a brief prompt at the beginning of every class intended to either help get them thinking about course material or just to practice writing in general. Here are some interesting prompts that you may consider using in your class. You can explain to students that research has proven informal writing assignments support student learning and function as ripe sites for invention work. Perhaps most importantly, research states that the more people write, the better writers they become. All of the writing students do in your class will sharpen their writing abilities and communication skills, which in turn will help them learn and succeed in other college courses and in the workplace. Analyze writing in the workplace Ask your students to engage with research that reveals the importance of writing and learning how to write. For example, you may assign sections of two studies on workplace writing: “Writing: A Ticket to Work…Or a Ticket Out” and “Writing: A Powerful Message from State Government.” The findings from the first study reveal that most people (2/3 of 8 million surveyed) in business have writing responsibilities and that writing abilities play a significant role in promotion, demotion, and job loss. The second study reveals that all 2.7 million state employees surveyed have writing responsibilities and all agree writing is important. This study is perhaps most persuasive for student buy-in because it demonstrates that jobs and careers that may not appear to demand strong writing abilities and skills may in fact do so.   Reflection In using these activities and other variations of them, I’ve recognized that pedagogical and curricular transparency is effective in fostering student buy-in. When we tell our students why we’re doing what we’re doing and how our decisions are informed by research in the discipline, they are more likely to recognize the value of the work they do in the class. Further, I’ve learned that discussions and activities that draw connections between school and the workplace and that emphasize transferability make a strong impact on students, especially students taking required classes or classes they think are unrelated to their major or future career. In positioning students to think about other courses they will take as well as their futures, they are more likely to be persuaded that writing and learning how to write matters. ... View more