This post is part of a 2025 series affiliated with the Writing Innovation Symposium (WIS), a regional event with national reach founded in 2018. Sona Srivastava, a 2025 Bedford/Saint-Martin’s WIS Fellow, is a writer and translator as well as a writing tutor at Ashoka University in Sonepat, India. Learn more below and in posts tagged “writing innovation” and “WIS.” By Sona Srivastava    I turned to the art of divining in general, and the tarot specifically, in the unsurest of times. The pandemic had mastered its grip across the world, and we had been reminded of the precarity of our lives. Because life was meant to go on - and did - we resorted to ways of keeping ourselves productively occupied.  I had a lot to keep myself occupied with - I had just enrolled in an MPhil programme, and had begun working as an education specialist at an educational start-up. My professional role warranted that I necessarily churn out content for English language learners every day. The role was tiring, and very soon, wilted my curiosity. Moreover, the tense times unfurled into a disconnect that was too immense to fathom. I needed, what was in vogue on the internet at that point, “grounding” - to reconnect with my creative self, to make sense of the confusion, to channel curiosity again.  The “practice” was simple - a host of online tutorials aided in demystifying the process, and with a flourish or two of the cards from the deck, I had come around to reading them. However, this process of reading tarot cards differs from the traditional practice of reading. As the “it” phenomenon associated with it suggests, it is meant to be more grounded, more zoomed into one’s emotions, thereby prompting one to be more attentive - not only to the surroundings but also to one’s own being. This attentiveness reaches its peak as curiosity - the highest form of attention.  Each day would begin with a pull from the deck, and I would tune in, making a mental note, observing and noticing patterns as my choral routine inched towards the daily close. I was able to shake off inertia, and amble my way through my commitments.  In an introductory book on tarot, Erin Regulski writes that “the Tarot is most useful at helping us see more clearly where we are right now” (9). They depart from the understanding that Tarot helps one to “predict” the future. Rather, the emphasis is on seeing “where we might be headed if we don’t make a change”, and on considering the deck as our non-judgemental friend, one who “always accepts you exactly as you are” (9). Regulski’s words influenced my understanding, and by the time I transitioned to my current role as a writing instructor, I had adopted this mystical practice as an active pedagogy in my class - with the caveat that this was to be understood as a strictly creative exercise with no aspirations of hoping to foretell the future (I am critical of any pseudo-religious or pseudo-science claims attached to tarot). How does one “read” a class through tarot? While tarot helped me “read” and re-orient myself creatively, I was, initially, a modicum unsure of adapting the practice in class. These were a bunch of fresh first-year students, and I did not impress upon them an art that risked funding the pseudo-science currency. To this end, I built upon the triad of “Do-Delve-Reflect” - a method introduced by Maggie Vlietstra and Nadia Kalman from Words Without Borders. The malleable triad intertwined with the tarot reading proved to be a useful methodology in gaining the students’ attention.  Since tarot was relatively new, especially to be used in a formal class setting, it inaugurated an easy flow of conversations fuelled by curiosity as well as skepticism. A question from one of the students that stands out in particular related to the role of reading their body through the emotions - and one that I found extremely relevant considering that my teaching would not attain its goal if the students were feeling out of their bodies. But did that mean we cancel classes? No! We began our classes with a tarot exercise. After a preliminary introduction to tarot, I would ask my students to think of scholarly alternatives to the images on the card.  For a week, we worked on illustrating our collective deck, listening to our emotions and sitting with them through the class - we worked through the triangulated paradigm - “do-delve-reflect”, delving into our emotions, and reflecting on them through the class - assessing our lessons by being and aligning with our bodies. As a sampler, here are two examples of tarot cards from my class: Sona Srivastava Changed Sword to Pen;  The Suit of Swords Tarot card meanings are associated with action, change, force, power, oppression, ambition, courage, and conflict. Action can be constructive and/or destructive. The negative aspects of the Suit of Swords include anger, guilt, harsh judgement, a lack of compassion, and verbal and mental abuse. We changed the sword for a pen. Through this change, we reflected on the power of the pen - the pen as a sword for a scholar, capable not only of external changes but also changes within. This card proved particularly useful when students seemed a bit hesitant in expressing their thoughts through writing. Working as a prompt, the students got around to embracing free-writing with much more ease.  Sona Srivastava Changed the Woman with the Lion to a Table of Books The Strength card in tarot is usually associated with nonviolence, self-compassion, healing, patience, gentleness, sensitivity, acceptance, responsibility, and safety. It signifies the ability to overcome challenges and usually indicates an inward, introspective turn to locate power within.  By tweaking the image to a table of books, the students were encouraged to think of reading certain books as a challenge or the hurdles they overcame to access education or inconveniences encountered in class. This, again, emerged as an interesting exercise for students to introspect and reflect on their own journeys - one that continues to fuel their thirst for knowledge.  Tarot, thus, emerged as a useful pedagogical tool to spark curiosity and thinking in students. With a fair caveat, such alternative tools of pedagogy work wonders in classrooms where the students may initially seem indifferent or hesitant. It only takes a card to get the conversation going!   References Regulski, Erin. Find Your Power: Tarot. Godsfield, 2023.    The theme for WIS ‘26, artifact, invites colleagues to connect writing, art, and facts. Special features include a makerspace, an Artifact Exchange, and an opportunity to contribute to a scholarly publication. Proposals as well as applications for Bedford/St. Martin’s WIS Fellows are due 10/24; undergraduate contributions are due 11/21. Registration opens in November, and the event itself takes place onsite and online January 29th and 30th, 2026.   ... View more

This post is part of a 2025 series affiliated with the Writing Innovation Symposium (WIS), a regional event with national reach founded in 2018. Learn more below and in posts tagged “writing innovation” and “WIS.”   By Jenn Fishman   I leave each WIS feeling epically epideictic. I want to sing—and dance and shout—my gratitude to all who come together annually to make the symposia  happen, to make each one such a memorable happening.    The WIS is what it is—a heady combination of writing, innovation, and symposing—thanks first to WIS attendees. Our registration list always includes a substantial showing of first-timers. Every year, for example, we welcome en masse new GTAs taking writing pedagogy across town at UW-Milwaukee. Other new WIStians find us through word of mouth and our online CFP, which circulates starting in late August or early September. Many first-time WIS attendees arrive in small groups and pairs, and some attend solo, which may be the ultimate act of professional bravery and hope.    Symposium registrants also include returning WISers. Some colleagues in this category join us every couple few years; others attend even more regularly, logging onto Zoom or braving the weather and the vagaries of the early quarter or semester to convene in Milwaukee. I think of Lansing Community College colleagues Barb Clauer and Melissa Kaplan, who have over the years helped shape WIS themes. I think of co-presenters like Megan Mericle and Natalie Taylor, whose WIS attendance spans their graduate and early post-graduate years. I think of Abigayle Farrier, who has withstood ice storms and institutional precarity to travel from Texas to participate. I also think of Marcia Buell driving up from Northeastern Illinois University with her undergraduate and graduate students. Then, there is the crew from Western Michigan University—Kyle Battle, Tristan Heibel, Emilie Helmbold, Sophia Khan, Morgan Shiver, and David Yarnall—and the group that comes to us from CUNY: an intrepid, merry band led by Mark McBeth that over the years has included Jessica Yood as well as Tuka Al-Sahlani, Dev Harris, Zach Muhlbauer, and Rani Srinivasan.   We gather for WIS in specific spaces. Along with Zoom boxes, we inhabit the Beaumier Suites Conference Center in Raynor Library on the Marquette University campus, and we return each year to a local restaurant, Braise. These spaces and others—The Ambassador Hotel and the Gin Rickey Bar, Bollywood Grill, the Haggerty Art Museum on campus, the Milwaukee Art Museum downtown—are part of the fabric of the symposium, and my epic gratitude extends to the people who steward and maintain them. In particular, the WIS benefits from the radical hospitality of Tara Baillargeon, Dean of Raynor Library, and her colleagues, including Denise Hyland, Kerry Oliveti, Elaine Knaus, and Darwin Sanders, whose job title, “IT Support Associate,” does not begin to tell the story of his talents, his generosity, or his shaping impact on the WIS. Likewise, the WIS is richer and more dynamic for our relationship to Macmillan Learning through colleagues like Joy Fisher Williams, Laura Davidson, Simi Dutt, and Mackenzie Denofio. They afford us both analog and digital spaces to gather and share ideas, first in real-time conversation and then via the Bits blogs.   If there is a sine qua non of the WIS, it is the Steering Committee (SC). A cross-institutional volunteer operation, the WIS ‘25 SC includes the inestimable Darci Thoune, Gitte Frandsen, Grant Gosizk, Jenna Green, Jessie Wirkus Haynes, Kaia Simon, Kelsey Otero, Lilly Campbell, Maxwell Gray, Nora Boxer, and Patrick Thomas. I find it hard to describe or characterize the full extent of their contributions. Maybe the WIS is like sourdough. As Ashley Beardlsey asked us to consider at her pre-WIS presentation, the process of kneading dough by hand means each loaf as well as the persisting starter literally embodies some of its maker. So, too, does each WIS incorporate the time, energy, and attention as well as the savvy, smarts, and care of Steering Committee members, individually and together.   My enduring gratitude is as much for the process of making each WIS as it is for the 2-day event itself.I am grateful for the experience of our work together as well as the phenomenon of our ongoing collaboration. May everyone who reads this post have an opportunity to be part of a WIS, whether it’s our Writing Innovation Symposium or an analogue, whatever form and format that might take.    The theme for WIS ‘26, artifact, invites colleagues to connect writing, art, and facts. Special features include a makerspace, an Artifact Exchange, and an opportunity to contribute to a scholarly publication. Proposals as well as applications for Bedford/St. Martin’s WIS Fellows are due 10/24; undergraduate contributions are due 11/21. Registration opens in November, and the event itself takes place onsite and online January 29th and 30th, 2026.   ... View more

This post is part of a 2025 series affiliated with the Writing Innovation Symposium (WIS), a regional event with national reach founded in 2018. Raegan Gronseth and Marshall Kopacki, 2025 Bedford/Saint-Martin’s WIS Fellows, are recent graduates of Marquette University and coauthors of a novel-in-progress. Learn more below and in posts tagged “writing innovation” and “WIS.”   By Marshall Kopacki and Raegan Gronseth In Part One, we talked your metaphorical ears off about ourselves and our process, but what does that have to do with you? It doesn’t, really – but we can offer you something to take away from all this! We’ve compiled a series of collaborative writing tips with recommendations for how you can implement what we’ve learned through trial and error, specifically for undergrads learning to write together effectively.    Knowing who you’re working with will help with communication. Work together and form partnerships. Anyone can learn to be in sync with anyone else with enough time and effort.    Having a good relationship with your project partner is imperative to having a shot at making an entire shared project work. For the purposes of this kind of writing, having people that are very similar work together will make the entire process much easier. Too much disparity in demeanor or interests can/will result in disengagement with each other, one student doing the majority or all of the work, and/or developing a project neither student particularly cares about. Random partnering will guarantee similar problems.   The key to collaborative writing is essentially being on the same wavelength as your partner to the greatest extent possible. Feeling alienated by the person you’re working with is never fun or effective. Having a pre-established relationship to your project partner is a huge advantage when communication is key. It also cuts out the time required to get comfortable enough with strangers to be productive. However, being paired with a friend isn’t always an option. You may have to get to know someone from scratch. It can be a daunting task, but it also can help you make friends with someone you may not have otherwise talked to. One of the most enriching parts of collaborative writing is developing a working relationship and friendship with your partner. Who knows, it could continue on outside of class. (Ours did.)   When working with a partner you don’t know, try to find common ground as fast as possible. You might be surprised about what kinds of similarities you share. Do you both have pets? The same minor? Are you taking other classes together? You’ve already ended up at the same school, taking the same class, at the same time, so surely there are other things in your life that overlap in some way. Identifying similar interests will help develop project concepts later down the line that you’re equally invested in.    Try not to let your project ideas develop too much before partnerships are formed. When someone gets an idea they’re really excited about in their head, any suggestion from the other party will feel like compromising. Instead, allow room for play. Brainstorming is the most fun part of projects, it’s also the best way to engage with each other’s unique perspectives.    To make this really work as a collaborative project, you have to find something you both want to work on equally. For example, you both like poetry. You think: I want to write a series of poems about nature, and they want to write a series of poems about the human experience. Great, we can work on writing poems together! Now, here’s the problem. You both already have in your head a theme you want to focus on. If you get this far, you’ll probably try to pitch a project where you can just both write separate poems with their respective themes and put them together into the same document and call it a poetry collection. That wouldn’t be wrong, you would complete a writing project you both contributed to, but that really defeats the purpose of collaboration. You would be working independently, with your own creative goals, to put together something less than cohesive. Alternatively, you could work towards a common, driving theme to center the poems around. People don’t love to compromise, and having to piece your concepts together, or come up with something new after the fact, will make you feel forced out of your own ideas, and frustrated with the partnership. You don’t want that.    We know we’ve been drilling the idea of working with people as similar as possible into this, but really, no two people are exactly the same. Having things in common is important for establishing a baseline for connection and potentially a project concept, but embrace each other’s differences, too. Lots of (super interesting!) interdisciplinary projects are the result of people with different interests working together towards a common goal.    Regardless of how alike you are to your working partner, you will both be exposed to new ideas and perspectives. This is where creativity starts to flourish. One of you wants to write about nature, and the other wants to write about the human experience? Now you’re both working on a shared collection about the relationship between humans and the environment with each partner focusing on different perspectives, and taking stylistic inspiration from your personal favorite authors.    An additional note, play time is integral to brainstorming, but also developing a relationship to the partner. Getting off task is beneficial here, within reason. The more you know about each other, the easier productive communication will become.    We outlined what works for us, but that won’t work for everyone. No formulas, procedures, or steps will ever work for everyone. Figure out what works for you. Lots of verbal communication is the only thing we can say for certain makes working together more effective.    Writing methods aren’t something that can be strictly taught so much as are stumbled upon. This is frustrating for everyone, always – writing collaboratively or individually. Processes, tips, and methods can be suggested, but trying to follow specific steps to write successfully and expecting them to work for you and your partner together, is often unrealistic. As everyone’s individual writing process is unique, so is every writing partnership’s process. We swear by our method, and wholeheartedly believe that nothing else could be easier or more effective, but that all has to be taken with a grain of salt.    If you can’t follow a miracle method, you can (and should) find your own groove. Writing collaboratively is impossible to do without excessive thinking out loud and sound boarding. Even at the point where the project is plotted and just needs to be written, having someone physically present to give feedback, read aloud, or discuss direction is significantly more helpful than exchanging paper feedback or emails. And again, the point of co-writing is to co-write. Every step of the process should be based on shared ideas, decisions, and visions. The more comfortable you are with verbalizing your concerns or ideas, the more integrated both you and your partner will be throughout your shared work.    The theme for WIS ‘26, artifact, invites colleagues to connect writing, art, and facts. Special features include a makerspace, an Artifact Exchange, and an opportunity to contribute to a scholarly publication. Proposals as well as applications for Bedford/St. Martin’s WIS Fellows are due 10/24; undergraduate contributions are due 11/21. Registration opens in November, and the event itself takes place onsite and online January 29th and 30th, 2026. ... View more

This post is part of a 2025 series affiliated with the Writing Innovation Symposium (WIS), a regional event with national reach founded in 2018. Marshall Kopacki and Raegan Gronseth, 2025 Bedford/Saint-Martin’s WIS Fellows, are recent graduates of Marquette University and coauthors of a novel-in-progress. Learn more below and in posts tagged “writing innovation” and “WIS.” By Marshall Kopacki and Raegan Gronseth This January, we had the pleasure of attending our first professional/academic symposium ever. Being undergraduate students, this opportunity was hugely edifying because, well, these kinds of things have a demographic of almost entirely instructors. We often felt like flies on the wall, listening in on panels and flash talks about how to work with and teach students that were functionally us.    Our interest in the way these well-established educators interacted with each other and communicated about their research and pedagogies was borderline anthropological; it felt like a deep dive into a culture completely disparate from our own, with terms and mutual understandings everyone but us seemed to be in on. Apparently, they would eventually be doing anthropological research on us too – a cultural exchange, if you will.   The role of educators as students, and the “cultural exchange”, was most apparent to us when we had the chance to explain why we were there. We were told before the symposium that people would be especially interested in our process as collaborative writers, but we thought it wouldn’t be as big of a deal as we were told it would be. When we started writing collaboratively, it felt like second nature. It didn't occur to us that that would be interesting to anyone. That was quickly proven wrong. It seemed that everyone we talked to wanted to know how we do it, what we did to figure out a sustainable process for creative co-writing, especially as undergrads. It turns out that collaborative writing is something people have been trying to crack for a long time.   How we make it work   The process we've outlined here is what we've found works for us when we're working on the same project together (the same process we used to write this post), but, interestingly, is different in some significant ways from the processes we follow when we each write solo. That's not to say that this process couldn't work for an individual, too, but it's tailored for ease of writing with a partner.   The two most important things to remember are that you must trust in your partner's creative competency, and that you can't take anything personally. Writing with more than one person means more than one mind producing ideas, and not all of those ideas will be the best way forward; make sure you're both ready to express and receive critical feedback! It should be more fun and exciting than stressful or daunting, ideally.   Thorough plotting: All chapters are outlined beat by beat prior to writing. Because we know most of what happens before we start, creative conflicts are avoided during writing.    Before we sit down and attempt to produce any actual prose in a new chapter, we verbally discuss and then bullet point all of the major events that'll happen and what order they'll happen in. We also make notes for specific details or descriptions we want to include, bits of dialogue, minor events, gaps, questions, and other unsure spots. This ensures that we can be fully on the same page when we start the prose.   Bracket system: The outline is broken down into individual brackets for every action. We build the chapter out from the main actions, then fill in the details using the bracketed summaries as a guide.    If writing is like making a Build-a-Bear, the brackets are that first step where you pick out your favorite empty plush bear skin. The stuffing, in this case, is all of that detail and internality. A bracket might say something like [John has a thought about his mother's cooking before telling Andy that he can't make it to dinner]. To get that out of the brackets, you have to fill in all of the internal bits. What prompted John to think about his mother? Does the restaurant Andy wants to go to serve food like John's mother makes? Does John hate his mother's cooking? Love it? What does that thought tell us about his decision to not go to dinner?   If you're using a word processor that offers the ability to leave comments, those can be a helpful tool for working out the tougher brackets. When tackling harder chunks of the story, we often write out several possible draft paragraphs and leave those as comments on the bracket for the other one to read and weigh in on. Having a second mind can really help cut down on time spent waffling between two ways to describe a guy’s eye color.   Verbal dialogue writing: Everything we put on the page we say out loud first.    It's really that simple. One of the most frequent comments we receive on our collaborative work is that our dialogue feels convincing, human, and realistic, even when it's ridiculous. Every time people talk to each other in the story, we're talking to each other out loud, adjusting until it feels like a conversation that two people would actually have. The whole process of writing can be so overwhelmingly messy, but funnily enough, we think that a big roadblock new writers experience with dialogue is trying to keep it too clean; in real life, people do a lot of half-answers and talking past each other. Some characters might communicate in clear, precise terms, and that's a telling trait! But when we're going for a natural conversation flow (or even a purposefully scattered flow), building the dialogue verbally first goes a long way. This is one of the privileges of writing a collaborative work: there's always someone that knows just as much about the story as you do.   Writing as the characters: We did a lot of character work before starting our book, and we write using the character’s voice rather than our own.    Another comment, or question, we often get is: "How do you keep it from sounding like you've Frankensteined together two different stories?" (Or something to that effect; I can't say anyone has asked in those terms specifically.) The answer to this comes in two parts.   The first part is character guides. We made cheat sheets for every prospective character in our novel which outline the character's general demeanor, how broad their vocabulary is, how they address the other characters, and how various moods, stressors, or changes throughout the story affect all of those things. This, much like the thorough chapter-by-chapter outlines, keeps us on the same page and makes editing way easier. When we’re working on nonfiction works together, we preemptively discuss tone, casualness, and sometimes structure/format of the writing, which seems to be enough.    Two writers, two editors: We write and edit each other's work. Most paragraphs end up being written about 50/50 because of the heavy editing and re-working.   This is the second part of the answer to that cohesion question. We know that we're not going to get it right every time. We also know that we have different strengths and weaknesses, so we made peace with the fact that we both have to trust the other to edit our writing. It can be hard to relinquish control like that, but it's necessary for the process and always ends up better than it would have if we were working separately.   The theme for WIS ‘26, artifact, invites colleagues to connect writing, art, and facts. Special features include a makerspace, an Artifact Exchange, and an opportunity to contribute to a scholarly publication. Proposals as well as applications for Bedford/St. Martin’s WIS Fellows are due 10/24; undergraduate contributions are due 11/21. Registration opens in November, and the event itself takes place onsite and online January 29th and 30th, 2026. ... View more

This post is part of a 2025 series affiliated with the Writing Innovation Symposium (WIS), a regional event with national reach founded in 2018. Shannon Hautman, a 2025 Bdford/Saint-Martin’s WIS Fellow, is a writing instructor at the University of Cincinnati. Learn more below and in posts tagged “writing innovation” and “WIS.”   By Shannon Hautman A few semesters ago, I began re-tooling my FYW course to create a more generous and specific place-based welcome to university-level writing. I wanted to introduce students to rhetoric and multimodality through research and writing that was low-stakes but high impact, collaborative, and relevant to first-years navigating their way through a new environment: their university.  Spanning five weeks with two 80-minute class meetings per week, “Texts on Campus” is an assignment sequence that invites students, firstly, to physically explore our campus and, next, to contribute what they learn to a shared class Google map. Last, students write a one page essay on the campus text they mapped. Throughout this process, students consider their community as a dynamic, rhetorically rich environment while developing the noticing, noting, and critical analysis skills required for a variety of composing practices.  The assignment sequence begins with students reading Melanie Gagich’s “An Introduction to and Strategies for Multimodal Composing” and working in small groups with a range of texts, learning to notice and analyze the five modes of communication: linguistic, visual, spatial, aural, and gestural. As Gagich’s concepts move from the abstract to concrete, there’s distinct excitement in our conversation: students are noticing the messages in their everyday environment and interrogating meaning.  Next, we physically explore the campus in search of multimodal texts that resonate with the students, perhaps engendering a sense of belonging, driving their curiosity, or challenging worldviews. Once each student has selected a text, we work on noting practices, gathering data for our class map entries through photo, video, and/or audio recording, detailed written description, and GPS coordinates.  Back in the classroom, students self-organize thematic groups that represent the layers or categories on their map, and they make collaborative rhetorical choices to determine the design of their layer. Then, each student is responsible for creating a location-specific pin with the media and written data collected during their fieldwork. In the image below, student Nakinah Ward’s map entry features a photograph and brief description of her multimodal text: a “Vote Cthulhu” flyer found on our campus green. The description details the visual, linguistic, and spatial modes present in the text. Nakinah Ward Under the “Student Life + Wellness” map layer, student Darla Kern used multiple video clips to document the multimodal text “Bearcat Friday,” a school spirit event featuring a performance by the University of Cincinnati’s marching band.  Darla Kern As they compose, peers give each other feedback: what types of information would be helpful for others to know if they use the map to locate each text? Is the map entry clear and accessible to readers with varying levels of familiarity with our campus? Knowing that their chosen texts were created for public audiences, they now have an opportunity to engage in their own public and participatory writing process, developing the digital literacy skills Gagich outlines in our anchor reading. When completed, the map is a collective multimodal work that represents the class’s vision of significant texts on campus.  Using concepts and strategies from “Backpacks vs. Briefcases: Steps toward Rhetorical Analysis” by Laura Bolin Carroll, students transition into composing a one page narrative essay analyzing their text. Because we are working with place-based texts, I invite them to consider the roles of location and context in their writing. Darla wrote about the rhetorical moves associated with location in her analysis of “Bearcats Friday:” I found the location of Bearcat Fridays to be particularly impactful as the text occurs on one of the most busy areas of campus right in the middle of the day when many classes are scheduled. Which ensures a large audience as there are certainly an abundance of students around. This text poses as a reminder of what fun is to come heading into the next day. Everyone passing by interacts with this text in some way as it is nearly impossible to ignore, with the loud music playing and people dancing right on Mainstreet. I personally have such a positive reaction as the text fills me with excitement and encourages school spirit within our community. Darla also notes that because this text recurs on multiple Fridays throughout the semester, it becomes a prominent, consistent message, increasing the potential resonance with the audience.   Nakinah addresses context in the “Vote Cthulhu” flyer, noting our campus atmosphere surrounding the 2024 presidential election: “Politics is considered a sensitive subject for many so treading carefully is wise. The cheeky, sarcastic humor and absurdity of the poster soften the edge of how nerve-wracking and truly important picking politicians are. With a sense of nihilism, it criticizes an interesting group of people: apolitical Americans.” Nakinah found that humor acts as an approachable entry point “forc[ing] the audience to think about their power and the complexities and intricacies of their morality.”  “Texts on Campus” is a foundational pedagogy in my FYW classes because it provides multiple low stakes (and fun!) opportunities for students to engage with threshold concepts. Most importantly, it invites connection to physical places, to peers, and to writing. At the end of the unit, some students share that their mapped text has become a meaningful place for them. Others most enjoy the process of exploration and documentation. Many point to their gained awareness for message and meaning in the world around them. As a student enthusiastically shared, “Rhetoric is everywhere. Now I know how to look for it and analyze it.”     Many thanks to University of Cincinnati FYW students Nakinah Ward and Darla Kern for permission to use their work.    Works Cited Carroll, Laura Bolin. “Backpacks vs. Briefcases: Steps toward Rhetorical Analysis.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing Volume 1, edited by Charley Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky, Parlor Press, 2010, pp. 45-58.  Gagich, Melanie. “An Introduction to and Strategies for Multimodal Composing.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing Volume 3, edited by Dana Driscoll, Mary Stewart, and Matthew Vetter, Parlor Press, 2020, pp. 65-85.   Further Reading Santee, J. “Cartographic Composition Across the Curriculum: Promoting Cartographic Literacy Using Maps As Multimodal Texts”. Prompt: A Journal of Academic Writing Assignments, vol. 6, no. 2, Aug. 2022, doi:10.31719/pjaw.v6i2.95.  Santee, Joy. “‘Maps Are Cool’: Investigating the Potentials for Map-Making in Multimodal Pedagogies.” Digital Rhetoric Collaborative, 21 Feb. 2021, www.digitalrhetoriccollaborative.org/2022/02/21/maps-are-cool-investigating-the-potentials-for-map-making-in-multimodal-pedagogies/.    The theme for WIS ‘26, artifact, invites colleagues to connect writing, art, and facts. Special features include a makerspace, an Artifact Exchange, and an opportunity to contribute to a scholarly publication. Proposals as well as applications for Bedford/St. Martin’s WIS Fellows are due 10/24; undergraduate contributions are due 11/21. Registration opens in November, and the event itself takes place onsite and online January 29th and 30th, 2026. ... View more

By Jasmine Rodriguez    “Books are sometimes windows, offering views of worlds that may be real or imagined, familiar or strange. These windows are also sliding glass doors, and readers have only to walk through in imagination to become part of whatever world has been created or recreated by the author. When lighting conditions are just right, however, a window can also be a mirror.” —Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop   The email subject line was simple: “Publication Request.” It was from Michael Bell, a Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU) UWW graduate from Stateville Correctional Center. What followed in his letter was an invitation that would profoundly shift my understanding of powerful storytelling and community impact: a request to help produce and digitize “Mic Drop,” a 32-page manuscript brimming with the unheard voices of Stateville. As an editor for the Student Media Board (SMB) at NEIU, I had gained hands-on publishing experience, but this project was different. It wasn’t just about technical skills; it was about honoring Michael’s vision to ensure these critical stories were told by the authors themselves. And in that moment, as I held the first issue of “Mic Drop”—filled with handwritten reflections and deeply personal narratives—I knew this was a mirror and a window we absolutely had to share with the world. “Mic Drop” isn't just a collection of writings; it's a testament to the power of self-expression born from Michael’s own initiative, not an academic assignment. It chronicles the experiences within the Rebirth of Sound (ROS) Studio, an accredited music program at Stateville. Let me take you on a tour inside this powerful newsletter, highlighting two pieces that particularly resonated and exemplify the profound insights Macmillan Bits’ readers can gain from these voices. One compelling reflection comes from Yarmale Thomas, a member of ROS's first cohort. He shares his experience creating a song to raise awareness about parole in Illinois, as part of the “Bring It Back” campaign. Thomas recounted witnessing rappers like Chance the Rapper urging lawmakers to reintroduce a parole system. He describes how “R.O.S. has given the opportunity to experience the power of music creation, positive reinforcement, and brotherhood where our voices are heard and captured and shared with the world.” His words powerfully illustrate the transformative impact of music on incarcerated students’ lives and how creative expression can overcome communication barriers, offering valuable lessons on the reach of powerful storytelling. Thomas’s story perfectly encapsulates how community-driven artistic endeavors provide vital opportunities for individuals to voice personal and collective concerns. Another powerful perspective is found in the “At The Roundtable” section, with an article titled “The Round Table” by DeCedrick Walker, a member of ROS's third cohort. Walker describes the roundtable as a regular practice in ROS, where participants check in before and after music-making sessions. He discloses a moment when a member shared their advanced stage of cancer diagnosis. In that moment, they were “collectively angry, empathetic, and attentive” and realized the “need for the roundtable” for moments to connect and support each other. This piece highlights how these spaces foster profound connection and emotional support within a carceral setting, demonstrating the crucial role that community and empathy play in personal growth and resilience. This collective sharing also points to how these engagements create “rhizomatic affective spaces” in prison, allowing participants to find moments of mental escape and positive connection that make the experience more tolerable. Throughout the process of producing “Mic Drop,” the pedagogical takeaways were immense. A key aspect was the unwavering commitment to incorporating student feedback on both content and design choices. Michael Bell provided us with reference newsletters made by incarcerated students in the Illinois Department of Corrections, and we meticulously followed the ROS students’ directions. This meant focusing on the visual appeal of a color-coding system for sections, incorporating high-quality images as storytelling elements, and increasing font size for better readability — all decisions driven by their invaluable input. This facilitator approach ensured the newsletter truly reflected their vision and voices, empowering the writers with agency over their own work – a critical lesson for anyone involved in publishing or education. “Mic Drop” newsletter served a similar function to other contemplative methods used in carceral-university writing partnerships, acting as a tangible artifact of the deep rhetorical listening and reflective writing that occurred within the ROS program. Ultimately, “Mic Drop” is more than just a newsletter; it's a profound demonstration of how self-published works from unexpected places can offer vital insights into the human experience. For those of us in publishing, education, or any field committed to social justice, it serves as a powerful reminder of the immense talent and unique perspectives that exist when we truly commit to amplifying marginalized voices. Supporting projects like “Mic Drop”—whether as readers, advisors, or by seeking out similar publications—allows us to bridge divides, challenge preconceptions, and ensure that these essential “mirrors and windows” are available to everyone. It highlights the importance of community-engaged projects and offers inspiration for opportunities to get involved in ensuring diverse voices find their platform.   This post is part of a 2025 series affiliated with the Writing Innovation Symposium (WIS), a regional event with national reach founded in 2018. Jasmine Rodriguez, a 2025 Bedford/Saint-Martin’s WIS Fellow, is a Master’s student at Northeastern Illinois University, where she is active on the Student Media Board. Learn more and in posts tagged “writing innovation” and “WIS.” The theme for WIS ‘26, artifact, invites colleagues to connect writing, art, and facts. Special features include a makerspace, an Artifact Exchange, and an opportunity to contribute to a scholarly publication. Proposals as well as applications for Bedford/St. Martin’s WIS Fellows are due 10/24; undergraduate contributions are due 11/21. Registration opens in November, and the event itself takes place onsite and online January 29th and 30th, 2026.     Work Cited Bishop, Rudine Sims. “Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors.” Perspectives: Choosing and Using Books for the Classroom, Vol. 6, No. 3, 1990, https://scenicregional.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Mirrors-Windows-and-Sliding-Glass-Doors.pdf. Kertz-Welzel, Alexandra. “Daring to Question: A Philosophical Critique of Community Music.” Philosophy of Music Education Review, Vol. 24, No. 2, 2016, pp. 113–30. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2979/philmusieducrevi.24.2.01. Kougiali, Zetta, et al. “Rhizomatic Affective Spaces and the Therapeutic Potential of Music in Prison: A Qualitative Meta-Synthesis.” Qualitative Research in Psychology, vol. 15, no. 1, Jan. 2018, pp. 1–28. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2017.1359710. Moseley, Sarah. “Contemplative Methods for Prison-University Writing Partnerships: Building Sangha Through ‘The Om Exchange.’” Reflections: A Journal of Public Rhetoric, Civic  Writing & Service Learning, Vol. 19, No. 1, March 2019, pp. 118–33. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=d28d2662-b2b3-31cc-b011-48b7bd2ca501.     ... View more

By Heather Martin   This post is part of a 2025 series affiliated with the Writing Innovation Symposium (WIS), a regional event with national reach founded in 2018. Heather Martin, a 2025 Bedford/Saint-Martin’s WIS Fellow, is a teaching professor at the University of Denver. Learn more below and in posts tagged “writing innovation” and “WIS.”   Each year, the Writing Innovation Symposium (WIS) brings teachers, scholars, and writers to Marquette University to share ideas about teaching writing in innovative and inclusive ways. In 2025, the WIS opened with a plenary roundtable, "Food as the First Ingredient," which was a conversation about place, food memories, and community activism. As an attendee, I was struck not just by the panelists’ stories, but by their presence. Moderated by Ashley Beardsley, the conversation between Caitlin Cullen, Gregory León, and Ryan Castelaz wasn’t just about food; it was about survival, mutual responsibility, and the invisible work of community care. Their reflections on the early days of COVID—how they scrambled to keep their restaurants open while feeding their neighbors—offered a moving example of what it means to show up for one another.   The panelists’ insights stayed with me this academic year, especially as I considered how presence fosters connection in my research-writing course, WRIT 1133: Food for Thought—and Writing. A research-writing course at the University of Denver, my sections of WRIT 1133 are both food themed and community engaged. Enrolled students explore food rhetorics through original research and collaboration with local food-justice and food-access organizations. Over the 10-week spring term, my students partnered with organizations including Café 180 (a pay-what-you-can restaurant), Slow Food Denver (which advocates for good, clean, and fair food), and We Don’t Waste (a food recovery and distribution nonprofit), among others. These partnerships grounded student research in real communities and real problems. But more than that, they modeled a way of learning that depends on care, responsiveness, and relational presence.   At Café 180, students worked shifts alongside staff, learning firsthand what it means to create a dignified space for people to eat—regardless of their ability to pay. With Slow Food Denver, they supported afterschool cooking classes that teach kids to prepare and enjoy healthy food, while gaining insight into the challenges of food education and access. Other students supported staff at We Don’t Waste, packing grocery items and accompanying food rescue trucks as they recovered and redistributed food across the city.   Again and again, my students found themselves returning to a central question: How can writing nourish a community?   Our classroom became a kind of test kitchen. As students drafted researcher positionality statements, interview questions, and policy briefs, they learned a kind of intellectual hospitality. They invited community voices into their writing, challenged their own assumptions, and began to see research not as a static product, but as a living conversation. In their final reflections, students reported changed relationships to food—but also to writing, activism, and each other.   This approach aligns with inspiring models of integrative learning I’ve found elsewhere. A compelling example is the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy (sometimes called Slow Food University). There, food is not merely a subject of study but a lens through which to tackle urgent questions of climate change, justice, and sustainability. The curriculum draws on anthropology, ecology, economics, and storytelling, among other disciplines. Students engage in fieldwork with producers and cooks, develop deep knowledge of place, and come to see the table not just as a cultural artifact but as a problem-solving space.   I find this model instructive, especially for community-engaged writing. Like the restaurateurs on the WIS panel, who showed up with care and commitment to their communities, Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini reminds us that slow food balances pleasure with responsibility. This balance invites students to show up fully and engage with presence—a practice that shapes how we read, write, and connect.   I’ve come to think of my classroom as a place where students don’t just analyze food systems; they metabolize them. They digest the contradictions, the policy gaps, and the lived experiences of hunger and access. In so doing, they develop a capacity for empathy that is both intellectual and embodied. And, crucially, they begin to understand that writing is not a solitary act but a shared meal—one that sustains, connects, and calls us to action.   In a time when both students and instructors are reckoning with disconnection, burnout, and institutional precarity, we need pedagogies that nourish. Community-engaged writing offers one such path. It requires presence, humility, and a willingness to be changed by what we encounter. Like any good meal, it takes time. But it also feeds something essential.   The theme for WIS ‘26, artifact, invites colleagues to connect writing, art, and facts. Special features include a makerspace, an Artifact Exchange, and an opportunity to contribute to a scholarly publication. Proposals as well as applications for Bedford/St. Martin’s WIS Fellows are due 10/24; undergraduate contributions are due 11/21. Registration opens in November, and the event itself takes place onsite and online January 29th and 30th, 2026. ... View more

Dear readers, You may have noticed that the Bedford Bits blog has not resumed its usual cadence of posts this fall. We are going on a short hiatus for this semester, but we'll be back and better than ever in early 2026! See you then! Michael Garcia English Community Site Manager ... View more

By: Jenn Fishman and Darci Thoune This post is part of a 2025 series affiliated with the Writing Innovation Symposium (WIS), a regional event with national reach founded in 2018. Learn more below from academic aunties—and WIS leadership—Darci Thoune and Jenn Fishman. Also look for posts tagged “writing innovation” and “WIS.”   The Writing Innovation Symposium (WIS) ‘25 theme, Mise en Place, emerged—as many good ideas do—from a conversation we had not long after the 2023 WIS. As food obsessives and writers, we were drawn to how this concept works as not only a literal approach to getting things in place as we prepare to cook but also as a metaphor for how we get ourselves ready to write. What better way, we asked each other, to pull so many of the things we love into conversation? Also, like past symposium themes, from Connect! to Writing as ________, Mise en Place seemed like the kind of phrase that would bring people together in delicious ways for the 2025 symposium. If we imagine each WIS as a two-day feast, with colleagues from across the country and around the world gathered together at a great table, two of our most beloved dining companions are colleagues from Macmillan, Laura Davidson and Joy Fisher Williams. Thanks to them, we are able to invite 3-6 early career colleagues to join WIS each year. Through our partnership with them, in 2022 we launched the Bedford/St. Martin’s WIS Fellows Program, which offers recipients mentorship and need-based financial support to attend the symposium as well as an opportunity to publish here in the Bits Blog. Over 4 years, the program has grown and grown, and in 2025, we welcomed our largest cohort and our first undergraduate B/SM WIS Fellows. The roster includes: Heather Martin, a teaching professor at the University of Denver who shared her WIS flashtalk, “Nourishing Belonging: Using Researcher Positionality Statements to Advance Student Wellbeing.” Holly E. Burgess, a returning fellow and doctoral candidate at Marquette who teaches first-year writing and researches African American literature, hip hop studies, and social movements. Jasmine Rodriguez, a Master's student at Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU) and Managing Editor and Senior Copy Editor of NEIU’s student newspaper, the Independent, who shared her WIS installation ‘“Mic Drop’ : A Collaborative Newsletter to Empower Incarcerated Students.” Shannon Hautman, an instructor at the University of Cincinnati who shared her WIS flashtalk, “Texts on Campus: Composing with Maps.” Sonakshi Srivastava , a returning fellow and writing tutor at Ashoka University in Sonepat, India, who shared her WIS flashtalk, “Spread the Deck: On Intuitive Writing.” Raegan Gronseth, a recent graduate of Marquette University who studied writing-intensive English as well as anthropology and theology, who is currently co-writing a novel with Marshall Kopacki. Marshall Kopacki, an MFA Fiction student at the University of Colorado at Boulder and recent graduate of Marquette University with a B.A. in Writing-Intensive English and Theology who is currently co-writing a novel with Raegan Gronseth.   This group attended WIS ‘25 both onsite and online, and they made vital contributions as writers, scholars, teachers, and colleagues. Before, during, and after the symposium, they were mentored by members of the 2025 WIS Steering Committee, including Gitte Frandsen, Jenna Green, Jessie Wirkus Haynes, Max Gray, and Nora Boxer. One of our goals with each WIS is to invite as many people as possible to join us at the proverbial table, where conversation flows, and ideas change as they are exchanged, and our goals as writers and writing educators become that much more possible to achieve. The Macmillan-WIS partnership enables us to turn aspirations into realities, as blog posts by this year’s B/SM WIS Fellows show. Bits contributions by Heather Martin, Jasmine Rodriguez, Sonakshi Srivastava, Shannon Hautman, Marshall Kopacki and Raegan Gronseth set the table for conversations that extend from the kitchen and the classroom to the community and beyond. We invite you to follow the tags for WIS and writing innovation, where you’ll find additional insights from past B/SM WIS Fellows and others. Through 10/24, which is the application due date, we invite colleagues to learn about the 2026 fellows opportunity. We also invite readers from near and far to watch the symposium website for information about how to attend WIS ‘26 either online or onsite January 29th and 30th. As in years past, the program simmers with opportunities, and however you are able to join us, we look forward to welcoming you in! The theme for WIS ‘26, artifact, invites colleagues to connect writing, art, and facts. Special features include a makerspace, an Artifact Exchange, and an opportunity to contribute to a scholarly publication. Proposals as well as applications for Bedford/St. Martin’s WIS Fellows are due 10/24; undergraduate contributions are due 11/21. Registration opens in November, and the event itself takes place onsite and online January 29th and 30th, 2026. ... View more

By Jenn Fishman and Darci Thoune This is the first post in a 2025 series affiliated with the Writing Innovation Symposium (WIS), a regional event with national reach founded in 2018. Learn more below from Chief Capacitator Jenn Fishman and WIS heart and soul Darci Thoune. Also look for posts tagged “writing innovation” and “WIS.”   The 2025 Writing Innovation Symposium was the 7th we’ve hosted since 2018. This time our theme grew out of questions we had for anyone and everyone who writes: How do you get ready? What—if anything—do you do, assemble, or otherwise prepare ahead of time? What shapes your practices? And what makes you break or revise any patterns you follow? We were motivated by more than idle curiosity. The writers and writing educators who attend “the WIS” each year bring keen interest in all things writing. Our group includes undergraduates and graduate students, some new to writing instruction, others serving as assistant directors in writing centers or programs. WISters are also faculty of various ranks, roles, and years of experience at 2- and 4-year colleges and universities. Some WISters work in campus libraries; others direct academic and arts outreach efforts. Close to three-quarters of participants attend onsite at Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI, and the rest log on from coast to coast in North America and from locations as far flung (so far) as the UK and India. Our questions about prep apply to cooking as well as writing, and that’s no accident. The WIS has always been a food-forward event. We like a little nosh during our Thursday morning write-on-sites, and we relish the hors d'oeuvres served during our Thursday reception and poster session. The coffee and tea flow throughout the symposium; we start Fridays with breakfast sandwiches; and no one leaves that afternoon without a boxed lunch. Too, thanks to the generosity of Macmillan Learning, we treat each cohort of Bedford/St. Martin WIS Fellows to a family-style meal across town at Braise, where (among other things) the mushroom risotto is renowned. Given all of the above, it was just a matter of time until our theme was mise en place. The phrase names the practice of gathering or preparing ingredients and equipment ahead of time, before starting to cook. The great French chef Auguste Escoffier gets credit for coining mise en place and for establishing the protocols that have been associated with it since the late nineteenth century. Of course, there is controversy. While mise en place is a mainstay in professional kitchens, opinion is divided among home cooks. While some like to set up everything just so before turning on the first burner, others prefer to prepare as they go, slicing and dicing in between stirring and popping dishes in and out of the oven. Notably, the WIS is less about taking sides and more about exploring the year’s theme, and WIS ‘25 was no different. To make the most of mise en place, we started with a plenary roundtable led by Ashley Beardsley. She directs the writing center at UMass Dartmouth, and her research spans from food media to sourdough rhetorics. At the WIS, she led everyone in an initial mad libs-style getting-to-know-you exercise, and she facilitated a thought-provoking conversation among three luminaries from the Milwaukee food scene. The roster included 2 James Beard-nominated stalwarts, Ryan Castelaz (Discourse Coffee Workshop, Agency Cocktail Lounge) and Gregory León (Amilinda). Joined by Caitlin Cullin, the true mensch of the group (Tandem, Kinship Community Food Center), they talked about everything from their favorite Wisconsin dishes to the politics of food, the ethics of hospitality as an industry, and the ways culinary workers can be agents of change in their communities. The mainstay at WIS is concurrent sessions, which feature either panels of 5-minute flashtalks or 75-minute workshops. In 2025, the former, flashtalks, included menus for belonging, potluck approaches to curriculum design, and strategies for using stories about meals to spark questions and related research. The latter, workshops, gave participants opportunities to roll up their sleeves and try new approaches to activities such as assessment, visualizing data, writing with AI, and writing personal stories, whether autoethnographies or personal statements. Additionally, Macmillan sponsored a workshop on transnationalizing first-year writing led by Lauren Rosenberg. The author of a custom-published Macmillan textbook, she directs the award-winning first-year composition program at the University of Texas-El Paso. Flashtalks and workshops are not the only WIS genres, however. We now have 2 just for undergraduate writers: 3-minute flares, which we introduced at WIS ‘24, and 30-second sparks, which were new to WIS ‘25. Both are audio or audiovisual compositions, which enable undergrads to pre-record their contributions and participate asynchronously as well as at no charge. An overview of the genres along with the 2026 prompts are available online; submissions are due 11/21. Annually, our reception features posters and interactive displays. In 2025, they addressed topics as varied as picture books and narrative writing, creative data visualization, digital literacy, and new materialist feminist rhetorical praxes, which took the form of #ConferenceCreatures. In addition, in 2025 the WIS boasted not one but two installations. Together, historians Amanda Seligman and Lillian Pachner reanimated successive years of live tweets by students in a UW-Milwaukee course dedicated to recovering and retelling the city’s history. Through their work, events such as the first official weather forecast in the US and the birth of Zero, a legendary polar bear, went live once again. In addition, Jasmine Rodriguez shared the first issue of “Mic Drop,” a newsletter about the transformative power of music, written and illustrated by incarcerated students at Stateville Correctional Center. Her installation showcased how creative work can foster communication across both real and metaphorical barriers. No surprise, no one left WIS ‘25 hungry or empty handed. Instead, WIS ‘25 souvenirs included copies of The WIS Community Cookbook. With 34 recipes from symposium participants 2018-2025, our spiral bound book is the latest published manifestation of the WIS. It includes recipes for cocktails, kombucha, and coffee drinks; campus collaboration, blues harp, and humble pie; deviled eggs, salmon cakes, and anise animal cookies; stir fry tomato eggs, fried gizzards, and besan pinni. From “Chef’s Frosted Flakes Supreme” to “How to Make a COVID-19 Commemorative Quilt” and “Agnes’s ‘Nice’ Dinner,” our book captures both the spirit of the WIS community and some of the many, many ways that writing nourishes and sustains us all. If your curiosity or your appetite is piqued, join us for WIS ‘26. Our theme, artifact, invites prospective participants to think about how writing triangulates with art and facts, and special features will include a makerspace, an Artifact Exchange, and an opportunity to contribute to a scholarly publication. Proposals for flashtalks, workshops, posters, displays, and installations as well as applications for Bedford/St. Martin’s WIS Fellows are due 10/24; recorded sparks and flares are due 11/21. Registration opens in November, and the event itself takes place onsite and online January 29th and 30th, 2026.   The theme for WIS ‘26, artifact, invites colleagues to connect writing, art, and facts. Special features include a makerspace, an Artifact Exchange, and an opportunity to contribute to a scholarly publication. Proposals as well as applications for Bedford/St. Martin’s WIS Fellows are due 10/24; undergraduate contributions are due 11/21. Registration opens in November, and the event itself takes place onsite and online January 29th and 30th, 2026. ... View more

Today's Tiny Teaching Story is by Louise Olivier, faculty lecturer at Yorkville University.           It's 'bleh' today I was tidying my desk, waiting for class to begin, when I heard a soft, familiar voice: "Nobody asks me if I'm 'yeh', 'meh,' or 'bleh' anymore. Please ask me." A former student, stopping by, holding out their heart in three simple words. I'd used this check-in as a casual ritual, unaware of its quiet power. In that moment, I realised what felt like a small routine to me had become a lifeline for them. They wanted to be seen, heard – even briefly. I now ask every time. It's no longer a habit. It's a promise of being and belonging.   Submit your own Tiny Teaching Story to tinyteachingstories@macmillan.com! See the Tiny Teaching Stories Launch for submission details and guidelines. ... View more

I know that we all have a lot more to worry about these days than what happened to The Cracker Barrel Old Country Store restaurant franchise when it attempted to change its corporate logo without consulting its most devoted clientele, but strangely enough, this tiny blip on the radar of the vast panorama of American cultural history actually bears enormous significance—which makes it a useful topic not only for this blog but for your composition classroom as well, especially if you are making popular culture a focus of your teaching this year.  So, let's have a look of the whole fiasco.     What happened is very simple: like Anheuser-Busch's disastrous attempt to expand its consumer base to younger GEN Z beer drinkers by hooking up with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney a few years ago, the top brass at The Cracker Barrel decided that the restaurant chain's traditional logo—featuring an overalls-clad old codger (based on the uncle of the restaurant's founder) seated next to a tall barrel suggestive of an old-timey country store—needed to be scrapped in order to attract younger consumers.  The result was a clean new design featuring the words "Cracker Barrel," with the man-seated-by-a-barrel erased.  Then all hell broke loose. First, Cracker Barrel stock crashed, with about a hundred million dollars of corporate value lost in a single market session, and then both Trump Sr. and Jr. weighed in, along with a good portion of the MAGA faithful, denouncing the logo change as yet another instance of "woke" America run amok.  Even the fact that The Cracker Barrel's CEO—a recent hire—is a woman, got caught up in the frenzy, with accusations flying that there was DEI-related conspiracy behind the scrubbing of a white male from the logo.  The ensuing outrage was so intense that, after a brief attempt to explain and defend the new logo, The Cracker Barrel brass caved, scrapping the new design and scurrying back to the old one. Now, you hardly need to be told that the intensity of the reaction against the abortive new logo is yet another signifier of the culture war going on in America today.  But I want to go a bit further here and connect The Cracker Barrel affair with something that I explore in some depth in the 11th edition of Signs of Life in the U.S.A., something that happened over half a century ago when CBS abruptly cancelled most of its popular rural-themed programing (shows like The Beverly Hillbillies and Hee Haw) and replaced them with hip new urban programs like All in the Family and The Mary Tyler Moore Show.  The motivation for this cancellation (known by industry insiders as "the rural purge"), was just like that behind The Cracker Barrel logo redesign: namely, to appeal to younger, more urban and diverse, consumers.  But instead of there being an immediate explosion of outrage against the cancellations that might have compelled CBS to reverse course, there was instead a slow accumulation of resentment against a "mainstream" popular culture that continued to marginalize rural American tastes during the half century that followed, a resentment that finally exploded in the first decade of the new millennium with the creation of the Tea Party, and the subsequent emergence of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. Another way of putting this is that popular culture and political science go hand in hand.  People are deeply invested in their pop cultural preferences, and if we want to understand just what is going in America today, we need to look beyond the usual political news items and analyses to what is happening in popular culture—today, and in the years that brought us to where we are now.   The updated 11th edition of Signs of Life in the USA: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers is available now.                  Image courtesy of Mike Mozart via Wikimedia Commons ... View more

Bedford/St. Martin's is pleased to announce the participants in the 2025 Bedford New Scholars Advisory Board! This year's Bedford New Scholars are:     Janette Byrd is a PhD student and graduate assistant in rhetoric and composition at the University of Arkansas (U of A) where she teaches first year composition, technical writing, and style for professional writers. Janette recognizes every student in her classroom as a rhetor and embraces a social justice focused pedagogy. Janette completed her MA in applied cultural anthropology at Oregon State University (OSU) where she studied food in culture and social justice and was a peer reviewer for the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. Janette is the program director on a National Science Foundation ADVANCE grant at the U of A and previously served as assistant editor of the ADVANCE Journal at OSU. Current research interests include how systems, such as the criminal justice system, are narratively constructed, and the intersections of rhetoric and literacy in narrative change and system reform efforts. (Janette was recommended by Megan McIntyre.)    Courtney Crisp is a PhD candidate in Rhetoric and Composition with a specialization in Writing Across the Curriculum programming at Ball State University. Their research and pedagogical interests center rhetoric in popular culture, anti-racism, and linguistic justice. As they continue to teach first-year composition courses at both Ball State as well as a local community college, Courtney continues to research the ways that culture, embodiment, and experience shape students' perceptions of their roles as writers, scholars, and community members. (Courtney was recommended by Michael Donnelly.)          Greg Gillespie is a PhD student in Rhetoric, Writing, & Linguistics and teaches first-year composition at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He also tutors and coaches at the Judith Anderson Herbert Writing Center. His research interests include multimodal composition pedagogy, L2 writing, and technical/professional communication. Greg draws on 15 years of experience in the government and corporate sector to use engaging pedagogy in the classroom in addition to building supportive networks among graduate students and newer instructors. (Greg was recommended by Sean Morey.)    Jackson Martin is pursuing his MA in English with a concentration in Rhetoric and Composition at North Carolina State University. Jackson’s research interests include writing studies, pedagogy, writing program administration, digital rhetorics, and ambient rhetorics. Jackson has taught a range of courses, including various high school English Language Arts classes and first-year writing at North Carolina State University. Jackson values teaching multimodality, linguistic diversity, and genre studies in the classroom. (Jackson was recommended by Chris Anson.)    Marie Nour Nakhle is a PhD Candidate at the University of Connecticut studying Romanticism, with an emphasis on the figure of the critic in Romantic writing. She is also the Assistant Director for the First-Year Writing Program, where she works closely with colleagues on all aspects of the program, including planning professional development opportunities for instructors and providing teaching support. In her role, she also joined Director Dr. Lisa Blansett and former Assistant Director Mckenzie Bergan in writing a textbook for the program. (Marie Nour was recommended by Lisa Blansett.)   Shelby Ramsey is a PhD candidate in Rhetoric and Composition at Florida State University where she currently teaches first-year composition, upper-level courses in FSU's Editing, Writing, & Media program, and other courses in English studies more broadly. Her research interests include inclusive and anti-oppression pedagogies, digital writing, and writing technologies. She is particularly interested in how students engage with generative AI critically through their own writing processes, reflection, and most recently, peer review. Her other ongoing work explores how digital writing classrooms can better support linguistic justice, accessibility, and students from historically underrepresented backgrounds. In addition to her teaching and research, she has served as an elected liaison between the graduate student organization and the College Composition Program (FYC), and she has helped manage the FSU Museum of Everyday Writing where she mentors undergraduate students. She holds a BA and MA in English from the University of Alabama. (Shelby was recommended by Elias Dominguez Barajas.)  Allison Steinmeyer is a PhD candidate in Rhetoric and Digital Humanities at the University of Oklahoma (OU). She has taught First-Year Composition, Native American Children’s and Young Adult literature, and various multidisciplinary classes within the university. She is also the Assistant Director for the OU Honors College Writing Center. Throughout her time at OU she has assisted the FYC Online development team in creating virtual assignments, and constructing the Honors College Writing Assistant curriculum. Allison’s research interests include rhetorical theory, pedagogy, digital humanities, and Indigenous methodologies. For her dissertation, she is working on a project that examines structures of belonging in Indigenous society that contribute to or destroy a longing for displaced Native peoples to be part of their home communities. (Allison was recommended by Roxanne Mountford) Ryan Vojtisek is a PhD student in Public Rhetoric & Community Engagement at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In his research, he uses psychoanalysis to explore how political feelings, disingenuous rhetorics, and contradictions influence conceptual formations of (anti-)democratic publics and citizenship. He is UWM Writing Center’s Graduate Assistant Coordinator and, in fall, will serve on the UWM composition program’s Graduate Teaching Assistant Training and Mentorship Team. He has taught Composition 1 and 2, Business Writing, and Technoscience writing wherein he strives to help students embrace human collaboration's value to writing and revising. He’s committed to departmental community formation and serves as English Department Policy Committee Graduate Student Representative and Co-Chairs UWM's chapter of Rhetoric Society of America. (Ryan was recommended by Shevaun Watson.)  ... View more

Jeanne Beatrix Law is a Professor of English and Director of Composition at Kennesaw State University, focusing on generative AI (genAI) and digital civil rights histography. Her AI literacy work has global reach, including multiple presentations of her Rhetorical Prompt Engineering Framework at conferences like Open Educa Berlin and the Suny Council on Writing. She has led workshops on ethical genAI for diverse institutions and disciplines at Eastern Michigan, Kent State, and CUNY’s AI Subgroup. She and her students have authored publications on student perceptions of AI in professional writing. Jeanne also co-authored The Writer's Loop: A Guide to College Writing and contributed to the Instructor's Guide for Andrea Lunsford's Everyday Writer. She has authored eight Coursera courses on genAI and advocates for ethical AI integration in educational spaces in both secondary and higher education spaces as a faculty mentor for the AAC&U’s AI Pedagogy Institute.   There's been some interesting buzz around the pedagogical campfire and on digital platforms lately: generative AI is being celebrated as a revolutionary "process-over-product" tool for writing. While it's exciting to see renewed interest in writing pedagogy from other disciplines, we might want to consider that writing studies scholars have championed process-oriented methodologies for decades. Generative AI, rather than introducing something entirely new, aligns with many of these historical concepts, offering fresh pathways for exploration. As with the nuances of writing processes themselves, balancing generative AI with mindful, human-at-the-helm practices, can amplify our creativity and rhetorical prowess in specific use cases. In this post, I think about specific connections between writing practices and generative AI and draw connections that have helped me in my own teaching. I hope they are helpful to you as well. Revisiting the Legacy of Process Writing (1970s) Janet Emig fundamentally reshaped our understanding with her groundbreaking 1971 study, The Composing Processes of Twelfth Graders, demonstrating that writing is inherently reflective, recursive, and cognitive. Emig's method of "composing aloud" mirrors how generative AI can now "think aloud" alongside writers, providing real-time reflections, ideas, and prompts that foster deeper metacognitive awareness. Donald Murray advocated for writing as a process of continual discovery, emphasizing iterative drafting and revising. Generative AI can enhance this exploratory practice by swiftly generating alternative drafts and stimulating new ideas, thus facilitating richer, more dynamic revisions. Peter Elbow introduced freewriting, advocating for writers to liberate their ideas without initial self-censorship. When prompted well, generative AI can parallel Elbow’s method by quickly generating expansive content, encouraging writers to explore possibilities freely and creatively. Linda Flower and John Hayes’ cognitive model depicted writing as an intricate interplay of planning, drafting, and revising. Generative AI can echo this nonlinear and iterative nature, actively participating in each stage to offer timely feedback, alternative phrasing, or structural recommendations, thus reinforcing the recursive process.   Beyond Steps: Post-Process Writing has a Moment (1990s) Post-process theory, championed by scholars such as Thomas Kent, underscores writing as a socially situated, interpretive act, inherently context-dependent. Kent argued against a universal writing process, emphasizing interpretation and adaptability. Generative AI connects to this idea when human writers critically interpret and adjust AI-generated content to specific rhetorical goals, underscoring the importance of human oversight in AI collaborations. Lee-Ann Breuch also challenges rigid pedagogical frameworks, advocating for adaptable, dialogic interactions. Generative AI might extend Breuch’s vision by acting as a responsive dialogic partner, enabling fluid and context-specific interactions where students and AI collaboratively negotiate meaning and rhetorical choices.   Generative AI: Enhancing, Not Replacing, Human Creativity and the Writing Process We may be able to agree that generative AI is powerful; perhaps we can also agree that it should always serve to complement, not replace, human creativity. AI-generated text, devoid of nuanced social awareness, relies heavily on human interpretation and contextual judgment to achieve rhetorical success and effective communication. We may not agree on how, when, or even if we deploy it in first-year writing, but I want to offer that we keep the conversation going. I cruised through the Bedford Bookshelf and drew some insights from a few Macmillan textbooks and authors that holistically embrace process and post-process methods (all available as low-cost options). I’m sure you have others we could add to this abbreviated list: Writer/Designer (Ball, Arola, Sheppard): Emphasizing writing as intentional design, generative AI invites students to critically evaluate and intentionally integrate AI-generated suggestions, ensuring alignment with specific rhetorical purposes. Andrea Lunsford's Collaboration Model: Viewing writing as a collaborative social act, generative AI functions as a digital co-writer, stimulating essential discussions about authorship, agency, voice, and ethical human-machine collaborations. This thread that runs through all of her work could not be captured in a post, but her prolific presence demonstrates the validity of viewing writing this way. Understanding Rhetoric (Losh; Alexander; Cannon; Cannon): exemplifies both process and post-process writing pedagogies through its innovative, multimodal approach to composition instruction.​ It aligns with traditional process pedagogy by guiding students through the stages of writing. It also encourages recursive writing practices, allowing students to revisit and refine their work continually. This approach fosters a deeper understanding of writing as a dynamic and evolving process. The Writer's Loop (Ingraham and Law Bohannon): a smaller, born-digital text that adds to the body of literature on socially-situated writing that reflects on writing as continuously recursive. Generative AI aligns with this looping model, providing ongoing iterative feedback that encourages perpetual reflection and revision, thereby strengthening students' writing agency. Built with intentional social and cultural consciousness in readings and activities, the text also invites inclusion.   Keeping Humanity at the Helm Ultimately, our role as educators seems clear, at least in this moment: to ensure human creativity and critical reflection remain central in the writing process. As generative AI evolves, it holds potential to expand upon foundational theories of process and post-process writing, fostering deeper human engagement, contextual responsiveness, and creative exploration in our digitally enriched writing practices. What generative AI can't do is replace the human edge required for authenticity, agency, and voice in how we engage with the communication practices of fellow humans. I hope this brief stroll through our field's history will be helpful as you respond to colleagues and work across disciplines at your own institutions!     ... View more

Kim Haimes-Korn is a Professor of English and Digital Writing at Kennesaw State University. She also trains graduate student teachers in composition theory and pedagogy. 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 is a regular contributor to this Multimodal Monday academic blog since 2014. 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   I just returned from the 4Cs (Conference on College Composition and Communication), our discipline’s premier national conference in Baltimore. It was a great opportunity to interact with other engaged composition teachers and to explore new ideas. I was encouraged to see the number of presentations focusing on and featuring multimodal projects and pedagogy. Multimodal composition is firmly planted within our field.   This trip was particularly special because I had the pleasure of presenting and mentoring three of my graduate students on a panel at the conference. I met these students through my work in my Composition Theory and Pedagogy class in 2024, where I teach about the impact, processes, and practices of multimodal composition. These students, who are now Teachers of Record in their own FYC classes, have incorporated these approaches into their curriculum. I dedicate this post to our experience at the conference and share materials from our presentation.   Some Context: In his essay “Writing Is Not Natural,” composition professor Dylan B. Dryer calls to our attention to the fact that writing is, and always has been, an expression of technologies. The feather quill, the ballpoint pen, and yes, the very laptops our students use are all technologies in their own right. Writing has always been a way to embrace technology. As a cohort, we have bonded over the possibilities of this communication. We remix the ideas surrounding multimodality and sample this idea across different formats, believing that the best way to honor composition’s past is by embracing its future. Our students, as it turns out, often agree. We share a series of low-stakes assignments that celebrate multimodal technologies and practices. Follow links for Presentation Slides and Handout Writing itself is a remix as we cross disciplines and genres. Digital and multimodal composition brings together visual, audio, and kinesthetic modes along with the written text. We now consider design and audience experience as part of our rhetorical situation and train students to move around and explore options that lead to critical and creative thinking. Our classrooms themselves are intricate symphonies that harmonize through collaboration, composition, cadence, pitch, and rhythm. Music is a natural metaphor for what we do as composition teachers. The A-side of composition is reading and writing, but the B-side is the low-stakes multimodal assignments where the students experience learning through invention without a heavily weighted penalty, developing a soundtrack for their writing. Remixing the first-year composition course requires innovative scaffolding.  We share multimodal, low-stakes assignments that draw upon music, both literally and metaphorically. Through using music as a lens, students come to understand connections to events, emotions, ideas, and cultural influences. What follows are our individual ideas and the ways we use technology tools to promote critical and creative thinking. For the full details for each assignment, see the attached presentation slides and handout.   Kim Haimes Korn  - Curating Creative Playlists Curation is an important skill for students to understand the processes of collecting, selecting, interpreting, creating, and sharing in the FYC classroom and across the curriculum. Students curate research articles, images, and a variety of shared content. We tend to think about playlists existing outside of the classroom, but they can engage students in a range of important rhetorical and interpretive skills that promote research and critical thinking. Playlists can inform, tell stories, express themes, and communicate ideas. Kim shares some low-stakes assignments that engage students in curation and interpretation through playlists, such as the soundtrack of your life, cultural critiques, thematic threads, and place-based and generational research. See my full post, Curating Creative Playlists (2023) as part of the Multimodal Mondays blog.   Emily Crocker - Jamming With Canva and Mood Boards The power of visuals cannot be overstated, especially in an attention-based environment such as the FYC classroom. Much like how an album cover is vital to the promotion of a record, Canva serves as a design platform that allows students to deliver professional content such as videos, presentations, Instagram reels, wallpaper, and much more. Emily shares her Canva Mood Board assignment that remixes student research through collage. Students learn the benefits of visual design and data visualization through extending their research ideas in new ways. Heather Voraphongphibul - Composition Karaoke Students can delight in the aural qualities of traditional rhetoric as they aid in understanding audience awareness and rhetorical appeals. Modern recording technologies provide instructors with mediums that enhance the repetition, alliteration, and poetic waxings of rhetors that impact audience awareness and the skills of growing writers. Heather shares a Composition Karaoke lesson, using Voice Thread, that further pushes these remixing practices by allowing students to incorporate songs, sound effects, and other sonorous approaches to convey meaningful messages. She has students research, rewrite, and record movie monologues through the lenses of genre, audience, and tone. Emily Chick - ReVision and Remix Remixing is revising through changing, blending, or altering to create something new. In this project, students remix the narrative essay through three modes: text, visual, and audio. Each part of this project extends students' creative and critical thinking skills. Students write a narrative, create a vision board, and generate a song using the Gen AI program Suno Music creator. This program offers features like personalized lyrics, discovering new artists, and curating playlists, making it a versatile tool for creative projects. Emily discusses the ways instructors can incorporate multimodal, low-stakes assignments through reVision and remix. ****************************************************************** As academic professionals, we often present at conferences to share our ideas and teaching practices, but this post gives us a chance to expand our reach and share with our readers here. As a long-time teacher of teachers, I appreciate the mentorship opportunities that these platforms provide.  bell hooks reminds us in Teaching to Transgress, that teaching is about experimentation and engagement in the classroom. Multimodal pedagogies offer many possibilities for learning and expression. We are reminded that integrated, low-stakes, multimodal assignments provide incremental scaffolding that helps students think critically and creatively on their way to their larger, major assignments. References: Dryer, Dylan B. “Writing Is Not Natural.” Naming What We Know, Linda Adler-Kassner, University Press of Colorado, 2015. hooks, bell. Teaching to Transgress. Routledge, 1994. ... View more