Rhetorical Appeals Poster

CLICK ON THE POSTER TO SEE A LARGER IMAGE

Okay, I need some suggestions from you all on this poster. I feel like I've been working on it for so long that I can't quite look at it from an outsider's perspective. I want to make something that will help students understand logos, ethos, and pathos more effectively.

I'm not sure if the wording is strong enough, or if the examples I have given are helpful or not. I'm bugged that my lists aren't parallel, but, for example, if I write "cause-and-effect statements" instead of just "cause and effect" the poster layout gets ugly. Sheesh. I'm not completely sold on what my lists include (and exclude), either. Also, I'm not sure if the colors or the graphics are working as well as a different theme or color scheme would. The main title font has been impossible to choose. I sort of think that the overall display of the poster is amateurish, but I'm not sure what exactly is bugging me or how to approach revising it. Any and all comments will be immensely helpful.

Also, a huge thanks to Dr. Rice for helping me get the poster to this point. He helped me organize the layout to be readable and organized--my first draft looked pretty chaotic. However, I am a little worried about the red words (CHARACTER, REASON, EMOTION) overlapping the black headings (ETHOS, LOGOS, PATHOS) as much as they are. I'm afraid they won't be as eye-catching or as readable. But every time I try to mess with the titles, I just seem to be making things worse. My original poster had ETHOS, LOGOS, and PATHOS as a much bigger font than the above title, RHETORICAL APPEALS. I think the title probably should be bigger than the subtitles, but I'm worried that the subtitles are too drowned out now. Ugh, I just have to stop looking at it for a little bit. Thank you in advance for any and all suggestions you all have.

Writing "About Something"

Dwight Atkinson's post-process theory article was excellent, and I particularly liked it when he said, "I have rarely encouraged self-discovery as the primary purpose of writing assignments; quite to the contrary, these assignments typically asked students to write 'about something'--some social issue or concern beyond their purely personal, individual lives" (1537). I'm interested in self-discovery in writing, and writing for therapeutic purposes. But I also believe that writing for the sake of composing yourself can be misleading, inauthentic, and egotistical. I am reminded of a woman I met in Louisville, Kentucky, a few years ago; she was an artist who displayed a new self-portrait every summer for tourists and art-lovers in a small studio downtown. Her only project for the entire year was to reconstruct a new image of herself; then, at the end of the year, she would begin to paint over it with a new construction of herself. It seemed.....pointless? Cocky? Strange? I had a sudden empathy for students who hate to freewrite for the sole purpose of bringing their subconscious to the forefront. Ultimately, who cares?

It made me think about the visiting Chinese scholars that came to our class on Thursday, and how their students were enthusiastic about studying different cultures. I wondered if my own students knew about American current events, let alone worldwide ones. I realized that self-discovery can come about best by what Atkinson proposes: writing "about something." What better way to invite the underlives and cultures of students to a classroom than by inviting them all collectively to step outside of their backgrounds and explore new territories?

I only lived in Japan for 15 months, but I did have the opportunity to move between the east coast and the west coast, to live in the city as well as the country. It was exciting to live not as a tourist in these different places, but as a Japanese person. I lived with Japanese girls, ate only Japanese food, and learned the Japanese language. I realized what it was to be an American by living someplace different. I remember when I finally came home, everyone seemed huge (huge bodies, huge voices, huge cars, huge purses and bags), and places like WalMart really creeped me out.

Thomas Friedman recently wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times called "Too Many Hamburgers" about how China, despite its governmental differences, has managed to work together and successfully create and implement great advances in their cities and economy. America, on the other hand, is quickly sliding away from whatever strengths we boast the democracy gives us. The article ended in patriotism and optimism, but with a strong warning that unless politicians spend more time working for the people and less time working to get their votes, we're screwed.

While I don't think that our students are incredibly dumber than students in China or Japan (it was apparent from some of the comments from our visiting scholars that Chinese college students slack off and disappoint their teachers just as much as our student do here), the multicultural influences these students have in other countries make them much more marketable and self-realized than the students who only know about their own hometowns. Bilingualism teaches a person more than just a second language.

I think our students need to be pushed to step outside of themselves more. I think every writing assignment should include research, even personal narratives. The syllabus that I am working on for this class is research heavy. I don't want students to be afraid of research--I want them to crave it. We need more curiosity and less pride. I'm grateful to be entering the field of composition during a paradigm of post-process theory.

Identity in the Online Classroom (including onling grading, portfolios, and peer reviews)

I will resist from giving any plot spoilers, but everyone ought to go see Catfish. It's not a perfect documentary, but it is worth seeing. See A. O. Scott's New York Times film review if interested. What I will say is that the documentary reveals what kinds of perfectly convincing fake identities the average person can make on the internet. When I think about the online classroom, I question the authenticity of the student/teacher relationships as well as the final grades.

Dr. Rice related an interesting incident in class about a situation where an online classroom and a face-to-face classroom were both assessed by online graders, and that the online students resulted with better grades than the face-to-face classroom. I question this situation, and I admit that without further details, I can't determine my own conclusion about this circumstance. I question the teachers of the face-to-face classroom as well as the curriculum of the face-to-face classroom vs. the online course. My beef with online classrooms that I have experienced is that many (not all) online classrooms are designed to learn only specifically what they are going to be tested on (or graded for). I wonder if the face-to-face classroom from the story above had different strengths and weaknesses in their writing than the online students. Then again, perhaps it was only the online students who did their readings, since the readings WERE the class.

Perhaps I feel defensive because if online classrooms do end up being the better choice, there will be even less job opportunities for me tomorrow.

But ultimately, I can't get this film Catfish out of my mind. If online classrooms, online assignments, and online grading become the status quo, won't it be so much easier for students to have their friends or partners write everything up for them? Won't plagiarism be so much easier? How would anybody be able to ensure that what was posted was posted by the student getting credit for the assignment? Perhaps we haven't seen (or caught) much fraudulent behavior in online classrooms now, but if they became the status quo, I think we could be in trouble. Someone's mom who worries about her sons' successes may do all of their homework for them. Someone who learns a fellow student's password will find a new way to torment them by hacking into the victim's account and spouting embarrassing, offensive phrases into their essays. Friends will cheat for each other. Online friendships will be formed only to result in confusion when the 19-year-old boy ended up being an 80-year-old woman. I'm drifting into hyperbole, but the possibility remains.

I'm dubious that a face-to-face classroom is less effective.

It isn't that I hate technology, either, or that I don't know how to use it. I met my husband in person, but our courtship was almost entirely online--David was going to school in Athens, Ohio, and I was teaching in Rexburg, Idaho. We had Skype dates and sent emails every day. We talked on the phone and read each others' blogs. I understand the opportunities that the internet can bring.

However, even in our courtship, David and I were very careful. We made great sacrifices of time and money to take turns flying out to each other and remembering who we were in person. We realized how easy it was to appear different via the internet. We agreed, repeatedly, that our relationship wouldn't be fully realized until we lived in the same town. It is too easy to fill in the blanks for someone you never meet in person.

But perhaps it is okay to have blanks in student/teacher relationships. I'm dubious.

I DO understand the opportunities available for a classroom that is both online and face-to-face. I mentioned in an earlier blog that when I incorporated a class blog in my literature survey course, some students who had difficulty chiming into class discussions found it much easier to comment on the class blog. However, I question how our classroom blog would be different had the students not met each other twice a week in class or met up outside of class to watch films together.

I will say this: grading my students' participation on the blogs for that survey course was much more gratifying than grading these 1301 freshman students who have no faces. And I'm almost positive that my comments meant more to them than my comments here mean to the 1301 students.

I have to think about all these things for much longer. In the meantime, I am going to be haunted by the science fiction futures as portrayed in Surrogates, Blade Runner, Not Quite Human, and Alien. And I swear to all of you right now that if universities become solely online realms, I'm starting my own educational commune in the woods where we will study in log cabins and dance to banjo music around a fire at night. And then we'll see who's the most intelligent! Then we'll see who survives the zombie apocalypse!

Authenticity of Learning, Inquiry, and Audience

Over Valentines Day weekend in 2008, I met up with my future husband (though we hardly knew it then) at the AWP Conference in Chicago (held at the same Hilton that Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones have their great shoot-up scenes in The Fugitive). I was a creative writer back then, but I was apparently already losing touch with the professional side of my inner poet because I skipped all but two of the panels and spent most of my time in the Chicago Art Museum across the street. I say I lost touch with the professional side of my inner poet, because all the authenticity of the fleshy parts of my inner poetness were drinking in more inspiration from the Chagall stained glass than had I ended up in panels from 9:00–5:00.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off is one of my favorite John Hughes films. I always feel like Hughes should have been a professor because his criticism of pedagogy is brilliant. Hughes seems to be an advocate for collaboration, voice, and finding the authentic audience. Ferris Bueller's high school is a hyperbolic example of everything inauthentic and dry in traditional education. There is no inquiry in the classroom, no real questions, no real discovery, and no real audience. Ferris and friends apply more critical thinking and reflection during their day off than they ever could have managed sitting in the stuffy classroom where even history seems like something that never could have happened outside of the midterm test. I like to think that my similar days off from an important conference were comparably inspirational (I did, after all, have enough wits about me to recognize good things in the man I stared at Hopper's "Nighthawks" with, enough to end up marrying him six months later to the day).

What I mean by all this is that when Bueller and the gang go to the Chicago Art Institute, with Dream Academy's cover of The Smiths' "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" playing through the montage, I am always struck by the profundity of their experience. "Please let me get what I want," indeed. This is a film about finding real experiences in a world of hypocritical, routine delusions of school, work, jobs, money, responsibility.

When Cameron stares at Seurat's "Sunday Afternoon" until the pointillism blurs into abstraction and he realizes the child staring out at him through the painting actually has no face, but rather a fleshy blank combination of pink and beige dots--well, it's a gorgeous scene, a scene he wouldn't have seen at his high school.

So what is it that made the Chicago Art Institute trip authentic? Why are the conversations between Bueller, Cameron, and Sloane mixed parts shallow and brave? Why are they authentic to each other, despite their great differences? I'm reminded me of another Hughes classic, The Breakfast Club, and the great discourse community created by the most stereotyped and iconic members of high school characters in a situation that never should have happened in their routine, regular worlds outside of Saturday morning detention.

Perhaps what I'm going for is a sense of spontaneity and chaos. Unfortunately, this is exactly the type of learning that you can't plan in advance. I have to think about this some more before I'll know what to say about it. But I think there must be a way to run a classroom that allows for a sense of chaos. I know there are essays in our composition text for 5060 that talks about this. If only I could have my own day off to read it right.

Why Goofing Off in Class Can Be Good, or, My Hippie Creed

The most influential professor of my life is a woman named Sharon Morgan who works at a small university in southeastern Idaho and who doesn't have a PhD, but who did publish her memoirs at the start of her career. She is the head of the Writing Center, and I worked for her as an undergraduate. The job required that we enroll in a 2-credit writing seminar taught by Sister Morgan (it was a religious university we attended, where instead of specifying between Dr. and Prof., we were asked to refer to our teachers as Brother or Sister) that included lessons in both tutoring and composition. Our underlives were not only welcome, but demanded. Our knowledge of her underlife was another requirement. She taught personal essays before she taught anything else. Every semester (usually more than once), we would have a big barbecue at her house by a river, where she lives alone with a cat and a dog.

That class mattered. That job mattered. Sister Morgan was our mentor, our respected professor, and our friend. We rode her canoe in the river, we made birdhouses with her on her back porch, we had movie marathons, played cards, and did homework there on weekends. We cried over relationship breakups on her sofa, and we all read her memoir even though she told us not to bother with it.

My point is, we were safe to be goofy, and we were safe to be serious. We had a large notebook that we kept in the Writing Center where we could all leave entries and talk to each other even if we tutored on different days, different hours. Knowing each other was important. We read each others' writing, knew each others' interests. We gave each other criticism because we wanted success for each other. Being one of Sister Morgan's tutors meant giving a part of yourself to the cause.

I've worked at other Writing Centers to know that ours was unnaturally effective. Her tutors became better students in their other classes. Her enthusiasm for the writing process and for literature was not only admirable but addictive. Our work felt important. The students we tutored felt important. Writing was important.

After laughing hard while playing games and tossing frisbees, we would quiet down and talk about all the kinds of serious topics undergrads are supposed to talk about late at night with each other, and we would talk until well into the a.m. at this professor's home. These conversations always felt so important. So vital. So meaningful. We would go home with things we wanted to research, things we wanted to write about.

Yesterday's class was a little silly. My underlife of a GoogleChatter came to the forefront, and my fingers forgot I was in a graduate seminar. But that doesn't mean I wasn't thinking. That doesn't mean I wasn't learning from others. In fact, it reminded me of old times, when "collaborating" wasn't pointed out or scheduled in, but it just happened because I WANTED to hear what these people I loved had to say. I wanted their fingers in my brain/heart clay, and I wanted not a grade, but to BECOME someone educated, strong, and eloquent. Embrace the underlife, I say, in all it's multitudinous forms. Care about where your students are coming from, and don't let them mark you as a robot. What the hell is this all for if the only thing I want from my students is to make them do what I say? That's not why I'm in this gig.

Here's a couple of us painting Sister Morgan's walls after a Pre-Professional Writing Conference she encouraged us all to read essays at (which we did):

Keeping the Band Together

In Thursday's class, we discussed social-epistemic rhetoric inside the classroom, as well as inside the academic institution. It all comes down to communication and respect, I suppose. Students need to respect students and teachers, teachers need to respect students and fellow teachers, the administration needs to respect students and teachers, and students and teachers need to respect the administration. Unfortunately, we also need to stay on the defensive--after all, teachers give out the grades, students dish out the teacher evaluations, and the all-mighty administration makes the rules of everything from class size to tenure. We want to be civil, and we want to be kind, but we also want to watch our own backs.

Students hate group work when they are the ones doing all the work (or of there is that one student that seems to hold them back). Teachers get frustrated when students don't have enough respect to pay attention to instructions. I'm not sure about the administration, because I've never been an administrator, and, as far as I'm concerned, they are the Man. And nobody loves the Man.

The last English department I taught in, we used to say that the campus was like Narnia in the wintertime, and even the trees had eyes and ears. Teachers weren't safe to voice their opinions, and one bad student review could result in major consequences for even the most weathered professor. Teachers turned against other teachers, and divisions between departments made faculty meetings full of scowls and tightly folded arms. The crazy thing about it all was that these people were some of the finest people I had known as an undergraduate. It was astounding to see how quickly a tight-knit department could become prickly and offended as soon as the administration started suggesting that they knew more about how their classroom should look than the teachers themselves.

I've started to see how this can happen in our classes, too. As we've talk about ideologies in the classroom, I've started to realize how I have a tendency of not only pushing my own ideologies on my students, but I question their current ideology and suggest that I know more about how they should run their lives than they do.

For example, I think students should read. I think they are cheating themselves if they don't. I think students should know current events. I think students should take their homework seriously.

But there are different ways of expressing these ideas without making my students scowl and tightly fold their arms. I think social-epistemic rhetoric helps keep the band together, because it isn't silencing anyone's current worldviews or value hierarchies. Instead, it invites everyone to bring ideas to the table in a safe environment where everyone, including the teacher or the administration, agrees to think dialectically. Maybe it's okay if not everyone stays absolutely current on the daily news. In fact, David Quammen wrote an essay on Darwin and earthworms that suggests that it can be dangerous for everyone to be tuned in to the same news anchors, and that, perhaps, studying something seemingly unimportant could be just as ethical and rewarding.

I'm not sure how this all works, or how I'll implement it in this next Monday's class, but I do know that John needed to be nicer to Paul, Paul needed to be nicer to John, George needed to speak up a little more, and everyone could have listened to Ringo better. Nevertheless, the White Album still kicked ass.

Blogs and Collaborative Learning

When I was a student, I never cared much for group projects--unless my group was full of really awesome people. In other words, the best group projects were the ones where I knew the people in my class, and we knew the teacher well enough to know to what he or she would be impressed with. We knew our collective ethos, and we knew our audience.

I put my students into some kind of partner/group collaborative work every week we meet for class. It's the only way I can get them talking to each other since we only meet once a week for an hour and twenty minutes. I don't like that I don't know my students' names. For the first time since my very first semester teaching freshman composition in 2003, I don't know all of my students' names.

It's not necessarily the number, either. Working at my last university, I taught a 5-5-4 schedule: five three-credit classes winter semester, five three-credit classes summer semester, and four three-credit classes fall semester (the school ran on a trimester system, and we only had a one-and-a-half month break between summer and fall semesters). At one point, I had 125 students in four composition classes and a British literature survey course. I knew all of their names. I saw them more than once a week. I encouraged them to get to know each other outside of class by putting them in four-person groups, requiring peer reviews to take place outside of class in the location of their choice. I assessed them by reading their reflections on how the peer reviews went, as well as by skimming over their revision ideas prompted by questions I prepared to guide them through their peer review process.

One semester, I had a British Literature class of only twenty students. They were a little shy, save five or six talkers, and I worried that not everyone was getting enough discussion in during class. So we started a blog. It's a private blog, so I won't link to it here, but my image up top is an example of a post inspired by Swift's "A Lady's Dressing Room." Another great one I got later on was about "The Art of the Ancient Mariner." It included five images of art inspired by the Mariner over the decades. Besides via blogging, how else could a student have shared these images or even had the desire to look them up and share them with the class?


The blog was a riot. Multiple students emailed me after the course was over and thanked me for the opportunity to share their thoughts in that way. They said they struggled in class discussions, and this gave them an opportunity to think about the literature that they didn't get inside the classroom. The shy students found they could say much more via computers, and everyone loved added YouTube clips and pictures to their posts on Defoe, Dryden, Pope, and, later in the semester, the Romantics. We had great discussions online that prompted our discussions when we met for class later in the week (it was a Tuesday/Thursday class).

I had my students in three groups, with responsibilities to post on the blog rotating every three weeks. In one week, everyone from Group One would post reading responses to that week's reading, and then everyone (including Group One) would post three comments to whatever posts they wanted to (and they could post three times to the same post, too). What happened was that almost everyone posted MORE than three times, and some of the conversations grew long and interesting. Not every week was this effective, but it was about four hundred times more effective than the semesters I used discussion forums via Blackboard.

Blogging can be an excellent way to get students collaborating outside of class. But it helps to meet with students more than once a week, and it helps to know their names.

I don't feel like my classes right now can collaborate with each other because there is no incentive to know each other. Maybe for next semester I can figure out how to incorporate groups in my classes that meet outside of class. I'm just not sure I would know how to assess their participation in the 8 points allotted to me for instructor assignments outside the regular curriculum.