Wk 15: That's the END?!

What is/are the most significant thing/s that you learned which you plan to use in some way in the future?

In the best courses, the most valuable takeaway, for me, is always about the self. Out of the many classes I have taken as an undergrad and grad student, there are a few were I felt I was at home in the class either through the amount of information I engaged with or a connection with the instructor. Among my favorites have been theory courses -- mostly, I think, because this was the type of knowledge I expected to gain in high school, but seldom experienced. Now, however, I seek resources of knowledge and the confidence my inner voice doesn't have to remain inside. Occasionally, this leads to getting into a bit of trouble, but I've also learned to apologize well. 

Of significance, I also rediscovered confidence in my knowledge and comfort with comp theory. The space I gained in the course through previous knowledge gave me several opportunities to explore some of the course topics in my new locale and get to know the community a bit. I felt confident applying a lot of composition theory to my other course writings as well. I took a lot of time to reflect on the abundant silence of my literacy narrative. I spent some time venting, calibrating, laughing, and considering what makes a home "home." Revisiting comp theory invoked the presence of familiar friends (comp theorists). As we revisited ESL theories, I reflected upon my knowledge and proudly accessed my background experiences. I confidently finished the final in about 30 minutes, then spent 15 minutes going back through it to add detail.

Career and university advice has been extremely helpful in helping me to overcome the shock of my transition. As the course progressed, I developed a long list of recommended readings and shared some of my favorites with visiting scholars. The opportunity to network with students and faculty from China has been an extraordinary experience. I gained the experience of sharing books in the reading group I/we established with the Chinese scholars. Additionally, I really appreciated the opportunity to begin collaborating with some of my idols in the industry. Through this comes inner peace and self love that my education brings. A meta-description of these most significant things might be: experiencing the (educational) process and re-establishing confidence in my voice.

These are all lessons I hope some of my students will gain through the experience of having me as a teacher. I'll reflect upon the experiences when I need pick-me-ups, and when I need anecdotal stories to share with students needing the same.

If I had to value one significant thing over all others, it would be the #overwhelmingly positive experience as an introduction to the department and the university.

Week 13: The Athletics of Grades

As the end of the semester quickly approaches, I have grades on my mind. My students in 1301 are expecting their grades in a timely fashion, and they're scrambling to do last-minute work to get their grades where they want them to be. At grading time, I always think a great deal on the notion of "fairness." As an exemplary student, I've rarely been treated normally. I seek to treat each of my students as a gifted student as I have most frequently been treated. In recent discussion with a colleague, we debated whether ENGL 1301 should be treated as a "weeder" course. I vehemently said, "No." Our job in 1301 is to coach students. My athletic experience tells me coaches drive students to work their hardest. Coaches model the behaviors they expect from their students. Coaches have high expectations. Coaches are direct, frank, and honest. Coaches prepare athletes for the upcoming game.

I find myself building students up and giving them feedback with pointers for the future: "I appreciate the work you've done here. It works well because.... These aspects will help you as you continue through the university.... I've been lenient here, but you won't have that luxury in 1302, so be prepared to turn everything in on time or early...." As I wrap up the semester, I have to give a lot of thought into fairness in assigning grades, which are in many ways subjective. Each student shines in his/her own way -- some in writing and online discussion, others in class discussion. I noticed that a few of my best in-class students are performing "poorly" when measured by the traditional methods of grading. Missing written work has been balanced by exemplary participation in class. I've revisited my syllabus several times this term to make sure I've provided space (see Parker Palmer & Mary Rose O'Reilley) for each student to develop independently and collaboratively (see Windsor). I return to ask myself whether my grading is "fair" if I'm measuring students by their understanding and meeting of the course objectives, whether in their own form or according to some formulaic objective standard that may not represent real life.


Many students who are just under the passing "C" grade don't seem worried, while others just under the "A" grade are extremely worried. At times such as this, I am appreciative of the grading scale offered by the university in these courses, 90-100% is a 4.0, though I know some students have worked far more than others to revise and perfect every one of their papers and to earn high 90's, while others have relied on previous knowledge to get them into their comfortable "A zones." At this point, it is really upon my shoulders to know our system and to know how each of the students has shone independently. If I am put into a position to defend my grading, I can say with confidence that I have measured fairly each student against the course objectives. I can provide concrete examples of the students' work and communications in addition to personal struggles each has overcome to perform in my class. This is how I measure "fairness" in a subjective world of grading.

Week 12: Miscellany

Before I began studying pedagogy, I studied graphic design and marketing, thinking I'd be able to "justify" the entrepreneurship I had done for many years. It turns out I didn't need to justify myself. I needed to find myself and recapture my lifelong dream of becoming an instructor. In today's blog, I want to revisit some of the things I often recall from my experiences and things that were reiterated by Stephen R. Covey in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. These things made me a better entrepreneur, teacher, and student.

Covey's 7 habits are:
Habit 1: Be proactive
Habit 2: Begin with the end in mind
Habit 3: Put first things first
Habit 4: Think win/win
Habit 5: Seek to understand, then to be understood
Habit 6: Synergize
Habit 7: Sharpen the saw

The full title of the book is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change. When I first read this book, I had recently made some radical life changes. Though I've never felt I've needed these 7 habits as reminders of how to improve myself, I felt fortunate for the great deal of leadership training I had/have received in my life, and I often reflect upon these habits, whether through Covey's lens or my own experiences, to measure myself as an entrepreneur, a leader, and an instructor. One of the hardest roles I have ever had in life has been humbling myself to that of a formal student, often working with instructors my age or younger. I have gained an incredible appreciation for my own background knowledge and for those who must find creative ways to instruct me when I don't fit the mold of "traditional" in many respects. Through this and my childhood learning experiences, I have developed a passion for teaching those who cannot be defined by boxes society traditionally asks us to draw.

A short time ago, I was introduced to Mary Rose O'Reilley's Radical Presence: Teaching as Contemplative Practice. As I read her 7 chapter inspirational, I projected Covey's framework of Habits upon O'Reilley's work. If I were to frame her work in Covey's terms, I would classify the 7 following teaching habits:

Habit 1: Create space
Habit 2: Teach within a contemplative frame of reference
Habit 3: Incorporate gestures of friendship
Habit 4: Listen like a cow
Habit 5: Exercise authenticity
Habit 6: Embrace dissonance
Habit 7: Know the ideal from reality

Whether you're considering a position in industry or academe, I highly recommend these two readings. These might come in handy for your teaching philosophy or for your leadership philosophy -- which I also recommend adding to your portfolio if you're going into industry. In life, we will be or we will encounter many different types of people who may or may not fit our expectations. These two books provide excellent scaffolding for the way we should think as leaders of all types.

Week 11: Learning Objectives

Review the learning objectives for this course. What's one thing you've learned that connects to an objective and to your future job?

• Diversity and multiculturalism. Students will generate the type and amount of information required by a given rhetorical situation. Measurement: active participation in classroom discussion and blogs.

Many opportunities have allowed me to engage with our visiting Chinese scholars in a book reading and discussion, curriculum development, and the presentation of my lesson plan. I intend to work with scholars abroad, so this has been an excellent opportunity to learn about the instructors and their students.

Additionally, I have engaged with freshman students at Anhui University in China. This has been an opportunity for me to engage TTU graduate students and students from my previous university in an online discussion forum. We have learned a great deal about the students, China, and the difficulties of engaging through "global" media that are not ubiquitously accessible. Multimodal learning holds different meaning in different places with varying access to technologies.

Week 10: Failure

Identify where you think students may fail in an assignment in your syllabus, and how you will use that at a teachable moment by design. If you didn't produce a syllabus, discuss the relevance of this week's readings to your future workplace.

I guess I'm pretty proud to say I have many moments of minor failure that I use as teachable moments. I've learned that mistakes are inevitable moments of opportunity. I'm still working on my syllabus for the course, so I'll reflect upon teachable moments in English composition that have taught me the value of the negotiated syllabus.

I have created detailed course schedules only to discover I scheduled an in-class exercise over a holiday. This is an important reminder to visit my syllabus frequently and at least 2-3 weeks in advance.

Sometimes I start an exercise the class isn't as interested in as I would like them to be. This is a good opportunity to have backup plans and secondary syllabus activities.

I think the key to success in recovering from most of my mistakes is being able to accept my failure in stride -- This sets an example for students and validates the mistakes they will make -- We are all "imperfect." Making mistakes shows my humanity and teaches students how to laugh at ourselves while on stage.

I have recently inspired by Becky Rickly's article "Failing Forward: Reflecting on the Research Culture of Graduate Students" in which the heroine realizes "failures" don't have to be fatal. I believe we only make mistakes if we take risks. The risks we take in academia are worth the possibility of failure because we're in a safe environment where recovery is a very viable option.

Week 12: Thesis of Paper

I am still working to refine the thesis of my paper for this course; however, I submitted the following abstract I'm hoping will be accepted for the Computers & Writing conference 2016:

Bridging Cultural Dimensions: Matriculation From the English Language Center to the University

Technical communication serves to bridge STEM and the humanities by moving writing instruction beyond stylistic levels of composition through the employment of computers in writing English for specialized discourses. Intensive English language centers prepare students linguistically and culturally, with intercultural competence, for matriculation into American universities. The framework of Geert Hofstede’s (1979) value systems indicates a need for multi-dimensional considerations as the university seeks to recruit and retain women, first-generation, and under-represented populations to STEM courses. Increasing numbers of international students call for increased international competence and carefully guided educational shifts leading to increased student success and retention of these special populations in STEM and STEM-related courses. Carefully guided recruitment and retention strategies could lead the university and the intensive language center to move from an ethnocentric to ethnorelative lens, per the work of Milton Bennett (2004, 2014), as specialized programs teach students to communicate in a global society through increased knowledge of technical communication as a STEM-bridging major. This study explores matriculation trends from a local/national intensive language center to a public research university and considers ways the university might begin to recruit and accommodate under-represented populations in technical communication, a field dependent on computer-generated writing, bridging majors in partnership with local/national community intensive language programs.

Week 9: Keywords

I modified key terms and keywords this week that I found to be quite difficult to refine to 140 characters or fewer. These are difficult terms to define because they're more accurately defined through example rather than traditional dictionary definition:

• Academic writing: Undefined even by Purdue OWL which lists 14 measures of elements of academic writing.
• Basic writing: Used to be called “remedial” or “developmental” English. Also the name of a 1970’s journal refereed by Mina Shaughnessy.
• Coherence: a writer’s ability to connect ideas and provide information in a fluid and comprehensible way. Coherence is achieved through appropriate lexical and structural choices, but it’s also achieved through a consideration of audience and genre. Purdue OWL.
• Common grammar errors: Often provided in lists of 20, often focusing on spelling, punctuation, and syntax.
• Consensus and difference: Aspects of socially constructed knowledge. Consensus is agreement. Difference is a contact zone of agreed disparity.

Week 8: Collaborative, Multimodal, Post-process Instruction

What is one assignment you will include in your syllabus assignment that uses collaboration and/or technology and/or other things Yancey, Selfe, Breuch, Bruffee, or Shaughnessey have discussed? 

Our university rhetoric program doesn't incorporate a mandatory midterm exam; however, I feel my students in ENGL 1301 aren't as critically engaged with the texts as they need to be in order to complete good rhetorical analysis which are the major projects of the course. Some students are in the process of catching up. Many appear to have finally acclimated to their new lives at the university. Others may be a bit bored with the required course. I wanted to incorporate an exercise that

• provides review
• presents fun and engagement
• respects limited time or resources
• requires minimal learning of technologies
• supports writing
• engages creativity
• reinforces course readings

I will gladly shout from the rooftops that I am not a fan of PowerPoint presentations. Even my own bore me. When I studied with the Historical Sociolinguistic Network (HiSoN) in Germany in 2012 with several faculty members from universities of Augsburg, Bristol, Bern, Sheffield, Cambridge, Kentucky, and more, I encountered for the first time a form of PowerPoint presentation that engaged me: pecha kucha.

"PechaKucha 20x20 is a simple presentation format where you show 20 images, each for 20 seconds. The images advance automatically and you talk along to the images." http://www.pechakucha.org/.

I looked to Mina Shaughnessy for inspiration as I developed my lesson plan. College rhetoric and composition can be so boring. I wanted my students to DIVE IN! I wanted transparency in revealing the purpose of the exercises. I wanted engagement that was 

• collaborative,
• multimodal,
• post-process,
• and as Bruffee describes: exotic

My students really enjoy working together. As Kenneth A. Bruffee suggests, collaborative learning provides social context for learning (403), and it gives my students ownership of their work. Bruffee calls this "authority of knowledge" (406).

Kathleen Blake Yancey encourages multimodal circulation propagated through media (491). Pecha kucha is the incorporation of an old new media (PowerPoint) with the provocative element of concision.

Each class voted whether they would present their pecha kuchas with live or recorded audio. Surprisingly, one class chose to present with live audio, while the other voted to record. Those recording are charged with the responsibility of finding their own or campus resources (with some suggestions, of course) to create their presentations. Students are excitedly preparing their presentations for delivery in one week (for live presentations) or in two weeks (for recorded presentations). The projects require careful collaboration among groups of 2-3 students through careful and intentional development of writing to deliver a great deal of information in a short time (supported by imagery). Please feel free to borrow and adapt this lesson plan, but please credit me for the original.

Much more could be said about this, but I'm trying to keep my blog a reasonable length.

Week 7: An unprompted response to active shooters on campus

This topic was recently posted on the WPA listserv. One participant's observation was this:

"The difference between us and other professions is, of course, that we are the ones teaching rhetoric and persuasion. Is our profession shifting to something else, under the gun, as it were?

To me there is always that tension between those who feel that words have effects and that situations are resolvable by talk to the other end of the spectrum where all can only be 'solved' by weapons.  There are any number of claims and warrants for either view and stages on the spectrum from the one extreme to the other.

In dealing with the physical acts of 'preparedness' it is easy to miss the ideological subtext.  Fifteen or twenty years ago, teachers did not come to class each day thinking preparedness' thoughts.  How does this change us?"

In full disclosure, I spent most of my childhood afraid of the world around me. After a near-death experience at 8, I had yet to grasp the value of life. I became a silent observer. I fully believed I wouldn't live past my 26th birthday because the world was such a scary place. These perceptions were formed by my environment. My mother's brother, a risk-taker, had died in a motorcycle accident some years earlier. In junior high, we were taught to hide under our desks and not to wear metal jewelry, for in a nuclear attack these things would melt into our bodies. Society teaches us to live in fear, but it does not teach us to live.

The short version of my story is that there came a time when I had to conscientiously decide whether I was going to walk through my life afraid or whether there was another path for me. September 11, 2001 was the day I decided I'd be a risk-taker and that I must live life to its fullest each day, for we have no idea when our time is up. More importantly, within reason, we have little control over the time our number comes up. Active shooters on campus force so many numbers to be called. It's frightening to think this could happen to any one of us at any time. My mother lives in Oregon state not too far from the recent happening of the UCC campus. In recent conversation with her I asked what I should do in response to her disbelief and fear -- Should I choose a "safer" profession than university student/professor? Should I train my composition students how to respond to an active shooter scenario? A friend of mine recently took a position as president of a college not too far from the UCC campus. I don't know how to even open the conversation with him on the topic of having responsibility for such a horrific possibility. Does the prospect eat away his stomach lining and raise his blood pressure? How do we live in this society?

Returning to the fall of 1999 when I had put my oldest daughter into a public school a few months after the Columbine massacre. The first time her kindergarten class went into practice lockdown, I went into real shock. Are our children really in so much danger? I questioned my parenting decision to place her in such a potentially dangerous situation. Since, life dealt me more life-threatening situations. I know first hand death is not a prospect I can easily look in the face. I avoid rather than embrace death. However, I cannot live my life in fear. A few years ago, in a composition pedagogy course, I sat among my peers and a trusted instructor. A representative from the sheriff's department walked into the room clapping his hands together loudly, repeatedly. "This is gunfire. How do you react?" As he continued to simulate gunfire and present various scenarios, I began to sob uncontrollably. I had been in a similar situation not long before -- not on a campus, not the same situation, at home -- in a place where I was supposed to not only feel safe, but where I was supposed to be safe. When the police arrived at my house, they didn't even look at the illegal gun that had been turned on me. The police left me in the care of the person who had turned the gun on me. (TMI? Where do we draw the lines of TMI when we're discussing protecting life?) In that classroom, I was forced to relive that and other moments of fear. I was supposed to be responsive and sharp, defending myself and my future students in that scenario. Instead, I sobbed until I found the strength to gather my things and leave. Why, I thought, would we ever put our students through such stresses? Higher ed has been my place of liberation -- the very thing that removed me from the most dangerous situation I have yet to survive. Why must we as students and faculty fear going to work or school where we are working to make ourselves better citizens? Two months ago, I left my partner behind as I pursue my education and career. Must I fear that last kiss in the airport was the last I will receive for one of us may be slaughtered by an active campus shooter? Should I fear that every morning hug goodbye to my daughter will be the last?

In class today, we discussed whether we would or should teach our students how to react in the event of an active shooter. I cannot in good conscience propagate fear that draws focus from classroom learning. I have intentionally avoided teaching responses to this scenario to my students. Instead, I have worked to make my classrooms a place where students want to be, a place where each of them matters, a place I want to return each session. Until I am forced to include this training in my curriculum (for one day I will be forced to include it), I focus my energy living my life rather than living in the pre-shadow of death. Perhaps in the discussion of mental illness, I am crazy to embrace every moment of this gift of life with the anticipation it will continue rather than the fear that the inevitability of death will catch me before I've taken time to live it to its fullest. The statistical probability of death is 100% (citation not needed). What is the statistical probability of living?

Week 6: Response to Extended Analysis

Oops! I responded directly to Leah on her extended analysis presentation! Leah is an excellent presenter and was thoroughly prepared to present the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire's writing program changes over the past decade.,You are an excellent presenter and thoroughly prepared. One of my interests is WPA and development of TC programs, so I found the presentation. I will be following Leah's example in program research and review for my upcoming studies and for comparative analysis.. I felt Leah's  presentation on U. Wisconsin Eau Claire's changes must have been prepared especially for me as she said, "The best preparation and education we can give to students is one that is inclusive of their own values and practices." She  covered all the bases -- the past, present, and future of the program; the funding they received through the NCTE; and the ideology/theory behind her own teaching as related to the U. Wisconsin E.C. model. I am honored to be working with Leah  through this PhD process. Her insightful brave just-go-knock-it-out style I'm sure shines through in your classrooms inspiring our  students to produce great work if not follow in her footsteps. Check out Leah's blog here: http://lheilig5060.blogspot.com 

I also began listening to Will Fores' beautiful podcast on Victor Villanueva. Will has created three episodes to share the life and works of Villanueva. Though I haven't yet finished listening, I found the podcasts professionally produced and full of interesting and relevant content. I enjoy the clever name of Will's blog "Will Thought Out." I think this is a clever idea he could continue to produce and showcase in his portfolio and add to his CV list of publications. I felt it was so well done I posted a link on my Facebook wall to share with my friends personal and professional. http://willthoughtout.blogspot.com

Week 5: On Andragogy

What is andragogy, and how might the approach help in teaching FYC?
Following last week's megapost, I'm going to skirt this week with a less intense discussion. Andragogy, the teaching of adults, requires understanding that the needs of adult learners not only differ from those of younger learners, but perhaps are more diverse among the demographic labelled "adult."

Objectives of K-12 educational institutions differ from objectives of adult education centers. Adult education may range from developmental instruction to advanced or specialized context instruction (such as for a given field, workplace, or merely a project).

Most of my undergraduate (minor and certificate) coursework in TESOL focused on educating children in mainstream classrooms. My graduate studies, practicum, and teaching experiences in TESOL have been teaching adults. When I first began teaching at the university, I was surprised to learn that many of my ESL students had come to the U.S. with advanced degrees in their first (or often second, third, or fourth) languages. Like me, many already had education and professional experience -- They were learning new language skills to increase their chances of promotion and/or international employment.

In non-ESL classrooms, K-12 classes provide a great deal of course scaffolding including management of the students' time and resources; however, in FYC classrooms, scaffolding lessons is important, but less strictly guided time management necessitates. While providing comprehensible, not simplified input (Krashen), an FYC instructor has the responsibility deliver content, but not to closely monitor students' reading and study habits. Providing a clear syllabus and weekly schedule is one way to provide a structured scaffold for the FYC student to begin taking adult responsibility for his/her coursework. It is important to note that not all FYC students are native English speakers or between the ages of 18-24. Many non-traditional students attend college and university courses. An instructor's awareness of individual needs can help provide well-scaffolded need-based instruction on a case-by-case basis. The temptation to provide normative instruction may leave advanced learners bored and disengaged or allow students in need to fall through the cracks. Learning is personal, so teaching must be provided as such to the extent the environment will allow.

Andragogy, not to be confused with... "androidgogy" -- Can we call it that?: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1342152/Robot-teachers-human-faces-roll-classroom-run-English-lessons.html

Week3-4: Teaching Philosophies

Based on your teaching philosophy (which may change over time), what are types of assignments which you would include in a FYC syllabus?

I am sorry to assault my dear readers with a teaching philosophy badly in need of editing to a single page. I wrote the following teaching philosophy when I earned my TESOL certification. Though I have many changes to make, my foundational values remain the same. My methods include individuation, collaboration, communication, social constructivism, and balance.

As we worked through Berlin and Fulkerson this week, I was struck by the balance in each of their value structure models. I have taken several courses in the teaching of composition and TESOL, so these methods are review -- I'm looking for new layers of meaning as I enrich my foundational experience and refresh my professional development.

Berlin's model presents balance with two sets of opposing value structures. Within each set resides balance, and between the two sets resides balance:

Neo-Aristotilian values of deductive logic, sterile, fact-based Truth
versus Neo-Platonist Expressivist values of subject viewpoints and voice, create truth in individual validation.

Positivist (previously known as Current Traditional) values of arrangement, style, and grammar, implications of perfection and Truth
versus New Rhetoric or Epistemic values of truth residing in society as the collective says

Fulkerson presents a well-balanced triad:

Cognitive-psychological values mental processes, planning, translating, revising, problem-solving, and assimilation

Expressionism values activists' voice, agency, and motivation

Socio-Epistemic values truth as relative (e.g. political spin)

As we discussed which values we hold most dear, I was reminded of the beauty of the Gestalt -- Neither carries more weight in a well-rounded education. Anthropology taught me to value people in both individual and collective forms that we can observe and study with numbers, yet we avoid interfering or affecting transformation. Marketing taught me to value the bottom line and connecting with the audience. Technical communication has taught me the value of mediation, translation, problem-solving, and relativity. Is it not true then, as an instructor I might accept both Berlin's and Fulkerson's models in their Gestalt form of a single functioning philosophy individual in model and complete in concept? This philosophy is demonstrated in my daily lesson plans in FYC.

I:

• open my instruction with a friendly greeting followed by a personal anecdote. I'm working the crowd, gaining followers, marketing my persona
• relate the anecdote to the previous or upcoming lesson to create relativity.
• ask directed questions about the homework and students' understanding of materials to problem-solve. In this process, I also mediate, clarify, and translate the university's expectations.
• use my own writing to model "good" writing I expect my students to strive for.
• ask students to journal, to express their individual voices in a sheltered and guided context.
• engage students in small group, large group, pair, and individual activities.
• provide multi-modal forms of communication on each activity -- reading, writing, listening, and speaking.
• provide +1 information to keep my swiftest students from fading into the crowd.
• provide multiple copies of the information to engage my least interested students.
• laugh at myself and encourage my students to laugh at themselves and at me in a respectful way.
• encourage the inclusion of visuals to support written essays.
• allow room for improvement by allowing students to rewrite assignments after receiving my feedback.
• provide feedback in a timely fashion to accomplish the previous.
• provide a balance of love and tough love for assignments late and assignments too late
• explain the purpose and interconnectedness of every activity
• accept various opinions
• encourage risk-taking
• lead by example
• provide concrete examples
• admit my own failings
• seek to empower every student because she will take every skill in this class beyond these walls to build her own Truth or truths within the context of her very complicated life.

Teaching Philosophy: Inspiring with compassion

"In my experience, every individual is a student. We all ask questions to learn about our environment. When something interests us, we seek further information by observing through the senses and by asking questions. In the same vein, we are all teachers. We are always offering answers and advice; sharing information. Those of us who wish to teach professionally are those who recognize their own desire to be a part of something bigger, to share their knowledge professionally, and to motivate others to seek knowledge as we have done ourselves. Effective instructors learn from their students then refine their teaching approaches to the needs of the students.

Is it possible to teach to each student’s individual needs? Yes. Psychologist Lev Vygotsky and Linguist Stephen Krashen understood that in language acquisition, a student’s cognitive and linguistic competence is based on the amount of information to which he/she is exposed. Beginning with students’ background knowledge, an effective instructor evaluates the present student expectations and then helps to reshape those expectations to merge with those of the administrative body of the educational institution and those of the instructor so that the three meet inside the nexus of learning. Teaching language with passion requires passion for language and a deep desire to share that passion with others. Excellent language instruction embodies the intuitive understanding of the student, recognizing the spark within the student and the natural human desire to learn, embracing these aspects, and igniting those sparks. Excellent instruction engages those who might appear unreachable. Teaching with passion is providing not only answers but posing further questions for thought which increase the students’ desire to learn and to seek further learning. Teaching with passion is transferring knowledge, sharing knowledge, and employing a variety of methods: lecture, collaborative reasoning, media, and simple-to advanced technology. These methods merge the objectives of the learning institution with the objectives and motivations of the students. Teaching with passion is dynamic and pragmatic teaching to a variety of learning styles. Some styles may be familiar, while others are new and innovative, but all of them present repeated information for retention and new information for further exploration.

My experience in visual communication, marketing, technical communication, and anthropology has taught me that people seek information through various means. Visual students look for imagery, including the imagery of textual and graphic communications. Auditory students learn through direct lecture and subconscious auditory observation. Kinesthetic students learn through touch and motion. Social students learn through collaborative reasoning, peer dialogues and discussion groups. To teach to only one learning style is to perform a disservice to the institution and every student. Scaffolding for all learning styles through lecture, repetition, drill, collaboration, seriousness, humor, hypotheses, and using visual, auditory, and tactile lessons provides opportunity for every student to learn within his/her comfort zone as well as to expand his/her knowledge including the knowledge of possible learning approaches. Students don’t always know what their primary learning styles are. Students who have been exposed to only one learning style might find themselves intrigued and engaged by familiar techniques enriched through nuance. Successful teaching is opening already open doors wider by building upon students’ background knowledge with new information in order to foster communicative competence. Very young children and adults of all literacy levels have experiences in life from which a good teacher can build, and then open, doors to exploration of new knowledge.

Effective teaching builds a solid foundation that supports a variety of scaffolds. When we look at Edgar Rubin’s optical illusions, do we see faces or the vase? There is no “right” or “wrong” answer because the image depicts both. Untrained minds may not have learned to look for both. A new world opens when students who only see faces learn to see the vase. My passion for teaching is seeking that moment when the student’s mind opens to allow him/her to see what was previously obscured. My experience in business and marketing has taught me that people must be sold on the idea that they can learn difficult materials. The first step in marketing is establishing confidence in the individual, recognizing and increasing student motivation. After a student is exposed to a variety of learning styles and becomes comfortable with him/herself as a capable learner and communicator, discourse competence emerges naturally as the student’s knowledge carries over into a variety of genres and circumstances. Well-scaffolded teaching based on planned, structured, and organized approaches sets an example for student organization. Concrete teaching leads to concrete learning.

Though learning is never a completed process, effective assessment can be used to determine whether the student has achieved course objectives and is prepared to advance to the next level. What about the student who isn’t prepared to advance? Learning from the successes and failures of ourselves and others provides us with the opportunity to improve our teaching. I believe I will never be a perfect teacher -- I will always be learning from my students, myself, and others. Continually drawing inspiration from others makes me a humble and eager student. Drawing from the experiences of author-instructors such as Danling Fu, Robert Hayes, Guadalupe Valdés, and others -- teachers who have experienced successes and embraced failures with inspirational positive attitudes to make changes in the educational system and in the way we teach and learn -- leads me to believe that I am a great teacher who knows she will always make a difference no matter how challenging the circumstances.

My strength, like those who inspire me, is my ability to see the principles of gestalt required for effective instruction. Macro objectives are composed of a complex network of micro factors, interwoven and interdependent. The minutiae of complexity create an organic and tangible beauty of something greater -- education and knowledge. This is the legacy with which I wish to inspire, to breathe into students the passion for learning."

Week2: Difficulties of teaching writing

What is the most difficult thing to teach in the teaching of writing, and how do you go about teaching that?

As I read through Lisa Ede's and Andrea Lunsford's "Audience Addressed/Audience Invoked: The Role of Audience in Composition Theory and Pedagogy" I conjured a mental image of the writer as a sorcerer magically invoking an audience. Though quite fantastical and over-dramatized, this is what I try to teach my students to do with their writing -- create magic. We discuss critical thinking and critical engagement in composition and ESL theory courses. We debate how or whether we can teach critical thinking. In leadership training courses, we are likely to be asked to recall an "aha moment", that moment when we reached a realization or a moment of enlightenment. My job as an instructor is to critically engage my students. Instructor reviews are one way I measure how I'm doing in my teaching and whether I've found ways of engaging my students in didactic learning rather than merely speaking at them for several hours per week. My students are my audience for whom I prepare weekly presentations where I aim to critically engage them in discussion and thought. Statistically speaking, no one enrolls in intro-level composition because he/she wants to. I poll my students at the start of the term -- Who is really excited about this course? Who just loves English classes? Who is taking this class because they want to? Who is taking this class because it's required? One or two students in each section tell me they love English classes, though all admit they're taking the course because it's required. We all have a good laugh realizing student motivation is similar for all in introductory composition as it's extrinsically rather than intrinsically produced.

I don't love English myself. It's difficult to learn -- especially for native speakers who must deconstruct all their knowledge of a language they own, then reconstruct it within rule-sets and value-sets they've not been taught the past 18+ years. ESL learners have the advantage of learning the language within the higher academic context where the rules confine how we compose. One of the most difficult things to teach my ESL students is to immerse themselves with native speakers so they learn the language in its context. I wonder whether this gives them real language skills needed to compose, as we still hold a great distinction between the aural and visual audience as Walter Ong implied. The language of academic composition exists somewhat in a vacuum -- It's neither completely real, nor completely fake, as is the audience Ong says really does not exist.

Social media presents opportunities to observe instances of audience addressed versus audience invoked, real audiences confused with fake. In a few social media platforms (where I consider myself highly engaged) I pass reading titles that don't invoke me:

"Things you've been doing wrong...," are value judgments written by authors who don't know me.

"This girl writes a letter to the President. You won't believe what happens next," overlooks the likelihood the reader can predict the outcome.

These headlines don't seek to invoke the audience, but rather they talk at the audience, attribute values to assumed audience, and in my case, alienate the audience. Sometimes these headlines infuriate me because the author seems oblivious of his audience and gives me no reason to care as a reader, thus no reason to critically engage. Thomas Kuhn observed language as paradigmatic, non-static. My job as a teacher is to appreciate and understand real world changes and to make the work we do in composition courses relevant, meaningful, and engaging beyond the classroom -- whether in other courses or outside the institution. There are two aspects to making this teaching successful: My ability to critically engage my student audience, and to foster or coach them to care about reaching out to engage an audience real or perceived. In order for these things to happen, I must care about my students' success and create an environment in which they learn to care about their writing. I must present them with a real audience, an understanding and appreciation of their responsibility to invoke, engage, and manipulate said audience. I must also understand that they are my audience to whom I have a responsibility of engaging. In short, the most difficult thing to teach students is why they should care about their writing. The most difficult thing to teach myself is remaining in touch with what is important to them so that I might make content relevant and interesting, providing content meaningful and an environment safe for developing voices.

Week1: Ars Rhetoricae

what is rhetoric? what is the history and theory of rhetoric? What do you want to do with the content from this course?

Here's an excerpt from a paper I once wrote on the ars rhetoricae or rhetorical arts:

"Since its inception, the field of technical communication has maintained an identity crisis. Scholars disagree on the placement of technical communication courses -- should it be housed in the English department or is it a branch of sciences and technology? Scholars disagree on the content and goals of coursework. Scholars disagree whether the term 'technical communication' should even be defined. As the global marketplace expands, technical communication takes on new life locally and abroad, for native speakers of the many varieties of English and non-native English speakers studying in their home towns and abroad. Much as the field of technical communication must adapt to its audience, purpose, and context, so must the teaching of technical communication in order to meet an infinite and adaptive student audience."  

(Photo: http://www.lascaux.culture.fr/) 

Throughout modern history, the ars rhetoricae developed from Greeks proclaiming their histories and laws of the land, through the Roman Empire as religion took hold and readers such as St. Augustine reportedly repented and converted upon reading the words of St. Paul, through the invention of Gutenberg's printing press, through the books of death distributed in the Dark Ages training children and adults how to prepare their souls for the inevitable, through the industrial age of Dicken's Pickwick Papers, and into the present century where we're still teaching our parents how to connect to the internet even as 3D printers are household items. This brief and holey history, however, arrives as a very Western-centric account. The visual aspects of pre-biblical and prehistoric imagery such as the Lascaux cave paintings tell history and convey information of available materials, lifestyles, interests, agriculture, hunting methods, and more. Human remains in China date over 60,000 years. Remnants of these cultures can tell us a lot about these cultures -- their artifacts, symbols, religion, food sources, and kinships. More recently, the invention of the printing press in China predates Gutenberg's invention. The history of rhetoric, is often Westernized and placed into a context of importance to perhaps widely considered more advanced progressive societies of Western origin.

My perspective of rhetoric is how it relates to technical communication (TCOM). In TCOM, we might be explaining how something works with step-by-step instruction, elucidating and contextualizing product features, saving limbs or lives, or providing any number of contextualized content. The rhetoric of TCOM requires providing exactly the right amount of information. Too much information can lead to the audience disengaging. Too little information can fail to communicate a message fully. In either case, the result could be mal-use of a product or, frighteningly, loss of limbs or life.

The short answer to "What is rhetoric?" we are taught, is the art of persuasion. In TCOM, this often means we give all the information needed, and we produce a call to action. We might consider our audience greater than a basic readership. We might be designing for readers, listeners, impromptu speakers, static or interactive web users, or multi-lingual audiences. We design content for directed and specific audiences in order to produce a response (create agents of action).

My interest in this course and in my higher education is to broaden my perspective of the development of TCOM throughout the world. I would like to begin to explore where and how the field is perceived and developing in non-U.S. and non-Western socieites.