TCR - Week 15 - Brief Reflection

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

Well, I was hoping to have developed a teaching website with everything we discussed in the way of online persona this semester; however, once again, I have overestimated the amount of time I'd have to work on this endeavor.  My goal is to significantly develop the website I already have, posting my teaching philosophy, CV, teaching videos, etc., and cultivating an online a more professional persona over the next six months.  I'll likely seek advice surrounding this project in the future.  By far all the conversations and advice surrounding professional development and teaching we received over the course of the semester, was the most significant things we did.  I really appreciated the guidance we received in career development.  I haven't had that kind of support in any educational setting I've been a part of until now.  This really spoke to me about the investment instructors here at Tech make in students.

The class discussions surrounding educational philosophy and how to teach composition was really important to me as well.  I feel I need to take another semester to research and think more about my own educational philosophy, especially in light of my own concerns about hyperconnectivity and 21st century-readiness and how our changing contexts will affect students.  Though these examples are super cheesy, in the future, I might create a video teaching philosophy similar to the following:

Of course, I would also maintain a print copy of my teaching philosophy, but given the changes in our world, being able to express our teaching values and emphases in multimedia can only help to deepen our understanding of relevance and audience.  This might be an interesting assignment for a 5060 class.  

I really wish we had a second semester of this course with more professional development that integrated teaching practices.  Had my life not been so chaotic, I surely would have requested to take this course for the three units.

TCR - Week 14 - Thanksgiving - Ken Robinson on Passion

THANKSGIVING

If you don't know what to do on Thanksgiving, watch this:

TCR - Week 13 - Some Contributions To Key Words (also added to Leah's googledoc)

KEY TERMS

DARTMOUTH CONFERENCE

At the 1966 Dartmouth Conference, often referred to as the Dartmouth Seminar, leading British and American English instructors gathered to answer the question of "what is the study of English?" and debate the direction of English studies in the academy. The debate resulted in major pedagogic shifts, which forever changed writing instruction in the United States. The conference participants wanted to move away from a content-based pedagogy (emphasis on Grammar and structure) to a process-based pedagogy (expressivism and process composition). Herbert Muller writes that grammar instruction should not be the central emphasis in the English classroom. James Britton's expressivism appears at this conferences (e.g. writing can bring understanding, even understanding of self) and Wayne Booth's appearance is said to have been the origin for two dynamic foci in research: (1) composition as process; and (2) four emerging theories of invention (classical, Burkean, Rohman, and Pike). As a result, "Composition studies" was born. Some implications for composition are:

• The writing process can help students learn and learning can help the writing process;
• Assigning and grading writing is not enough;
• Students should be supported with a composition process which includes generating ideas, reflection, planning and revising

DECONSTRUCTION

Deconstruction can be likened to analysis or viewed as a process of analysis wherein a text is broken down to understand how its various parts contribute to the text (or effect of the text) as a whole. Can be thought of as a process of “reverse engineering,” pulling something apart to see how it works. “Deconstruction” is not a synonym for “destruction.” Deconstruction includes “reading against the grain,” which is a process of taking a text and using its own reasoning against itself, to see how its own reasoning might undermine itself.  Deconstructive readers are interested in errors, gaps, ironies, silences, paradoxes, shifts or breaks, contradictions, conflicts, fissures, digressions, ambiguities, multiple meanings, linguistic quirks, intertextuality, corruptions. Deconstructive readers look at the ways a text says something different from what it intends to mean or the ways texts don’t always mean what the say.

DELIVERY

Greek word for delivery is "hypokrisis" or "acting," and rhetoric has borrowed from that art a studied attention to vocal training and to the use of gestures.  Delivery is one of the five canons of rhetoric.  It primarily concerns itself (as does style) with how something is said/communicated/delivered, rather than what is said (the province of Invention). More modern considerations of delivery in the context of composition might involve considering ways in which teaching is delivered.  In terms of student-centered composition, teachers might consider how composition might include delivering a message in various modalities, so that composition instruction might include aspects of how an essay  might be crafted as a poem, a video, a speech, spoken word, a song, a webpage, or some other form that might be a better way to communicate the message.

GENRE THEORY
http://www.slideshare.net/HeworthMedia/genre-theory


PARADIGM SHIFT

Thomas Kuhn coined the term, “paradigm shift,” using it exclusively within the context of science. However, the term provoked a lot of interest in higher education. It has been adopted and used by many to apply to any change in the way a group thinks about issues and problems related to their field OR to individuals who radically reorganize the way in which they think about something or their entire belief system. Paradigm shifts occur in academic fields when problems are not answerable or cannot be answered with old ways/theories of thinking. Hairston, M.’s (1984) “Winds of Change” applies Kuhn’s term to the field of composition. She presents an argument for a paradigm shift in composition and writing studies. Hairston declared the “writing-process movement” composition’s founding “paradigm,” thus articulating the transition form more structuralist forms of thinking that were held onto up until 1966’s Dartmouth Conference (and after by many). According to Hairston, M. (1984), the shift is happening mainly because of beliefs held by practitioners in the field surrounding composition and writing studies pedagogies, a huge push to investing in writing centers, and the move to separate Composition and Rhetoric Departments from the English departments across the nation. While Hairston, M. (1984) argues composition as process, new ways of thinking about composition suggest we are in a post-process (Rice, R.) or post-post process (Wilson, G.) or that hyperconnectivity (Friedman) is pushing us into a paradigm shift in composition (Rice, R.).

TCR - Week 12 - More Terms

Discourse Community

An academic discourse contains its own conventions about how to present research, and how to read and respond to research. Academic discourses require a kind of literacy and genre knowledge specific to the discourse community.  Essentially, various fields share in conversations pertaining to concerns in the field.  These discussions are discourses which require knowledge of the field in order to partake as an accepted voice. The discourse between individuals needs to have some of the same characteristics. For example, they need to speak the same language (Elbow). Professionals have their own kinds of discourse: lawyers, doctors, architects.  Acceptance into a discourse community is preconditioned on engaging in certain kinds of professional lingo, norms, understanding, and communication (Elbow, 137). (MDD).

Elbow P. (1991). Reflection on Academic Discourse: How It Relates to Freshman and Colleagues. ProQuest Education Journals, 53, 135-155.

Contact Zones - http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095634533  

According to the Oxford Reference “Mary Louise Pratt's term in Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (1992) for social places (understood geographically) and spaces (understood ethnographically) where disparate cultures meet and try to come to terms with each other… [e.g.] where white western travellers have encountered their cultural, ethnic, or racial other and been transformed by the experience. Contact zones are most often trading posts or border cities, cities where the movement of peoples and commodities brings about contact.”  Contact zones in terms of pedagogy, includes exploring composition for points of contact and difference rather than from subjects or themes.  If you want to study the civil war, you would not look at it thematically, you would study from various contact zones: perspectives, opinions, views, understandings, in order to get a better understanding and depth of perspective, as a way to understand and embrace difference. 

Common Grammar Errors - http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/everyday_writer/20errors/

TCR - Week 11 - Audience Awareness

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Audience awareness. Students will analyze audience and purpose in rhetorical situations and make appropriate choices. Measurement: observation and analysis of artifacts produced, including active participation in classroom discussion and blogs.

I'll be talking more about a few things related to this in my Week 15 post, because "audience awareness" seem to be the most important learning objective in our course. Whether, we consider critical thinking, multicultural perspectives, teaching processes, reflection, audience awareness is an integral part of everything we do as educators, as researchers, as practitioners.

I've valued our discussions on the implications that globalization and hyperconnectivity has on composition studies, specifically surrounding notions of audience. This has impacted the way I think about academic digital reading, the way I think about how I need to teach audience to first-year composition students, the way I think about audience for professional development, publication, and beyond. The business world and marketing understand this notion of a global audience much better than composition studies seems to be addressing the reality of hyperconnectivity. Even wiki-how has a grasp on global audience.

For us personally and professionally to understand how our professional presence online has the potential to impact any number of audiences, including students, parents, educators, administrators, granting institutions, publishers, colleagues, potential employers, and audiences around the world which could take on any number of the aforementioned roles, should give us pause. We need to think reflectively about each artifact that manifests who we are in the digital world, because we have the ability (I'm seriously thinking of the scene is Spiderman now. You know what scene I'm thinking of. Okay, for those of you who don't I'll post it after I've made my point) to reach audiences around the globe and beyond our own time. This should give greater weightiness to our choices, our decisions of what we do with our time, our energy, our lives.

Mary De Nora - November 14, 2015

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Fin.

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Now, I'm just going to entertain myself:

TCR - Week 10 - The Kaleidoscopic "I": Voice(s) Heard

The Kaleidoscopic "I": Voice(s) Heard

"[The] truthtelling voice speaks, and its rhythms rush and build like the human mind traveling at high speed. Rhythm, rhythm, the best writing depends so much upon it. But as in dancing, you can't get rhythm by giving yourself directions. You must feel the music and let your body take its instructions. Classrooms aren't usually rhythmic places." (Macrorie, K.)

We've talked quite a bit about voice and authentic voice in the class.  Royster, J. (1996) states that "[u]sing subject position as a terministic screen in cross-boundary discourse permits analysis to operate kaleidoscopically, thereby permitting interpretation to be richly informed by the converging of dialectical perspectives" (p. 555). But, what happens when the voices that mee for cross-boundary discourse are not genuine?  Let's not even think of that.  How can we get kaleidoscopic discourse to operate in the classroom when we have Engfish (Macrorie, 1981) spoken as if it were the native tongue.  First year composition students respond to the assignments we give them, losing their voice to an imagined language of the academy.  Fear takes hold, while young adults reach for that foreign language in an effort to be approved, to receive the grade.  What we do in our classes,  the ways in which we word our assignments, teach our classes, mark up student work, the assignments we give, what we decide is publishable in the academia, who we grant speech to in the ivory towers, who gets the subject place, all of these reveal what "we" value in the academy--as if I had a vote.  When we engage in the work of the academy, the opportunity is always present to reveil a kaleidoscopic understanding of voice.

Yet, as educators we must be careful for ourselves and our students,because the opportunity is always there to commit "spirit murder" (Williams, P., 1987).  Spirit murder, according to Royster, J (1996), happens when students' "experiences are not seen, and their voices are not heard," so that they find what we do "alienating and disheartening" (p. 564-5).  Defending student voice is a value central to teaching--or it ought to be.  Grading papers, writing comments, can have adverse effects, the stifling of voice, a damaging of psyche, if treated as a task without an audience--or with the wrong audience in mind.  If we held in our minds that the audience on the otherside was someone quite extraordinary with potential which would surpass the greatest of thinkers, might we respond differently?  "Long sentence." "Run-on."

We expect students to trust us, but do we listen?  Do we let them really speak?  Do we hear them or do we silence their voices?  Do we help them navigate what is expected in higher education, while allowing them hear their innervoice and allow that innervoice to live? Or do we encourage students to find their "true calling/true vocation"? (Parker, P.)  Are we training students out of creativity as Sir Ken Robinson argues?

And, this is not just happening to students. This happens in what is published or taught by Others about other. "[W]hen the subject matter is me and the voice is not mine, my sense of order and rightness is disrupted" (Royster, J., 1996, p. 564-65).  Royster, J. (1996)'s concerns about the academy seem to suggest that this is, in fact, what education does.  In an effort to produce knowledge, we are selective and weed out voices we don't want to hear, often becoming deaf to the voices we need to hear most.  For Royster, it is of "critical importance [that educators] take on the role of negotiator, someone who can cross boundaries and serve as guide and translator for Others" (p. 566).  And, I would argue, that we be able to model and mentor students in the same process of negotiation.  As we do, a kaleidoscope of perspectives can give way to a more panaramic understanding of all things: audience, voice, argument, wisdom, knowledge, rhetoric, composition.  As we do this, we will have a fuller sense of what "talking" means: "exchang[ing] perspectives, negotiat[ing] meaning, and creat[ing] understanding with the intent of being in a good position to cooperate, when, like now, cooperation is absolutely necessary" (Royster, p. 564).

Student-Centered Movement: An I For An I

Royster, J. (1996) states that "[s]ubjectivity as a defining value pays attention dynamically to context, ways of knowing, language abilities, and experience, and by doing so it has a consequent potential to deepen, broaden, and enrich our interpretive views in dynamic ways as well" (p. 29).  Since, we will accept this as true, the implications for pedagogy1 andragogy are many.  Let's focus on a few we've discussed, because these are things that will effect what I do in my workplace (the classroom):

• We should give students more opportunities to:
• Write in their own voice, using "I" (Elbow, Macrorie);
• Freewrite without judgment (Elbow, Ken Macrorie);
• Use "I" in an argumentative paper (De Nora); 
• "Talk" with Others (Royster); and
• Be boundary crosser and "negotiator[s]" (Royster).

Ultimately, we need to give students back their "I's," so we can see.


Notes:
1 - Pedagogy - I can't even use, hear, or think about this word right now in positive terms in the context of higher education.  I can't get past the idea that we're teaching adults as if they are children.  I know we are using pedagogy interchangeably to mean instruction for adults; however, after considering that andragogy exists, it has now become difficult not to be a pharisee of sorts.  I'll calm down at some point...just as I did when I finally exorcised my self of "reading [what people say] against the grain" after receiving far too much desconstructionist theory.

References

Elbow, P. (1973). "Freewriting." Writing without teachers. New York: Oxford UP, 1-7.

Royster, J. (Feb., 1996). "When the first voice you hear is not your own." College Composition and Communication.

Macrorie, K. (1981). Telling writing. 3rd ed. Hayden.

Palmer, P.J. (1999). Let your life speak: Listening for the voice of vocation. Jossey-Bass.

Robinson, K. (2006). Do schools kill creativity? TED Talk. Accessed at: https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity?language=en

Williams, P. (1987). "Spirit-murdering the messenger: The discourse of fingerpointing as the law 's response to racism."  42 U. Miami L. Rev. 127.

TCR 5060 - Week 9 - Five You Don't, Five You Do

Five Terms/Words/Names, I don't and haven't tried to do:

Donald Murray, Ed Corbett, Feminism (waiting for Brandy's response!), Maxine Hairston, Scottish tradition

Here are my I did's:

Connor's and Travis' blogs (paradigm shift) 

Chen's and Rachel's and Collen's and Meghan's blogs (Genre Theory) - http://www.slideshare.net/HeworthMedia/genre-theory

Michelle (Delivery)

Nancy (Deconstruction)

For the Group Key Terms Document:

At the 1966 Dartmouth Conference, often referred to as the Dartmouth Seminar, leading British and American English instructors gathered to answer the question of "what is the study of English?" and debate the direction of English studies in the academy. The debate resulted in major pedagogic shifts, which forever changed writing instruction in the United States. The conference participants wanted to move away from a content-based pedagogy (emphasis on Grammar and structure) to a process-based pedagogy (expressivism and process composition). Herbert Muller writes that grammar instruction should not be the central emphasis in the English classroom. James Britton's expressivism appears at this conferences (e.g. writing can bring understanding, even understanding of self) and Wayne Booth's appearance is said to have been the origin for two dynamic foci in research: (1) composition as process; and (2) four emerging theories of invention (classical, Burkean, Rohman, and Pike). As a result, "Composition studies" was born. Some implications for composition are:

• The writing process can help students learn and learning can help the writing process;
• Assigning and grading writing is not enough; and
• Students should be supported with a composition process which includes generating ideas, reflection, planning and revising.

[This needs some serious revision - (MDD)].

TCR 5060 - Week 8 - Updating Classroom Assignments

Globalization and technology have provided an opportunity for higher educators to rethink literacy and reinvent curricular offerings.  We have new layers of literacy which are important to effectively engaging in composition and rhetorical practices, including multiple literacies: cultural, technological, print, screen, digital, and film.  Thinking of composition as engaging in multiple literacies and modalities offers a new challenge in the 21^st century ready classroom, especially when catching students up to basic kinds of literacy is still needed.  New genres and modalities offer us creative tools to engage student writers in composition and “get” more out of their education.  It is for this reason, that I enjoy creating group work and collaborative discussion assignments for my 1301 sections.  If I had the opportunity to teach some more advanced composition, research, or technical writing courses, I’d like to incorporate a number of assignments including, but not limited to:

• Hosting a blog site for a class wherein students conduct free writes regularly and respond to each other with peer-critique and encouragement;
• Conducting a class project to build a website with multiple pages that has a clear socially relevant and civically minded purpose for a particular audience; 
• Having students work together to create class presentations via power point or video projects; and if I ever get the opportunity, 
• Rhetorical film analysis through video production, blog or papers. 
• Please do not watch if you are offended by strong language.

 

Some of my favorite and most challenging assignments included working with others and learning how to use new technologies; however, when we have the opportunity to meet these kinds of assignments consistently, it helps prepare us for the kind of rapid technological change that characterizes our new context and will prepare students for the kinds of thinking they will need in the 21^st century.

TCR 5060 - Week 7 - Composition as Acquiring Multiple Literacies in the 21st Century

Yancey, K.B. (Dec. 2004) draws our attention exciting changes in the field of composition and English—innovation in the way we think of literacy.  Technological innovation and globalization have provided a rich context for multimedia and changes in the way we think of literacy.  I enjoy that Yancey reminds us that new writing is not restricted by the University (p. 300, 302), but rather, that writers are writing for the pleasure of writing.  This new context for creation of text is reminiscent of the 19^th-century wherein writers and readers created “their own social contexts” for reading and writing (p. 301).  Technology and innovation often leads to new ways of seeing and thinking and imagining the world.  This new context has contributed to changes in the field of education.  We do not think of composition or literacy in the same worn grooves.  We can think of new kinds of literacy, regardless of whether these literacies always were: cultural literacy, technological literacy, print literacy, screen literacy, digital literacy.  New kinds of literacy have their own terms which help us to think and see the world through a new lens.  According to Daley, screen literacy has the 21^st century reader thinking about life through film jargon (Yancey, 2004, p. 305).  Literacy is not merely restricted to print mediated genres.  Yancey raises a poignant question, “shall we teach print, digital, composition, communication, or all of the above?” (p. 306).  In order to provide a 21^st century ready education to college students, we must rethink composition.  According to Yancey, process and post-process thinking have prepared us well for this new globalized context (p. 309).  At the same time, I argue that before we can move into new genres of composition (Blog, website development, film, etc.), basic print literacy is needed.  Blogs, websites, film, still very much rely on the written word.  This makes our work more challenging, because in order to provide 21^st century ready classrooms in higher education, we must revisit and revamp the building blocks that lead to the college track.  Grade schools through high school need to consider new ways of thinking of education.  What are the implications for higher education leaders?  We must seek for ways to work with high schools, building bridges, so that education becomes more seamless, building literacies leading up to new and engaging literacy exposure in the First Year Composition classroom.  We must resist the notion that education must lead to the gatekeepers remaining in higher education.  In a hyperconnected global context, innovative minds may choose to hack their own education if not provided with sufficient challenges and opportunities to explore creativity and meaningful education.

References

Yancey, K.B. (Dec. 2004).  “Made not only in words: Composition in a new key.”  College Composition and Communication. 56(2).

TCR 5060 - Week 6 - Voice

Ken Macrorie's "from Telling Writing" is hilarious!  Even if we’ve never graded student papers or read our peer’s writing in junior high, high school, or college, we’ve all probably been subject to that strange process wherein we fight to allow our ideas, our voice, us, out and onto paper.  The words resist us.  The false voice of Engfish attacks and sticks to us like silly string.  We feel a need to impress to write up to the university.  With the Wizard of Oz, himself, ready to read and evaluate our prolific language, invented for the purpose of speaking professor-speak—or at least imagined.  And, how could we imagine that such stilted gibberish is academic language?  I don’t know, but how strange a thing that uncovering our own voice could be so difficult a work?  This of course, this work, is composition, a process of revealing self.  According to Macrorie, the authentic writer has the following characteristics:

Couldn’t resist sharing a list.  Lists can be fun and help us self-reflect on our process.  This one can help us reflect on whether our true voice is permitted to live, to thrive, to come alive on paper, in journal, in classroom comments.

TCR 5060 – Week 5 Post – Andragogy in FYC

       The 21st century poses a number of new challenges for higher education. First-year composition ("FYC") classrooms, while mainly made up of college freshmen, are made up of second career and older returning students. This is not new for community colleges, but is new for universities. Ultimately, this new context will serve students better. Instructors of FYC often have freshman who are in their first courses of college. These students are lost, confuses, and trying to figure out the very different expectations of college work than high school work. It is tempting to think of these students as high schoolers, children even, rather than adults. However, these students are adults in the process of transition. Therefore, we should utilize practices from andragogy while borrowing as necessary tools from pedagogy when approaching students in order to empower students and aid students in their transition process. Andragogy, according to Malcolm Knowles, is “the art and science of helping adults learn.” Knowles, M. wrote in the 70's and 80's, identifying six principles for adult learning:

1.            Self-concept - Adults are internally motivated and self-directed;
2.            Experience - Adults bring life experiences and knowledge to learning experiences;
3.            Readiness to learn - Adults are goal oriented, bringing knowledge to bear on their personal and professional lives.  ;
4.            Relevance - Adults are relevancy oriented,  seeking knowledge and understanding which is applicable to their lives;
5.           Orientation on learning - Adults are practical, seeking to solve problems rather than focus on subjects (Knowles, 1980); and
6.           Motivatatition to learn - Adult learners like to be respected and are more motivated by achievement, accomplishment and being treated respectfully.
   
   These six principles, when applied to our view of FYC students, can empower and help these transition learners to become adults in this self-directed sense. We should use an emphasis on andragogy, so as not to enable underdeveloped students or atrophied student thinking. Andragogy might be better understood if we look at how it functions in contrast to pedagogy. Educators also might benefit from using the following chart as a self-reflective rubric for teaching practices (e.g. are students dependent upon your instruction or are you promoting practices which allow students to be self-directed?). The following chart shows some distinctions which are important for the FYC classroom:

(I found this chart from an anonymous blog post at: http://www.educatorstechnology.com/).  By incorporating reflective teaching practices, instructors can better prepare to teach adult learners.  By acknowledging the needs of adult learners, instructors can embrace practices which empower, respect, and help adult learners to pursues a more meaningful education.

References

Keesee, G. (2011). "Andragogy -- Adult learning theory."  Accessed at: http://teachinglearningresources.pbworks.com/w/page/30310516/Andragogy--Adult%20Learning%20Theory

Knowles, M. (1980).  The modern practice of adult education: From pedagogy to andragogy.  Cambridge.

"Pedagogy vs. Andragogy chart.  Accessed at: http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2013/05/awesome-chart-on-pedagogy-vs-andragogy.html

TCR 5060 – Week 4 Post – Teaching Philosophy/Philosophy of Composition

Teaching Philosophy

[“IT IS TIME ONCE AGAIN TO RECONSIDER THE SOCIAL CONTRACT BETWEEN THE UNIVERSITY AND THE NATION” (DUDERSTADT, J.J., 2000B, P. 37). ]

Many have asked the question of whether teachers’ beliefs influence how students perform.  When teachers believe students are intellectually gifted, student performance improves.  Teacher behavior changes students.  Because the role of teacher carries with it authority and power in contradistinction to that of students in most institutional settings; therefore, as instructors, we owe it to our students to:

• Empower them.
• Believe beyond what even students themselves can believe about themselves.  “Everybody is a genius.  But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” –Einstein
• Recognize that not every student learns the same way; therefore, we must teach dynamically.  Dynamic teaching practices require we attend to the various learning styles: kinesthetic, auditory, and visual learners.  “I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.” –Einstein
• Educate, not through the instilling “of facts, but the training of the mind to think” (Einstein) innovatively, creatively, divergently, and in an emotionally intelligent manner.
• Equip them for success in the 21st century hyperconnected world.

Globalization inevitably leads educators to consider how higher education prepares students for success in the current hyperconnected, technologically charged global dynamic.  Technical communication instructors should seek to transform education by seeking “entirely new paradigms” (Duderstadt, J., 2000a, p. i).  Education must situate itself in the hyperconnected world by cultivating creativity, divergent, and innovative thinking (Friedman, T.L., 2005; Pink, D., n.d.; Christensen, C. M., & Eyring, H. J., 2011).  Academic preparation should recognizes the complexities of literacy in the 21st century.  Six core literacies (basic, rhetorical, social, technological, ethical, and critical) are critical.  

References

Christensen, C. M., & Eyring, H. J. (2011). The innovative university: Changing the DNA of higher education from the inside out. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Duderstadt, J. J. (2000a). A choice of transformations for the 21st century university. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 46(22), B6-B7. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/214692413?accountid=8593

Duderstadt, J. J. (2000b). New roles for the 21st-century university. Issues in Science and Technology, 16(2), 37-44. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/195918602?accountid=8593 

Friedman, T.L. (2005, May). The world is flat. MIT.  Retrieved from http://video.mit.edu/watch/the-world-is-flat-9145/

Pink, D. (n.d.). Dan Pink video series on a whole new mind. Board of School Superintendents.  Retrieved from http://ym.askaboss.com/?page=Dan_Pink_Video

My Brief Philosophy of Composition

Composition is a messy.  Composition is a process-driven practice.  What sparks the process may be an assigned prompt, observation of the world, interest in a subject, research question or any number of reasons; however, the author determines when the work is finished.  Some might argue that audience determines when a work is finished.  One can hold both of these views even when they are in direct opposition to each other.  Authors should conduct their work with passion and purpose.  

Composition should always have a purpose. While ars gratia artis can serve for any creative process, composition should have a focus, communicate a message, accomplish something. (Please excuse the advertisement before the following video).

                                          

Composition is creative, or more accurately, co-creative.  Voices, memory, knowledge acquired over a lifetime all speak to the composing act.  Heteroglossia is a term used describe discursive practices as a “matrix of forces” or voices which speak to the occasion (Fiske 89).  This is one aspect or characteristic of composition.  

Voice in composition expands beyond author, and author held heteroglossia.  In our hyperconnected world, composing may include many authors each with his or her own internal voice and values.

Audience is bigger than we imagine.  New contexts and connectivity make it near impossible to imagine or understand audience.  We must explore audience in a much more dynamic and expansive way.

Composition take more than the form of pen to paper.  Composition can engage with any kind of media, especially in our hyperconnected world.

References

Fiske, John. Introduction to Communication Studies.  New York: Methuen, 1982.

TCR 5060 - Week 3 Post - FYC - 21st Century-ready

As I sat down to write a response to this week’s prompt, I found the process challenging for a number of reasons; the main reason is because, I had a difficulty nailing down what the top three or four things are that dominate my composition philosophy.  Ultimately, they are as follows: 21^st century-readiness, emotional intelligence, all things rhetoric, ((and/or so that) students are equipped to successfully pursue their dreams/calling/passion). On the Pearson’s website, you can find the following statement directed toward teachers who are thinking about helping students with “College & Career Readiness”:

You strive to give students the knowledge, 21st century skills, and strategies to think critically and keep learning—always and everywhere. We can help you prepare learners for future success, no matter what their dreams. (emphasis added). (Pearson online).

If I used the example above as a mission statement for FYC student education, I might change it to the following:

First-year composition instruction should promote a strong understanding of the 21^st century global context through developing 21st century skills in: (1) literacy (written, visual, oral, cultural, technological), (2) critical and reflective thinking, (3) emotional intelligence, and (4) continuous/life-long learning.

The following provides some examples of how each of these areas might be reflected in assignments:

(1)        Literacy -

Written, visual, oral, technological – The majority of assignments in 1301 or FYC touch on these.  Students are being asked to wrestle with these regularly.  A few assignments which might touch on visual literacy would be to analyze a super bowl television advertisement for audience, thesis, and supporting rhetorical devices.  Another similar assignment might ask the class to analyze a website for audience, main claim/purpose, and supporting visual/rhetorical devices.

“[C]ultural” is addressed here…and in the emotional intelligence section.

(2)        Critical thinking (is pervasive throughout the categories) – Throughout FYC, students are asked to engage with readings and think critically.  I always like taking a passage that has a number of claims and having students get into groups to dissect, analyze, investigate, pass judgments on and wrestle with the claims, how the claims are made, and whether they are effective.

Reflective thinking (should be pervasive throughout the categories – Students can be asked to reflect on their composition process.  They can be asked to reflect on how an assignment spoke to them or think back to how they were changed by an assignment, etc.  

(3)        Emotional intelligence (and cultural literacy) - This is by far the most challenging skills/intelligences to create.  A FYC class might start with reading for perspectives (a case study with multiple cultures represented in the case study might be presented).  Students could be asked to put themselves in someone else’s shoes.  A case study where an individual or multiple individuals and scenarios demonstrate emotional intelligence exercised well might be presented.  Students could discuss how the individual(s) accomplished what needed to be accomplished.  Group discussions relating to diverse perspectives which incorporates empathy and well-thought our reasoning is key here.  An instructor might ask students to take a test at the beginning of the course from a “360-degree feedback instrument” (McKee, 2015).  Once students got results from a test like the Emotional and Social Competency Inventory (ESCI), they could be asked to review the results and then write reflectively on how they read the results and how they might strengthen any weaknesses they might have.

(4)        Continuous/Life-long learning – Many students view learning as something that happens in school primarily; however, in order to help prepare students for a global technological context where things are changing at daunting rate, instructors will need to instill a desire for continuous learning through modeling and casting the vision.  This might start with asking the class questions for discussion, “What does it mean to be a ‘continuous’ or ‘life-long learner’?  Why might this be an extremely vital skill or characteristic to have as a person?”

References

College & Career Readiness.  Pearson, 2015. Accessed at: http://www.pearsoned.com/prek-12-education/topics-in-prek-12-education/college-and-career-readiness/

McKee, Annie.  “How to Help Someone Develop Emotional Intelligence.”  Harvard Business Review Online.  April 24, 2015.  Accessed at: https://hbr.org/2015/04/how-to-help-someone-develop-emotional-intelligence

TCR 5060 - Week 2 Post - Emotional Intelligence as a Route to Audience Achieved

“Self-absorption in all its forms kills empathy, let alone compassion. When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our problems and preoccupations loom large. But when we focus on others, our world expands. Our own problems drift to the periphery of the mind and so seem smaller, and we increase our capacity for connection—or compassionate action.” Social Intelligence by Daniel Goleman

       While Ede/Lunsford’s work suggests that knowing your audience is one of the most essential and difficult aims in writing, I feel it is more difficult to teach certain competencies associated with emotional intelligence, including empathy (being able to see from another’s perspective and care), creative problem solving/innovative thinking, and communicating clearly and effectively. All of these things are essential to reaching an audience, engaging that audience to action. According to Kano, K (n/d), “emotional intelligence skills [are] foundational for predicting leadership success.” What is exciting to me is the reality that emotional intelligence can be taught. Many elements make up emotional intelligence. The question then becomes, which component of emotional intelligence do we begin with teaching? In the case of better understanding audience and creating innovative and meaningful arguments to reach an audience, one might begin with teaching empathy. Readings, activities, and assignments geared toward face-to-face interactions or putting oneself in another’s shoes might be the order of business. When setting out to teach anything surrounding emotional intelligence, we must first look to the originator of the term emotional intelligence, Daniel Goleman. He has spent an extensive amount of time identifying the characteristics and qualities of emotional intelligence, specifically in relation to their importance within higher education and industry. In focusing in on empathy, we might consider the following video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oQxFUo9zfM Daniel Goleman outlines various kinds of empathy which are key components of emotional intelligence:

• Cognitive Empathy
  • I understand how you think about things
  • taking the other's perspective
  • downside - if only have cognitive empathy they can manipulate you
• Emotional Empathy
  • I feel with you, feel your distress
  • critical for leadership to create rapport
  • downside - dealing with pain you can burnout
  • emotional self-management
• Empathic Concern
  • felt sense when you see other's pain
  • spontaneously want to help out
  • are good team players

(Goleman, D., Different Kinds of Empathy, accessed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg2pq4Mjeyo)

One of the challenges in creating arguments to convince an audience is the absent audience. However, the greater the level of emotional intelligence, the more likely the author will be able to capture that audience invoked, reaching an actual audience.

Reference

Kano, K. (n/d). Emotional intelligence learning: What research teaches us about its importance to student. Jossey-Bass. Accessed at: http://www.wiley.com/legacy/downloads/Emotional_Intelligence_Learning_What_the_Research_Teaches_Us_About_Its_Importance_to_Students.pdf

TCR 5060 - Week 1 Post - What is Rhetoric?

      In graduate school, I was told that rhetoric, as an academic field, is the study of language, communication, and meaning making. Countless definitions for rhetoric exist. Some of the following taken from the American Rhetoric website are among my favorite quotes defining rhetoric:

• Francis Bacon: The duty and office of rhetoric is to apply reason to imagination for the better moving of the will.
• George Campbell: "[Rhetoric] is that art or talent by which discourse is adapted to its end. The four ends of discourse are to enlighten the understanding, please the imagination, move the passion, and influence the will."
• I. A. Richards: Rhetoric is the study of misunderstandings and their remedies.
• Richard Weaver: Rhetoric is that "which creates an informed appetition for the good."
• Andrea Lunsford: "Rhetoric is the art, practice, and study of human communication."

(Accessed at: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/rhetoricdefinitions.htm). Of these, I find Weaver’s rendering to be important to the field as we often equip rhetoricians, but rarely raise the trumpet that pursuing what is “good” and “just” are equally important to persuading others to that end.

       While many trace the origins of “rhetoric” to Gorgias, Socrates and Plato, rhetoric has been in use since the beginning of persuasive communication. In fact, even animals might be considered rhetoricians, attempt to convince predators or members of their own kind of one thing or another through the use of communication, gestures, and behaviors. Socrates considered rhetoric to be quite course; its use by the sophists to convince for money was appalling to Plato’s rendering of Socrates. Aristotle, Plato’s student, took rhetoric in an entirely different direction, demonstrating that when used for the good, rhetoric is of great import to society, especially in the legislative arena.

       Primarily, I’m hoping to gain better and more artful skills for teaching in TCR in order to ultimately gain a position as a tenured professor.