Teaching Composition
As the term starts rolling along
As the term begins, I thought I’d write a quick post with some useful links. • Composition instructors know it can be difficult to teach using a handbook. How do we approach the text as a useful resource for students? All too often it’s easy to assign pages from a handbook for students to read, [...]
FYC into the archives
In the spring, an archival librarian gave a presentation to instructors in the composition program here about using the university’s Special Collections in composition courses. My friend Sarah closed out her first year rhetoric and composition course with an archival research essay in the spring, and when I talked to her, I absolutely loved her [...]
good course so far
This summer I’m teaching English 015 as part of LEAP, which allows incoming first-year students to take two general education classes together as a cohort, or a “pride” as they call it. Generally LEAP teachers work together to build some cohesion between the two courses, and I’m lucky in that my class is paired with [...]
notes from the interblags: post RSA edition
Yesterday concluded the RSA Summer Institute, held here at Penn State. Participants from around the country came to discuss rhetoric in either a week-long seminar or a weekend workshop (or for some, both). I was in the Queering Rhetorical Studies workshop, which was a fantastic experience. I walked away with new connections, friends, and colleagues, [...]
a book report on peter rabbit
via Rosa at the Blogora, here’s an amazing Charlie Brown video about the stresses of writing: PS. I love Linus.
“whopper virgins”
From Feminist Philosophers, Here is a 7+ minute video that shows a taste test conducted by Americans in regions of the world where people have never eaten a hamburger. They conducted an experiment to see if these “whopper virgins” would like the Burger King Whopper or the McDonald’s Big Mac better. This video might be [...]
definitions: marriage
Tomorrow in class we’re talking about definitions. In particular, there are four ways you might define a term in an essay: formal (like a dictionary) extended, historical, negative (what it’s not), and stipulative (“for the sake of this essay, I will define…”). I thought the following examples would help. Jon Stewart uses a historical definition: [...]
584: Weekly Position Paper #9: The Ethos of GTAs: Credibility Appeals vs. Pedagogical Openness
Ethos is a term that Krista Ratcliffe employs in Rhetorical Listening both in order to understand how whiteness functions in our society and in order to help teachers understand how they can plan for a course that prepares students to listen rhetorically. In order to maintain stasis, whiteness often reduces ethos to a rugged-individualist ethical [...]
notes from the interblags: racism, transphobia, marginalia
• via Dennis, BooMan on explicit racism in this election. An excerpt: Anytime they poll the American people about racism, blacks say there is more of it than whites. The raw racism on display this election season is probably more educational for whites than for blacks, who have had a more accurate picture of reality [...]
Some post-Watson thoughts
I’m in a coffee shop in Louisville, thinking about the conference, what I learned, and what I missed. I’m bummed that I got into town Thursday afternoon, in time to miss some cool talks Thursday that I wanted to see. After riding the city bus to my hotel, and then riding the wrong city bus [...]
