First Year Composition FYC

I became an English professor because: EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW HOW TO WRITE. I did not become a history professor because not everyone can benefit from knowledge about what has happened in the past. Some people just don’t get it.

But everyone needs to know how to write. Writing is communication and communication is essential.

Don’t believe me? Okay. Believe social marketing guru Seth Godin.

In his post How to get A Job with a Small Company he says:

Learn to write. Writing is a form of selling, one step removed. There’s more writing in business today than ever before, and if you can become a persuasive copywriter, you’re practically a salesperson, and even better, your work scales.

3. Learn to produce extraordinary video and multimedia. This is just like writing, but for people who don’t like to read. Even better, be sure to mix this skill with significant tech skills. Yes, you can learn to code. The fact that you don’t feel like it is one reason it’s a scarce skill.

Learn to write.
Learn to produce extraordinary video and multimedia.

THAT is what I am teaching in my fyc. THAT is what my students need to be learning to get a job, have a career, and support a family. It may be what they need to be able to eat.

Is learning to write about more than a job? Absolutely. But it does help to be able to put food on the table if you can get a job. I remember when I didn’t always have food on the table. I don’t want my students to have those kind of memories, for themselves or for their children.

I need to make sure I also include this in my business writing class.

I need to create my second semester fyc class. Even though we have three more weeks of school, counting Thanksgiving, but not finals, I am already gearing up for next semester.

Second semester first year composition:
I will also be teaching another freshman composition course which is composed in a way totally different from any I have ever taught. It requires four papers, each of which build toward the final research project, and which each add one additional source to the project. So, the first paper has one source. The second paper has two sources. The third paper has three sources. (I believe that these must be different sources as the final research project requires at least six sources.)

Today I found this idea on the CHE fora:

[T]his time I required that they submit, first, an abstract with a clearly stated thesis, and second, an annotated bibliography/outline, with a revised thesis. These are each worth only 5% of their grade and I do not mark off for grammar, spelling, etc. The assignments must be submitted digitally, and I slot them directly into my google docs, which I can then “share” with each individual student once I am finished commenting.

Thanks, new member Girasol, for a great idea for my second-semester fyc class.

Thinking through previous practices that might produce positive results with this class:
Requiring a pre-writing exercise that includes more than the necessary articles for the final project be found and linked.

Creating a Works Cited list for those articles.

Creating summaries of the articles the students intend to use. This actually did not work well one time, because the students then incorporated the summaries into their papers, which was not the point of the exercise. However, if they write the summaries, I know they have read the articles. (Or I find the plagiarism early.)

Projects/avenues that might contribute in a positive manner to this course:
Poster presentation as the final project.
Have the students create a poster presentation about their research and present it. This would be helpful for:
tying the first-semester fyc paper on visual rhetoric to the research project.
those who end up doing the undergraduate research fair.
those who are in the social sciences (or in the technical edges of the humanities).

Proposal and progress reports:
This would be useful to the business majors.
It would also keep me informed about what progress (if any) they are making.
It might allow me to intervene in situations where the work isn’t being done in a timely manner.
Perhaps the progress report would be most useful between the third paper and the final large project.

Things I need to find/figure out:
fyc
What the full scope of this fyc course is. (Perhaps get others’ syllabi?)
Where I can get the books I am supposed to be teaching from.
linguistics
What linguistics books the previous teacher used.
Where I can get a copy of that book.
Decide whether to use a popular linguistics book as a text as well.

Other classes:
My schedule changed yesterday. Now instead of a sophomore literature course I have taught once, I will be teaching a senior linguistics course that I have never taught.

You know how sometimes you read an article and you’re like, “That was a waste of my time.” but you can’t get that time back?

Wouldn’t you like to know before you start reading that the article IS worth your time?

I found one like that this morning. It really got me thinking. In fact, I thought so much, I sent two emails to three people about the comments from the article.

Reading the World: Ideas that Matter, from Bedford St Martin by Michael Austin (2nd edition).

“The department-wide textbook we are using is designed to get the students thinking more critically about a variety of issues using texts from philosophy to sociology to politics. The students will have to write a thought paper (for lack of a better term) exploring an issue of their choosing, informed by both what we discussed in class and what they have read in the textbook and elsewhere.”

–This is an internet friend of mine’s text, description, and blog post about her experience engaging the students using this book and the texts within it.

Then I recommended the text (and the article) for perusal for two core courses at my university.

(I just panicked and thought: “What if that is what we are already using? I will look so dumb.” We’re not. Whew! [cue brow wipe here])

Then I went back to look over the article again and found another comment worth quoting and sending out.

“My students write a weekly paper in which they tie something from real-life to the current chapter, and we discuss it in class. It generally keeps them current, and I never know what they are going to find. As an instructor it keeps me on my toes, but whatever, I need the exercise.”

This reminded me of a friend’s class where she requires the same thing. So I pulled out the sent email and forwarded it to her along with the quote above and an explanation of why I was sending random things from the internet to her.

When the comments are so engaging, don’t you want to read the whole article?

I thought you might.

What Do Your Students Know?

Now I’m wondering how I would find out the answer to the title’s question…

How can we engage students when we lecture?

Have you ever given a lecture to a class where everyone sat still the entire class period? One where the students did not jump and run as soon as (or even before) the bell rang? If you have, how often have you wondered exactly how you managed that? If you haven’t, do you dream of this or just give it up as an impossible dream?

According to Robert B. Cialdini, students can become engrossed in a lecture with a single, simple feature at the beginning. They will listen raptly, eagerly and not even shift when the bell rings, if we start our lecture with it. They will clamor to know the answer, even when they should be out the door on to their next class.

What is this single feature that we can add to the experience?
If you are intrigued, not just wanting to know the answer, but wondering when I will give it, then you won’t be surprised to hear that the key to engaging the audience is a mystery.

No, I don’t mean we don’t know. I mean it is a mystery, a puzzle, a tale that involves questions. It’s a mystery story.

What if I told you that in sixty minutes, I could increase your average college grades by a half a letter grade–for the next four years?

That’s the mystery I offered my students yesterday. Now the research has been done (though only using minority students) and I know the answer. I can increase their college averages by simply letting them know, making them believe, giving them sufficient examples to show that everyone is confused by college. Apparently many people are unaware that college students are often doubtful of their decisions, frustrated with their efforts, and confused about what to do next. Learning that is sufficient to increase their confidence and their grades.

Can I give you a more extended example?
That’s a short example and certainly not one that engages attention for a long time, at least not as I set it up here.

But is there a way to extend an example? Of course there is. Here is one from Cialdini’s 2005 Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology article.

One of the most successful book sections I registered was written by an astronomer. He began a 20–page section with a puzzle: How can we account for what is perhaps the most spectacular planetary fea- ture in our solar system, the Rings of Saturn? There’s nothing else like them. What are the Rings of Saturn made of. anyway?

Then, he deepened the mystery by asking how three internationally acclaimed groups of scientists could come to wholly different conclu- sions on the answer. One, at Cambridge University, proclaimed they were gas. Another group, at MIT, was convinced they were made up of dust particles. The third, at Cal Tech, insisted they were composed of ice crystals. How could this be? After all, each group was looking at the same thing, right? So, what was the answer?

I will not take you through the whole process of discovery and tell you how the differing backgrounds of the teams—astrophysicists here, as- tronomers there—led them to look at different aspects of the phenome- non and how a crucial measurement error led one team down the wrong path. Suffice it to say that the process of unraveling the mystery was not unlike the process of scientific investigation, wherein hypotheses are generated, implications are tested, nonproductive approaches are taken, errors of interpretation are made, and evidence is marshaled until a sat- isfactory resolution occurs. By the way, this is no small benefit of the use of mysteries in our lectures. The process of resolving mysteries is re- markably similar to the process of science. So, in the use of the mystery approach, we not only give students information about content, we also send them a sub–rosa message about process.
Let us get back to the main point. Which answer was revealed at the end of 20 pages? The beautiful, mysterious Rings of Saturn are mostly dust! Actually, they are ice–covered dust, which accounts for some of the confusion, but they are mostly dust nonetheless.

Now, I do not care about dust, and the composition of the Rings of Saturn is entirely irrelevant to my life. But, that scientist had me turning pages like a speed–reader. Here’s the telling thing: I am sure that I will never forget the answer to the mystery he constructed. Moreover, I am sure that I will never forget how three groups of scientists could have been so confident in their opposing answers to the question. This strikes me as an enormous advantage of mystery stories. They can get our stu- dents to become engrossed in and to remember important material that they otherwise would not care about because it does not seem relevant to their daily lives. Mystery stories do not need personal relevance—they bring their own. (24)

Cialdini doesn’t just offer the mystery story: a mystery, the players in the mystery, a discussion of possible alternatives for answers to the mystery, and finally the denouement as a way to improve lectures. He offers an additional tool as well.

There is another way to improve lectures.

Have you ever noticed that students are riveted by some material, not even noticing that the class period has gone by, while some material has them shifting (or Facebooking) through the entire class?

There’s a reason for this. It’s not really a secret.

Boredom.

When the students are wiggling and tuning us out, it is because they are bored.

Why are they bored?

Students are bored, not because we are boring, we are not inherently boring. All of us can remember an engaging discussion, a particularly well-told joke, or a story that we told to a breathless audience.

Nope. It is not that we are boring.

We are bored.

Yes, I said it. (Well, Cialdini said it first.) We are bored. We know the material isn’t that interesting, so we are bored. Our being bored makes our students bored.

How do WE become engaged in our own lectures?

We find something interesting, something engaging, something we think is fascinating and we add THAT to the lecture.

Just having an addition that is unique, interesting, and engaging TO US is enough to make the lecture more engaging to the student (28). We need to be excited in the classroom. If we are, they will become more excited.

Today’s lecture (in my class) is going to be about a proposing a solution paper. We are in the process of writing those in my fyc classes. But the beginning of the lecture, which is really a repeat of the reading we did yesterday, is a two-minute movie featuring Dr. Davis as Albert Einstein and starring Gandhi as my personal Socrates. There’s a really lame joke on the mispronunciation of precedent being understood as president, a discussion of the principle of fun as a guide for my solution, and a belch. (It is a college class, after all.)

I’m really looking forward to presenting this little two-minute movie, including Gandhi’s Homecoming Queen wave from the moon, in class.

Because I am excited about it, the students will be more excited about it as well.

Ever heard that proverb “like begets like?”

Here’s an example of it in teaching.

At comPOSITIONblog Nicole Papaioannou writes about teaching first-year composition.

While I’m not a big activist person, my uni is. Social justice is a big deal here. This assignment, Music as Activism, sounds like something I might be able to in my classroom and actually make work.

Each semester, I have made sure to spend at least one day talking about music and lyrics as forms of activism. I have my students read the lyrics of Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit,” Linkin Park’s “Hands Held High,” and Eminem’s “Like Toy Soldiers.” I also share YouTube videos of these songs, so that they can listen to the them as they read the lyrics. In class, we talk about which songs were effective at carrying across their message and do close readings, dissecting lyrics, talking about tone, and evaluating audience appeal.

Today, they also used this conversation about music to workshop their Writing as Activism projects, all of which are based upon very different topics.
….

In the end, I was impressed by the soundtracks that my students compiled. They put a good deal of thought into them. Even the students who had challenging topics, for which practically no songs directly addressed the issue, managed to figure out what they wanted to say about those topics and find songs to help them make sense of their activist projects. Some of them even shared links to the songs so that I could listen to them. All in all, I think this is a workshop I will be assigning in future courses.

She has the instructions for the workshop in her post, too.

Not only am I blogging about this here, I am also sending it on to the director of FYC as a suggestion for a paper. We’ve been changing up what we’ve been doing in lots of ways. Our fourth paper for the semester (for our grad TAs at least) came from an SCMLA presentation by Brian Blackburne. That means this week’s assignment for the “proposing a solution” paper was changed based on last week’s conference. I like that kind of flexibility!

“Comments that send a student writer to a series of editorial cul-de-sacs really don’t send the student anywhere.”
–Michelle Clark

for use in discussion of Conceptual Elements in fyc

We heard Brian Blackburne of SHSU speak at SCMLA. He talked about using Xtranormal in the Technical Communication classroom.

My colleague loved the idea of assigning Xtranormal as a group presentation project on plagiarism for our “proposing a solution” first-year composition assignment.

Another professor, as her/his assignment, had students create an animation of three JSTOR articles. The grading rubric is included, which requires proper citation, a good video, and adhering to the time limit.

I like this, especially since Dr. Blackburne mentioned that there are companies out there already using Xtranormal. Geico and Toyota are two that he mentioned specifically.

I think I am going to pay for a month’s worth of Xtranormal and the student cost (or ask them to pay, since it is $.50 each) and have them do a plagiarism movie for the proposing a solution assignment.

After the movie is done, they will write a shorter (not 1200 words) piece defending their choices within the movie and saying why or how they think it will be persuasive. They will also need to identify their target audience (which I had thought I was going to assign, but maybe I will give them some choices).

“I think just sitting around talking about what they’ve read encourages students to mental weediness.” –egilson of the CHE fora

for use in the Conceptual Elements section of FYC

My new university requires, for first year composition, a visual rhetoric essay.

I will confess that, prior to this assignment, I had no experience with visual rhetoric. I am an English and history undergrad major, who went with English all through graduate school. None of the courses I took, even the rhetoric classes for my PhD, included visual rhetoric as a topic, must less as a focus.

Due to time constraints, I was not able to converse with colleagues or get their ideas for the paper before I had to teach it.

What I did, though, worked very well, I think.

Examining Images Labeled “College Students”
As prewriting exercises, the class and I used Google Images to search for “college students” pictures. Then, I went through and pulled them up, one after the other, and asked my classes if these were actual college students or pictures of college students. I will say that they were better at articulating why the photos were NOT of college students than they were about what made the photo one of college students, but despite that limitation, they did an excellent job.

Some of their answers for why it was not a photo of college students included:
It’s too posed.
They are too old.
Those might be grad students.
That was taken in the 90s (or 80s or 60s). While not all the pictures were, and I’m not sure how that made college students or not, they were accurate about the time period portrayed within the photograph. I think that perhaps the students were answering based on whether these are modern college students, the kind my students would know and hang out with.
They don’t have faces. This one was a shock to me. I thought the students in the graphic were either late high school or early college based on their poses. But my students said they could not be college students because they did not have faces. Later on they added that the poses were wrong for college students: “No college kid would stick his butt out like that!” But there first response–across three classes–was that they don’t have faces.

Examining Book Covers
Then I took the class to Amazon. We looked at covers of books that I have read and know are fairly indicative of the actual text of the book. We deconstructed the covers based on:
target audience
compositional elements
genre, particularly as created by the elements in the picture
color and its meaning(s)
interaction of verbal and visual rhetoric
role of character(s) on cover, including their group’s role in government (not all, but most of the science fiction and fantasy works allowed for this deduction)
whether the book was a fast read or more dense with information
(Sometimes I would ask a leading question, but usually they already knew.)

Most of the time the students were able to identify the genre of the work, even though most of my students don’t read books for entertainment.

We also talked, sometimes, about the relationships of the characters portrayed on the cover.

For one book, I asked them to name not only the season of year that the book was about, but also the holiday being celebrated. (There was snow in the background and the main colors in the composition were red, green, and gold.)

My students did a great job of engaging with the reading of the visual rhetoric of covers of books they never had any experience or intention of reading.

Expertise
The students’ abilities to identify, classify, and correctly deduce various information from both the photographs and the covers allowed me to point out to them that they are already well versed in the practice of visual rhetoric.

Assignment parameters
Then I had my students choose a picture of some sort to write on, using the same kinds of points we had already covered.

I limited their piece to something that was not their own composition, either art or photography.

I also recommended, for those wanting to use photographs, that they examine more panoramic pictures–with multiple subjects or action– rather than close-ups.

Art Work
Our text included two art pieces that we had already discussed in terms of relationships, composition, colors, style of art, cultural implications, socioeconomic levels, and historical setting.

Many students chose works that were pieces of art. Only one chose an older art piece and that student is an artist herself. Modern art pieces were far more popular, even with the artists. One student actually brought to class a print he had purchased and used it as his text for the visual rhetoric essay.

Additional recommendations: Multiple audiences’ reading
For the guys who wanted to use football pictures, particularly (though I did recommend this for other people), I suggested that they discuss the visual rhetoric as it would be read by an expert such as themselves, by someone who knows what football is but not much else–like me, and by someone who is from a totally different culture without American football.

This allowed the students to demonstrate their expertise, but also to identify things that were more generic or evocative within the visual text. It also required them to think outside their own expectations and understandings, while examining a single work.

This suggestion also worked well for a student who brought a photograph of a member of the hacking group Anonymous, in a V For Vendetta mask, in front of a Chinese restaurant. There were significant differences in my own and their understanding of the visual rhetoric of the picture, based on what I knew first glancing at it. It also helped the student to realize that simply because he knew what it was a picture of didn’t mean that everyone in the world would recognize it.

Additional recommendations: Book cover having read the book
I also suggested that, if the student chose a book cover for a book they had read, they could see what the book cover would say to someone who had not read the work and then compare it to possible differences of nuance for someone who had read the book or who had more knowledge of the text, author, or genre.

We had done this already as a class when examining the book covers, since I only showed the covers of books that I had read. Sometimes things in the cover appear to be one thing to a new reader and are obviously something else to those who have read the work.

One book cover that elicited a more circumscribed description than I could have given for it was Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who. The student missed the blatantly environmentalist stance in the cover and the book and did not know Dr. Seuss’ history as a propagandist in World War II.

Another permutation
One of my students chose to do the book covers of one of his favorite books. That particular book had four different covers, by country of publication or by date of publication. Even the fonts chosen for the title and author’s name differed.

I think that could easily have been a much longer paper for an advanced composition course and, if I were teaching an advanced composition course, I might use a visual rhetoric assignment like this.