I like to think that revision and reflection are significant parts of my pedagogy. Reflective writing can help students retain what they've learned, it can promote transfer to other contexts, and it allows me, as the instructor, to understand and assess a student's writing and research processes. In many ways, I've found student reflective writing to be more useful than whatever product they make for one of my classes. In Technical Communication, a student could complete an instructions document that does not fully meet the assignment objectives, but they can still do well in class -- that is, they can demonstrate their learning -- by articulating what they think they missed, why they may have missed it, and what they would do next time to improve. Students can elect to revise and resubmit their completed documents based on their reflections.
Similarly, I participate in this reflection process throughout the semester, posting my self-critique and revision ideas to the course wiki, and now, on this blog space. In doing so, I'm not just interested in reflecting on what I'm doing and what I'm asking my students to do, but in doing so critically, approaching reflection as a concept, habitual practice, and complication. The term has achieved a sort of buzzword status across popular discourse and higher education alike, commonly as "critical thinking," which I feel is the crucial skill publics expect professional educators to convey to students. Rarely, in those external conversations, do I hear critical defined in any specific way (partially, of course, because that's not a thing that publics typically do).
So what do I mean by "critical"? And how does it apply to reflection? Since it's where I situate myself disciplinarily, I try to embrace the connotation used within Critical Discourse Studies, which Mautner (2009) summarizes as, "unveiling and challenging taken-for-granted assumptions about language and the social, as well as recognizing discourse as a potentially powerful agent in social change" (pp. 123-124). With this definition as a guidepost, I encourage students to reflect not only on their work, but on the course and assignment, including through lenses of accessibility, alignment, and process. Applying that definition to my own reflective writing, I'm attuning myself to the ways my teaching and assignments create space for students to challenge institutional hierarchies, but also how my teaching reinforces those structures.
Just composing this post is leading me to two lines of inquiry. First, how are my assignment designs leading/constraining students to/from reflecting critically? Second, what can we learn from the differing ways that academia and publics define "critical." Next week, though, my plan is to write on the craft branding projects that graduate students in the Theory in Rhetoric, Composition, & Literacy Studies course that I teach are currently collaborating on. One group is making kimchi and the other is making beer. The groups are documenting their processes, with photographs, video, and text, and will next exchange notes so that each group can design branding for the other group's product.
1.08.2019
2018: My Year in Books
Whenever someone asks me what I think they (or their kids) should read, and it really does happen often, I answer the same way: “more.” When asked that I read, which happens less frequently, I tend to trip over a more convoluted answer. Kind of like my consumption of beer or music, I approach my reading as contextual and seasonal. There's no one answer, other than the professionally-clichéd "it depends."
Providing evidence that only I saw or cared about, over the past few years, I’ve kept track of the books that I’ve completed reading. I started doing this for a few reasons: create a record of my reading habits, promote more diverse and inclusive reading, and motivate myself to read more.
Miming Brian McNely’s pattern (who also appears on the list), here’s my roll call, followed by brief reflections on the more resonant readings.
Similarly, there are certain types of things I like to read at different times of the year. Science non-fiction in the early summer and something my daughter is interested in during the dog days, something Irish in March and something spooky around Halloween. This pattern is not a prescription, and I tend to read for work throughout the year.
Of the 42 books I completed during the 2018 calendar year, some have already revealed that they stick with my for longer. Not sure if any will reach the echelon of Caramelo or Discipline and Punish, texts I've read and reread since first encountering them (coincidentally, perhaps, both were originally assigned readings). But some on the current list have the potential to resonate, a concept which McNely defined as books that forces the reader to “pause, to think, to step back, to wonder." This is a concept I am primed for. Film that resonates for me will negatively occupy space in my mind for a few days after watching. Music resonates for me when I can play it while doing something else (writing, driving, running, etc.), getting occasionally pulled in but not necessarily distracted. When reading, I can measure the potential resonance in a more material way. Whether reading a physical book or on my Kindle, I am a profuse highlighter and annotator. These notes are later transcribed or copied to a file for further reflection. The books that I think resonate for me are those that elicit the most response.
By both qualitative and quantitative measures, much of my reading over the past year has proved relevant to current projects of teaching and scholarship. Open-Access, Multimodality, and Writing Center Studies by Buck, and the edited collection, Writing Assessment, Social Justice, and the Advancement of Opportunity, edited by Poe, Inoue, and Elliot, will not only inform my thinking and writing, they are models of the sort of politically-cognizant scholarship that I hope to emulate.
After occupying years as a nightstand coaster, I finally finished Brewmaster's Table. Not limiting the category to beer, Oliver is among the best at creating written descriptions of physical experience. Doubled-up with my binging of The Handmaid's Tale television series, Future Home of the Living God by Erdrich was a little too much reflected by the current political moment to be taken on its own terms. Perhaps my favorite thing I read all year, Abdurraqib's They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us made me care -- deeply -- about Rick Flair and the Wonder Years' Suburbia I've Given You All and Now I'm Nothing, two pop culture artifacts I couldn't tell you much about before.
Bridging personal and professional interests, The New Normal by Bratton and Demagoguery and Democracy by Roberts-Miller are both concise yet thorough, articulating complex and contemporarily relevant arguments. I expect both to show up on my reference and course readings lists soon.
Finally, my daughter was assigned Refugee for her summer reading last year, a project that the whole family assumed. For her, it kicked off two fascinations: She's since read three other books by Gratz, and she has become simultaneously intellectually and politically invested in learning more about human displacement and movement. For her summer reading project, she drew parallels from the book's narratives to the contemporary issues of Central American migrants and the Mexico/US border. Her comparison of policies enforced by the current presidential administration and the rejection of the MS St. Louis do not reflect positively on the US.
Providing evidence that only I saw or cared about, over the past few years, I’ve kept track of the books that I’ve completed reading. I started doing this for a few reasons: create a record of my reading habits, promote more diverse and inclusive reading, and motivate myself to read more.
Miming Brian McNely’s pattern (who also appears on the list), here’s my roll call, followed by brief reflections on the more resonant readings.
- Open-Access, Multimodality, and Writing Center Studies by Elisabeth Buck (2017)
- We Gon' Be Alright by Jeff Chang (2016)
- Oh Beautiful Beer: the Evolution of Craft Beer and Design by Harvey Shepard (2015)
- House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (1905)
- Last Nights of Paris by Philippe Soupault (1928, 2008)
- The Working Lives of New Writing Center Directors by Nicole I. Caswell, Jackie Grutsch McKinney, & Rebecca Jackson (2016)
- Sport and the Neoliberal University: Profit, Politics, and Pedagogy (the American Campus) by Ryan King-White, Ed. (2018)
- Buying into English: Language and Investment in the New Capitalist World (Composition, Literacy, and Culture) by Catherine Prendergast (2008)
- Brewmaster's Table by Garrett Oliver (2005)
- Buying In or Selling Out?: The Commercialization of the American Research University by Donald G. Stein (2004)
- The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1890)
- Podemos Cambiar El Mundo by Camila Vallejo (2013)
- Facing the Center by Harry Denny (2010)
- The Twilight of Equality by Lisa Duggan (2004)
- We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates (2017)
- The New Normal by Benjamin Bratton (2017)
- Academic Conferences as Neoliberal Commodities by Donald J Nicolson (2017)
- Remix: Reading Composition & Culture, 3rd Ed. by Catherine G. Latterel (2017)
- The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (2007)
- Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (2010)
- Demagoguery and Democracy by Patricia Roberts-Miller (2017)
- The Seventh Function of Language by Laurent Binet & Sam Taylor (Trans.) (2017)
- The Aboutness of Writing Center Talk: A Corpus-Driven and Discourse Analysis by Jo Mackiewicz (2016)
- Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich 92018)
- They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib (2017)
- Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber (2018)
- Refugee by Alan Gratz (2017)
- Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan (2002)
- Gravity Falls: Lost Legends: 4 All-New Adventures! by Alex Hirsch (2018)
- Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant by Ulysses S. Grant (1885)
- Genre: An Introduction to History, Theory, Research, and Pedagogy by Anis Bawarshi & Mary Jo Reiff (2010)
- The Complete Joy of Homebrewing, 3rd Ed. By Charlie Papazian (2003)
- Silent Sparks: the Wonderful World of Fireflies by Sara Lewis (2016)
- Around the Texts of Writing Center Work: An Inquiry-Based Approach to Tutor Education by R. Mark Hall (2017)
- On Location: Theory and Practice in Classroom Based Writing Tutoring by Candace Spigelman & Laurie Grobman, Eds. (2005)
- The Neo-Liberal State by Raymond Plant (2009)
- Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1818)
- Networked Humanities: Within and Without the University by Jeff Rice & Brian McNely, Eds. (2018)
- We Feel Fine: An Almanac of Human Emotion by Sep Kamvar & Jonathan Harris (2009)
- House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1851)
- Writing Assessment, Social Justice, and the Advancement of Opportunity by Mya Poe, Asao B. Inoue, & Norbert Elliot, Eds. (2018)
- Articulating Dinosaurs: A Political Anthropology by Brian Noble (2016)
Similarly, there are certain types of things I like to read at different times of the year. Science non-fiction in the early summer and something my daughter is interested in during the dog days, something Irish in March and something spooky around Halloween. This pattern is not a prescription, and I tend to read for work throughout the year.
Of the 42 books I completed during the 2018 calendar year, some have already revealed that they stick with my for longer. Not sure if any will reach the echelon of Caramelo or Discipline and Punish, texts I've read and reread since first encountering them (coincidentally, perhaps, both were originally assigned readings). But some on the current list have the potential to resonate, a concept which McNely defined as books that forces the reader to “pause, to think, to step back, to wonder." This is a concept I am primed for. Film that resonates for me will negatively occupy space in my mind for a few days after watching. Music resonates for me when I can play it while doing something else (writing, driving, running, etc.), getting occasionally pulled in but not necessarily distracted. When reading, I can measure the potential resonance in a more material way. Whether reading a physical book or on my Kindle, I am a profuse highlighter and annotator. These notes are later transcribed or copied to a file for further reflection. The books that I think resonate for me are those that elicit the most response.
By both qualitative and quantitative measures, much of my reading over the past year has proved relevant to current projects of teaching and scholarship. Open-Access, Multimodality, and Writing Center Studies by Buck, and the edited collection, Writing Assessment, Social Justice, and the Advancement of Opportunity, edited by Poe, Inoue, and Elliot, will not only inform my thinking and writing, they are models of the sort of politically-cognizant scholarship that I hope to emulate.
A line of inquiry that I am currently working through involves analyzing the increasing marketization of institutions of higher education. King-White's Sport and the Neoliberal University: Profit, Politics, and Pedagogy (the American Campus), Stein's Buying In or Selling Out?: The Commercialization of the American Research University, and Plant's The Neo-Liberal State have proved useful for this extended project. The latter of these, in particular, is an excellent example of the "steel man" rhetorical strategy, where one lays out the opposition's argument as completely, sincerely, and good-faithed as possible to ensure that their own counter argument is as conclusive as possible.
Looking ahead to a future project, Articulating Dinosaurs: A Political Anthropology by Noble worked because it provided a thorough analysis of two topics of personal interested -- dinosaurs and materialism -- but from a disciplinary perspective of anthropology that I am less familiar with.
After occupying years as a nightstand coaster, I finally finished Brewmaster's Table. Not limiting the category to beer, Oliver is among the best at creating written descriptions of physical experience. Doubled-up with my binging of The Handmaid's Tale television series, Future Home of the Living God by Erdrich was a little too much reflected by the current political moment to be taken on its own terms. Perhaps my favorite thing I read all year, Abdurraqib's They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us made me care -- deeply -- about Rick Flair and the Wonder Years' Suburbia I've Given You All and Now I'm Nothing, two pop culture artifacts I couldn't tell you much about before.
Bridging personal and professional interests, The New Normal by Bratton and Demagoguery and Democracy by Roberts-Miller are both concise yet thorough, articulating complex and contemporarily relevant arguments. I expect both to show up on my reference and course readings lists soon.
Finally, my daughter was assigned Refugee for her summer reading last year, a project that the whole family assumed. For her, it kicked off two fascinations: She's since read three other books by Gratz, and she has become simultaneously intellectually and politically invested in learning more about human displacement and movement. For her summer reading project, she drew parallels from the book's narratives to the contemporary issues of Central American migrants and the Mexico/US border. Her comparison of policies enforced by the current presidential administration and the rejection of the MS St. Louis do not reflect positively on the US.
1.07.2019
Nobody asked for this
June 4, 2014. That was the last date I had published to this blog. Although not reflected in the current role of seven posts, it's a project I started way back in (I think) the summer of 2002, when I first moved to the Rio Grande Valley.
Over that run, I rebranded the blog a few times over, pivoting away from opinionated ramblings about sports and music to create a more focused journal reflective of my emerging professional identification. That did not stick, likely because I was already busy doing -- and writing -- other things.
This year, blogging is a practice I'm going to take up again. Some motivating factors/objectives:
Not everything I want to write about "fits" within my current research agenda. Presently, my academic writing is centered on research projects relevant to writing center work, with other major projects situated within technical communication and writing studies. But there are other things I'm interested in, some that I can fit into my scholarly agenda (soccer, paleontology), and others that are more tenuously connected (the current political climate, popular music). Blogging will provide me with the space to articulate and hash out ideas and perspectives that might not fit within the current scope of my professional work but that I'm interested in, nevertheless.
I'm an avid Twitter user, or at least responder, typically tripping over myself to revise pithy posts that receive scarce (but appreciated!) engagement. Same goes for Instagram and lurking the comments sections of the post-Gawker suite. While the actual benefits of these practices require further study, one clear drawback for my own writing is that because of the combined kairotic constraints of limited space and need for a quick turnaround, other online modes are less conducive for informed, thoughtful, and contemplative response. I want to respond to the things I read, but I want to do a better job of it.
When I do respond, I hope this blog allows me to receive feedback on germinating ideas that could develop into more substantial projects. At its best, I think, this blog will function as a sort of laboratory or greenhouse where I can work through ideas that could potentially sprout into more substantial, and professional relevant, writing projects. In order to facilitate this growth, I plan on leaving a slightly-curated comments section open, steadfastly ignoring the quantitative temptation of page views or engagements.
Even if no responses come, I still want to cultivate the habit of writing every day. As mentioned above, I do a lot of writing already, but like any practice (see also: running, second language learning, guitar, house maintenance) it can become too easy to skip a day, and then two, and then weeks without progress. Not sure that I need the post counter to reach 365 by this time next year, but writing every day is an attainable goal.
If I can do these things like write about things while maintaining a focused tone informed by my professional qualifications, I might actually contribute something of value here.
Over that run, I rebranded the blog a few times over, pivoting away from opinionated ramblings about sports and music to create a more focused journal reflective of my emerging professional identification. That did not stick, likely because I was already busy doing -- and writing -- other things.
This year, blogging is a practice I'm going to take up again. Some motivating factors/objectives:
I'm an avid Twitter user, or at least responder, typically tripping over myself to revise pithy posts that receive scarce (but appreciated!) engagement. Same goes for Instagram and lurking the comments sections of the post-Gawker suite. While the actual benefits of these practices require further study, one clear drawback for my own writing is that because of the combined kairotic constraints of limited space and need for a quick turnaround, other online modes are less conducive for informed, thoughtful, and contemplative response. I want to respond to the things I read, but I want to do a better job of it.
When I do respond, I hope this blog allows me to receive feedback on germinating ideas that could develop into more substantial projects. At its best, I think, this blog will function as a sort of laboratory or greenhouse where I can work through ideas that could potentially sprout into more substantial, and professional relevant, writing projects. In order to facilitate this growth, I plan on leaving a slightly-curated comments section open, steadfastly ignoring the quantitative temptation of page views or engagements.
If I can do these things like write about things while maintaining a focused tone informed by my professional qualifications, I might actually contribute something of value here.
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