Disruptive Pedagogy in College Composition

After taking several contemporary pedagogy courses, some general graduate-level education classes and some specific to the discipline of composition, I have learned the value of disrupting standard, age-worn pedagogical approaches, static classroom setups, rigid barriers between student and teacher, and stagnant values inherent within the field of writing and writing education.

I spend the great majority of both semesters of freshman composition reviewing the facets of rhetoric, or the art of public discourse. This is not to be confused with public speaking; my students only engage in oral presentations once per semester. However, they are required to learn how to critically analyze given texts/videos/visuals for their inherent rhetorical methods of persuasion-- mainly, they must identify and explain appeals to ethos, pathos, and/or logos. They are also required to define the purpose, exigence, intended audience, and constraints of each text, video, and/or visual. The basic expectation is for the students to deconstruct a given artifact, identify each part, explain how it works on its own, and then explain how each of the parts works together to achieve the author's purpose.

My students don't typically perform well on their first rhetorical analysis paper. They are so caught up in the jargon of rhetoric- exigence, ethos, pathos, logos, constraints-- that they dedicate more effort on using these terms at all rather than ensuring that they are using them correctly. In future classes, I plan to disrupt this way of thinking about rhetorical appeals by simplifying these terms and making them feel less like complicated and intimidating jargon to my students. For example, rather than calling appeals to fact logos appeals, I will refer to them as "factual appeals" or "appeals to data, statistics, logic, or reasoning." Instead of using the term "constraints," I will ask students to consider what challenges the author faced when writing this text or what barriers they had to contend with during composition. 

Tanya Sasser suggests numerous ways that college composition teachers can disrupt the pedagogy of writing in her Remixing College English blog, specifically in her entry entitled Disrupting the First-Year Composition Course. Sasser explains that her methods of disrupting freshman composition include: questioning the efficacy and function of thesis statements, problematizing the research process, re-thinking what determines whether or not a source is reliable, and adapting citation styles for writers composing in digital spaces. While these are all approaches I plan to apply in my next course plan, I particularly enjoyed the emphasis she placed on JiTT, or "Just in Time Teaching." This is a pedagogical strategy that relies on student feedback; essentially, students do the necessary homework and complete a pre-class assignment (freewrite or forum). The instructor reads over these assignments and allows student input to shape the class and determine what subjects need to be emphasized over others. Ideally, the instructor uses student feedback and answers from the pre-class assignment to foster class discussion. Sasser explains that "students tend to experience a deeper change in knowledge about writing methods when they are asked to access resources and receive instruction on skills as they are needed." Next time I teach research methods or rhetorical analysis, I can use the JiTT approach; rather than structuring a rigid "knowledge banking" course plan that starts with "the basics" and escalates into "the hard stuff," I can structure my lessons around the knowledge the students need at the time that they actually  need it and can apply it.

Sasser includes a link to a Google Doc that encapsulates some of the practical ideas she gleaned from Mill's Kelly's session on disruptive pedagogy for THATcamp. Some of the ideas from this document I am actively applying to my next course plan/ my ever-evolving pedagogical approach include:

• Having my students recognize their audience, describe the members in detail, then write against them. This will emphasize the importance of audience awareness.
• Assigning a freewrite that requires students to write in purposefully unclear and confusing ways. This will ideally make them a little more aware of syntax, sentence structure, and clarity problems in their own writing.
• Likewise, assigning prompts for entirely plagiarized papers or papers that are fraught with grammatical, syntactical, spelling, stylistic and mechanical errors. In order to execute this properly, they have to comprehend the basic rules and guidelines for each of these categories.
• Encouraging students to argue why a topic is insignificant or irrelevant. This will encourage them to critically analyze whether an argument or a piece of evidence is appropriate, interesting, effective, or relevant.
• Requiring students to prepare the worst possible presentation ever. This requires them to recognize and internalize good presentation skills-- they will have to know what constitutes a good presentation to make a bad one.

A Transformative Experience: Cynthia Wynne's Learner-Centered Approach to Biology at New River Community College

Nearly every semester, New River Community College's course request system crashes minutes after it opens, and it isn't due to lackluster site maintenance. Students are scrambling to sign up for a coveted seat in Dr. Cynthia Wynne's section of Biology 101/102 and the accompanying lab hours. Over the years, Dr. Wynne has built up quite the positive reputation among potential, current, and former students alike. But what could possibly be so appealing about a freshman-level Biology course that causes students to flock to Dr. Wynne's course so eagerly and competitively?

The answer is simple: Dr. Wynne is an absolutely incredible teacher. She is capable of taking a potentially alienating, math-ridden (math strikes fear into the hearts of liberal arts enthusiasts like myself) subject like Biology and presenting it in a manner that makes it immediately relevant to her students. She avoids conventional lecturing and opts for hands-on, problem-based learning grounded in real-life application.

The following section is comprised of a brief interview I conducted with Dr. Wynne. I approached her with a desire to understand what made her one of my favorite teachers despite the fact that I encountered her within the boundaries of a discipline I made a great effort to avoid. Also, with her permission, I have included pictures demonstrating a few ways that she transforms a subject that, at the introductory level, usually requires rote memorization and fact regurgitation into an interesting, relevant, and rewarding learning experience.

Dr. Cynthia Wynne and company passing out exams

Q: How long do you typically spend lecturing during a standard class? How do you make your lectures interactive and interesting?

A: I like it when students participate, and ask questions, so I often try to teach the material by answering student questions.  I find that students actually will ask enough questions, and ask the "right" questions, so that I can cover most of the material just by answering the questions.  I think of these moments as "teachable moments."  When students ask questions, that is when the answers will be relevant to them.  So instead of saying, "we will get to that soon," I just go ahead and address it then.

Just another day in Dr. Wynne's lab

Q: Do you use any problem-based learning methods in Biology 101/102 or lab?

A: [I assign] the Independent Research Project in lab, in which students design their own project to carry out based on their hypothesis.

A 2012 Trip to Claytor Lake- 15 students accompanied Dr. Wynne to Claytor Lake to save, count, and identify stranded mussels.

Q: In your opinion, what are you best qualities as a teacher?

A: My best quality as a teacher is that I really love my students! I love Biology, too, which doesn't hurt, but I love my students more than the subject!

Dr. Wynne's DNA Fingerprinting Lab- students take their own DNA samples and analyze them.

Q: Do you have any unique hands-on approaches to teaching any challenging concepts?

A: I do use hands-on approaches, but I don't think they are very unique.  I pretty much use the approaches that other teachers use.  I try to give as much positive feedback as possible, which might by a little unique.  For example, sometimes I ask a yes or no question, and when a student answers wrong, I will say "you are close," instead of you are wrong.  That always gets a good laugh.  In lab, when students are wrestling with a challenging problem, I am usually more hands off than hands on.  I will watch, and encourage, but I try not to step in and do the work for the student.  I will support them as much as I can, but (even though it would often be easier and faster for me to just do it) I let the student figure it out by themselves if they can.  If they can't, I give hints and tips until they can.

One of Dr. Wynne's students trying sauteed mealworms in class

Q: Do you think you run a learner-oriented classroom? If so, what makes your classroom a learner-oriented classroom?

A: I do have a learner-oriented classroom in the sense that I do let students choose, to some extent, what they learn and when they learn it.  Since I have a limited time to cover any given chapter, the parts that get covered are the parts that students ask questions about.  I kind of let students lead the learning in that way.  If we don't have time to cover everything in the chapter, I don't worry too much.  I figure if they need that information in the future, they can Google it.

Students holding a tarantula in Dr. Wynne's lab

Thus, Dr. Wynne's success as a professor is multifaceted. Rather than committing an hour and a half three days a week to "sage on the stage" lecturing, she encourages students to maintain agency over their learning process by providing a comfortable classroom environment and encouraging them to ask questions. Her students engage in problem-based learning where possible; Dr. Wynne's Independent Research Lab encourages students to choose their own topics for exploration, identify and evaluate the knowledge they already have and the knowledge they need, and use critical methods and research to come to a sound conclusion. In this project, her students are not only learning about their chosen topics through methods they select, but they are learning to critically analyze their own knowledge in a given subject and how to improve it.

Perhaps the most compelling element of Dr. Wynne's pedagogical approach is her ability to create memorable, rather, unforgettable educational adventures. In my experience, no teacher provided this amount or style of hands-on, active learning experiences after her sections of Biology. Dr. Wynne does not rely on a rigid attendance policy to ensure active, engaged participation from her students. Instead, she ensures that each class session promises fascinating, unique methods of learning, questioning, and internalizing topics that could otherwise be written off as flashcard material.

Dr. Wynne's sincere passion for her subject and for teaching, combined with genuine love and concern for her students, frames her pedagogical approach and cultivates successful learning and enthusiastic engagement within her students. Problem-based instructional methods and a student-oriented classroom merge seamlessly with her fervor for her educating students within her discipline.

Csíkszentmihályi's Theory of Flow: Fostering Good Writing Habits in College Freshmen

Many college composition instructors tend to repeat the same mantra: "writing is a process, not a product."

It's in every first-year graduate teaching assistant's syllabus. It's undoubtedly a chapter title or at least a witty subtitle in most composition textbooks released within the past decade. This emphasis on process over product is more than justified; dedicating time to an invention phase (brainstorming, freewriting, listing, etc...), preparing multiple drafts, partaking in multiple peer review sessions, and allowing time to revise are all important skills college composition instructors should work to instill in their students. Investing fully in each of these steps of the writing process enables students to produce quality academic writing and ensures that they are expressing their ideas in effective, organized, and understandable ways.

We spend so much time on practicing various invention and revision strategies that the process of writing tends to look something like a lengthy cycle of brainstorming, drafting, revising, more brainstorming, more revising, more drafting, more revising, and finally... a finished product.

The problem is...sometimes our students aren't even prepared to engage in the invention phrase. Some build up a lot of anxiety and choose to procrastinate on their assignments, especially major papers or assignments in unfamiliar genres of writing. They often feel like they're wasting time by brainstorming ideas and organizing possible sub-topics because they view writing as a finished product rather than a series of steps that culminate in a finished product. Many of my students have admitted that they did not have time to read back through their final drafts and look for grammatical, mechanical, or syntactical mistakes. But all of this can be avoided by recognizing the legitimate first step in the recursive process of writing: the literal set-up for success. Students must take time to experiment with different locations, times, and rituals (their set-up) in terms of writing so that they can consciously foster ideal writing habits. If these habits are maintained, students increase their likelihood of reaching what Csíkszentmihályi refers to as flow--essentially, full immersion in the activity of writing during which they can have an autotelic experience, or an experience in which the student is writing because the act of writing is intrinsically rewarding rather than to achieve an external, point-driven goal.

During the first week of class, I invite my students to discuss their writing habits in terms of location, time, and rituals. I ask them not only to share their optimal writing times and descriptions of their preferred writing locations/settings, but also to explain why they think these particular settings and times work for them so well. At this point, I introduce the idea of being "in the zone" and ask them to discuss what they think that phrase means or provide examples of times they were "in the zone." Then, I have them specify any pre-writing rituals they perform, like sharpening pencils or cleaning the space they're about to settle into and write. I typically assign a short reading about writing habits and then assign a blog post with a prompt, something along the lines of: What are your preferred locations/settings, times, and rituals for successful (uninterrupted "in the zone" writing? Have you tried altering any of these? Do you make a schedule for major writing assignments? If you have procrastination issues, what causes you to procrastinate? If you do not have procrastination issues, what inspires you to get started early on assignments? (blog posts with loads of questions yield thorough answers). In class the following day, we discuss our writing habits as a group. I typically show slightly amusing pictures of my personal writing set-up (a table stacked high with books, a hookah, a cat, a dog, several mugs of Earl Grey tea, and loads of scratch paper and pens) and explain how they put me into a state of flow.

In a 1996 interview with John Geirland of Wired magazine, Csíkszentmihályi explains that flow is

being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost.

 This is exactly the state of mind/being that freshman composition students need to achieve in order to foster ideal writing habits, apply critical thinking skills throughout their writing process, and produce work that truly and accurately represents their own ideas. Csíkszentmihályi explains in Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience that the state of flow culminates in intrinsic motivation, or self-desire to learn about and analyze new things. This is a period of knowledge absorption, deep and uninterrupted engagement with an activity or topic, a unique sense of fulfillment, curiosity, persistence, and conscious/unconscious development of a given skill(s). This state of mind/being would likely inspire freshman writers to write meaningful papers rather than worry solely about grades and points earned. It would also combat the pesky problem of writer's block-- continuous, uninterrupted writing allows students to skip over the problematic sections and keep thinking through the next section of their paper.



Csíkszentmihályi makes an important point in his 1997 text entitled Finding Flow. He delineates a necessary balance between the challenge of the task and the skill of the performer. In terms of composition, this refers to the challenge of the writing prompt and the various composition skills of the student. The prompt must not be too simple; likewise, it must not be too complex or hard. The skill level and challenge level must correlate and push the limits of the student abilities without becoming frustrating. In order to cultivate flow among our students, our assignments must promote equilibrium between difficulty and the evolving writing skills of our students.

The following section simply serves as a collected list of different methods of setting up a work station to instill within a writer the ability to reach a state of flow:

• Set up a timeline for any major writing projects. Begin by writing down the date the paper was assigned and the date the final copy of the paper is due. Identify the time frame in which you are expected to complete this assignment. Then, determine what steps you need to take in order to successfully complete the assignment (brainstorming, picking a topic, researching, drafting, proofreading, etc..). Finally, propose a realistic schedule that keeps due dates for other classes and activities in mind. Remember that adjusting a writing schedule is normal. Keep track of the dates you actually achieve each of these goals.
• Pick a location that is conducive to writing uninterrupted for long periods of time. I recommend somewhere quiet and devoid of friends or distractions. Pick a location that is well-lit and comfortable--somewhere you can sit for several hours at a time. 
• Try to pick locations and times that are conducive to establishing a habitual approach to writing. In other words, pick locations and times that allow you write in a regular fashion.
• Consider writing at a desk rather than on a couch or in bed. Sitting up straight and having a flat surface to work on keeps you awake, focused, and organized.
• Turn off your cell phone and disable chat functions on your laptop or tablet.
• Set realistic goals for each writing session. In other words, don't sit down and plan to finish an entire paper at once. Allow separate time to engage in the invention phase(s), try several organizational methods, and execute numerous drafting and revising stages. Allow time for numerous short writing sessions rather than one or two long sessions.
• Allow yourself to take reasonable breaks when you achieve your goals. Also, if you notice yourself experiencing writer's block, consider taking a short break (or moving on to a different section of your paper). Charlotte Frost suggests using the pomodoro technique which involves using a timer to dedicate twenty minutes to diligent work and five minutes to miniature breaks.
• Identify any rituals you go through to set-up for a successful "in the zone" writing session and perform them consciously (give them power!): sharpening pencils, writing only on a certain kind of paper or with a certain kind of pen, drinking a favorite non-alcoholic beverage, smoking hookah while writing, devising a color-coding technique for annotation, etc...
• Establish a routine and stick with it. If you notice problems getting "in the zone" during your writing routine, critically analyze what you think is the cause of this issue and change one component of your routine at a time until you are satisfied with your routine again.
• Keep a bottle of water and a light snack nearby. Bananas are a great snack, especially when you're anxious or feeling deprived of energy.
• Do your best to make writing a daily occurrence. As the old adage goes, "nulla dies sine linea." Consider taking fifteen minutes to write a journal entry, even if you are simply recounting what you did that day and nothing else. Writing every day aids writing anxiety and curbs writer's block by making writing an activity rather than an artifact or product.
• Likewise, do your best to make reading a daily occurrence. Whether it's a brief article in the Collegiate Times, an AmA on Reddit, or a chapter of War and Peace, just sit down and read.
• Limit the time you spend sitting down at a computer on the days that you plan to get "in the zone" and write. Charlotte Frost argues that good writers should make an effort to "use another tool or location for online life (a tablet, a smartphone) and keep [their] desk[s] as ‘pure’ as possible."
• Consider choosing a writing partner from class to meet with regularly. You can read sentences out loud to each other, see if chosen methods of organization makes sense, help and encourage each other if either of you gets stuck, and suggest alternate ways of exploring a given topic.

Some resources for fostering good writing habits and about  Csíkszentmihályi's theory of flow:

TED Talk-- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Flow, the Secret to Happiness [18:55]
Pamela Fagan Hutchin's "15 Habits of Good Writers"
Charlotte Frost's "Forming Good Writing Habits"
Dunn, Dana S. "Writing About Psychology." Readings for Writing at Virginia Tech. Boston: Pearson,
      2014. 18-20. Print.

No Problem: PBL in Freshman Composition through Multigenre Rhetorical Analysis

When people ask me about my profession and I respond that I am an English teacher, they typically assume that I "teach students how to write." But what exactly does that mean?  How does one teach writing? How can an instructor stand at the front of a classroom and spew forth valuable knowledge about the act of writing and useful methods for approaching composition?

The answer is simple- it is not possible to effectively teach students how to write through conventional, "sage on the stage" lecture. Hours of Power Points and droning disquisition serve only to hinder the development and refinement of compositional techniques. Do you think you are capable of sitting through an hour and half oration about thesis statements, paragraph structure, or proper comma usage without falling asleep or checking Facebook? Despite my avid interest in the subject and passion for writing, I know I couldn't make it through a single class structured like this.

Problem-based instructional methods are key to my discipline. This pedagogical style in particular promotes student agency throughout the learning process by requiring active engagement in the subject matter while allowing space for creative, subjective responses in both written work and class/group discussion. Problem-based instruction is perhaps the only surefire path toward either instilling an earnest desire to write within students who claim to "hate English classes" and "hate writing," or reigniting this passion within students who, due to prior "sage on the stage" classroom experiences, have lost the flame necessary to enthusiastically engage in critical analysis through composition.

In the first week of class, I assign a long term rhetorical analysis paper/group project. For those that are unfamiliar with the idea of rhetorical analysis, it involves deconstructing a given text/advertisement/speech, identifying key aspects (exigence, purpose, intended audience, constraints, ethos/pathos/logos appeals), and critically analyzing how these aspects function together as a whole to achieve a certain goal.

 First, I list possible categories for analysis on the board, provide short examples of texts/advertisements/speeches from each category, and allow them a few minutes to decide which topic most interests them. Categories I have listed in the past include: political campaign advertisements, product advertisements, or ideological advertisements/texts (commercials or texts that attempt to persuade an audience to think about a certain ethical/moral/cultural issue). I then separate the students into groups based on their initial sense of the category they are most interested in. It is important to note that I allow them to change groups up to one week after their initial in-class group conference. The assignment is structured with the following requirements:

• As a group, come to a consensus on a particular topic that interests you within your selected category.
• Select at least 3 examples of advertisements, texts, or speeches within your category to rhetorically analyze. Strive to provide an analysis of all three genres across various forms of media. For example, the political advertisements group could potentially select a brief campaign commercial, a campaign flyer or blog entry, and a recorded speech.
• Individual group members should rhetorically analyze each of the three examples separately, justify their claims/analysis with evidence from the example, then compare their answers and justifications with the group. Come to some form of consensus about each piece in terms of its exigence, purpose, intended audience (and secondary/tertiary audiences where appropriate), constraints, and rhetorical appeals (ethos/pathos/logos). Some examples may require visual analysis (commercials, posters, flyers, etc...). 
• Identify the problematic aspects within each example. In other words, identify how the authors/speakers are using/abusing rhetoric through various manipulative rhetorical appeals and playing toward an intended audience to achieve a certain purpose. 
• Analyze whether they are intentionally excluding pertinent information and/or counterarguments and justify your claims with evidence. 
• Analyze whether they are delivering their message in a dishonest or manipulative manner and explain why/why not with evidence.
• Critically discuss these problems in terms of how distorted messages in advertisements/texts/speeches promote confusion and conflict and prevent understanding and compromise among a larger population.
• Suggest specific and realistic solutions to the problematic elements within each selected advertisement/text/speech and justify how this solution could promote accurate understanding among the intended audience and a larger population.

This assignment is scaffolded in that smaller assignments throughout the semester play into its successful completion. For example, group members must provide their individual rhetorical analysis of each example on blog posts early in the semester. Each group member must leave constructive criticism and feedback in the form of a thorough comment. This requires individual accountability within the group and provides me with written proof that each group member is submitting valuable input to the discussion. Halfway through the semester, the group must submit a progress report to me in the form of an MLA format memo. Though the template is provided, they must work together to ensure that it is properly edited and executed. Finally, the group must present their project at the end of the semester in a professional presentation using either Prezi or Power Point. Their presentation is rated by their fellow class members using an anonymous survey I construct. After the presentation, the group hands in the formal, MLA style write-up of their collective rhetorical analysis and findings. Group members are later given access to a separate survey in which they anonymously provide me with feedback on accountability and work distribution within the group.

Though this assignment has undergone ample revisions throughout my three semesters of teaching English 1105 and 1106, I find it rewarding for numerous reasons:

• It preserves student agency and promotes curiosity in that they pick their topics, genres, and specific examples and offer their own analysis of said examples. They have control over how they work and how the group manages their time. They are able to change groups if they so choose.
• It allows for critique and revision by requiring feedback from fellow group members on the forum posts and from me in response to the progress report.
• It fosters critical listening skills in the students who are acting as the audience during a given presentation.

• It is multi-genre. Essentially, it works across genres not only in terms of the pieces the groups are analyzing, but in terms of the overall assignment criteria (forum posts, memo, presentation with visuals, and collaborative paper).
• It cultivates numerous 21st century competencies including: critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, individual accountability, use of technology, effective presentation skills, and document production.
• It requires extended, in-depth inquiry about a topic that affects them on a daily basis, rhetorical means of persuasion that exist in nearly every advertisement, text, speech act, etc...Ideally, this assignment encourages students to be conscious and critical of rhetorical means of persuasion and their effects.
• It promotes self reflection in that students must identify what they already know and what they need to know and how to gain this knowledge.
• I encourage students to present this project beyond the comfortable boundaries of the classroom at undergraduate research conferences, encouraging the transfer of knowledge and skills out of my classroom and into academe.

PBL and Group Work: Strategies for Success

Most assignments structured around problem-based learning methods hinge on successful group work strategies. In my experience, the notion of group projects is typically met with backlash similar to that mentioned in Dan Sherman's famous case study. Essentially, there is much eye-rolling, harumphing, and general distaste among students who seem to feel as though they are being forced into an uncomfortable situation that requires collaboration, interdependence, individual accountability, the avoidance of procrastination, and active ownership of their own learning experience. Teachers engaging in this pedagogical method need to recognize that these preconceptions, combined with the likelihood that the majority of the classes their students have taken thus far have centered on rote memorization and knowledge regurgitation via standardized testing, coalesce in the minds of their students and foster negative feelings of insecurity and doubt.

Fortunately, there exists a wealth of behind-the-scenes,instructional, and assessment methods that can counteract these preexisting problems and potentially transform the "painful" process of group work into a gratifying and rewarding learning experience.

Part One: Behind-The-Scenes Strategies

• Confront negative preconceptions about group work. Provide discussion prompts centered on the importance of collaboration skills both within and outside of academic settings. Encourage students to share positive and negative experiences they've had with group work and prompt them to suggest methods of avoiding adverse group interactions. Emphasize the positive aspects and rationalize your choice of making this project a group effort.
• Foster a sense of interdependence among group members by constructing a complex assignment prompt with requirements that necessitate collaboration and a collective effort towards a unified goal. The assignment should compel group members to depend on the diverse set of skills and knowledge possessed by each of their peers.
• Maintain structure and provide ample direction. Assist students with planning and staying on track by requiring written project proposals, schedules, and progress reports. Establish provisional due dates for each of these assignments. Encourage groups to come to you for advice on problems with collaboration, understanding the assignment prompt, and successfully executing requirements.
• Integrate brief, reflective, in-class writing assignments that enable students to assess the overall process and progress of their group project in terms of teamwork skills, conflict management, and time management. This will ideally bolster the initial idea that collaboration via group work is valuable.
• Construct groups in a manner that will heighten their chances of successful and rewarding interaction among group members. Ensure that the size of the group allows for realistic collaboration; remember that each of your student's has a schedule they must work around in order to attend meetings. Also, keep in mind that as group size increases, so does the occurrence of "free riders" (group members that contribute very little or nothing to the project). Create diverse groups of students from different cultural, linguistic, and social backgrounds. Keep the personalities of individual group members in mind. For example, avoid assembling a group comprised of one shy student and four talkative students.
• Be flexible and allow for timely adjustments in group membership if necessary. Anticipate problems and challenges groups may face and act as a mediator.

Part Two: Instructional Strategies

• Foster collaboration by allotting some class time time after the conception of the group for ice-breaker activities.
• Encourage group members to assign specific roles and have them delineate exactly what is expected out of each role. Also, encourage them to divvy up the workload early so that expectations of each member are absolutely clear. If the project is not complex enough to require this level of stratification, encourage them to, at the very least, elect a communication leader to keep everyone informed of meeting dates, times, and locations and aware of their individual duties.
• Emphasize the importance of making the most of meetings by meeting in a location conducive to productive, uninterrupted discussion and setting an agenda.
• Remind them to work with each other's strengths and weaknesses. Reiterate the fact that each group member brings a unique perspective, skill set, and body of knowledge to the table.
• Stress the importance of working toward a unified, cohesive final product, whether it be a presentation or a collaborative paper.
• Most PBL group work requires a final presentation. Direct students to resources on campus that can improve the quality of their presentation, like the Comm Lab at Virginia Tech.

Part Three: Various Assessment Methods

• Assess individual and group work. Consider basing the overall project grade on a combination of the quality of the final product and your understanding of individual effort. When the group is finished presenting and/or submitting their project, require each student to write a brief paragraph specifying roughly what each group member contributed and what they contributed. Instruct them to conclude with an overall reflection of what they learned about collaboration and what they will do differently in subsequent group projects.
• Assess process as well as product. Analyze their progress reports and the aforementioned in-class reflections closely. Include these assignments in the final group project grade.
• Require classmates to assess group presentations. Provide a handout or a survey in which the students functioning as the audience for the final presentation can assess the group based on presentation skills, effectiveness of visual aids, and clarity. This emphasizes the importance of audience awareness in the group presenting and promotes critical listening and observing skills in the audience members. It also provides audience members with an opportunity to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the presentation and consciously mimic or avoid certain aspects of it.

 Works Consulted

•    "Using Group Projects Effectively - Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation - Carnegie Mellon University."N.p., n.d. Web. 
•  Dredger, Katie, and Sean Conaway. "Presentations." Writing at Virginia Tech: Written, Spoken, and Visual Composition. By Sheila Lorraine Carter-Tod. Boston, MA: Pearson, 2013. 352-53. Print.

Tips for Revising a Teaching Philosophy: Lower Order and Higher Order Concerns

In case you're writing your Teaching Philosophy at the last minute and you can't make time for a Writing Center appointment, here are some questions to ask yourself while revising!

Higher Order Concerns (stuff you should worry about first)

1. Is my teaching philosophy too long? Ideally, it should be no more than two pages double-spaced, or around 500 words maximum. 
2. Do I demonstrate what I think constitutes effective teaching/learning with evidence?
3. Do I establish myself as unique without being sentimental or melodramatic?
4. Do I avoid sounding meek by abstaining from downplaying my achievements?
5. Do I provide a clear reason behind why I chose to/want to teach?
6. Do I provide specific examples of pedagogical methods I use to get students engaged?
7. Do I provide evidence that I am able to promote diversity, tolerance, and collaboration in my classroom?
8. Do I provide evidence that I encourage the use of technology in new and creative ways in my class?
9. Do I demonstrate how I foster creativity in my class?
10. Is it necessary for me to link my research to my pedagogy? If yes, is this connection explained clearly?
11. Do I have a defined, effective conclusion that wraps up my ideas without being redundant?

Lower Order Concerns (stuff you should worry about second)

1. Parallel Structure- In case you find yourself listing things in your Teaching Philosophy, make sure that you stick with a pattern so that you don't indirectly imply that one of the items on the list is more or less important than the others.
   
   Example: As an instructor, I enjoy lecturing,overseeing peer review, and group work.
                   As an instructor, I enjoy lecturing, overseeing peer review, and assigning group work.
2. i.e. versus e.g.- People seem to mix these up a lot. So, if you find yourself having to use these in your Teaching Philosophy, remember that i.e. (translates to "id est") means "that is..." while e.g. (translates to exempli gratia) means "for example."
3. Capitalization errors- Remember that when referring to your department specifically (Department of Physics, English Department) you must capitalize the initial letters in both words. If you use the vague term "departments," the first letter is lower-cased.

Confronting and Curbing Student Anxiety

Most of my composition students have been learning writing methods since first or second grade. Not just the physical mechanics of writing, but how to form sentences and how to make meaningful, logical, original statements. English 1105 and 1106 classes are comprised of students that did not take dual-enrollment courses in high school for a variety of reasons: those course weren't offered, they were already enrolled in too many advanced placement courses, or (the most popular response) they "hate English and suck at writing."

Writing seems so natural. Like talking, but with visible words. How could there be this much hatred for my discipline? So much disgust? So much anxiety?

I think these fears, anxieties, and negative emotions stem from an educational career dominated by standardized testing, forced prompts, boring lecture-style grammar and mechanics lessons, rigid grading on components of writing that don't actually matter that much (here's looking at you, GRAMMAR) and dull assignments. But how can one English teacher combat a decade or more of engrained composition anxiety in a classroom comprised of students from extremely different educational and cultural backgrounds? Each student has his or her own unique sets of strengths and weaknesses; how can I address all of them at the same time and structure my class around addressing these effectively?

Ask. Just ask them. And don't just do it once, do it several times throughout the semester. Allow their responses to shape your pedagogical approach. Make a flexible course plan that can be adapted and address their needs rather than your own desires and expectations.

My first freewriting prompt is typically something along the lines of: Review the expected outcomes of English 1105 listed on page XX. Are any of these confusing? Why? Which of these outcomes are you confident about? Why? Which of these outcomes are you anxious about? Why?

I give them roughly ten minutes to review the outcomes and prepare detailed responses. They perform this freewrite using a listing method so that they can get all of their ideas out without worrying about sentence structure and grammar. At the end of the allotted time, I pair them up in groups of three and have them compare answers and discuss. I have them change partners one more time and compare answers with new partners. Then, I give them a few minutes to jot down a few observations they made while sharing their answers with their peers. Finally, I bring the class back together and we discuss their answers from the first section of the activity first. I use this time to expand on the expected outcomes and ask them why they think those outcomes are in place. We then discuss the second part of the activity and the students typically discover that no one in the class is entirely confident about anything to do with writing or the expectations of the course. This dispells the feelings of "imposter syndrome" and at least some of their insecurities.

The important aspect with activities and discussions like the one I just outlined is specificity. If you don't CONSTANTLY ask why or encourage your students to be specific and critically analyze why they feel a certain way about a given topic or subject, they will just say they "hate English and suck at writing" without having any idea what is holding them back or making them feel that way.

I use the same approach when I start the unit on individual and group presentations, but I change it up a little. I teach two 50 minute lessons on presentation skills and I use the Scholar forums (I know, they're boring and ugly, but I broke Wordpress last time) to issue a prompt along the lines of: "After the lectures, readings, discussions, demonstrations, and videos about presentation skills, what are you confident about? What scares you about delivering a presentation? What are some methods you use to relax and keep your cool during a presentation? What are some suggestions you can give your classmates for delivering an effective and engaging presentation?" They are required to comment on at least two other forum posts, but they often do more. They seem encouraged by seeing that their peers have the same anxieties and they benefit from the tips they share with each other.

Finally, I do a freewrite at the beginning and middle of the semester asking them to specifically name topics and concepts they still feel unclear on. I provide a list on the board of the topics we covered and the concepts we still haven't gone over (separated by grammar, mechanics, invention, revision, etc...). I also ask them to tell me what teaching methods they like and dislike (always clarify what this means with simple examples). For example, I ask them to share how they feel about group work, videos, music played during freewriting exercises, etc... When I get their responses, I see what I need to cover again and I find alternate ways of teaching that concept. I also try to respond to what they like in class and incorporate more of those methods.

Making your students feel like their input matters, that their voice is being heard, is perhaps the most effective tool for curbing their anxieties. If they know that their instructor is listening to them and concerned with their progress in the class (that they are more than just a student ID number). If they can see how your approach/course plan is adapting to their needs, they are more likely to be engaged in your class and excited about improving their skills.

Student-Centered Approaches to Assesment

Where does college composition fall in the shift away from outcome-based educational programs like No Child Left Behind and Race To The Top? Though these are programs that the federal government instilled in elementary, middle, and high schools, they directly affect student performance in college composition. The stringent requirements set forth by restrictive educational policies like Common Core and Standards of Learning (SOL) divert student attention and passion away from the act/experience of learning. These outcome-based programs emphasize product over process, elevate the significance of test scores (and the importance/necessity of high test scores), reduce student critical thinking skills, kill curiosity, and imply that grades are accurate representations of student intelligence and potential.

In the article entitled The Case Against Grades, Alfie Kohn details the damaging effects of assessment via grades on students. He claims that assessment creates a classroom environment conducive to cheating, promotes feelings of anxiety (even with "high-performing" students), "diminish[es] student interest," "create[s] a preference for the easiest possible task," and "tend[s] to reduce the quality of [student] thinking." Kohn also stresses that grading in itself is problematic because it forces students to rely on extrinsic motivation (external rewards or goals- e.g. a high grade on a paper) rather than intrinsic motivation (internal rewards or goals- e.g. enjoying writing or producing writing they are proud of). Assessment also interferes with student sense of achievement; essentially, grading causes students to be more concerned with how well they are performing rather than how well they are learning and applying the concepts taught in class. Finally, assessment is only effective insofar as the curriculum is effective; Kohn mentions that when teachers align their assessments with their curriculum or learning objectives, they tend to be inaccurate in that they simply measure the degree to which students master, but never question, a certain group of data, facts, and skill sets.

Finally, Kohn clarifies what a revised approach to assessment does not include: replacing letters or numbers with vague labels, informing students of specific expectations in advance, adding narrative/reflective analyses to every assignment, using "standards-based grading" methods (elaborate formulas, rubrics), or grading on a curve.

The likelihood of me getting a position any time soon at an institution that supports non-traditional approaches to student assessment is pretty slim. However, I thought of a few ways that I can negotiate between Kohn's wise points about the pitfalls of grading/assessment and the harsh reality that most institutions will require some form of numerical grading for quite some time.

• At the beginning of the semester, I assign the following freewrite prompt: What are your strengths in writing (in both the process of writing and your final papers)? What are your weaknesses in writing? What causes you the most anxiety in an English course? Then, I have them read over the expected outcomes for their section of composition, summarize them as best they can, and indicate both what assignments/expectations they are confident about (and why) and what assignments/expectations they are worried about (and why). I take these up and hold on to them until the end of the semester. I have the students answer the same questions on the back without looking at their original answers. These freewrites inform much of our conversation in end-of-semester conferences. Ultimately, this acts as an informal method of self-assessment and keeps the students aware of the outcomes and focused on their own development.
• I assign a lot of peer review and group work. These are structured activities. For example, the class before a peer-review session is spent compiling a checklist of higher-order concerns and lower-order concerns that peers should focus on when reading over their partner's paper. During group work, I make sure to visit each group and take note of who is participating and engaging in the activity (in case I need to make group adjustments). 
• During presentations, both individual and group, I have each student rate their own presentation and participation within the group, as well as their peers presentation quality and level of participation within the group. 
• I am considering adopting a portfolio approach into my composition class in which students are able to experiment with different genres. I am still working this method out. Kohn emphasizes the importance of the portfolio replacing the grade rather than yielding it, but I'm not sure how I can manage that in a conventional, assessment-driven institution. 
• If I am ever lucky enough to teach smaller sections, perhaps a specialized literature course, I would like to try having the students grade each other's participation.This was suggested recently in my British Romantix class and it seems like it's worth a try.

My Teaching Self: Me, with Slightly Less Profanity

The distinction between a "teaching self" and a plain old "self self" never really occurred to me. Having spent years in leadership positions throughout elementary, middle, and high school, being "in charge" of a group of learners felt natural; I never took the time to analyze how I transitioned from a standard junior in high school to Drum Major in the blink of an eye every weekday afternoon. What changed, what stayed the same, how were my personal relationships different when I was just Emma versus when I was Drum Major Emma Briscoe?

The notion of "teaching self" never became relevant to me until I started instructing at the college level. While I am older for a graduate student, many of my students aren't that far behind me in age. And I don't have a band director behind me giving unruly students the stink eye when they step out of line. I have to be both the source of wisdom AND the stink eye. And, unlike high school marching band, apparently it's frowned upon to dole out physical punishments (sit ups and push ups) to college students. Who knew?

Seriously though, I started to notice how uncomfortable I was at the front of the classroom, practically crouched behind my podium, during my first class, English 1106. And it wasn't even the day that I accidentally wore a GWAR shirt with a cigarette hole in it, ripped acid wash jeans, and combat boots. Though that day still resonates in the "NEVER, EVER AGAIN" compartment of my brain. I started to realize that there had to be some kind of distinction.

So I overcompensated. I wore vests. VESTS. I cracked down on attendance, grammar, and vocal participation. I became annoyingly attentive to detail and lapsed into almost condescending, patronizing conventional lectures where I was the guru and my students were my faithful followers. And it wasn't working.

The following approaches worked for me and got me away from vests and being the Miss Bitters of Virginia Tech's Graduate faculty. These approaches got me where I am today; still making mistakes, but owning them and using them to inform the version of myself that walks into the next class.

1)You don't have to be funny; the internet is funny.

Memes- use them. And if you can't find them, make them. Websites like Meme Generator are free to use and they reach students. Just make sure you're using the meme correctly! These work across disciplines. Just don't overload slides with memes or overuse them. I like to randomly put zingers into my lecture slides to catch attention, but they also give students something memorable to attach a certain concept or lesson to.

Videos- use these when appropriate. Don't just do a Youtube search on the subject matter you're teaching for a given day and assume that the video will work. And always find a way to push the students to engage with a video- tell them what they're looking for, encourage them to take notes, or have questions listed on the board while they watch the video.

Give yourself time to think deeply about certain lessons and the kinds of video content you can use. I used this video to teach my students how to write an effective personal narrative, how to transition fluidly between topics, and how to find a writing voice. I recently used Jim Gaffigan clips ("Camping" and "Holiday Traditions") to teach students how to connect two seemingly unrelated or distantly related topics and had them thoroughly analyze via group discussion how Gaffigan manages to move through such vastly different topics in such a short time. We talked about our favorite comedians, what makes them our favorite comedians, and how that ties into writing.

Just make sure to watch the videos all the way through and avoid anything that could offend or insult a student. Keep religion, culture, gender identity, sexual orientation, and class in mind when selecting video content. The last thing you want to do is alienate anyone (or make yourself look insensitive and unapproachable).


Jokes, Sarcasm, and Dry Humor- I am a twisted, twisted individual. I am able to see humor in just about everything. I was able to crack jokes at my own mother's funeral, something she would no doubt be proud of. Subsequently, I am able to crack jokes in almost every class I teach. Do not assume that dry humor and sarcasm is over the head of all of your students. Some, maybe only the extremely bright ones, will pick up on it. Don't allow sarcasm to confuse students during a lecture, but if you see an opportunity to crack an appropriate, subject-related joke, go for it. The worst thing you can do is crash and burn and look like a complete and total idiot in front of your students and then wind up curling up in the shower with all your clothes on and crying yourself to sleep that night.

It won't be that bad. Don't be afraid to try to be funny. Michael Cera made an entire career out of trying to be funny and failing. That could be you.

2)Explain grading and pedagogical practices to students. Allow them to weigh in on it.

Students won't spend group activities rolling their eyes and checking their newfangled cell phones if you explain to them why you're using the approach you're using. Well, some still will. But pulling back the veils of mystery that grey some learning processes motivates students to try harder and work harder toward the goal you made them aware of. Group work, individual work, out of class assignments- each of these should have an obvious purpose that is bolstered by your explanation of what makes the given work necessary or effective.

At the end of an activity or assignment, ask the students if they found it effective in specific terms. If they answer no, get specific feedback on why they found it lacking and what would make it better. Allow them a few minutes to write down their responses or create a poll on Scholar. Student feedback can be invaluable information.

Also, be sure to explain your grading process to students. For example, I use rubrics when I grade freshman composition papers. The rubrics have very specific expectations and they are loaded with detailed descriptions of what the student needs to demonstrate in order to successfully communicate an idea via academic essay. I go over the rubrics on Peer Review day and explain why each category lists the criteria it lists and why those criteria (for the most part) delineate successful writing. They are also posted on the class Scholar page and accessible during the drafting phase of each major assignment.

3)Ask students for feedback before the end of the semester and actually use that feedback. Demonstrate to them how their feedback affected your approach to teaching.

Roughly halfway through the semester, I have my students do a freewrite exercise in which they list the topics they are confident about, topics they need more work on (or were communicated in a confusing way), and what they liked and disliked about the class in terms of instruction. I then make diagrams of their answers and incorporate those diagrams into a quick discussion at the beginning of the next class. Feedback often indicates that students want more video content, would like to listen to music during writing exercises, and enjoy doing group work. I then tailor the remaining lectures as best I can to suit their desires. Letting students know that you care about what they want out of class makes them eager to be there. When you encounter something that you added or changed because of their feedback, vocalize it; say, "Hey guys, I know you enjoy Youtube videos, so I found this one on bad presentation skills."

4)Talk to them like adults.

This shouldn't need much explanation. I do have a bad habit of referring to my students as "my kids," but I make sure not to do it to their faces. Make a conscious effort to not patronize or condescend your students. Don't humiliate them because your teachers always humiliated you. They aren't kids, they're adults. They may not realize it yet, but they are. And speaking to them like children will only ensure a hostile environment wherein you are the babysitter and they are your charges.

5)Be malleable.

Be flexible and don't whine about having to be flexible. Understand that plans won't always go your way; group projects will fall apart, computer malfunctions will happen, participation will wane, attendance will ebb and flow. Be willing to structure lessons in different ways and be obliged to help students who are struggling. Above all of this, maintain your cool while being malleable. Allow your circumstances to shape your approach, not beat it to death. Don't sweat change; embrace it.

6)Be yourself, own yourself.

My favorite show is Downton Abbey. My dog, Mr. Bates, is named after the best character on that show. I love Medieval Literature. I hate driving in the snow. I'm a gym enthusiast who smokes half a pack a day. I am sometimes insecure about my ability to write. And guess what....my students know all of that. Because I am myself in class. Everyday is Truth Day (to a certain degree).

Correction: I am myself, I just try to curse less.

I don't have a ton of confidence. People think I do because I'm loud and I have a sometimes zany approach to fashion and hair, but I question myself constantly. My students do not know this. I appear as confident as possible; the last thing a room of students needs is some unsure, timid, quivering, self-loathing Professor Quirrell-esque graduate student haphazardly tripping through a lesson, baring their shattered sense of self all along the way. Students feed off of your confidence and experience positive growth, but they can also feed off your weaknesses and backslide.

Sarah E. Deel admits this in Finding My Teaching Voice when she admits that she is "uncool." She owns being uncool and makes it part of her teaching self.

If I had to describe my teaching self with a random list of adjectives, it would go something like: loud, energetic, (occasionally) profane, funny, approachable, and nerdy. The nerdiness can be off putting, but because I own it and proudly make it part of who I am, I am ultimately more approachable.

7)Make lectures personal
It is possible to make lectures personal without making them weird.

For example, I use student names in example sentences when teaching various grammar lessons. When students see their names on the lecture slides, they pay closer attention and the likelihood that they are a) paying attention and b) going to remember the lesson increases.

I also use an unorthodox method of taking attendance; rather than having students answer "present" or "here," I pose a question and their answer indicates their presence. I'll ask them who their celebrity crush is, what their favorite dessert is, where they'd rather be, who their most hated celebrity is, and the list goes on. I make sure to answer the question myself at the end; this tricks my human students into thinking that I, too, am human.

8)Let students know it's okay to be anxious or lack confidence

This is another point at which you can employ the freewrite approach. Ensure students that it is normal to feel anxious about learning a new subject (or a subject they dislike or have performed poorly in in the past) and have them jot down their fears/insecurities/doubts at the beginning of the semester. At the end, give them this paper back and have them write down what they conquered as well as what areas still need attention (encourage them to be specific). Making the subject approachable is equally as important as constructing an approachable teaching self.

9)See students as individuals

Avoid looking at your roster as a list of student numbers or a list of papers to grade. Instead, realize that each student comes from a unique cultural, political, spiritual, etc... background and that background shapes who they are in the classroom.

Take the time to learn your student's names. If my undergraduate Chemistry professor can do it in a class of almost 500 students, you can do it.

A great way of learning student names- make your first assignment a five to seven slide Power Point that has their name and a clear picture of their face. They can include slides that detail their hobbies, their family, their friends, their favorite books/movies/video games/instruments, their pets, etc...This assignment makes them aware that you want to know who they are as individuals and it also gives you extra details to associate with the name and face before you. Just make sure to emphasize that pictures must be appropriate (no gym shots, no beach vacation pictures, no illegal stuff).

You can be both respected at the library and praised effusively at the bar, but obsessing over your teaching self in those terms will only lead you down a road of constant and obsessive self revision. Be the teacher that both librarians and vagrant barflies can appreciate; be you.

Ninja Status- Stealth Learning through GBL

I can't remember not wanting to be a teacher.

I can't remember not having some weird awareness that I am capable of leading discussions and transferring information effectively.

From third grade to sixth grade, I taught kids my age, some older, how to read. From fourth grade on, was the leader of NEED, the National Energy Education Development team; we took turns instructing classes once a week on conservation, recycling, and renewable resources. This pattern continued through high school and brought me here, to a GTA position at Virginia Tech where I instruct English 1105 and 1106.

Through all these years, one habit remained constant; it wasn't homework.

I was six years old when my Dad brought our first console home: the glorious original Nintendo, complete with painfully rectangular controllers and that one weird cable you had to practically hammer into the back of the TV. We all played together and spent countless hours solving puzzles, mapping out dungeons, finding secret quests, strategically destroying secret bosses; we spent hours collaborating with each other to reach a goal. And when we met that goal, we moved on to the next game and faced a completely new set of challenges. 21 years later, I'm still gaming as hard as graduate school allows (which, admittedly, isn't very much these days).

Though I've listened attentively to numerous conference presentations demonstrating game based learning methods with various dramatic productions, I've never been able to fully buy into the idea of using games to teach students. The closest I've come to it in my own career (all three whopping semesters of it) is allowing my students to rhetorically analyze speeches from games and constructing debates and argumentative essay prompts around popular game- related topics; in both of these instances, the learning isn't game based. The game is an artifact, like some dusty old tome from Special Collections. It wasn't until I watched Digital Media- New Learners of the 21st Century that I actually understood how it was possible to combine these two seemingly distinct facets of my life. More importantly, this documentary lead me to have one of those famous "Aha!" lightbulb moments; roughly twelve minutes in,  Al Doyle, GBL advocate and educator, calls Game Based Learning "stealth learning" and offers that the students are "still learning, but they're having fun doing it." Students learn willingly when the lessons aren't being shoved down their throats via traditional lecture; they can learn without even realizing they're learning. They can learn without the negative connotations that they have likely attached to that verb since college started (or maybe even before).

I wanted to use this space to share a few different resources for Game-Based Learning that I have tried or am considering trying in my classroom.

1) Grammar Jeopardy!
    I know that doesn't sound exciting. Even with the exclamation point that *I* added for fun. It may not be much to look at, but you'd be surprised at the level of engagement that occurs with this kind of grammar lesson. Granted, it's more of an overall review approach after a unit on grammar (or perhaps even an entire semester of mini grammar labs), but you can make custom versions of this game for the specific lesson. Sure, the competition between teams plays a role in the level of student engagement and enthusiasm, but to see students excited to answer a grammar question, disappointed when they get it wrong (which indicates that they care), and asking why (yes! please ask me why!) they got it wrong so they can get it right next time--indescribable.
    I've used this in all of the classes I've taught so far and I've noticed considerable sentence-level grammatical, mechanical, and syntactical improvements. The greatest side effect- they don't shiver and curl up in the fetal position when they hear the word "grammar" anymore. This may seem insignificant, but grammar anxiety (think "the opposite of math anxiety") inhibits student writing more than anything else (except possibly procrastination). When they shed their anxiety and fear of grammar, their writing improves drastically.
     I think it would be easy to customize something like this for a STEM class. Again, it would likely function as a fun, engaging review activity.

2) MinecraftEdu
     Minecraft, a sandbox construction game, came out in 2011 and by last fall, it was the bestselling PC game of all time. At my secondary job, I've sold this game to kids as young as three and adults as old as eighty- eight. I've never seen a game foster creativity, exploration, collaboration, critical thinking and problem solving like this one. The link provided above, however, is not a link to the standard PC version of the game. MinecraftEdu is officially supported by Mojang, the developer behind Minecraft, and offers instructors in all disciplines a "school ready remix" of the game that is "made by teachers and fine tuned for the classroom." They also offer the "Library of Lesson Worlds": a collection of sample lessons and activities that real instructors used across disciplines.

3) Beta The Game & Hack 'n Slash
     I found these a few months ago while compiling ideas for an online Arthurian Literature course and fell in love with the idea. This would take a little more customizing for me to use, but computer science and any discipline the requires students to learn coding languages could benefit from trying this approach.
     Beta the Game is a platformer that requires the player to input code in a custom built language (codePOP) to alter the environment. Hack 'n Slash is similar, but it has a Legend of Zelda feel to it. Tanner Higgin, Senior Manager of Education Content at Common Sense Media, offers that these "games...represent and expose a key quality of play that’s often lost in stuffy, overly-scaffolded learning games — subversion. While code might be all about rules and procedure, play isn’t. Games are the things that harness play through rules, but play — and players — can never quite be tamed. Play is too big and too slippery, ever redefining itself and evolving. Yet code — and in some sense games — are defined by stability. How can the two be reconciled? By letting games be games — finicky and structured — and players be players — risky and inventive. This offers an appealing counterpoint to the dominant and perhaps tired code literacy rhetoric: stop ‘learning to code’ and start messing with it."
     My idea is a simpler version of this game (that doesn't require any scary coding or being able to reconcile that I live in a world where math exists) that requires players to enter certain text from Arthurian tales, re-enact quests and recite lines from legends and poems to progress through the game. Students would have required reading that would equip them with the necessary knowledge to move to the next level of the game until that certain story was complete. Even if this was a really simplistic interactive fiction game, I think it would be more engaging than simply rehashing the high points of the plot via Power Point and conventional lecture.

I know that I have a long way to go until I'm able to offer an Arthurian Literature GBL course. So, for now, I'm searching for new ways to employ Game-Based Learning in freshman composition courses. While it may be easier to make a dizzying Prezi and transfer information from the podium, thinking critically about how to change composition instruction is the only promising way to address major shortcomings in our field. GBL could transform required English courses into fun, exciting, engaging courses that don't feel like work.

Mindfulness: Keeping a Teaching Journal

Mindfulness is exactly what it sounds like: a state of being aware or conscious. Mindlessness, then, refers to a state of being unaware or distracted. I've noticed myself slipping more and more into the latter state as graduate school presses on. Thanks to multi-tasking and a to-do list that could choke an elephant, I am the person that mindlessly puts the car keys in the freezer or mixes up the concepts of mirrors and windows. While finding my car keys in the freezer can be somewhat humorous (depending on how late I am to class because of lost car keys), mental block, the state of being unaware of my present surroundings, can negatively affect my development as a teacher.

In order to approach teaching mindfully, I regularly maintain a teaching journal. When class is over for the day, I allow myself fifteen minutes to write down how I planned my lesson, what I had to change about my plan, what problems arose, how I fixed those problems, what unexpected things occurred, how the students reacted to certain examples/lectures/group activities/assignments, ways I could have handled something differently, and anything else that comes to mind.

I randomly read over these entries throughout the semester, but I make time to re-read the entire journal when I am constructing a new syllabus or reconfiguring an old one. Keeping a current teaching journal also makes me more aware of the quality and efficacy of my teaching strategies and my in-class persona. Essentially, because I'm constantly critically reflecting and analyzing my pedagogical approaches via written journal, I remain in this mindful mode and make a greater effort at improving my teaching methods.

Advice for teaching journals can be found at the following sources:

Linda Shalaway- Keep a Teaching Journal
Julie Platt- Keeping a Teaching Journal
Improving Your Teaching Practice Through Reflective Journal Writing