In the last community of practice workshop lead by Zulema and Luke, many folks there–Aaron, JahB, Megen, Tyrone, and Jose–shared about teaching reading practices that start with texts and language “from everyday life,” that value linguistic diversity, and that even facilitate a healing process within one’s own literacy history. Cool bell hooks moves. If you missed the convo, catch the recording.  

At one point (right around 40:00), Tyrone shares an early semester assignment in which he asks students, “What’s the last thing you read?”Often, he receives the response, “Well, I don’t really read books.” At the ready, Tyrone replies in his awesome, encouraging, teacherly way, “That’s not what I asked you. What is the last anything you read.” In this, I see Tyrone intentionally and intrusively disrupting, demystifing, and destigmatizing the “Englishy” constraints his students are expecting in order to open space for students to reflect on the texts they decide have value. 

Listening to Tyrone and our colleagues talk about inclusive, equity-minded reading practices, makes me immediately think about my own classes and the Englishy constraints I intentionally and often unintentionally design there:

Of course, if those constraints are there, they are designs that come from good intentions: I want my asynch students to practice the conventions and processes of effective writing we’re studying. But should every space where writing happens in my class reinforce expectations on language and structure? 

Andrea Castellano in a recent Cult of Pedagogy begins her classes first by acknowledging, “we in this class speak many languages and think in many languages.” And she defines “multilingualism” as speaking many languages, dialects, discourses, and gestures, and code-switching as the agency/necessity to pivot within and across those languages. Her post, “Words Matter: Language Affirming Classrooms for Code-Switching Students,” has me thinking a lot about ways I can open space for writing: 

“We should want better for our students. The fact is, code-switching is not a sign of linguistic incompetence, but a normal occurrence for a multilingual brain. (Yuhas, 2021). Rather than attempt to micromanage how they use their language, we can guide students to the realization that they can decide for themselves when and how they code-switch.”

Below is a convenient info-graphic of her major points. Here is space for us to affirm or critique those ideas, today (or whenever):

This is a [Discussion] Where Writing Can Happen

And here’s another space for us to collaborate in real-time later this week:

More info, coming soon

My asynch ENGL 202 students are submitting their final draft of their first major project today…well, this evening.

We’ve been working on it since Week 3. It started out as Journal Notes responding to articles and Ted Talks, writing that happened in individual spaces. Then it evolved in discussion posts, writing that happened in shared space. Then it merged into more rigorous structures and positions in drafts, writing that happened in formalized spaces.

So, I’m thinking about these different, asynchronous spaces, and I’d like to invite you to join me. Here’s one place my brain is this morning:

We make when we write. Our writing is thing-like. Ideas and voices become artifacts we can touch and pass around with others. Our material thoughts-on-surfaces gain a kind of gravity when we scatter them around the desk and post them online; they become magnets to more ideas, more voices, more structures…you know, the reading/thinking/collaboration/writing process. 

And so, of course, writing involves more than “the human brain and its internal processes” but also our “bodies, behaviors, spaces and tools” all of which are the “constitutive elements of [writing] activity.” 

Those quotes above are from Mathew Overstreet from a recent Computers and Composition article. Here’s another favorite passage:

…discursive forms (sentences, genres, etc.) are best conceived not “as abstractions, but as material vehicles” (Menary 629). As material vehicles, shared forms have generative power. When writing a poem, for instance, it is often the material properties of the words used, such as their structure and cadence, that help determine the poem’s content. Other elements within writing ecologies are similarly generative. Seen in this way, the content of a text is an emergent property of work in physical space. More specifically, writing is a process of integration and supplementation. Brain, text and tools all have different material affordances. Writing is the act of marshaling these disparate resources (and many others) to achieve wholes bigger than the sum of the parts.

So, how do we think about that materiality–of bodies, behaviors, brains, and tools–within asynchronous spaces where writing happens?

Here’s one space for us to jump in today (or whenever):

This is a [Doc] Where Writing Happens

And here’s another space for us to collaborate in real-time later this week:

More info, coming soon,

This semester, we continue our professional learning series focused on our Online Teaching Principle for Communicating with Students. At the center of this deep-dive project, we’re asking this question: how do our communication tools, spaces, and methodologies promote student growth and student agency?

Our Principle for Communication with students encourages many practices: from communicating effectively in weekly announcements to maintaining open, dynamic 3rd spaces. This semester, we explore:

Verbs, Voice, and Grammar (of Canvas): Speaking to Students Through Course Design Decisions, Monday April 11^th 1:00-2:30pm in Zoom

First Impressions, Fourth Impressions: Communicating in Community Weeks 0-3, Thursday May 12^th 3:30-5:00pm in Zoom

These discussions are interactive with opportunities to explore your own teaching, share ideas, and build plans in a collaborative space. We pause for quiet and deliberate hands-on application, so even if you interact with the video or podcast later, you can still access our Google Docs and contribute your communication practices (listening is FLEX eligible; Letters faculty who contribute to the Doc may claim remuneration).

Hope to see you there!