Metaphors and Similes

It has been awhile since I've posted but even though I haven't been here much, issues of composition and teaching have not been far from my mind. In particular, I've been thinking a lot about the use of similes and metaphors in the classroom. In particular, I've been toying with ways to get students to think of writing as a process. Often times it seems like envisioning writing as progressive is something that we give lip service to but don't actually enforce. Sure, outlines are helpful and freewrites can be great tools when used responsibly, but at the end of the day, students are left staring at a blank paper thinking a final draft must somehow magically appear before class. And, when papers are handed back with suggestions, students still feel as though they've been criticized, not enlightened. I think part of this has to do with the way we as teachers often frame writing projects as terminal - stressing process while assigning a grade is always difficult. But even more than the A,C, or - heaven forbid - E, that lands on a student draft, it is the way that students conceptualize writing even before they get to college that makes process such a difficult idea to teach. All of this is to say, I've been thinking about ways to jar students and to challenge their expectations about what it means to write a college paper.

One idea I'm particularly excited to try out involves clay. I often think of my writing process like sculpting. I'll start with a big blob - of clay, of ideas - and slowly it will take shape. I'll have to patch up mistakes and I may find that I even need to completely restructure. It will be messy. There will be stages where what is in front of me will look nothing like what I hope to end up with - and that is okay. In fact, it is my favorite part of the process! But, eventually, the blob will take shape. I'll make my sculpture. I'll communicate my ideas. Explaining this to students doesn't seem like enough though. The analogy works for me because I love to work with clay - but this won't be the case for many students and the imagery that encourages and guides me will only be confusing and irrelevant to them....so, I've decided to try a different approach. I haven't had the chance to do this yet, but I plan to in the near future. I want to actually bring clay or play-dough into the classroom and ask students to replicate a particular image. I'm hoping that this will lead to a discussion about the nature of process - the need to do and redo, even re-envision.

My second analogy isn't at all a new one. I've been working with some students on an assignment that requires them to frame their ideas - to take an idea and read it through a context. It's a complicated skill - one that often leads to student frustration. Framing was taught to me using the analogy of a picture frame. Your idea is the picture, the context is the frame. This is all well and good, but when it comes to actually writing a paper using the technique, there can be a disconnect. Next time I teach framing, I'm going to actually have students write out their quote or idea and then literally create a frame around it using context information.

I'm excited about my ideas, but they haven't been tested in the classroom yet. I'm wondering if anyone has done anything similar to either of these activities. If you have, I'd love to hear from you and find out how it went. I'd also love to hear from anyone who uses metaphors, similes, and analogies in other ways.

For those interested, I've recently read an article about the importance of metaphor use in the classroom. You can check it out at radical pedagogy.

Audience awareness - how do we model audience awareness in the classroom?

I spent a fair amount of this morning searching for multi-modal college writing projects and found several I really like (see, for example, the celebration of student writing) but one site in particular got me thinking about how we teach - or, more specifically, how we model audience awareness. I am talking about The Converging Literacies Center (CLiC)- an online project meant to provide a space for teachers, writers, and researchers to experiment with, and share, new ways of conceptualizing literacy - and composition/rhetoric - in an attempt to make academic writing more relevant to students who may not hail from traditional academic environments. The entire project seems very interesting to me, but one thing really caught my attention as I looking through their mission statement/white paper - that as teachers we need to keep our audience in mind as we compose, lecture, and generally interact with our students. This is not a new idea but I liked the way they presented it - considering audience is something we constantly remind our students to do, but do we usually stop and reflect on how we must continually do this as well? I mean, do we talk to our students about how they function as our audience? Do we ask them how we are doing? Do we point out to them that we are constantly engaging in the activities we ask them to do? In short, how transparent are we about the fact that we are not really in a position to oversee, but more in a position to participate? In theory this is all well and good, but what does this transparency look like in a classroom? I'm not exactly sure - discussion is part of it, but how else can we become more participators and less observers? After all, isn't that what we want from our students?

fun with Wordle

This word cloud was made using Wordle, an online interactive word art tool. Word clouds are a fun and easy way to visually represent main ideas and can be used as brainstorming tools and presentation visuals, among other things. Check out the article Top 20 Uses of Wordle by Rodd Lucier for some fun suggestions about how you can use Wordle in your class.

Zombie Grammar - Writer's Block

Welcome back!

Welcome back ITT instructors and those of you who may teach at other institutions. I'm currently developing some new workshops addressing common grammatical issues and peer review techniques. My intention is to create short workshops that will help students start thinking about how to revise their papers. As always, I will also make some handouts that can be used either with the workshop or independently. These will be posted under the workshop section in the sidebar. Have a great quarter/semester/school year!

Wikipedia Celebrates 750 years of American Independence

Do you have trouble getting your students to understand why they can't use Wikipedia as a credible source? Check out "Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years of American Independence" at The Onion. The article is a spoof, but it is a fun way to remind students about what is and what isn't a credible source. You could also use it to teach parody and conventions too.

HEL (History of the English Language)

I have just added a link to the HEL (History of the English Language) website under the Helpful Writing Resources section of this page. While this site might only be extremelly appealing to obsessive grammarians and history buffs, it could prove helpful when trying to contextualize standardized grammatical "rules" for students. Some learners, myself included, have a hard time retaining information when it is presented out of context. If you find that your students need a little contextual background to help your grammar lessons stick, check out HEL!

Zombie Grammar

If you are like me, teaching grammar is not one of your favorite things to do. And yet, it is necessary. In an attempt to make grammar slightly more interesting (or at least more entertaining) I've started a comic strip blog entitled Zombie Grammar. These short comic strips are only meant to reinforce standardized English grammatical "rules." If you like them, let me know. I'm going to attempt to create a strip for every common grammatical problem composition students face.

These comics were inspired by John Roach's Five Common Grammar Errors as Illustrated by Zombies. It is very funny and also very helpful - definitely worth checking out!

The Wicked Sick Project

I was looking for ways to use media in the writing classroom and I came across the Bedford/St. Martin Bits blog. One particular entry stuck out - Traci Gardner's 4.5 minutes on Audience, Purpose, and Voice. In the post, she links to a video short made as part of an advertising bid (The Wicked Sick Project)and explains how it could be used in a composition classroom to teach about audience. She does such an amazing job of laying out the video's potential that I won't attempt to summarize. Go check it out for yourself:
4.5 minutes on Audience, Purpose, and Voice

I want to add a couple of thoughts. First, if you are wary about the use of explicit language in the song, you could possibly play the video on mute. There is no dialogue anyways so it wouldn't really affect your students' ability to understand what is happening. If, however, you do choose to go ahead and show the clip as is, you may be able to talk about how the creators are advertising their advertising skills (after all, this is something like a video resume of sorts). This could be especially useful in a business class. Just something to think about.

I am also pondering an in-class activity to follow up the video. Perhaps you could bring in something ordinary like a notebook and ask students to create their own ads and let the class vote on which ones are most effective. This could lead into a more in depth discussion about what one much think about when thinking about audience.

More resources (These are especially excellent!)

I've just added to my list of helpful writing resources - again. I try to be very discriminating about what sites I post on this blog. I do this in an attempt to both offer the best of the best as far as writing resources and to try and make sure that my list of resources doesn't become so terribly long that it is tedious to search through. On that note, I've added two new resources because I think they are particularly excellent. First, I've added a link to Dartmouth University's Writing and Rhetoric page. What makes this site so exceptional is the Materials for Faculty section. Here, you will find resources to help you write effective assignments and syllabi. You will also find some suggestions about how to tackle some of the more common issues instructors face while teaching writing. The site was created especially for Dartmouth writing instructors, but the information is helpful to anyone teaching writing, whether it be in the setting of a composition classroom or as a refresher for students who are about to write a paper for a class in their field.

The other resource I've just posted, Common Errors in English Usage, is an extremely comprehensive and very easy to use tool. I really suggest you take a moment and check this one out. I know I will be bookmarking it on my personal computer. You simply type in, or click on, the issue you are wondering about and you are directed to a concise answer to your grammatical dilemma.

APA and MLA checklists

Check out the new handouts - MLA and APA Checklists. I'm hoping these will be easy tools for students to use as they learn how to do MLA and APA citations. If they seem to be unclear or you see anything that I missed, please let me know.

Keeping your audience in mind

I've been "surfing the web" looking for interesting writing prompts and assignment ideas. Not surprisingly, typing something like "college essay prompt" into Google brings up websites that range from the exceptionally helpful to the ridiculously bad. One site in particular, which advertises itself as a tutoring and editing resource for writers, is packed with typos to the point where content is often confusing. I'm far from a grammar hound, but given the author's purpose, to advertise his/her services as a writing consultant, the errors are hard to ignore. This got me thinking about issues of audience and how hard it can sometimes be to get students to think about an audience beyond the instructor who will dole out a grade. I managed to find what I think is a pretty excellent source about how to think about writing for an audience (see Thinking and Writing for an Audience link), but I've also decided to post a link to the particular page that got me thinking about audience to begin with (essay to review) My thinking here is not to point out the mistakes of others - I'm sure a reader can find plenty of fault with my writing if prompted - but to supply a blatant example of writing that does not consider audience. Showing students a poorly written page about how to write might get them to think a little about what it means to consider how topic and audience are connected.

website to help students with argumentative essays

I posted last week about the OVRC (Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center) - I still think it is an amazingly excellent source and gets an A for being user-friendly, but I've also been looking for sources that are similar but don't require you to log into the Virtual Library - since some students seem to resist VL use. I came across a website, ProCon.org, that looks promising. It is listed in the Virtual Library, but you don't need to go through the VL to access it. I know some students are working with argumentative essays right now, and I'm guessing a significant amount of those students claim that they have nothing to write about, so refer them to this site. The set-up is a little clunky, there's a lot going on on each page, but it seems to have some good info and it might help students to start thinking about topics.

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Resources for students who struggle with writing

I just posted some excellent links to sites all about grammar. Two of these sites, Grammar Quiz and Guide to Grammar and Writing, could be especially helpful to ESL students who may struggle with verb agreement, sentence structure, and other common issues. Dyslexia College is a website designed specifically for college students who have dyslexia and dysgraphia. It breaks down the writing process into smaller steps and suggests some techniques that may work well for dyslexic students. If you have ESL students or dyslexic students in your classroom, let them know about these sites. They may make the college experience much less frustrating for students who typically struggle with writing.

Creative Essay Projects

I've been looking for some decent ESL sites but so far, I've only come across sites for students who are just learning the language and not for advanced ESL students. While looking, however, I came across some really interesting sites that could easily be incorporated into a writing assignment. I've posted links to several of them. If you are looking for activities that are a little more interactive and creative, check out A Picture's Worth and one word !

Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center

Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center is a new database accessible through the ITT Virtual Library. You can access the OVRC through the Resources tab at the top of the Virtual Library homepage. The OVRC catalogues full-text articles by topic and is very easy to search. You choose a hot topic from an extensive list and then you are directed to articles supporting both sides of the topic. Examples of hot topics to choose from include: Affirmative action, AIDS (Disease), Alcoholism, Animal experimentation, Animal rights, Assisted suicide, Athletes, Bioethics, Biological weapons, Capital punishment, Censorship, Child abuse, Church and state, Civil rights, Cloning, Creationism - and many more! When you choose a hot topic from the list, you are presented with articles covering different viewpoints about the topic, as well as links to statistical data pertaining to the topic. The OVRC has even catalogued each article by reading level - labeling texts as basic, intermediate, and advanced. Next time you need to research a topic, try out the OVRC. If your students often conduct research for class, encourage them to try the OVRC. I think you will be pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to use!

NTHS

Do you have a NTHS student in your class? If so, encourage them to run for office! Liaoliang Fan is heading up the chapter at the Canton campus. He is accepting applications for President, Vice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer. The application deadline is tomorrow, July 2, so make sure your NTHS students get their applications in! You can see Liao in the LRC or check out the link posted above if you have any questions.

Welcome!

Welcome to the ITT Writing Resources Blog! This blog was created for instructors at the ITT Technical Institute in Canton, MI, but it was produced independently. ITT Technical Institute is not responsible for any information that is posted on this blog. This blog is created specifically as a resource for college instructors, though I have made it a public blog. Please refrain from posting anything here that is unrelated to the teaching of writing.