I'm always up to something new. Check back frequently for the latest updates!
The rhetoric of podcasting - sept 12, 2018
This semester, I am teaching a "Rhetoric of Podcasting" class. During the first half of this course, students consider how audio documentary podcasts--like Serial, S-Town, Uncivil, Caliphate, Ear Hustle, and RadioLab--impact their audiences.
Video produced by Andrew Behringer.
Each week, we focus on a different production technique, including narrative structure, characters and scenes, interviews, diction, delivery, and sound design. On Mondays and Wednesdays, we analyze how different podcasts strategically use these tactics. Then on Fridays, I lead a Technical Lab where students learn to deploy these skills rhetorically on their own. They might sketch a sympathetic character, for example, or gather characteristic sounds in the field.
Stay tuned for a second post where I explain how students will produce their own podcast during the second half of the semester...
symposium on sound, rhetoric, and writing - Sept 9, 2018
This past week, I participated in the inaugural Symposium on Sound, Rhetoric, and Writing in Nashville, Tennessee. Hosted by the rockstar team of Eric Detweiler, Joel Overall, Steph Ceraso, and Jon Stone, the symposium offered a great opportunity to exchange provocative new research, to discuss sound pedagogies, and, of course, to sing some karaoke. In addition to keynotes by Damon Krukowski and Radiotopia's Julie Shapiro, I particularly enjoyed the interactive "sonic installations" that explored how sonic rhetoric resonates with bodies, touch, and affect.
Based on my dissertation research, I gave a presentation entitled, "Tracing Sonic Ethos: Sampling Kanye's Character." We had a lively conversation afterward, and I'm grateful to everyone who offered their ideas. I'll be working to incorporate their feedback in the near future, but until then, I've attached all the files associated with my presentation below.
Click the above slide to play a 3-minute audio recording that I made for my presentation.
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Here are transcripts of audio files from my presentation.
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facilitating Undergraduate research - August 12, 2018
This year, IU is kicking off a new undergraduate research program in the humanities, and I've been selected to teach one of its first courses. Many students are trained to be good consumers of knowledge, but as a teacher of rhetoric and writing, I've always aimed to help students recognize that they can be producers of knowledge too. This new curriculum--the Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Research Program (ASURE)--helps students do exactly that.
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With the help of all-star mentor John Arthos, I am developing an ASURE course for the IU English department that considers podcasting through the lens of rhetoric. Rather than teaching students to blindly follow a set of "best practices" for producing a podcast, students will interrogate how those production choices impact particular audiences and cultural contexts. This knowledge, in turn, will help students decide for themselves which production techniques best suit the rhetorical situation of the podcast that they will produce at the end of the semester.
Although I will be the sole instructor of record for this course, opportunities like this would not be possible without the vision of Paul Gutjahr and the fierce support of Robert Terrill and the IU Rhetoric Program. Thanks a bunch!
Gratitude for a summer fellowship - August 5, 2018
A few months ago, I won one of the English department's new Summer Dissertation Writing Fellowships. And I'd like to take a moment to do two things:
- To express my gratitude to the anonymous donor who made such a generous gift.
- To outline the things this fellowship has helped me do this summer.
Trader Joe's cards always say it best.
Financially, summers are often difficult for graduate students in the humanities because our compensation for teaching ends at the beginning of May. As a result, many graduate students take on additional part-time jobs. In previous summers, for example, I worked as an Instructional Designer for IU's new online writing program. While such employment can, in the best cases, be an important part of our professional development, those jobs always steal precious hours from the research and writing that will help us complete our dissertations and jump-start our careers. So, to the secret and benevolent benefactor who made this fellowship possible: thank you, thank you, thank you.
What my summer research looks like.
Here's a glimpse into what this fellowship has helped me do:
- I finished final revisions on what will be my first journal article: "Integrating Usability Testing and Digital Rhetoric in OWI." It is currently in press with Computers and Composition and will be published this September.
- I participated in the International Rhetoric Workshop in Ghent, Belgium where I received thoughtful feedback on my dissertation research from scholars from around the world.
- I completed a crucial chapter of my dissertation: "Theorizing Chronos for Rhetoric." In this chapter, I build a theoretical framework for better understanding how rhetoric accumulates persuasive force over time.
- I developed the syllabus for a fantastic new course that I am teaching in the fall: "Podcasting: Persuading with Sound." (More about this in a subsequent post...)
international rhetoric workshop - July 2018
This summer, I traveled to Ghent, Belgium for the 2nd annual International Rhetoric Workshop (IRW). Organized primarily by graduate students and junior faculty, this small three-day event provides a space for emerging rhetoric scholars from around the world to collaborate and to exchange feedback on their research. The conference featured an all-star lineup of keynote speakers: Raka Shome, Lisa Storm Villadsen, and Jessica Enoch. And Christian Koch deftly led the discussions in our small research group, which comprised academics from Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, Guatemala, and the United States. Our projects all raised questions about the role of classical rhetoric in our contemporary moment, a topic that is best-interrogated, I think, from a variety of national and cultural perspectives.
Public Library "De Krook"
On the last day of the conference, we visited the new spectacularly-designed public library in Ghent: De Krook. During the tour, we learned that, in the process of transferring the holdings from the old library to the new, the people of Ghent created a human chain stretching multiple city blocks and passed many of the books by hand. At the Krook, we also witnessed the official signing of the Rhetoric Society of Europe (RSE) documents that make RSE an EU organization.
From left to right: Hilde van Belle, Kris Rutten, and Martijn Wackers.
All in all, it was a wonderfully fruitful weekend of scholarship and camaraderie. And for that, the IRW conference planners and the local hosts at the University of Ghent, especially Kris Rutten, deserve a very special thanks. Dank je wel!
Rhetoric society of america conference - june 1, 2018
This week, I attended the 50th Annual Rhetoric Society of America Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I participated in the Research Network Forum, where emerging scholars pre-circulated works-in-progress and then exchanged feedback with each other. The inimitable Debra Hawhee led our small group in a lively, thoughtful, and uplifting conversation about our scholarship, and I left the table energized to revisit the exploration of rhetoric and time in my dissertation. Thanks to Debbie, Katie, Patty, and Melissa for their generous feedback!
Additionally, John Gallagher, Dan Ehrenfeld, and I put together a panel called "Reinventing Chronos for Digital Media." While kairos is a useful temporal concept for rhetoricians, we aimed to theorize Aristotle's notion of chronos (as expressed in the Physics) as a complementary idea of time that might help researchers better understand how rhetors leverage different temporalities in digital media. Based on the third chapter of my dissertation, my presentation--"Cumulative Ethos: Chronos, Character, and Kanye West"--investigated how ethos accumulates rhetorical force over time. Kanye West served as a case study for this exploration, which occurred, coincidentally, on the same day that his latest album--Ye--dropped. You can view my slides and a transcript of my presentation by clicking the links below.
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computers and writing conference - may 25, 2018
This week, I attended the 2018 Computers and Writing Conference hosted at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. There, I participated the Graduate Research Network and celebrated the last of Janice Walker's 19 years leading this incredibly fruitful workshop for emerging scholars. It's not an exaggeration to say that she has served as a mentor to generations of scholars in our field. Thank you, Janice!
I also organized a panel presentation with two outstanding colleagues, Shelley Rodrigo and Kim Fahle. Our panel, "Exploring Pedagogies for Synchronous Video Writing Instruction," generated a lively dialogue with our audience members. My presentation, "Teacherly Ethos in Synchronous Multimodal OWI," offered pedagogical implications from my dissertation research. Below, I've included links to my slides and a transcript of my talk.
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technical and professional writing - May 12, 2018
This semester I taught Technical and Professional Writing for non-majors. Using audience, genre, medium, and cultural context as tools for the analysis and production of texts, students learned to compose for many different rhetorical situations. I also helped students examine the importance of serialized professional communication, including how promotional tweets can accrue a rhetorical force over time and how a preliminary project proposal crafts an ethos that shapes the subsequent formal report.
In the end, their group projects knocked my socks off. Students identified an issue and an audience in a local community that was important to them. Then they conducted field research and compiled a report that analyzed, evaluated, and recommended solutions for responding to that issue. For example, students helped boost the sustainable practices of local businesses and improve medical resources at a day-shelter for the homeless. They also developed digital literacies while working in Adobe Acrobat, which--to my surprise--none of them had used before.
Here's an example of outstanding student work composed by Mianna Ruiz and Jade Ford. Their project seeks to increase international student access to on-campus mental health services. Check it out!
Note: All student work on this site is published with the written consent of the authors.
Lieber memorial teaching associate award - April 13, 2018
In my fourth year of teaching, I won the Lieber Memorial Teaching Associate Award. Since 1961, this award has acknowledged Indiana University graduate students who are "truly distinguished" teachers. I was nominated by the Chair of the English Department and competed with the best graduate student instructors from all IU campuses. Compiling my dossier for this award offered a wonderful chance for me to reflect on the terrific students, colleagues, and teaching experiences that I've had here. Below are some resources related to this award.
teaching PHILOSOPHY
After I won the award, the IU Communications Team sent a two-person film crew to my professional writing class and produced this 90-second video that explains my philosophy of teaching rhetoric and writing.
Note: All video, audio, and textual content is reproduced with the consent of those involved. Video produced by the IU Communications team.
inside my class
As part of my dossier, I produced this 10-minute teaching video that offers a glimpse of my pedagogical strategies. It includes excerpts from my multilingual writing, online writing, and cross-cultural writing classes. It also demonstrates how I teach textual analysis, visual analysis, and various writing strategies. I close the video with an example of the personalized audiovisual feedback that I leave for students in both online and face-to-face classes.
Note: As you can see from these two still images, I like to teach with my hands.
Teaching portfolio
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As part of my dossier, I also submitted an extensive--and I mean EXTENSIVE--teaching portfolio. It contains a self-analysis of my pedagogy, a collection of peer observations and student letters, unabridged evaluations, and more.
If you want to take a look at it, I've included it here. But fair warning: it's 163-pages!
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