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Texting: Texting has created detrimental issues for today's students. It can cause laziness when it comes to linguistics, predictability, issues with spelling and grammar, and difficulty putting together complicated sentences. Texting has also shown to agitate students leading to more arguments, shorter attention spans in the classroom, and has proven to be a distraction when learning and engaging in other activities.

Although classrooms now require more technology to be integrated, today's social media use involving texting and the use of other platforms have proven to have both positive and negative impacts on student learning. As a millennial, I can see how useful technology can be when teaching. I can also see how big of a distraction it is along with the negative aspects attached to it. I fully think that it's essential to incorporate technology into the classroom to boost motivation. Most students now are familiar with technology and may learn better with it. I think that each teacher should survey their classroom and be picky about what platforms and other technologies they incorporate into their curriculum in an effort to maximize student learning and avoid the detriments.

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Bad Ideas about Writing explains that there is a difference between those born before the boom of technology and those born after. Those born before the boom are called digital immigrants and those born after are natives. Natives are familiar with technology. There is a huge split in digital skill which creates issues with communication.

Although there is a large barrier in communication, traditional teachers can still teach effectively. More student-centered learning can help guide traditional teachers into understanding what kind of technologies to include in the classroom to help defeat this communication barrier. I think it's important for teachers to remember that it's okay to continue learning in an effort to improve teaching and it's okay to let students lead us (as educators) to what might be the most effective and helpful routes when integrating technology into classrooms.

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According to the author of A Guide to Composition Pedagogies, Gary Tate states that, “The simple fact that digital spaces do not require human bodies to be present in the same place at the same time opens up additional possibilities for all collaboration types, particularly in online classes” (Tate, 45). Since media is changing and evolving, so are the requirements for collaborating. Digital media has transitioned the need from in-person collaboration for students and teachers into a digital form of collaboration, offering a wider range of possibilities for teachers and students to work together effectively. Tate discusses how people can now collaborate despite differences in time zones or living in other parts of the world and explains that this is a crucial skill when dealing with digital media. Although, Tate expresses that this can enhance challenges, for example, “Central pedagogical challenges brought about by the emergence of digital collaboration include the potential for public, multi modal end products; the negotiation of privacy; and the need for instructors to develop sufficient digital literacies to select the best tool for the form of collaboration that is most suited to their class-room goals” (Tate, 45).

Although there are numerous challenges involved in collaboration in regard to new digital media, it is very important for today’s educators to learn about it and use it, in some degree, in their classrooms. Considering that now, most student’s in today’s world are more technologically savvy and driven, incorporating digital media collaboration may prove to be incredibly helpful in communicating with students and may be a more effective way for students to work with each other. Since most students today connect with each other and communicate using some form of digital media and social media platforms, including digital collaboration may be a more effective route for both collaborating and communicating.

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Today's technologically driven society is forcing the integration of digital technology into classrooms. Today's students are primarily digital learners. This can interfere with traditional teaching and lecturing. Traditional teachers are currently struggling to teach because they are not proficient in digital technology and aren't quite equipped for this new wave of learning. Because of that, traditional teachers are having to learn with the students when it comes to fully integrating technology in their classrooms. Today's students practically speak an entirely new language with new abbreviations, lingo, and slang which is also making it more difficult for traditional teachers to teach effectively because there is an apparently communication barrier.

Digital literacy students require concentration. As a teacher, I want to incorporate this ever-changing form of digital tech learning into my future classroom. I can use audio essays, vlogs, collages, and even digital storytelling to help communicate with today's students better and enhance their learning. According to the authors of Bad Ideas about Writing, teachers should find the best technologies to incorporate into their lessons based on the overall goal they want students to reach. The technology used needs to be mindfully chosen to make certain that it's working and not distracting students.

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“Excellent Academic Writing Must be Serious” by Michael Theune

This chapter starts off by naming off numerous humorous writers, shining light on the greatness of writing and the irony of the topic at hand. In support of teaching humorous writing Theune advocates that, “Humor demands close attention to language at all levels. Making comedy requires a writer to consider diction, of course, but also to be deliberate about intricacies such as sound and rhythm—after all, it’s often just a matter of a few syllables that enables one to be silly.” (182) Humor offers creativity, imagination, and new perspectives. By trying out new pieces of writing it also offers opportunities for collaboration because one needs an audience.

“Humor not only can help teach the elements of writing and thinking while emphasizing collaboration, but it also powerfully makes the case for writing… Humor makes the writing process matter. In this process, invention is true invention: You’re creating something never thought of before” (Theune, 183-184). So, against common thought that writing needs to be serious, Theune shines light on the positive aspects that adding a humorous genre to one’s curriculum can have on student writing, thought, and collaboration.

“Creative Writing is a Unique Category” by Cydney Alexis

There are some misconceptions when it comes to creative writing. Alexis writes, “The problem is that one image of writing dominates the popular imagination and is weighted with value more heavily than all others: creative writing, which is treated as if it’s interchangeable with fiction and poetry (188). Because of this there is a lack of acknowledgement of the creativity that goes into other forms of writing that are creative, such as manuals, texts, emails, etc.

Is creative writing much different from the other genres? Interestingly, Alexis states, “I began asking more people whose livelihoods depend on the written word, and who write daily, if they see themselves as writers.” With this in mind, everyone is a writer. However, there are different values or ideals about writing in society. Readers are easily acknowledged, unlike writers, Alexis argues. She then asserts, “It’s time we banish the idea that certain writing forms are creative and certain aren’t” (Alexis, 192). In sum, Alexis makes a positive case for creative writing genres and writers, by normalizing the topic and making it relatable to all people. In the end, we are all creative writers.

“Popular Culture is Killing Writing” written by  Bronwyn T. Williams

The conflict about popular culture killing writing is described by Bronwyn Williams as, “Popular culture texts, according to these laments, are intellectually undemanding, too reliant on emotion, too informal, and often morally compromising” (194). After acknowledging the concern, the then confronts its’ falsities.

Williams states that people are typically hesitant of new forms, ideas or items that change a way of doing something that they learned or used previously. This hesitation leads to the idea that pop culture is bad, with it ever updating and changing. Popular culture includes, “movies, popular music, television, computer games, social media, and more” (196). Williams argues that students don’t read these because they are easy, because some are quite complicated, but that they have time invested and a lot of practice familiarizing themselves with this genre. Like anyone trying something new, introducing new genres can cause confusion and frustration. But with practice and consistent exposure, it can get easier. In relation to writing, “ Like any of us learning to write in a new genre, students need writing classes that help them understand the conventions, and the reasons for the conventions, of that new genre” (Williams, 197). This will lead to more comfortability and willingness to engage in a genre.

“Compared with thirty years ago, when television and film dominated popular culture practices, young people today are engaged in significantly more reading and writing” (Williams, 198). Did you know that? It makes sense. Williams ends with, “Students are adept at reading and writing popular culture because they practice it, learn it, control it. Given the same conditions, and motivation, they can learn to do the same with other forms of writing” (200). Like anything, practicing it makes a person better at it. Students will benefit from learning, practicing, and controlling their writing projects. More comfortability with a genre will increase the willingness to work with it.

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“Genre Pedagogies” by Amy J. Devitt

Amy Devitt begins this chapter by discussing the evolving definition of “genre,” and refocuses the chapters by stating she will focus on three broad pedagogical approaches: teaching particular genres, teaching genre awareness, and teaching genre critique. (147)

Teaching Particular Genres

This is one of the longest standing pedagogies used by writing teachers.  Traditionally, teaching genres meant teaching writing  such as: lab reports, personal narratives, poetry, etc. However, “Because genre no longer means a simple classification of textual forms, too, teaching a particular genre no longer means teaching a static set of formal rules” (148).  Devitt uses a metaphor of teaching genres as knowing the rules of play to a game. Once you know the rules of a genre you can write it.

She discusses methods of teaching genres, such as the method of explicit instruction which has the teacher giving a model of the genre they’ll learn,  then they analyze the model, then the class collaborates to write a new text that conforms to the features being taught. Then, finally the students create their individualized draft of the genre.  Devitt mentions other methods as well.

Devitt ends by saying, “Learning to write a credible text within a particular genre remains the primary goal” (150). This goal is something many teachers and students are familiar with.

Teaching Genre Awareness

This pedagogy argues to not teach genres specifically, like mentioned above, but to bring awareness to all that is offered. Genre awareness pedagogy is defined as “meaningful social actions, with formal features as the visible traces of shared perceptions. Analyzing the contexts and features of a new genre provides an inroad to understanding all genres” (152). This allows students to take a broader look at genres versus the specificalities of them.

If one was to follow this pedagogy, Devitt suggests using a process found on page 152. This process, “helps students see what genres people read and write, where, in what forms, and why” (152). This allows for students to better understand all genres instead of capitalizing on just one. Genre awareness must highlight: rhetorical and textural features, and social and ideological contexts. A goal of this pedagogy is for students to transfer their knowledge to other writing tasks and other contexts.

Teaching Genre Critique
This pedagogy teaches students to think critically about current genres and their culture. Some say that this pedagogy aligns and is codependent on Genre Awareness. Through this lens, there are a handful of prompting questions to use in the process of critiquing a genre. This list is found on page 154-55. A key aspect of this pedagogy is to discuss more than just the form of a genre, but to pick it apart by structure, compare/contrast, and understand the root of a genre.

“A critical perspective on genres can be used to critique not just the genre but also the society or culture within which the genre is embedded” (Devitt, 156) This allows for students to gain insight into cultures, more specifically, to gain context. Also, by studying genres in this way they can see how genres can modify as society changes and progresses.

The goal of this pedagogy seems to be the idea of critiquing in order to reinvent it. More specifically, the goal is to increase rhetorical flexibility, writing more comfortably with unfamiliar technologies, and developing critical thinking and possibly enhancing change.

Personal Reflection and Curricular Connections

Personally, I find a lot of value to the Genre Awareness and Genre Critique pedagogy. These pedagogies give students autonomy and skill in research and then application. It seems to teach the backbone of genre, and incorporates social and ideological thought, which can be difficult to find in other pedagogies. This pedagogy, however, is new to me, so I’d need more information before even attempting to teach it!

Comparing Devitt’s chapter about genre to “Bad Ideas about Genre” I found that the audiences would be different. Devitt’s is more research based and broad, while “Bad Ideas” is more conversational, opinionated and specific. Holistically though, they're a good pairing.

I think some further conversations can be had about what genres are being taught and why, and what new genres are being taught. Is a more traditional pedagogy of teaching ‘types of genres’ still beneficial, or is this outdated? If it’s outdated, how can it be altered or what would replace them? I also relate this topic to Cat’s topic on digital tech because, at this point in time, they are blending together. If a goal of educators is to meet their students where they’re at, then incorporating and catering to this digital era is key to engagement and success.

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Writing is a Social and Rhetorical Activity 

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Writing is a Social and Rhetorical Activity 

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Have you ever walked into a store that sells “slightly inappropriate” greeting cards and thought to yourself, “Wow, my grandma would hate this place.” It is because the rhetoric that the writer was using to market their birthday cards was not aimed towards your 90 year old grandma, they were hoping to catch the eye of a twenty something year old looking to make their friends laugh with a humorous card. This is something I have experienced, but never thought about until reading Adler-Klassner and Wardle’s Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies. The first step in writing is knowing who your audience is. “Writers are always doing the rhetorical work of addressing the needs and interests of a particular audience, even if unconsciously” (Adler-Klasser & Wardle 17). All companies, writers, and marketers think about this when sharing anything with writing. Even though we don’t think of medicine containers being a “genre,” there are specific rules that writers follow when creating the labels. In middle school I learned the concept, “show, don’t tell” when writing. This was to keep the audience from being told what was happening and allowing them to use imagery to create a picture in their mind. However, someone making a to-do list might follow the “rules” of the genre and keep their list simple. Someone who is writing in their diary might state the facts of their day. “These shorthand descriptions tend to collapse the activity of writing into the act of single writer inscribing a text” (Adler-Klassner & Wardler 17). These are very different from the style of writing that we tend to gravitate towards when wanting to read a book or learn about something new. Although, I don’t think many people are grabbing at medicine bottles or to-do lists to wind down in the evening.

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After reading this section from TC, I feel inspired to read everything that I can possibly get my hands on. Writing is a product that can inspire, teach, and use to learn. "Writers use writing to generate knowledge they didn't have before" (Adler-Klassner & Wardle 19). Everything that we can read is writing. Journals, lists, and mind maps are writing tools that we create can provide us knowledge to create more. "Understanding the knowledge-making potential of writing can help people engage more purposefully with writing for varying purposes" (Adler-Klassner & Wardler 20). Keeping a journal, jotting down ideas, and making lists are all helpful tools that can inspire and create meaning.

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Writing Addresses, Invokes, and/or Creates Audiences

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Writing Addresses, Invokes, and/or Creates Audiences

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Writers should shift their understanding of their audience from being "who they are writing for" to "who they could be writing for." ". . .[W]riters can address audiences - that is, actual, intended readers or listeners - and invoke, or call up, imagined audiences as well" (Adler-Klassner & Wardler 21). Instead of putting your writing in a box, think of how many wonderful people could have the opportunity to view it.

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"Rhetorical Pedagogy" - William A. Covino 

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"Rhetorical Pedagogy" - William A. Covino 

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Does the way we teach writing allow for students to writing creatively and use their imagination? ". . .a prescriptive approach to writing is dull and unnatural" (Covino 36). While thinking about the approach that I provide students when teaching academic writing, I use the ACE writing formula to provide a formula for forming paragraphs. Since New Criticism began, changes in the rhetorical approach to writing have switched. ". . . a rhetorical pedagogy consists in encouraging writing that is not restricted to self-expression or the acontextual generation of syntactic structures or the formulaic obedience to rules, but instead keeps in view the skills and contingencies that attend a variety of situations and circumstances" (Covino 37). This relates to Klassner & Wardler's "Writing is a Social and Rhetorical Activity" by concluding that all genres have their own set of "rules" for the audience that they are writing for. Although academic papers are written with "rules," we as teachers can allow student voice to be apparent as well.

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Rhetorical Pedagogy - Teaching Rhetoric 

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Rhetorical Pedagogy - Teaching Rhetoric 

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"When we teach 'rhetoric,' what is it that we are teaching? One answer is 'everything' (Covino 47). Persuasion and knowing your audience is important for all writing.

"Rhetoric is a mode of altering reality, not by the direct application of energy to objects, but by creation of discourse which changes reality through the meditation of thought and action" (Covino 37).

Rhetoric truly is everything. It is how we make decisions based on marketing, writing to an audience, and how we persuade others or are persuaded. Although there are many definitions of rhetoric throughout this chapter, the one above stuck out to me the most.

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Words Get Their Meanings from Other Words

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Words Get Their Meanings from Other Words

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"In language itself, there are only differences" (Saussure 1983, 118) Saussure means that the meanings of words are relational - they acquire their meaning from other words. The idea of social context's relationship to words illustrates that words change in response to changes in social context. The example of the word "text" that has changed into the meaning related to cell phone usage from a very different meaning highlights a contextual social change in the meaning of the word. The elimination of the word, mankind, in the social context of gender representation provides another social concept impacting the meaning of words. The idea of Anzaldua and Brodkey "likening writing to ... seaming together something different from existing material is a interesting way to observe the changes in meanings of words and context. "When readers and writers share a workplace, a close relationship...they can rely on these social context to fill in the blanks with shared understanding." This concept is one that I feel a connection as a Latin teacher for over 25 years! I have been working with words and meanings as I give vocabulary quizzes weekly and give meanings for Latin root words in a fairly isolated context. This concept makes me rethink some of the ways that I teach vocabulary and understand some of the text for teaching Latin that follow a reader model where students learn vocabulary through use in Latin stories. I am actually using an ancient Greek text that is a reader and will be interested to see the level of understanding as we continue our study.

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"The physical presence of writing mediates - comes between, intervenes in the activity of people" (Russell 1995, 1997). This idea of writing linked to action and the examples given: stop signs, the Ten Commandments, interpretation of holy scripture. leading to wars illustrates the power of words and the actions that follow. "The institutions that form our modern lives - government, commerce, industry, the arts, sciences, and so on - are mediated by written marks in databases, laws, regulations, books, the Internet". As I reflect on writing and action, I think of how most of the seniors I have taught over the past few years push back on writing and really do not like to write. It is more the exception to have students who like to write. They spend so much time consuming videos and photos, I think that their capacity to want to write or see the value in writing is waning.

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Assessing Writing Shapes Contexts and Instruction 

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Assessing Writing Shapes Contexts and Instruction 

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"How teachers or others assess student writing, what products those assessment processes produce...can create the very competencies any writing assessment says it measures" (Gould 1981; Hanson 1993). The emphasis in an assessment determines what "good writing" is. "The assessment of writing shapes contexts and learning environments...that have consequences for both the people whose writing is being judged and for those who are judging". This concept has me reflecting on how often the seniors I see in my College Writing class say they are not "good at writing". So many of them have the self-belief that they cannot write and I am certain that over their 12 years in school they have had a wide variety of teachers teaching them writing with different assessment tools. These tools have so much subjectivity inherent in them. I struggle myself with creating good rubrics for each writing assignment as the students' strengths are so varied. I tell them that they are good writers and try to help them find their voices and confidence in writing as they head into college and beyond.

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"Inscriptive systems did not start cropping up here until about 3000 BCE" and speech has been something that humans have done far longer and speech is more "natural". The idea that writing is not natural because "writers tend to judge their writing processes too harshly- comparing them to the ease with which they usually speak" links to the thought that in speech tone, nonverbal feedback, gesture, expression, pacing, silences, are all part of spoken language and more difficult to replicate in written language. There are "limitations" to the technology connected to written language. This concept causes me to reflect on the fact that as computers and correction tools are part of most writing at this point, the idea of written language and the connection to and reliance on technology is growing. As you type now, both in email, texting, and in Google docs, the corrections or the suggestions that pop up make it that you hardly have to think about what you are writing as it is almost done for you. I find this a bit disconcerting and think of the issues inherent in these technologies as people rely more on them and less on their own words and knowledge of words.

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Writing Involves Making Ethical Choices 

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Writing Involves Making Ethical Choices 

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"What kind of writer do I wish to be? What are my obligations to my readers? What effects will my words have upon others, upon my community?"  The concept that wiring involves ethical choices focuses on the idea that in writing there is a relationship between the writer and the reader.  These relationships involve human values and virtues.  To think about this concept of writing elevates the importance of writing and the choice of words as a vehicle to convey your message. I think about getting this message to the students I teach writing to as I help them understand the importance of citing sources, crafting their own ideas about things, and brining their own voice into their writing. Insisting that they use their voice, develop their tone in writing helps them to understand the idea of the connection that they are making with readers whenever they write something.

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Writing is a Technology through which Writers Create and Recreate Meaning - Collin Brooke and Jeffrey T. Grabill

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Writing is a Technology through which Writers Create and Recreate Meaning - Collin Brooke and Jeffrey T. Grabill

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"A book is a machine to think with"(Richards 2001). As technology has advanced the connectivity of readers and writers has grown exponentially. Facebook and Wikipedia are arguably two of the most significant collaborative wiring projects in human history as they allow people to connect and write. As students use technology, I mostly see them using Snapchat, it is interesting to notice the way in which they are connecting and using technology to communicate. I always say "no Wikipedia" when they are researching as it is not reliable but they all want to use it and do generally use it to get an overall understanding before they begin to research. My students are technological experts for the most part and use technology in ways that both can be helpful and I also see them using technology in ways that is very distracting and unhelpful.