Hello Michigan - in October

Heard today that my proposal was accepted for Fem/Rhet '09. Here's the goods:

Is it REAL research? Teaching Rhetoric in a Contrary Environment

Teaching in a literature-heavy directed department compels me to consider scholarly projects for my undergraduate students that disrupt their concept of academic writing. For instance, in an Introduction to Linguistics course, I asked students to develop research projects with an open mind when considering the role linguistics played in their daily lives. Using Cheryl Glenn’s Unspoken: A Rhetoric of Silence as a platform, one student produced an imovie that focused on the use of silence as a linguistic tool in film. What started out as a “fun” project for the student, turned valuable, smart, and complicated. In another course, Persuasive Writing and Logic, the students were asked to embody an alternative rhetorical technique (American Indian, Feminist, Activist, Black Sermon, Asian-American) and produce an argument on a contemporary issue from that rhetorical space in tradition, form, and content. One student wrote as an American Indian to be read as an oral argument, which boldly uses intricate metaphors and other distinctive American Indian rhetorical traditions such as purposeful repetition to explain the plight of the Gwich’in Indian of Alaska and how drilling for oil affects their cultural reliance on the caribou. Overall, while primarily highlighting student products and performances via imovie, this presentation will additionally discuss pedagogical practices beneficial to instructors for creating space for complex modes of undergraduate student scholarly work in rhetoric driven courses despite a largely rhetoric-contrary environment.

50 Word Blurb:

Teaching in a literature-heavy minded department compels me to consider scholarly projects that disrupt my students’ concept of scholarly writing. This presentation will highlight student projects and will discuss ways to create space for legitimating alternative modes of research in rhetoric and composition courses in a largely rhetoric-contrary environment.

Should be fun!