A New Year

This isn't going to be the most academic of my posts, but I feel like the break over Christmas and the New Year almost counts as part of the school year because it is sandwiched between the two semesters. This year Wade and I enjoyed celebrating Christmas with both of our families here in Madison, and then we took a wonderful trip over the new year! We traveled to Spain and then took a cruise on the Norwegian Spirit to other Spanish ports and Morocco! We had a really great time. I have included a few pictures here from our time abroad.

We started the trip in Malaga, Spain. We stayed there for four days, and we celebrated New Years Eve and New Years Day there. We stayed in an Airbnb that was less than ideal, but we really enjoyed the city. It was historic and really, really charming. I loved it. We spent most of our time walking the streets and eating at outdoor cafes. We visited the Malaga Cathedral, which is affectionally nicknamed "La Manquita" or "The One-Armed Lady" because one of the towers was left unbuilt. We also visited The Alcazaba of Malaga, which means "citadel" in Arabic. It is a palatial fortification built in the early 11th century, and it is stunningly large and well-maintained. We visited the Picasso Museum one day, and my favorite part was a special exhibition called "We Are Completely Free: Women Artists & Surrealism." I really enjoyed seeing that work. We spent New Years Eve wandering the city, and then we went to the Plaza de la Constitucion for the countdown. It was packed with people and surrounded by Christmas lights. It was a really exciting way to bring in the new year!

The Malaga Cathedral

Visiting the beach near the Port of Malaga

On January 2nd, after our four days in Malaga, we boarded our cruise ship, where we stayed for ten lovely days! The cruise was really great. We hit some choppy waters that didn't make us or our fellow passengers feel the best, but the staff was really wonderful and accommodating, our cabin was very comfortable, the food was good, and we really enjoyed the ship's hot tubs, lounges, and shows. We visited four Spanish ports on the cruise, and we liked them all. First, we stopped in Barcelona, and we basically did our own Antoni Gaudi tour from a hop on/ hop off bus and learned more about him than I ever knew before! My favorite spot was the outside of Casa Battlo. It was so beautiful and unique. I really liked Barcelona, although with all the gothic architecture it reminded me much more of Paris than any other Spanish city that I have been to. We also toured three of the seven Spanish Canary Islands on our ports of call. We visited Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and Arrecife, Lanzarote. They were all very interesting and quaint, but we enjoyed Las Palmas the most. It had the best mix of downtown, history, and beach.

Our cruise ship

Enjoying dinner & a show onboard

One of very favorite portions of the cruise, though, was our stop in Morocco. We couldn't go to our original port of call, Casablanca, because of rocky waves and weather, so we docked in Tangier, Morocco instead. I was initially disappointed because I had been looking forward to going to Casablanca (mostly because of the movie), but our day turned out to be pretty great. We booked a full day excursion from the ship, and I'm glad we did. I think we saw the most we could in the safest way. We got on bus #5 straight from the ship, and we visited Cap Spartel, the Caves of Hercules, and then spent the rest of the day in Tetouan, Morocco. We got back to the ship at 5:45PM and it left port at 6:00PM, so that part was a little stressful, but the rest of the day was pretty great. Cap Spartel is a lighthouse located at the entrance of the Strait of Gibraltar, and the Caves of Hercules have a cut out in the rock in the shape of Northern Africa. Both were really beautiful. In Tetouan, our wonderful guide Ahmed took as all around the medina (old city), to visit mosques, an art school, a homemade goods and rugs shop, and took us for a delicious, authentic lunch complete with musicians and a dancer with burning candles on a tray on his head. Africa was Wade's fourth continent to visit, and we enjoyed our time in the historic and beautiful African cities that we were able to visit.

Nuts and spices on the street

Outside of the art school

Our trip was in turns informational, exciting, and relaxing. We were ready to come home and see our pups, but we really enjoyed our time away. We were really appreciative our travel agent, Shay Shull at Mix and Match Mama, for her help, and to the cruise staff who did a really great job hosting us. We came back ready to jump into the new year and back into our work.

Speaking of which, my spring semester has started! This semester I am teaching Technical Reporting and English 2. Both start pretty early in the morning, but I seem to have a good group of students in both classes as well. I am interested to see how the semester will play out, as I am also going to be tutoring a few hours a week in the Writing Center, which is new for me. I will be sure to report back on the progress of my classes and the tutoring this semester.

For this year, I am focusing on the word "simplicity." I am trying to figure out what that will mean in all aspects of my life, and I plan to read and mediate on the word and idea. I have some ideas of what it will look like, but I am excited for the new start and the new focus for year.

I hope that however your year started it will be a year of joy, growth, and peace. Here's to 2018!

An Instagram Story

I received this email from a student in my English 1 class after the end of the semester. So kind! 

Conference, Conference, Class

This semester seemed to fly past. It feels like yesterday that I was writing my example blog post for my students, "Three Pieces of My Puzzle," and publishing it here. All in all, it was actually a great semester. I was able to work with about 60 pretty awesome students, attend two really inspiring conferences, and even apply myself pretty fully to the job market. Being on the market is almost a full time job in and of itself, and I plan to write a full blog entry detailing my experience in the spring. In this blog entry, I want to talk about the two fall conferences that I attended (one academic and one non) and review my experience teaching three sections of English 1 at Madison College.

Feminisms & Rhetorics 2017

In October of this year, I traveled to Dayton, OH to present at the 11th Biennial Feminisms & Rhetorics conference. I stayed and presented with my awesome writing group, Casie Moreland and Jessica Boykin. The conference was hosted at the University of Dayton from October 4th to 7th. I was there from October 3rd to 6th and then flew home early to attend the other conference.

Like my time at Fem/Rhet in Tempe in 2015, I thoroughly enjoyed this conference. Casie, Jess, and I presented early in the conference at 1:45PM on Wednesday, Oct. 4th, the first official day presentations. We had three attendees at our panel, and after we each presented our material, we had a good conversation with those who attended about our work and future research possibilities. Our panel was called What is Past is Prologue: Women's Contributions to Rhetorics of Social Justice. On this panel, my presentation was called "'We Remain a Complex People:' Accounting for Feminist Rhetorical Practices in a Black Feminist Food Memoir." I discussed Ntozake Shange's 1998 food memoir If I Can Cook/ You Know God Can. I discussed the power of the intricacies of Shange's work, and I talked about how her work contributes to a larger group of African-American women fighting for social justice.

At the conference, I attended several other panels, including the keynote by poet Claudia Rankine. I saw friends and colleagues from Arizona State and Illinois State, as well as other conference friends. It's always a treat to reconnect with those people at conferences across the country. Casie, Jess, and I also explored Dayton a bit in our free time. I can't say it's my favorite city, but we enjoyed our time together writing, talking, and presenting. Always glad to spend time with these special friends.

Bloom Women's Retreat: A Story Unwritten

I left Feminisms & Rhetorics slightly early because I was expected back in Wisconsin for Ridgeway Church's annual Bloom women's retreat. The retreat actually ran from October 5th to 7th, but I was able to be there from the 6th to 7th. I heard the Friday evening keynote speaker Cheri Milton, and I stayed through the Saturday morning session to hear Bethany Peterson speak and then helped clean up. What I saw of the retreat and what I heard from others about it before I got there was so exciting. As part of the leadership team, I helped to plan the Friday afternoon breakout session where we asked women to share parts of their stories with each other. We had leaders positioned at every table to facilitate the conversations, and in our debrief following the retreat the team said that the women responded readily and openly in the sessions, which was so exciting to hear.

The retreat took place at Chula Vista Resort in the WI Dells, and it was cozy setting for our meetings and rooms. Even though I was only able to be part of the retreat for less than 24 hours, I knew all the work that went into the planning with my fellow leadership team members Debbie, Brittany, Bethany, Brianna, Martha, and Melissa, and I was glad to see the retreat was such a success. It was worth skipping out on the last part of Fem/Rhet, a delayed flight, running through O'Hare airport to get my connection, lost luggage, a drive through the rain, and an almost sleepless night to be there! We are already gearing up and planning for next year's retreat!

English 1 Classes

Other than that action packed week of conferencing in October, I have also been able to travel to Indiana couple times this semester and spent some time in Chicago and other parts of Illinois. Otherwise, I have been in Madison teaching my classes and job marketing. I hadn't taught the equivalent of an English 1 course since teaching at English 101 in the fall 2014 semester at Arizona State. I totally revamped the class from when I taught it at ASU, which was definitely beneficial but created extra work for me because I didn't have any previous examples of the projects to show my students. We started the semester with a fairly basic summary essay, so I wrote the example project "Surfer Girls and Sunset Memories" for my students to use as a model for the project. The next project was the rhetorical analysis blog project, which I posted here under "Three Pieces of My Puzzle." We then spent the second half of the semester focusing on the final project, which was an opinion editorial. The editorials were focused around a specific food documentary that I asked the students to watch as a group. I created an editorial called "My Dreams of Sushi" based on the 2011 food documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi. Other than the final editorial, my students also composed annotated bibliographies (documents citing and discussing sources) and a group presentation.

From the end of the course survey, I was able to gauge my students' reactions to these three major projects, as well as the other various components of the course. Of the 53 students who filled out the survey, 23% said they liked the summary essay the best, 45% said they liked the rhetorical blog the best, and 32% said they liked the opinion editorial the best. I started the semester with 75 students, and I ended the semester with 61 students. At a community college, this is a pretty good retention rate, and I'm glad that over 80% of my students were able to stick with the course.

I ended the semester by asking each student to bring in a quote, lyric, or saying that they liked to our last class. I told them it was a chance to get some easy points as well as an opportunity to leave the course on an inspiring note. I was happily surprised by the range of readings my students brought and how they seemed to actually enjoy the activity. They brought in quotes from Mark Twain, Shakespeare, Einstein, Forrest Gump, Chance the Rapper, the Dalai Lama, Picasso, Bernie Sanders, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Will Smith, Calvin and Hobbes, J.F.K., and three ladies read excerpts of Maya Angelou poems.

For my reading, I chose one of my all time favorite quotes. It is a conversation between Sam and Frodo, characters in J.R.R. Tolkien's epic fantasy series The Lord of the Rings. This conversation takes place as Sam and Frodo journey with the creature Smeagol/ Gollum in the middle of the three books, The Two Towers. In the book, this conversation takes place on pages 362-364, but I like the movie quote (included right) even better because it's a bit more succinct and ends with such a powerful message. I told my students if they remember nothing else from the semester that I hope they remember that "there's some good in this world... and it's worth fighting for."

I need to finish grading 25 final projects, 60 reflection letters, and submit the final grades in Blackboard, but this semester is almost all wrapped up! I plan to send the following graphic with my final email to my students, and I will leave it here as a conclusion as well.

I wish you joy and peace in this holiday season.

Three Pieces of My Puzzle

Like a puzzle, individual people are made up of lots of different pieces. Some pieces fit well together and some pieces stand out, like the valued corner pieces. Three pieces that make up parts of my overall life puzzle have the common element of empowered women. I like to spend my time researching, reading about, and trying to emulate the examples of strong women that I see in my life. In this blog entry, I discuss an empowering a song, a memoir, and a yoga video, and then I rhetorically analyze those elements through the lenses of ethos, pathos, and kairos respectively.

1. SONG

Single Cover

The 2015 Andra Day song "Rise Up" on her album Cheers to the Fall has been a favorite of mine lately. The song has been an inspiring song in our national landscape. The song was used in a Serena Williams video, and Day sang the song at the White House, and she sang the song with Nick Jonas at the live benefit concert hosted on A&E Networks called Shine a Light: A Concert for Progress on Race in America. The official music video for the song was directed by M. Night Shyamalan and depicts the relationship between a young woman caring for her partner who was injured in the line of duty. As Day sings the lyrics, "I'll rise unafraid/ I'll rise up/ I'll do it a thousand times again" the video depicts a beautiful story of love, commitment, and strength.

This song has meant a lot to me in this period of my life, but I especially like it because it is reminiscent of the powerful poem "Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou, a well-known, influential, feminist poet. In the last stanza of her poem Angelou says, "leaving behind nights of terror and fear/ I rise/ into a daybreak that's wonderfully clear/ I rise." Though I cannot find proof of intentional similarities, Day's repeated lyrics of "rise up" speak to the same power of women rising above dark histories and difficult situations.

The rhetorical element that I see being especially pertinent to this material element is ethos. According to our course definition, ethos "is a means of convincing someone of the character or credibility of the persuader." Ethos plays an interesting role in my analysis of this song, though, part of the ethos that I am attributing to the lyrics is not officially documented. I really like this song for what it is-- a powerful anthem about the ability to rise above difficult circumstances. I do believe that this song at least draws on ideas represented in Angelou's poem. I personally attribute ethos to this song that is undocumented, yet it still influences my reception of this song in a very positive way. In addition, the moral character that Andra Day displays in her performances of this song contributes a strong ethos for any outside viewer. As mentioned, she sang this song in the White House for an event hosted by Michelle Obama, as well as for the benefit concert. Her public persona is obviously strong and kind, and the words of the song reflect that ethos.

2. MEMOIR

Memoir Cover

In 2008 author Diana Abu-Jaber published her first memoir, A Language of Baklava. Prior to publishing this memoir, Abu-Jaber was a fiction writer. Her published novels were highly acclaimed, but her memoir was her most personal and revealing work. This memoir is food memoir, which means that the nonfiction narratives are focused around food experiences. This includes stories about food, as well as recipes for the food she discusses. In the introduction to her memoir, Abu-Jaber writes, "each of us has the right to tell our stories, to be truthful to our own memories, no matter how flawed, private, embellished, idiosyncratic, or improved they may" (1). Basically, she is saying that her memoir is true to her, memory, which may or may not be entirely accurate to the actual events that she lived.

The food experiences that Abu-Jaber discusses in her memoir reminded me very much of food experiences that I have had in my life. Abu-Jaber's mother is American, but her father is from Jordan. Likewise, my mother comes from primarily American dissent while my father is half Lebanese and half Spanish. The food that I grew up eating with my dad's family were considered weird by some friends. We ate hummus, pita, and baklava at almost every family event. At the fancier events we would eat lamb skewers, rolled grape leaves, and kibbeh. I always knew those foods were a little different, but it wasn't until I read Abu-Jaber's memoir that I read about family and food stories like my own. On top of that shared food experience, I really appreciate Abu-Jaber's narrative voice and empowering messages for women. In a family where her dad expected her and sisters to only marry and have babies, Abu-Jaber pushed against these expectations and forged a unique path.

The rhetorical element that I am using to better understand my relationship with this text is pathos. The first time that I read this memoir I had a very emotional reaction. I laughed and cried reading stories that sounded so much like my own. Pathos is an "appeal to emotion" and this memoir appealed to my emotions in particular because I could relate to the experiences of the author. In addition, Abu-Jaber's narrative style is very inviting and easy to read. The recipes that she includes look very tantalizing and invite the reader into the text, literally, if they choose to try the recipes. The emotional range that Abu-Jaber displays in this text reflects the many ways that a variety of readers could find something valuable and tasty in this memoir.

3. VIDEO

Video Cover

I love to practice yoga. I started practicing close to five years ago now, and while I have taken classes at yoga studios I most often practice yoga at home because it's cheaper and easier to fit into my schedule. When I first started to practice yoga I followed random YouTube channels to find good yoga classes. During that search, I found Bad Yogi. Bad Yogi is a yoga program developed by Erin Motz. Her overall philosophy is to "redefine yoga culture" by removing "the snobbery, pretense, and endless 'prerequisites'" ("The Bad Yogi Story") that are often ascribed to the yoga community. Motz runs the business out of her home, and she has a great sixteen week yoga program called Perfect Body Yoga Program (though she stresses it is about having the perfect version of whatever body you have), and she often sends free classes to her email chain.

On June 19, 2017 Motz put out a free class called the "Wonder Woman Yoga Workout." I had just seen the movie Wonder Woman the weekend before, so I was excited to see this class title in my inbox. I did the class in my home office and realized I loved even more than I thought I would. All of Motz's classes are empowering and effective, but this class was special. In the video, Motz says that she loves all the "powerful, girl power energy" around the movie, and this class really channels that energy well. The class is only about 10 minutes long, so it isn't a super intense class, but the moves are all strong and intentional. I've done this class probably twenty times since she published it, and I think it's my favorite class that she's ever put out.

The rhetorical element through which I view this Wonder Woman class is kairos. Kairos is all about putting out the "right thing at the right time," and I think the timing of this class being put out is a huge part of what makes it so enjoyable. For me personally, I had become very familiar with Motz's teaching style and the typical moves that she includes in the yoga flows. This class was refreshing because it was different. Even if many of the poses were the same, she put a new twist on them in accordance to the theme. More generally, though, this class came out at the same time that the movie came out, which made it very fitting and very easy to understand. Also, it came out at a time in our American culture where some women felt defeated or undervalued, and this flow reminds women of their power and their strength. The timing of the flow had a lot to do with my love of it.

These three puzzle pieces-- the song, memoir, and video-- are just a few of many material elements that I could have chosen to represent and in discuss in relation to the rhetorical appeals. I recognize that each element contains representations of multiple appeals, however, I have focused on ethos, pathos, and kairos in relation to the three because those are the appeals that I see as being most effective in my view of the material elements.

Works Cited

Abu-Jaber, Diana. The Language of Baklava. Pantheon, 2008.

Angelou, Maya. "Still I Rise." The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou, 1978, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46446/still-i-rise

Day, Andra. "Rise Up." Cheers to the Fall, 2015.

Motz, Erin. "10 Minute Wonder Woman Yoga Workout." Bad Yogi, 19 June 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmWXoue9ECM

Motz, Erin. "The Bad Yogi Story." Bad Yogi, https://www.badyogi.com/about/

It's Fall Y'All!

Instructor Introduction

Welcome to Class!

I am Dr. Bruce, and I will be your instructor this semester. I really love to teach, and I hope this semester will be informative and productive for you. I also hope that we all get to know each other. To begin, here are four things that I love:

1) TRAVELING

Durango, Colorado

Oxford, England

2) WRITING & RHETORIC

Writing Quill Tattoo

Typical Workspace

3) DOGGOS

Lacy 

Finley

4) BAKING & YOGA

Gluten Free Cinnamon Cake

Upward Facing Dog

Written Communications Wrap!

Presentation of the Proposal Project 

As of today, I have finished teaching the ten week Written Communications course at Madison College. Today was a wrap for this individual course, but it is also a wrap on my teaching of professional writing streak! Since I started teaching professional writing in the fall of 2015, I have taught at least one section of it every semester. This upcoming fall, however, I will be teaching three sections of English 1 at Madison College. I am looking forward to the change of pace, focus, and student intent, but I will miss my professional writing course work and students, as I've enjoyed teaching this course for the past couple years.

This summer's Written Communication course was a very
unique teaching experience. The course

Student & Audience Job Skills Discussion

was capped at 15 students, so I knew it wouldn't be a large class, but I was even more surprised when there were only eight students enrolled prior to the class starting. And then on the first day, only five students showed up. This third of the cap was a great starting place for this class. Over the weeks, though, two students left in order to pursue options that were better for them, so the final three students and I finished out the last half of the semester. These students were all adults, and that leant a great community feel to the course. These students also spent seven hours a day five days a week together for ten weeks. This intensive time spent together obviously caused a unique and close group dynamic. As a class, we worked through three major projects. The first project was the Employment Project that asked the students to write a resume and cover letter. Then we moved to the Report Project which focused on writing a professional report and an email. The third project was the Proposal Project, and this project asked the students to write a professional proposal as a group and individual memos. The project foci were meant to build on each other while also exposing the students to a variety of professional genres.

Title Page of the Proposal Presentation

After a course survey, there were mixed reviews on the final project of the course, the Proposal Project. This project was one student's least favorite project, another student's midrange preference, and another student's favorite project. The Proposal Project is my favorite project of this course sequence. I like it best for a variety of reasons. One reason is because it is the final project of the course, so it asks students to practice the most advanced skills. I also like that it asks students to present a final, polished product. Students think differently about projects when they know from the beginning that they will be presenting their composition. Finally, I like that this project is a group project. That does bring its share of challenges, but it also makes students negotiate, communicate, and problem solve at a higher level.

The Proposal Project in this summer class was extra
fun because I asked friends to come in to

Professional Guest Audience

watch the presentation and offer suggestions to the students both about the presentation as well as the job search in general. Originally I thought of inviting these individuals because I realized that in a class of three students there would be no audience (other than myself) for the final presentation. I felt that that would be an anticlimactic end to the project and not as beneficial to the students, as they would have no outside feedback. Asking the professional audience to come in, though, ended up being far more beneficial than just having an audience for the presentation. The audience did watch the presentation, but then they offered suggestions about both the formatting and content of the presentation. After that, we all sat in a circle for about 45 minutes and the students asked questions about interviews, job searches, and applicable professional skills, and the audience offered suggestions and advice in response to those questions. Reflecting on this course, one student said: "most of all, I enjoyed the guests that came in. Their feedback, suggestions, and comments were really inspiring. They all had great suggestions for moving forward in the working world, which is why I signed up for this academy." Having the guest audience in the class did seem to be helpful and beneficial to the students. The students' presentation on their hypothetical small business, Capitol Cafe Company, went well, and the whole class period made for a great end to a productive course.