Another May

Here we are again, at the end of another school year. One of my very favorite parts about working in academia is the constant refresh of energy and focus that comes with the shifting of the seasons. One season does not fade into the next. Instead, all four are pronounced, either with a new beginning or another ending, and that rhythm is really lovely.

We concluded Olivet's semester with a baccalaureate service and graduation commencement ceremony this past weekend. It was a really beautiful spring weekend on campus, and I got my doctorate gown out and was happy to march with my department, other faculty members, and administrators. We were also glad to celebrate the English and English Education seniors with a celebratory lunch and a photo after the graduation ceremony. This year was especially special to me, as it is the year that one of my most influential college professors, Dr. Belcher-Rankin, is retiring. She served as my advisor, then trip leader to Burkina Faso, Africa, then unofficial mentor through graduate school. I felt so honored to spend a year-- my first and her last-- as colleagues in the same department.

As I said, the end of the school year is marked by the end of my first year as a full time faculty member. After graduating from ASU in May of 2017, I worked as an adjunct for a year while going on the job market, and then started at Olivet in August of 2018. In addition to teaching the four classes, which I discussed in my previous post, I'm very happy with what I was able to accomplish this year, as I think some really productive measures were initiated, like the two following items:

1. Even as a new faculty member, I served on two committees this school year. The first was the Department of English Composition Committee, and we worked on reviewing the composition classroom curriculum. With the committee's support, I piloted using a new textbook in the ENGL 109: College Writing I classroom. The department had previously been using an MLA handbook, but I didn't feel I was able to engage the students in my classroom with it very well. I drew on teaching experience from Madison College and brought the textbook Habits of the Creative Mind into the classroom. I used it throughout the spring semester, and the students responded well. In a survey at the end of the semester, 95% of the students suggested using the text again. As a committee, we decided we are going to do just that, and we will use it in every section of 109 that will run in the fall. I've been working on setting up options for how to teach the text, and I'm excited to see what other professors will do with it. 
2. The second committee I served on was the Department of English Writing Committee, and we took a look at our programatic offerings for writing in general. From this overview and research we conducted in the fall, we brought a new proposal forward to our department. The department members responded positively, so as a group, we spent a good portion of the spring semester ironing out details of our proposal before we will bring the complete idea to deans and administrators. It was exciting to be part of this work, and we are hoping for a positive outcome. 

My position as a faculty member is shifting. This past year I served as a full time faculty member under the title Assistant Professor in the Department of English, with expectations of service on campus. As the commute got to be too tiring and we realized our family would grow this fall, my department chair kindly offered to shift my position in the department. Starting this fall, I will be an Affiliate Professor in the Department of English. I will still be working full time for Olivet; however, my service obligations will be lightened, so I will be able to do the majority of my work from home. I am excited about this opportunity and so appreciative to my department chair and the administrators who opened up this position for me. 

As part of the shift between roles, I am creating a new online course for the university this summer, which I will teach in the fall. This is an online version of the ENGL 306: Advanced Writing course that I taught last fall. I really enjoyed teaching that course and diving into writing and rhetorical histories and theories with my students. The shift to an online format will be different, but I am hoping it is still very rewarding and productive for the students.

In addition to creating this course, I am also teaching an online section of ENGL 311: Business Communication & Technical Writing this summer. I taught B&T both semesters at Olivet. This is an eight week, online, much smaller version of those classes, but again, I still want to make sure the class is beneficial to the students who are enrolled. Between those two endeavors, and starting department work again in just under two months, I think the summer will go by quickly. 

Personally, I've been very blessed with wonderful support and time with friends these past few weeks. At the end of April, my family threw Wade and I a lovely shower over the Easter weekend when my uncle, aunt, cousins, and their families were all in Madison. We had elephant decor, a guessing game, and a delicious Mexican taco brunch. About a week later, my colleagues in the English department were so kind to throw us another shower on the Monday during the last week of school when I know that everyone had so much to do. 

My cousin Candace made a red velvet gluten free cake with cream cheese frosting for the first shower, and my colleague Ann made a chocolate cake with vanilla cream and mirror glaze chocolate ganache for our second shower. They were both beautiful and delicious! So far, these cakes have been two of the best parts about being pregnant. Just in between the two showers we also found out that Baby Bruce is a BOY, so it was fun to let our family and friends know about that! 

May also started off on a lovely note, as I attended the annual Original Women's Conference in Rockford, IL hosted by City First Church. I went with most of the members of our Bloom Women's Ministry leadership team and several other ladies from Ridgeway Church. This is my second year attending, and I had a really wonderful, refreshing time. The conference was held fresh on the heels of the last week of school, but I'm glad that I got to go and be a part of the conference and the time with the ladies. 

On top of the work that I'll be doing this summer, I do think the nesting instinct will kick in as we prepare for the baby this September. This morning I already got caught down a rabbit hole of learning about toxicity in scented candles, nail polishes, and non-standard essential oils, and I feel like I need to do a clean sweep of my house! I've switched to all natural facial products and hair products over the past nine months, and I'm thinking brands like Pure Hive, Palate Polish, and Young Living will become my standards for cleaner, more natural products in these other areas, as well. 

I am currently loving the summer break (as of yesterday) and time hanging out at home with the worlds cutest doggos. I am looking forward to what's to come, both personally and professionally as the seasons shift once again! 

The Market, Part Three

Yay! It's part three of my posts about my experience on the job market. In Part One I discussed the realities of the academic job market in the humanities. In Part Two I discussed more specifics: the job sites I used, the types of positions I applied for, and the materials I used in my application. In this third part, I am going to talk about my specific search-- my application tracking processes and the three takeaways that I've grasped onto.

In the second half of this post I summarize my spring semester at Madison College.

Job Market Discussion

One of the smartest things that my friend and job market guru Dr. Kat O'Meara told me at the beginning of this process was to record everything. And so I did. The two documents that I used to keep track of my job applications were a Google Spreadsheet and a Pinterest board. These two trackers kept my information organized and also gave me visuals of the places that I applied, which I liked.

The job market spreadsheet was something that I went to back to time and time again. I color-coded the spreadsheet so that I could see, at a glance, where I was at with each application. On the spreadsheet I tracked details like, where the schools are, what they required in the applications, and most importantly, when I needed to submit the applications. In the fall of 2017, I applied to 21 schools and had a total of five interviews. The amount of interviews to jobs that I applied for may seem small, but I was actually very happy to get the interviews that I did, and I do feel like they were all good experiences. On the MLA JIL site that I discussed in the previous job market post, there were roughly 300 jobs posted this year. I would assume that probably at least 50 of them I was not eligible to apply for. So, as a very rough estimate, I applied to about 8% of the available jobs. I will discuss more about how I chose the jobs to apply for below. 

The Pinterest board served much less of a practical purpose, but I used it almost like the closing of the application. Once everything was submitted for a particular job application, I would pin the website of the school to board and try to find a pretty picture to represent it. That simple practice took me away from the minute and worrisome details of the application process and gave me something to celebrate-- another job done and added to the board! Even now, I like to go back to the board and take a look over the images collected and remember the effort put into the search. 

At the end of the process, just for fun, I also mapped out the places that I had applied to geographically. It is interesting for me to see the different places (literally) that my life could have gone based on these applications: 

As I reflect back on this process and remember the highs and lows of the experience, there are three characteristics that I think are worth making note of to hold onto during trying processes like these: 

1. Individuality: This item is both a strength and a weakness. One way that I think individuality must be valued is that each person must do what is right for them. I've heard of all sorts of stories of people on the job market. I've heard of people applying for one job and getting it! I've heard of people applying for 70, 80, 100 jobs to receive one or two offers. I've heard of people applying for maybe, three or four jobs, and getting offers from all four. There is no right or wrong way to apply for jobs; the job market must be approached based on the way that each person feels is appropriate. For me, my husband and I chose places that were either close to home or places to which we wouldn't mind moving. That eliminated some portions of the country just on that standard alone. In addition, I didn't apply for any jobs that I didn't think I would like. This may have been a mistake, but I felt like I needed to be comfortable with knowing I could do the job described in the ad in order to apply. 

On the negative side, individuality can also mean that a person becomes quite self-consumed. For a period of time, all I thought about was how to market myself in the best way possible, and that can be quite self-consuming. I just knew that once my applications were in I had to shake off that mindset. 

2. Tenacity: This is probably not a surprise to anyone, but this process was tiring. From the months of August to December 2016 I was, I felt like, constantly researching, writing, editing, or submitting applications. I don't think there were two applications that were the same. That meant that for every single application I had to research the job ad, the school, and the department and adjust all my materials accordingly. Though, I did spend more time on this process for some schools than for others. There is no one application to submit, and the constant changing was wearing. 

In addition, this process can be draining self-esteem wise. Like I said above, this is a very self-consuming act where a person tries to position themselves as the best version of themselves on a few sheets of paper. Because of that, this process can take a good hit on a person's self-esteem. While the job site wiki is helpful, as are job market groups like one I joined on Facebook, it can be disheartening seeing other people get a lot of interviews or jobs get taken that I may have really wanted. For me, sometimes seeing those things made me less motivated to work on my materials and get stuff out. Often I had to grit my teeth, push through, and just summon the tenacity to get it done. 

3. Perspective: The last item that was worth noting through this process was that of perspective. I've alluded to this point in the previous two, but I feel like it was very easy to get swept up into this world of "what will happen" and "where will we live" and "what if this is all for nothing." Even getting interviews was nerve wracking, as I'd research the school, try to brainstorm questions that they might ask me, prepare an outfit, and make sure my technology was working properly. There was a lot of energy put towards these steps, and it was easy to get lost in that. I'm grateful that I have my husband, dogs, and supportive community to help me take moments to enjoy the everyday, but I would say that during the fall semester the job market applications were never far from my mind. Keeping perspective is really important. Getting or not getting a job didn't mean that I succeeded or failed. Sending out just one more application didn't mean that I was any better or worse of a person. It was important to keep that perspective. 

This articulation of these three characteristics brought to mind one of my all time favorite quotes, which I may have shared before, from author J.K. Rowling in her book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. This is the attitude that both myself and my husband tried to exhibit throughout all the work and stress and unknowns and possibilities of the job search, and I think it's what got me through: 

Semester Discussion

On that note, I'd like to wrap up this post by giving an overview of my past semester at Madison College. I taught a 7:00 AM Technical Reporting class to five engineering students, and I taught an 8:30 AM English 2 class. I also worked about 10 hours/week through the Madison College Writing Center, in person at two different campuses and online. I enjoyed my time in each capacity of this past semester. 

My time in the Writing Center was rewarding in ways that teaching isn't always rewarding. I felt like in that time I was able to give students concrete feedback on a draft or an idea and then turn them loose to take that feedback or not. During that time, I was invested in the students and in helping them succeed, but I didn't have the added responsibility of ensuring that the changes or updates were implemented. I enjoyed that portion of the work, as well getting to interact with a variety of students and colleagues and get to see some pretty cool assignment prompts.

My Technical Reporting class was great. I was concerned prior to the semester about having a class at 7:00 AM, especially one with so few students; however, the class couldn't have been better. Four of the students were peers in the same program, and the fifth student was also a science/ engineering student, so I was glad that they had some commonalities. We worked through four projects throughout the semester. The two main projects were a research report and a proposal. Two of the students liked the report best, and one liked the proposal best. We also did presentations for the proposals, which was the other two students' favorite project of the course. The students commented on learning about the intricacy of professional documents, and they also talked about learning how to differentiate between informative and persuasive communication styles. I enjoyed working with these students this semester. 

The English 2 class was the portion of the semester that was the most surprising. I've taught English 2 at three different institutions before teaching it at Madison College this semester, but I used a different course sequence than I ever had previously, and my students responded really positively to it. I still had the students complete five projects, but instead of having the projects connect via a theme or a text, the projects all built upon each other. In the end, the students wrote manuscripts for academic journals based on research both about the journals and the topic of their choice. Over half the class said they liked this project best, and over one third of the class said it was the most informative project. 

The final compositions showed the students interest in the project as well. The research, formatting, depth of knowledge, and personal engagement that the students showed was really exceptional. I was also genuinely interested in reading almost all of the manuscripts, which again points to the time and effort the students put into writing them. I read about the "Pacific Garbage Patch," the plight of sharks around the world, Middle Eastern architecture, and sexism in America, to name just a few topics.

Throughout the course we read the textbook Habits of the Creative Mind, which I really liked. Towards the the end of the class we watched Elizabeth Gilbert's TEDTalk, "Your Elusive Genius," and I asked the students: what does creativity look like or mean to you? The students came up with these answers, and I was glad to see them stretching themselves and thinking about the content that we had been discussing: 

So, at the end of all this, I'll leave you with this same question: What does creativity mean to you? May it take you wonderful places. 

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!

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.

What's Next...

Well, the Ph.D. hoopla is officially over. I received my diploma in the mail today, which was very exciting, and this weekend my wonderful husband and I hosted my graduation party at our home. We had an awesome time. It was an English Garden Party theme, and we hosted over 50 friends and family members in our home with scones, fruit, cucumber sandwiches, cupcakes, and lots of drinks. When I woke up the next morning I was just so overwhelmed by the love and support of our friends and family. As I said in my last post, I never could have done this alone.

Instagram post the morning after my graduation party

One of the most common questions that I got at my graduation party, and that I get now in general is: "so, what's next?" It's a good question, as going to school for ten years and earning a doctorate hopefully leads to something else! I am currently teaching a course called Written Communication at Madison College, and it is basically an intro to professional writing course. I am teaching the course as part of the Marketing and Client Relations Academy that is part of the School of Workforce and Economic Academy. I only have five students, so that gives us a lot of time to discuss, work through kinks, and work on projects. They also ask good, detailed questions which keep me on my toes! We are two weeks into the ten week program, and I am enjoying being back in the classroom.

Instagram post after teaching my first Written Communication course

So, for now, that is what is next. I have three English One classes lined up to teach in the fall at Madison College, and I plan to go on the job market in September. Lots of fun stuff. 

Cultural Rhetorics & Concluding the Semester

This semester has seemed to go by more quickly than any of my previous semesters in graduate school. I'm sure that that is due to a variety of factors, including my teaching schedule, not taking any classes (hallelujah!), dissertation deadlines, but perhaps mostly to the fact that I didn't actually want it to go by as quickly. I will discuss these components of the semester a bit more, but I want to begin by posting a delayed update about the 2016 Cultural Rhetorics Conference that I attended and presented at on October 1st and 2nd, 2016.

The conference was held at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. I had not spent time in Michigan for several years, so it was nice to go back. The campus was lovely, and the leaves were changing all around the city. A good friend from my MA program, Lisa, lives close to MSU, so my friend Jessica and I stayed with her. I also got to visit with friends and colleagues from both my MA and Ph.D. programs at the conference. The conference in general was welcoming, engaging, and invigorating to my studies. I was only able to attend one panel on food studies, but it was probably the highlight of my conference experience. I listened to three presenters tell food stories that involved family, history, and culture. The discussion following the presentations was just as engaging with audience members also sharing food stories, swapping experiences, and asking to hear more about food traditions. In the session I posed a question to the group that I have been wrestling with since. The question is: what is a food pedagogy? I taught a food memoir in the course that I am writing my dissertation on, but I taught the class using a feminist pedagogy. I am very interested to specifically explore food pedagogy in the future.

My panel was on the last day of the conference in the second to last time slot, but the presenters were very engaging and the audience members were interested and asked insightful questions. The panel topic was online communication. I discussed the internship that I completed with Ellie Long, and I talked about how I researched, composed, and then defended the genre of a listicle on Buzzfeed. My co-presenters talked about online advice columns, audio books, and Amazon commenters. As this is panel topic was not focused on my specific area of study, I learned a lot about how and why people study online communication and the various stakeholders that are represented in this research. I very much enjoyed my time at Cultural Rhetorics, and I look forward to attending again next time that it is held. 

My semester otherwise has gone well, but as I mentioned, it has gone by very, very quickly. In November, my husband and I took a short trip to Arizona, and I met with my chair, Maureen Goggin, and my committee member, Trish Boyd. They both gave me constructive, helpful feedback on my dissertation thus far. The most encouraging but also most terrifying development was that Maureen said that I should have my dissertation ready to defend by May. This was encouraging, as I was glad to know that I was on the right track with my writing and revisions, but it was also very scary because May is not very many months away. It is amazing to me how quickly the days can go by and how little can get done in that time. I currently have three chapters of my dissertation drafted, two chapters revised, and one chapter in the beginning stages of a draft. My most pressing concern right now is fully analyzing the data that I collected from my student work and composing a chapter based on those findings. That will be my primary task in the upcoming month. It was lovely, though, to go back to the desert. I had missed, and still do miss, the sun, the mountains, the friends, the food, and the supportive academic community there. I'm glad to know that I can go back when I need to. 

And, as usual, the other main component of my semester was teaching my classes. I taught two sections of ENG 301: Writing for the Professions for ASU, and I taught one section of Written Communications for Madison College. I have finished teaching all three classes, and I can say that I enjoyed and learned from each experience. I had never taught online before this semester, and I found the key to successful online teaching is organization. I needed to stay at least one, if not two, weeks ahead of my students at all times in order for us all to feel comfortable. This set me up well, then, to teach the course at Madison College because I was teaching a simplified version of my 301 curriculum, and the Madison College schedule was set about two weeks behind ASU. I found the range of student experiences, opinions, and goals that I encountered this semester to push me to develop more concrete pedagogical deliverables, and I enjoyed this challenge and believe it was beneficial for all involved. I will teach ENG 301 for ASU online again in the spring, and I am glad to have this first semester of online teaching under my belt. 

Though it is very, very cold here right now, I have been enjoying the transition back to the midwest. I have been practicing yoga daily, settling into our new home, working in an online writing group with my wonderful ASU friend Casie, and spending time with family and old and new friends. I am looking forward to a trip to South America over the new year, and then (with a significant amount of trepidation) to the spring 2017 semester. I wish you all a blessed and happy holiday season! 

A Facebook Funny

Nothing too interesting or profound here... just a funny (slightly embarrassing) moment in the third week of teaching my Written Communication course that I posted on Facebook.  

Midwestern Musings

The summer of change has come to an end and the fall semester of 2016 is here! It definitely feels different this year, though, as I work, teach, and write from Madison, WI instead of Chandler and Tempe, AZ. In my previous post, I listed the top five aspects that I loved most about living in Arizona, and I can say that those are the top five things that I most deeply miss and have thought about probably every day in the three months that we have been away from Arizona.

Turns out, though, that the responsibilities and expectations of a teaching assistantship and earning a Ph.D. do not decrease with a cross-country move. Instead, they must be configured and met without the accountability of a community. I do miss my ASU academic community as I work to meet my deadlines, and I can certainly say that it is different to have started teaching two online sections of ENG 301: Writing for the Professions through ASU having never seen or heard a single one of my students! I am encouraging video conferencing, and I do hope that some of them take me up on that offer. I will be teaching a face to face section of Written Communication at Madison College starting next week. I'm excited to be in the classroom and to actually see and talk to my students. Teaching is what energizes me and keeps me motivated to do the research and work that I do, and I'm sure that seeing my students in person will be a boost.

Today, I received some disappointing news regarding a manuscript about writing assessment and feminism that I was hoping to have included in an edited collection. It stings because I have been working on the manuscript drafts for well over a year, but I know this isn't the end for this work. While I was honored to have been asked to draft a chapter for this book, and I would have been excited to have had that chapter included in the final version of the collection, I also respect the editors' decision and trust their judgement that my manuscript probably was not ready for publication. In the introduction of the 1982 edited collection All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave, recommended to me by my writing partner and friend Casie Moreland, the authors write: "it is important to consider also that although much research about these issues needs to be done, much insight about them can be arrived at through studying the literary and historical documents that already exist" (Hull and Smith xxii). I think that this quote identifies my error in writing and revising my manuscript. I was just not familiar enough with what is already out there for my contribution to the conversation to be clear or distinct. It is not fun to share less than great news, but I do think it is important to share the "downs" as well as the "ups." An ASU colleague studying Creative Writing posted a Facebook status today, saying:

"I wasn't sure if I should share this, but maybe sometimes it is okay to share 

not-so-great-still-cool news. I'm very proud, even as I'm disappointed, and that's a big part, I think, of being a writer."

- Natasha Murdock

This academic life is a journey! I'm learning that now more than ever in my: third year of my Ph.D., fifth year of grad school, ninth year of higher education, and 21st year of school. Yikes! 

The rest of this fall will consist of the following:  

• Continuing to prepare, code, write, and revise dissertation work
• Presenting at the 2016 Cultural Rhetorics Conference 
• Flying to AZ to meet with my chair, committee members, and, perhaps, some students
• Teaching and assessing my three course sections 
• Revising a manuscript for another publication opportunity 

While I miss the Southwest, Midwestern summers and falls do have their advantages. Namely, being able to go outside and enjoy the weather! I will conclude this post with two images of some of the loveliness here.

I wish you peace, rest, and joy. 

Lake Mendota // Downtown Madison, WI

Wild Field // Cottage Grove, WI