Teaching Evaluations, Spring 2024, Occidental College

2014

Author(s): Langdon, Lance-David Bennett | Advisor(s): Alexander, Jonathan F | Abstract: Feeling Engaged: College Writers as Literacy Tutors brings together scholarship in the rhetoric of emotion and in civic writing to show how emotions - confidence, anger, embarrassment, pride, hope, fear, gratitude, guilt, shame, compassion, enthusiasm, and ennui - shape the roles we take on in K-16 literacy networks. This dissertation takes as a case study the community-engaged composition courses, poetry workshops, and literature classes I coordinated in 2011-2013. The undergraduates I led in this work tutored K-12 students in after-school centers and public schools in Mexican American communities, assisting with homework, writing poetry, and leading close readings of American literature. Employing participant observation, interviews, and discourse analysis, Feeling Engaged argues that the success or failure of such partnership hinges on the emotional labor of its participants.Chapter 1 - Bloggi...

2006 International Symposium on Intelligent Signal Processing and Communications, 2006

Feeling Engaged: College Writers as Literacy Tutors brings together scholarship in the rhetoric of emotion and in civic writing to show how emotions-confidence, anger, embarrassment, pride, hope, fear, gratitude, guilt, shame, compassion, enthusiasm, and ennuishape the roles we take on in K-16 literacy networks. This dissertation takes as a case study the community-engaged composition courses, poetry workshops, and literature classes I coordinated in 2011-2013. The undergraduates I led in this work tutored K-12 students in after-school centers and public schools in Mexican American communities, assisting with homework, writing poetry, and leading close readings of American literature. Employing participant observation, interviews, and discourse analysis, Feeling Engaged argues that the success or failure of such partnership hinges on the emotional labor of its participants. Chapter 1-Blogging Critical Literacy: Notes Toward Engaged Progressivism-offers a model of a community-engaged composition course, one in which students draw from their experiences as language learners and tutors, and from discomforting online and in-class conversations about inequality, in orienting their research into literacy education. Chapters 2, 3 xii and 4 document and analyze literacy in two after-school centers with which we partnered. Chapter 2-Genre and Emotional Roles in K-16 Poetry Workshops-shows how emotion shaped, and was shaped by, the genres employed in our poetry workshops. Chapter 3-(Bi)Literacy Sponsorship in Latin@ After-School Spaces-demonstrates how after-school centers themselves can help bicultural, transnational students to develop ethnic pride and bilingual competence and to engage with family literacy networks. Chapter 4-Teaching Police Discourse at Barrio Center-follows a Criminal Justice Club led by a police-officer-in-training; it both critiques police discourse and demonstrates the progressive potential the officer and his students found in it. Chapter 5-The Emotional Labor of Outreach-turns to an 11 th grade English classroom in a public school, documenting a series of literature and rhetoric lessons delivered there by undergraduates and narrating their progression through five stages of emotional labor: frustration, surprise, empathy, enthusiasm, and care. Cumulatively, the chapters argue that emotions provide essential feedback on the efficacy of K-16 literacy networks. 9 change). Fourth. .. we often feel strong impulses to act in certain ways when emotional (action tendencies). .. Fifth, particular emotions often seem to be associated with distinctive muscular movements that can express what we are feeling to others (expression or display). Finally, we often try to do something about one or more of these different aspects of emotional episodes (regulation). (Parkinson, Fischer, and Manstead 4) 2 To trace the commonality in their insights, I offer the following chart, which aligns the six categories laid out in the parentheses above with portions of Aristotle's statement on anger: Social Emotion 2005, Parkinson et. al Aristotelian Anger ca. 330 BCE Objects and Causes unjustifiable contempt Appraisal unjustifiable contempt Physiological Change distressed desire for conspicuous vengeance Regulation distressed desire for conspicuous vengeance 3 Expression or Display distressed desire for conspicuous vengeance Action Tendencies distressed desire for conspicuous vengeance Figure 1. Emotion in Aristotle and Social Psychology Sires (pronounced "Series"), another student in the course, responded to Billy's blog: Your comment about the complicity of the local Latino community got me thinking about my own life. I'm pretty sure they're not happy with the life they live. .. They simply want what's promised to them: the American dream. Never assume they've settled for less. Always help those less fortunate than you. 9 This chapter investigates a course I teach that requires composition students like Billy and Sires to research educational policies not just by searching databases in libraries but also by reading critical literacy essays, reflecting on their own education, interviewing educators, and, most importantly, serving and observing K-12 students in schools and after-school programs in low-income Mexican@ communities. 10 Students shared their perspectives on each "text"essays, personal experience, and fieldwork-not just in class discussions but also in online forums and blogs like those above. In keeping with others in experiential education, I maintain that such a class setup engages composition students in research as a learning process, one that 9 Blogs and forums have been edited and the names of students and community partners have been changed. See Ch.

2009

Distance learning poses new problems for instructors and changes the traditional understanding of instructional design. The adaptation of traditional, face-to-face courses to asynchronous online format entails redefining pedagogical practices and presents new challenges for designers and instructors resulting from the lack of direct student-instructor interaction. This is particularly pertinent in art history courses, where critical thinking, group discussions, critiquing works of art as well as assessment methods heavily rely on student's physical presence in the classroom. Faculty members are skeptical of the effectiveness of distance learning and voice their concerns. The paper questions whether it is possible to ensure students' proper command of the course material, develop critical thinking, and effectively engage learners in the online environment. The author describes approaches that she has developed, experimented with and found to be effective in asynchronous online art history courses, argues the importance of timed tests, and presents learner engagement strategies she has implemented in the eLearning environment. The paper demonstrates how to create collaborative learning environment through student group discussions in online art history courses, discusses the advantages of scenario-based discussions board assignments and the effects of role playing in discussion forums. The author argues that personalized discussion board assignments motivate learners, improve peer-to-peer interaction, and prevent plagiarism. The paper presents different types of scenario-based assignments and their learning outcomes.

2020

Avoiding zoom doom: Creating online workshops with design thinking, 2022

The term Zoom doom refers to the depressed feeling of teaching to a screen full of dark boxes that emerged during the pandemic lockdown of Fall 2020. This chapter will outline the key features of Zoom doom and how online design thinking workshops can alleviate some of this dread. Design Thinking is a collaborative and human-centered methodology for solving complex problems. Scholars in both composition and professional writing have studied how design thinking methods can help students better define the topics of their projects, while also developing a stronger sense of collaboration (Purdy 2019; Pope-Ruark 2019; Wible 2020). All of these focus on physical classrooms, because design thinking is famous for its interactive workshops that require participants to use sticky notes, co-write text, and build prototypes. When I was forced to move my design thinking class online during the COVID-19 pandemic in Fall 2020, I had to figure out how to bring these kinds of activities to the Zoom classroom with various online tools like digital whiteboards. This chapter will tell the story of this process and show concrete approaches that we can use in Zoom classrooms to foster more student interaction.

The WAC Clearinghouse; University Press of Colorado eBooks, 2022

The Practices & Possibilities Series addresses the full range of practices within the field of Writing Studies, including teaching, learning, research, and theory. From Richard E. Young's taxonomy of "small genres" to Patricia Freitag Ericsson's edited collection on sexual harassment in the academy to Jessie Borgman and Casey McArdle's considerations of teaching online, the books in this series explore issues and ideas of interest to writers, teachers, researchers, and theorists who share an interest in improving existing practices and exploring new possibilities. The series includes both original and republished books. Works in the series are organized topically. The WAC Clearinghouse and University Press of Colorado are collaborating so that these books will be widely available through free digital distribution and low-cost print editions. The publishers and the series editors are committed to the principle that knowledge should freely circulate and have embraced the use of technology to support open access to scholarly work.

2012

The ability to work effectively with diverse for student affairs practitioners as college campuses become more diverse in their student populations. A three part conceptual framework for developing multicultural competence was used to design a master's level course on multicult includes developing awareness, knowledge, and skills in order to become competent in working with diverse populations. An action research design improve teaching and learning in this masters level course. Findings instructor's own classroom practice and growth in students own awareness of their assumptions and worldviews, development of a knowledge base about div growth in skill attainment for working with diverse student populations. that action research is a very effective means for reflecting upon, and improving, teaching practice as well as reflecting upon st