Framing 101: How to Take Back Public Discourse

y George Lakoff Excerpted from “Don’t think of an elephant! Know your values and frame the debate — The essential guide for progressives.” JANUARY 21, 2004 On this date I spoke extemporaneously to a group of about two hundred progressive citizen-activists in Sausalito, California. When I teach the study of framing at Berkeley, in Cognitive …

Writing as an imaginary conversation with your reader

It’s the end of #acwrimo!! Did you take part in Academic Writing Month this year? I certainly did. It was lockdown, so this year we made a big deal of it at ANU. Not to put too fine a point on it, I taught my ass off. You can see some of the workshops I…Writing …

Am I Ever Going to Use This Stuff? Transfer and College Writing

Adam R. Pope is the current interim director of Composition at the University of Arkansas, where he also directs the Graduate Certificate in Technical Writing and Public Rhetorics.  Adam PopeImage Credit: Adam Pope As a technical writer who also happens to currently be the director of Composition at an institution serving over 6,000 students annually in the…Am …

Writing in the Presence of Others

By Jennifer Fletcher As a graduate student, I remember one of my advisors telling me that we’re all just adding our bricks to the wall. At the time, I couldn’t help hearing echoes of Pink Floyd, and I perhaps didn’t fully appreciate my advisor’s point about the collaborative nature of intellectual labor. After a couple …

Flipping Batman

Really interesting blog on flipping images to support analysis of meaning. https://jamesdurran.blog/2021/08/21/flipping-batman/Flipping Batman

Audience Created

The concept of audience is a key composition concept. I love the series of Lunsford & Ede articles on audience and have been known to teach them as an example of how a concept in the field keeps being revised and re-examined. I think it’s time to re-look at “audience” again. Lundsford & Ede’s concept …

Composition and the Irrational: Some Lacanian Concepts

Note: The picture above represents an internet meme called “Doge.” This is related to the LOL Cats meme, but Doge must feature a picture of a shiba inu dog (a Japanese dog, very active and smart, I have known one), several ungrammatical phrases, usually two words, starting with “very,” “so,” “much,” “many,” or “such,” rendered …

Reflections on Teaching Comp at the HBCU

I have my students read sections of the Tao Teh Ching and Art of War in my composition courses at Bowie     State University. I consider it an introduction to two of the core classical texts that come from one of the         oldest civilizations in the world that also happens to be…Reflections on …

How to Online Conference

Normally this is the time of year when I’d re-up previous posts: How to Plan for ConferencesHow to SlideshowHow to Conference We’re in a new era, however, thus How to Online Conference: Triple-check your time zones Turn your microphone off Put some pants on (This is still fairly new to all of us, I would …

Improving writing by students annotating their own work

Annotated by the Author: Why Having Students Annotate Their Own Writing Is My New Favorite Writing Instruction ToolImproving writing by students annotating their own work