Take 20 DVD


February 27th, 2007

Nick Carbone posted the following announcement on the WPA listserv last week:

Todd Taylor’s directed a college composition documentary film called _Take 20_. The film asked 22 composition scholars and teachers 20 questions about writing and the teaching of writing. I just got through a meeting where we looked at some of the footage. Below you’ll find the questions asked and the teachers/scholars who answered them. They’re the kinds of questions you will find yourself asking in the course you’re thinking of. What I liked about the DVD was hearing them answered by some of the best minds (and hearts) in our field.The DVD will be published by Bedford/St. Martin’s and there will be copies given out at the 4C’s.

It’s structured so you can play a portion then stop it and have a discussion around the question. The Q&A was done in one take, so you get a sense of who the scholars are as a people and thus a sense of the kind of thinking and feeling that goes into the scholarship and teaching which contribute to our field.

In case you can tell, I think this will be a really powerful representation of what the field is about and why writing and the teaching of writing matter. Here are the questions, and below that, the teachers who were interviewed:

The Questions

  • What do you remember about your first time teaching?
  • What are the aims of your writing courses?
  • What is the biggest surprise about teaching writing?
  • How do you organize your course syllabus?
  • What is the one thing that every writing teacher should know?
  • How do you design a lesson plan?
  • If you had to pick only one book for a writing teacher to read, what would it be?
  • How do you create a writing assignment?
  • If you had to pick only one essay for a writing teacher to read, what would it be?
  • How do you determine course content?
  • Who influenced your work the most?
  • How do you orchestrate peer groups?
  • If you had to select only one scholar for a writing teacher to read, who would it be?
  • How do you address process and product?
  • What do you wish you had been taught in grad school (but weren’t)?
  • How do you respond to student writing?
  • What have you learned from your students?
  • How has technology (re)shaped your teaching?
  • What’s next for writing teachers?
  • How do you approach difference?

The Scholars/Teachers

  • Linda Adler-Kassner, Eastern Michigan University
  • Cheryl E. Ball, Utah State University
  • Dave Bartholomae, University of Pittsburgh
  • Patricia Bizzell, College of the Holy Cross
  • Bill Condon, Washington State University
  • Ellen Cushman, Michigan State University
  • Cheryl Glenn, Penn State University
  • Brian Huot, Kent State University
  • Erika Lindemann, University of North Carolina
  • Andrea A. Lunsford, Stanford University
  • Paul Kei Matsuda, University of New Hampshire
  • Don McQuade, University of California, Berkeley
  • Christine McQuade, Queens College, City University of New York
  • Mike Palmquist, Colorado State University
  • Malea Powell, Michigan State University
  • Nedra Reynolds, University of Rhode Island
  • Mike Rose, UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information
  • Jacqueline Jones Royster, Ohio State University
  • Raul Sanchez, University of Florida
  • John Schilb, Indiana University
  • Nancy Sommers, Harvard University
  • Howard Tinberg, Bristol Community College

Caveat: I have not seen the DVD yet and am scared to death of seeing it! I had caught the CCCC cold that had been going around right before my interview and was so doped up on hot tea and cold meds that lord knows what came out of my mouth!

Update: The trailer is out and copies of Take 20 will be available at CCCCs. Now I understand why Todd said he used my interview to color-test everything. lol.

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Professional Writing Capstone (Eng 5430)


October 28th, 2006

This course, targeted at graduating seniors in the Professional Writing major, uses a common syllabus designed to have students gain an understanding of the technical writing job market as well as to produce materials they can use in job interviews (such as a résumé, cover letter, and print and web portfolios).

Spring 2006 semester summary
This was the first time I taught Capstone, and I adapted a weekly schedule based on the common syllabus that USU professional writing faculty members Kelli Cargile Cook, Charlotte Thralls, and Mark Zachry produced several years ago.

  • sections taught in department this term: 1
  • number of students enrolled: 13
  • numeric evaluations

teaching innovations
I made one major change to the standard syllabus for this class, and that was to assign the capstone students to work two hours in the departmental computer lab. I instituted this pilot program to see whether those in their final year of school—who knew the lab and its software best—would make ideal lab consultants. However, the students misinterpreted my reasons for wanting them to work in the lab and assumed that it was so that the lab didn’t have to pay consultants. (I was Acting Lab Director at the time, so this class assignment was received as my trying to get the students to work for free.) Thus, the majority of the students complained that the experience was a waste of their time. Sadly, they didn’t take advantage of the many professional development opportunities I knew this work would provide for them, and my suggestions on how they might make the situation more useful for themselves remained unused. I’m still considering what I might learn from this situation that will be of use to the next set of capstone students.

narrative evaluations

  • The interview process was fun and very helpful. Cheryl gave some good stories and examples from her life that helped us see what the real world is like.
  • I have two great portfolios now! I’m ready to get a job, or at least apply for one, and I wasn’t before this class.
  • Cheryl was interested in what the students want to do with their future. She has good networking and interviewing examples to share.
  • Dr. Ball is a talented designer and she has enthusiasm for design and online teaching. She has contemporary insights into the job market and the skills required to get hired and be a competitive tech writer. Dr. Ball is great at what she does.
  • I liked the immediacy of our concerns, the reality and importance of everything we’ve been learning at university. Cheryl’s attitude of professionalism without too much idealism/stuffiness was nice.
  • She has a weird idea of what a good design is and those that didn’t use pink flamingos had a poor design even if it refleted us. We should be able to choose what works for us, otherwise she needs to design portfolios for each student so that we do exactly what she wants.
  • Good things: Cheryl was happy. She has energy. She fed us poundcake. Once. We got the recipe. We built portfolios. This is good.

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Publication Production (Eng 5420)


October 28th, 2006

The purpose of this course is to introduce professional/technical writing majors to pre-press and printing processes for large-scale print documents. We cover printing terminology, color types, production management techniques, image manipulation for print documents, and pre-press guidelines. Editing and working with clients as well as establishing baseline differences between print and web publications is also part of the course goals.

Spring 2005 semester summary
The majority of this class was spent designing the campus literary magazine, Scribendi, a project that provided many collaborative opportunities for students, which I describe in detail below.

  • sections taught in department this term: 1
  • number of students enrolled: 19
  • numeric evaluations

teaching innovations
This class was a new prep for me at Utah State. I implemented an idea I used for a similar class at previous schools—having students re/design the campus literary magazine. The purpose of this assignment is to give students a real-world example of preparing a large-scale document for a printing press (including real-world deadlines, budgets, and clients). The past editors of Scribendi, the literary magazine at USU, were thrilled to have students work on updating the design. (Past editors were volunteer English department staff and faculty members assigned to oversee the creative writing contest, winners of which were published in the magazine.)

In class, the students worked in small groups to complete the redesign:

  • four groups worked on the main content and design (after a collaborative effort on making a template). Each group consisted of a book designer, a graphic designer, and an editor, and the three members worked collectively on one signature (16-page spread) of the magazine;
  • a fifth group was responsible for the design template that every group used, the cover, table of contents, and other front- and backmatter;
  • a sixth group was the marketing and budget team. They were responsible for raising money (which they elected to do rather than stick with the current budget, even though I informed them that it was not a part of the class) and for writing promotional materials.

The students worked with several clients including the new creative writing contest director, Anne Shifrer, to collect the winning entries; choose how many would fit in the pages we had the budget for; edit the entries and insert them into the template in an appropriate sequence based on thematic issues; collected graphics from artists on campus and matched the graphics to specific texts; and prepared the entire publication for printing. In addition, they raised a significant amount of money (nearly $1,500 in a month) so that they could publish 1,000 copies on a professional press instead of photocopying 100 for departmental use, as had been done in past years.

Because students had a limited budget for printing, which meant a limited number of pages they could print, they decided (with my guidance) to excerpt several large stories and place all winners in their entirety on an accompanying website. Thus, students also had the chance to design the publication for a second medium. The website is linked at the bottom of this post.

Finally, students presented fresh-off-the-press copies of Scribendi to the campus at the annual Student Showcase for undergraduate research. They created a poster to outline their hands-on research activities and distributed nearly 700 copies that week to stakeholders and students around the campus and the community. (The rest of the copies were kept to include in the students’ portfolios and for departmental recruiting efforts.)

narrative evaluations

  • “Cheryl has an incredible knack for helping students take charge of their learning. She has such a personable nature that students feel elevated to her level. Cheryl is a great professor, and a mentor that keeps me striving to impress! 10 out of 10.”
  • “I thought that the objectives were very clear and we always knew what was expected of us. I also thought the expectations of us were high, which helped us to learn more. I am glad that I had the opportunity to take this class from Cheryl Ball. I thought she was a very good teacher.”
  • “Cheryl Rocks! She really pushes for quality and her attitude is positive. She doesn’t take b.s. from anyone and she’s extremely knowledgable about technology that we’re suposed to learn. I appreciate that…. She goes the extra mile.”
  • “I felt that the literary magazine redesign was a very good teaching process for publication production. I enjoyed learning the process of publishing an actual magazine. Cheryl, I appreciate the knowledge that you shared with us. I am glad to have a professor that has such a great knowledge of what we are doing, particularly about making a publication as a student [refering to my experiences making litmags when I was a student]. Thank you, Cheryl. You rock! And we learned a lot about responsibility.”
  • “I never knew publication production could be so exciting.”

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Perspectives on Writing and Rhetoric (Eng 3040)


October 28th, 2006

The 3040 class is a general-education (depth), upper-division class. (I usually refer to it as similar to an advanced composition class.) Non-English-majors typically enroll, and the theme changes depending on the faculty member who teaches it.

Fall 2004 semester summary
Fall 2004 was the first time that I taught English 3040. The focus was on multimodal composition, and the students created websites that demonstrated their rhetorical understanding of writing and design. Due to technological constraints, however, the students were aggravated by their inability to carry out what the department wanted me to teach: video-editing. As a new faculty member, I didn’t understand until some time into the semester that the lab was incapable of handling such work. (The faculty member who suggested the topic to me was not aware that the lab could not accommodate video editing). I rewrote the syllabus several times upon discovery of each technbological hindrance, but the constant changes made the goals of the class somewhat fuzzy to students. I quickly learned what the lab could accommodate and worked closely with the systems administrator to update the hardware that I would need to teach this class the next time.

  • sections taught in department this term: 1
  • number of students enrolled: 20
  • numeric evaluations

Spring 2005 semester summary
This course went much better than the Fall 2004 version. I changed the syllabus to accommodate the technological resources the department had, and the focus was on literary hypertexts. The course objectives — which included having students read about, analyze, and produce creative, digital texts — were spelled out for them from the beginning of the term. We were able to produce new media videos as a final project.

  • sections taught in department this term: 2 (mine & ‘medical writing’ which is technically offered through the Biology department, although they use our course number)
  • number of students enrolled: 18
  • numeric evaluations

Fall 2006 semester summary
This is the third time I’ve been able to teach this course, although it’s still a new prep because I keep changing the theme. The focus for Fall 2006 is on digital narratives. Students are reading about and producing a range of digital, narrative texts including iMixes, voiceovers, vogs, video or audio documentaries, and a final project of their choice. The assignments focus on how to rhetorically choose media that will meet the purpose and audience expectations of a given genre (or mixed-genre). This course is in-progress and so evaluations are not available yet.

  • sections taught in department this term: 2 (mine & ‘medical writing’, offered through the Biology Department)
  • number of students enrolled: 17
  • numeric evaluations

teaching innovations
By the time I taught this class for the second time, I was able to procure [through the department and the Vice President of Research] digital video cameras for the students to use as well as hardware updates to accommodate digital video-editing in the English department computer lab. Thus, I was able to have students complete the final assignment of a new media video poem. (The assignment is included in the accompanying materials.)

I have been able to present this avenue of multimodal composition, focusing specifically on a 3040 new media video project, at two conferences: Computers and Writing at Stanford University and the Open Source Leaning Conference at Utah State University (Instructional Technology Department). I have also been able to publish a scholarly webtext about one student’s example.

For the Fall 2006 class on digital narratives, I am using blogs (for the first time in my teaching) as a way for students to explore public/private issues when composing narratives and also as a way for them to communicate mid-week since the class meets once a week.

narrative evaluations

  • “I didn’t know what to expect, but I have really learned a lot from being here. My computer literacy, which was very low, grew a lot. I like how you have style and personality but still have the respeect because you know how to do it all.”
  • “The learning about rhetoric was subtle and fun!”
  • “Overall it was a fun class and was unexpectedly helpful with other classes and presentations. I liked learning about the 13 terms [from the ix: visual exercises CD, which we looked at in class] and how they relate to different kinds of communication. It’s cool to apply some of those terms to other things I’m doing in school. Thanks”
  • “I love Cheryl…her outlook and assignments were great.”
  • “Dr. Ball did really well in presenting the design considerations from the CD, and in teaching the class how to create web pages in Dreamweaver.”
  • “I am very satisfied that the university hired Cheryl Ball to teach this new style of English course. I was able to learn more applicable communication skills in this class than I did in all of my years in AP/Honors English. Great job!”
  • “Your teaching style really engages the class and makes it a fun class environment. I particularly liked the level of class discussion which you allowed. This really facilitated learning the subject matter.”
  • “It was the most interesting English class I’ve ever taken. You got me looking at writing and the formats of my papers in a whole new way.”
  • “Cheryl was very knowledgable and enthusiastic. It is a hands-on course that she actually gave us time to put our hands on.”
  • “I really liked the way the class was more of a discussion. It helped me feel a part. I also thought the assignments were both educational and fun.”
  • “It was good to learn new ways of looking at all things.”
  • “She has studied this a long time and is good at it. She assigns the right amount of workload for the class. I liked discussing the readings; it’s more helpful than just taking a quiz on them.”

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Professional Writing Technologies (Eng 3410)


October 28th, 2006

English 3410 is one of two gateway classes into the Professional Writing Major in the English Department. The focus of the class is on rhetorical design skills in relation to image manipulation software and web design editors. Students are tasked with designing a web-based portfolio of their work, on which they will build until they take the Capstone class as seniors. Students are required to earn a B- or better to enter the major.

Fall 2004 semester summary
This class was a new prep since I was a new faculty member at the time. The students encountered problems with the technology because we had limited numbers of software licenses for the first half of the term, which made demo-ing the programs (Adobe and Macromedia Suites) in class and having students complete homework outside of class very difficult. Mid-term we got more licenses, which significantly helped the students’ learning and engagement in the class. Besides software, the students encountered many hardware problems because I was (unknowingly, at the time) asking them to design and save documents that the hardware couldn’t handle. As a class we discovered these problems and came up with some work-arounds, but the students were generally aggravated at the lack of technological resources.

  • sections taught in department this term: 1
  • number of students enrolled: 21*
  • numeric evaluations

*(I accidentally over-enrolled the class, which caused computer-access issues that we accommodated by having the extra student use the instructor’s computer workstation.)

Fall 2005 semester summary
Fall 2005 was the second time I taught this course, and much of the technological problems encountered the first time I taught it were ameliorated. In addition to the web-portfolio project, I instituted several new assignments for this class, which I discuss below.

  • sections taught in department this term: 1
  • number of students enrolled: 17
  • numeric evaluations

teaching innovations
I changed the way I teach this class in the Fall of 2005 to include more instruction (albeit self-guided) in software programs since students had requested such instruction in this class the last time I taught it. (Students request direct instruction in software in most all of their professional writing classes because they believe that is what the class is about. They learn fairly quickly in most classes that professional writing is more about rhetoric, design, usability, etc., than having an instructor step them through a particular software program. They can get direct instruction in other departments such as Business and Instructional Technology.)

To accommodate their desires, however, I created approximately twenty tutorials that would help them learn programs such as those in Microsoft Office Suite, Macromedia Suite, Adobe Creative Suite, and also other programs including WS_FTP and CD-burning software, all of which they will use at some point in their professional writing courses and employment. These tutorials give basic instructions on how to create a product in that particular program (and for what purpose). I have constructed these tutorials so that the product students create directly ties in to the parts of their web portfolio they will need to construct during their time in the 3410 class.

For example, they complete a set of tutorials on Adobe ImageReady and Macromedia Fireworks in which they learn how to slice a large image/web-interface (created in a previous tutorial) and add a pop-up navigational menu to one (or multiple) slice(s) of the interface. Typically students will implement the slicing and pop-up menu techniques for their web portfolio. In addition, students are required to write a contextualizing introduction (required in the Reflective Letter portion of the portfolio assignment) to each finished product, which doubles as an introduction to the artifact in their final web portfolio should they choose to use it.

narrative evaluations

  • “Cheryl tried to help each person individually in class and tried to make time for each student.”
  • Cheryl was “easy to talk to and learn from” and had “good enthusiasm for the course content.”
  • “I really liked how enthusiastic Cheryl is about her job. She really cares about the students and wants them to do well.”
  • “She responds well to the needs of her students.”
  • “I feel like everything Cheryl presented to us was relevant. I’ve learned so many new things that are going to be especially helpful when I graduate. She is an excellent teacher! I feel like she has been one of the best new additions to this department.”
  • “Great class, Cheryl! One of my best this semester. I really liked the one-on-one attention that I (and others) got. It helped the students to help each other toward the end of the portfolio construction. I liked the personal, active interaction with you.”
  • “I feel like I am walking out of this class with a tremendous amount of knowledge and skills. I learned so much in this class, and that knowledge will be a great foundation for the rest of my classes.”
  • “Cheryl is an excellent teacher! Her teaching theories (praxis) are some of the best I’ve seen.”
  • “We didn’t just learn how to make a website, we learned good design and how we want to present ourselves to exmployers.”

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