Tag: publication

My “Writing the Brain” Twitter Assignment Appears in Twenty Writing Assignments in Context, Ed. by Melissa Bender and Karma Waltonen

978-1-4766-6509-2My “Writing the Brain” assignment, which helps students understand how different media (Twitter, photography, posters, and essays) shape and change their messages, appears in Melissa Bender and Karma Waltonen’s edited collection, Twenty Writing Assignments in Context: An Instructor’s Resource for the Composition Classroom. Melissa and Karma put a lot of good work into curating this guide of innovative assignments. Each chapter includes an assignment, its rationalization, and examples of student work. I’m proud to have my assignment included with the engaging pedagogical work of its other contributors!

Twenty Writing Assignments in Context can be purchased from McFarland & Co,  Amazon (Kindle version available, too), or Barnes and Noble. More information about the book is included below.

Twenty Writing Assignments in Context
 An Instructor’s Resource for the Composition Classroom

Edited by Melissa Bender and Karma Waltonen

Print ISBN: 978-1-4766-6509-2
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-4766-2729-8
21 photos, notes, bibliographies, index
288pp. softcover (6 x 9) 2017

$35.00

About the Book
Twenty original, classroom-tested assignments: This innovative collection of college writing assignments explores the practical applications of each lesson. Drawing upon current best practices, each chapter includes a discussion of the rationale behind the assignment, along with supplemental elements such as guidelines for evaluation, prewriting exercises and tips for avoiding common pitfalls. The assignments are designed for a range of courses, from first-year composition to upper-division writing in various disciplines.

Table of Contents
Introduction
The Rhetoric of Everyday Objects: An Assignment Sequence, Melissa Bender
Writing and Designing Informational Booklets for International Exchange Students, M. Ann BradyFraming the Personal Narrative: Composition and Documentary Film, Jodie Childers
Blogging Advanced Composition, Elisa Cogbill-Seiders, Ed Nagelhout, and Denise Tillery
Proposal Writing in Technical Communications, Barbara J. D’Angelo
Past Meets Present: Exploring the University Archives to Compose and Connect, Christine Denecker
Writing the Brain: A Multimodal Assignment Sequence, Jason W. Ellis
Making Financial Contracts User-Friendly: Conducting Research, Redesigning Documents and Proposing Changes in the Workplace, Sara K. Gunning
Geobiographies: A Place-Based Assignment Sequence, Jim Henry
The Discipline Resource Guide Website, Dalyn Luedtke
Global Urban Centers: A Rhetorical Analysis of Street Art, Gerald Maki
The Academic Discourse Project, Gracemarie MiKe
Political Cartoons and Multimodal Composition: The Visual Argument Assignment, Erin Dee Moore
Researching and Writing a History of Composition-Rhetoric, Lori Ostergaard
Critical Analysis of a Wikipedia Entry, Gwendolynne Reid
“In the Year”: Using Website Design for ePortfolios, Katherine Robbins
Workplace Document Analysis and Evaluation, Melissa Vosen Callens
The Partner Project: Advanced Argument, Karma Waltonen
Captain Discourse and Other Heroes:  Learning about Writing Research through Comic Books, Courtney L. Werner and Nicole I. Caswell
Critical Analysis of Student Ethnography, Abby Wilkerson

About the Authors
Melissa Bender is a lecturer in the University Writing Program and the assistant director of the Writing Across the Curriculum Program at the University of California, Davis. Her interests include professional writing, visual rhetoric, composition and international education. A former president of the Margaret Atwood Society, Karma Waltonen is a senior lecturer in the University Writing Program at the University of California, Davis, where she won the Academic Federation Excellence in Teaching Award in 2015.

Good Review of Practicing Science Fiction in Latest Extrapolation

Last year, I contributed an essay titled, “Revealing Critical Theory’s Real-Life Potential to Our Students, the Digital Nomads,” to Practicing Science Fiction: Critical Essays on Writing, Reading and Teaching the Genre edited by Karen Hellekson, Craig B. Jacobsen, Patrick B. Sharp, and Lisa Yaszek.

Bill Dynes contributed a nice review of the book and mentioned my essay in his review in Extrapolation 52:2 (Summer 2011). He writes, “This slim volume will be of substantial value to teachers and scholars” (253). Then, in describing the first part, “Teaching with Science Fiction,” Dynes observes that, “Interestingly, these essays foreground teaching with sf rather than teaching the genre itself. Jason Ellis uses Mike Resnick’s novel Ivory: A Legend of Past and Future (1998) to teach the postcolonial critical theories of writers such as Edward Said, Michel Foucault, and Gilles Deleuze” (253). This is the power of science fiction that others including John W. Campbell, Jr. realize: it can accomplish many tasks including working through ideas of the real world that are themselves not necessarily science fictional. This is not to say that postcolonialism cannot be read as science fictional, but in the case of my essay, I see the use of science fiction as a tool to teach students about critical theory and its application to their lives in the real world.

I am glad to see Practicing Science Fiction continue to get some attention in the field. Click on the link above to visit the publisher’s website for additional information and for ordering.