".. 聽the art of speaking and writing well ..."
CU Boulder PhD Candidate Allison Rowland has given some thought to teaching effective rhetoric. 聽Students nominated Rowland聽for an ASSETT Teaching with Technology Award last year for her teaching of an upper division writing class with the topic of聽the War on Terror. 聽She聽assigned her students to read a wide range of opinion pieces about the War on Terror. 聽Then, Rowland spent class time at the beginning of the semester teaching聽students how to create their own blogs on and write blog posts in聽response to their readings. 聽She聽showed her students purposeful layout designs and readable fonts to encourage them聽to make their own聽blogs visually appealing. 聽Rowland also challenged her students to do more than just write summaries of their readings聽but to also consider their larger online audience:
I didn't want to be their only audience ... When you have students create聽blogs, it opens up more conversations聽about audience ... When students see how many people see their writing, it is easier to encourage students to think about voice when they realize other people might read their blogs ... It makes you聽think about audience, voice, appealing to people, what will keep people reading ... It makes writing better knowing others will see it ...聽The quality of their writing on a digital public forum like weblogs is so much better than if they were just submitting an assignment to me as the instructor.
Rowland encouraged her students to ask themselves, "'What kind of writing keeps the reader reading? ... How should my writing change, depending on the audience?'"
Rowland聽wants her class to help students, "Make broader connections to the real world," and she believes that incorporating technological mediums聽into teaching is critical for that purpose: "We have to teach this ... across digitally mediated platforms." 聽Rowland聽sees the blogs that her students create in her class as writing samples that they聽can show to potential employers to demonstrate their proficiency with technology. 聽She said that one student has already told her, "'This blog got me my job.'" 聽In nominating Rowland for the 2013 ASSETT Teaching with Technology Award, one student wrote that Rowland:
... [gave] us a vast opportunity for publishing, countless followers and readership, and an opportunity to expand our horizons in writing. 聽I've never experienced a class that was so eye opening in appeal to the real world. 聽[Rowland's]聽prowess in the forefront of modern technology for writing was breathtaking.
"I've benefited from excellent training at CU," says Rowland, and she credits聽how much the CU Lead Graduate Teacher Program taught her about teaching. 聽Rowland strives to keep her classes interactive--with small group activities or independent freewriting periods聽interspersed with PowerPoint slides.
Rowland is finishing her PhD in the Communications Department聽at CU Boulder. 聽She聽has accepted a Visiting Assistant Professor聽position at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York this fall. 聽Rowland聽plans to continue, "... experimenting with ... a range of digital platforms," in her teaching.
