Special thanks to ChelónaRSA member Thomas McCloskey for leading a workshop earlier this week about submitting G.I.F.T.S. proposals to NCA!
To see a copy of examples and his presentation, see our G.I.F.T.S. Overview document.
Remember, the NCA 2017 deadline is fast approaching and we want to see you all in Dallas!
Cheló̱na RSA, the University of Maryland’s graduate student chapter of the Rhetoric Society of America, is thrilled to announce the creation of the Cheló̱na RSA Archival Symposium, hosted at the University of Maryland, College Park from Thursday, April 13 to Saturday, April 15.
This three-day event aims to prepare graduate students for archival research, including a trip to one of the many archives in the Washington, D.C. metro area. Graduate students with an interest in archival research will have the opportunity to learn from UMD archivists and experienced faculty members about archival research. While graduate students often recognize departmental or disciplinary expectations to conduct archival research, they frequently lack the training or opportunity to do so. This symposium aims to help close this gap and empower students in their own research areas.
This symposium will include paneled talks with faculty and archivists, as well as a working trip to an archive of the participants’ choice in the Washington, D.C. area. Participants will be able to use public transportation from the University of Maryland. The symposium will close with facilitated roundtable discussions about the opportunities, challenges, and specific research agendas associated with archival research.
Cheló̱na RSA intends this symposium to be an interdisciplinary place where students from across the university are welcomed to learn, explore, and share their work with each other in a collaborative atmosphere. For those who are new to archival research (as many graduate students are) entering the archive can be a daunting task, while those who have sat long hours in reading rooms can attest to the challenges inherent in archival work. With Washington, D.C. as the picturesque backdrop for this meeting of the minds, the Cheló̱na RSA Archival Symposium invites collaboration while supporting a future generation of scholars in their quest for archival literacy.
The symposium will be capped at 30 participants to facilitate a productive, working environment. Interested applicants need to complete the Cheló̱na RSA Archives Symposium Application Form (Name, Institutional information, brief research statement, and archival interest) by 5:00pm Wednesday, March 15. Accepted applicants will be notified by Monday, March 20.
Please direct questions to the Conference Committee Chair, Jaclyn Bruner (jbruner@umd.edu).
Click here to view the symposium schedule.
As graduate students at Maryland, a large part of our identity comes from being teachers. We strive to provide respectful and inclusive classroom environments. We set high expectations for our undergraduate students. But sometimes it seems as though our students are less ready for the rigor of collegiate academics than they should be. It got us thinking – what can we do about it? Are our students ready for college?
In 2013, former high school educator Kenneth Bernstein wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post, “A warning to college profs from a high school teacher.” He explains his attempts to navigate the standards and expectations, as well as his decision to step away from teaching.
He writes: “I would like to believe that I prepared them to think more critically and to present cogent arguments, but I could not simultaneously prepare them to do well on that portion of the test and teach them to write in a fashion that would properly serve them at higher levels of education.”
But he feels the structure of tests, even tests like the AP (Advanced Placement), made it impossible. He pleads with college instructors not to blame K-12 educators for a student’s lack of preparedness for the college environment. He is dismayed and looking to advocate for a better way forward.
English: Digital Humanities Winter Institute Editathon (2013), Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
And here’s where we come in:
What do we do as instructors if we know our students are not, in Berstein’s words, prepared “for the kind of intellectual work that you [we] have every right to expect of them?”
Last spring, a handful of our members attended a workshop hosted by the Maryland Teaching and Learning Transformation Center (TLTC) about teaching your students how to learn. Programs like this focus on student-centered strategies that are ultimately helpful, but only mask the symptoms and don’t get to the root of the problem.
We think the way forward can be an emphasis on rhetorical education, both at the K-12 level and in the collegiate setting. Rhetorical education stresses what Bernstein says he wanted to do, but wasn’t able to in his classroom.
A rhetorical education can blend classical theory with contemporary culture, teach students how to approach their audience, advance cogent arguments, and express themselves and their opinions in a manner that promotes growth, not division. Students need to be able to advance and defend positions, to understand when someone else is doing the same, and employ the tenets of criticism to judge whether or not an argument will work.
We think that Bernstein is right to worry, but that a curriculum recommitted to a rhetorical education can benefit all students in the long run.
Post Author: Annie Laurie Nichols
The spring semester here at Maryland is drawing to a close and summer is fast approaching… the perfect time for our upcoming #rhetoricroadtrip to RSA in Atlanta! But also the perfect time to take a beat and really think about engaging pedagogically with redesigning lesson plans.
With the recent trend toward active learning, many of us have been trying to incorporate more activities into our lessons. But planning an active lesson is not as simple as adding a related activity and stirring. An active lesson plan must still consider how to help students use and master skills and concepts, how this lesson connects to prior and upcoming lessons and continues to build the major arcs of the class, and how projects and theories are scaffolded and modeled. This is quite a lot to think about simultaneously, so I have developed a method of block planning to ensure I incorporate everything into a thoughtful active lesson plan.
I start by asking myself a series of questions:
● What concepts do I want students to learn?
● What skills do I want students to learn/practice?
● What do they have to already know to be able to do/understand these concepts/skills?
● What have they already learned/what do they already know that can help them understand and use these concepts?
● What upcoming material will these skills and concepts help them understand and do?
Then I subdivide the lesson into three blocks. Each block includes an activity and direct engagement with course concepts:
| Block 1 (15 min) | Block 2 (15 min) | Block 3 (15 min) | |
| Goal 1 | Give students an experience that establishes the need for this material | Give students a way to analyze communication using the material | Give students a way to apply material and generate new material |
| Action 1 | Listening is Power activity to demonstrate the role of listening in communication | Watch a clip from Star Trek where several characters are involved in a negotiation. What kind of listening is each doing? How does that affect the communication? | In groups of 3, read the scenario. You are going to act as consultants to the people in the scenario. How should they change their listening practices? Convince them will solve their problem. |
| Goal 2 | Check comprehension of homework concepts | Debrief the analysis and connect to past material | Set up need for future material |
| Action 2 | Ask students to give concepts (5 types of listening), definitions, and examples; write on board | How does listening fit into what you have learned about negotiation? What kind of listening did you use in the yellow blueberries activity? How would a different kind of listening have changed how the negotiation went? What else was going wrong in the scenario? | Your homework is to read about group dynamics, particularly how groupthink develops and can be avoided. As you read, consider how these theories could help the people in the scenario avoid their problem. |
The answers to the questions I have asked myself map into these blocks, and are each paired with an activity. I have found this type of lesson planning to be useful across a variety of courses that include active learning. This particular example is for a 50-minute class period (with 5 minutes reserved to take attendance, make announcements, etc.). For a 75-minute class, I add two more blocks. Arranging the class period like this gives the class a good balance between thinking and application, and breaks up the time I am talking with students doing activities. It also makes sure that I don’t skip the vital step of connecting each activity directly to course content in a deliberate and explicit way.
– Annie Laurie
A huge round of applause and adoration are in order for our Vice President, Annie Laurie Nichols!
Her tireless service to the University has been recognized in a big way! Annie Laurie is the recipient of the Outstanding Graduate Assistant Award for 2016.
Her award letter included context for what a high honor this is: “Approximately 4,000 UMD graduate students also serve the campus as administrative, research, or teaching assistants. The Graduate School has established this new award to recognize and honor the outstanding contributions that Graduate Assistants provide to students, faculty, departments, administrative units, and the University as a whole. The award conveys the honor of being named among the top 2% of campus Graduate Assistants in a given year.”
Join us as we celebrate and congratulate Annie Laurie! 
In this #BackToBasics post, we wanted to share a resource about a topic that we struggle with from time to time: literature reviews.
If you’re like us, sometimes you need a short refresher on the basic things to ensure that the project you’re working on is fruitful in the end!
Click the image below to view a helpful video from North Carolina State University Library about the purpose of a literature review and some tips on how to begin writing one.
ChelónaRSA is proud to announce that two undergraduate scholar Terps will be presenting research at the Eastern Communication Association Undergraduate Studies Conference in Baltimore, MD on April 1!
Nicole Coletti (Class of 2016)
Nicole Coletti (Class of 2016) will present “Abolition and the Cult of Domesticity: The Rhetorical Strategy of a Free Black Woman” on a panel on Friday, April 1, 12:15-1:15 (Columbia Room).
Emily Schaefer (Class of 2017)
Emily Schaefer (Class of 2017) will present “Asking for More Than More: Maria Stewart’s Revolutionary Take on the Black Jeremiad” at a poster session on Friday, April 1, 2:30-3:45 (Harborview Room).
Their work combines archival research and original analysis originating in COMM360: Rhetoric of Black America. Their faculty sponsor, Chelóna RSA officer Jaclyn Bruner, emphasized that “ undergraduates rarely present projects at academic conferences, and both students in this case have created and executed excellent work to share with faculty and graduate students across the region.”
This will be a conference debut for both students. If you are planning on attending ECA, please consider supporting our undergraduate Terps by attending their presentations!
Chelóna RSA is excited to announce the launch of our reading group! On March 7 at 2PM in Tawes 2115, we will be meeting to discuss Steph Ceraso’s 2014 College English article, “(Re)Educating the Senses: Multimodal Listening, Bodily Learning, and the Composition of Sonic Experiences.”
Steph Ceraso will be joining us to discuss her work and answer any questions!
Steph Ceraso, an Assistant Professor at UMBC, is the 2015 recipient of the Richard Ohmann Outstanding Article in College English Award. To whet your appetite, here’s what the award committee said about Ceraso’s article: “The judges found Professor Ceraso’s essay fresh, timely, and engaging—a piece that will have an impact on the field for its vision and accessibility. Her essay, woven throughout with connections to pedagogy and composition, pushes the boundaries of multimodal composition as Professor Ceraso challenges us to reimagine how soundscapes can change the writing classroom—that is how we can incorporate ‘productive, quality sonic experiences’ that build on students’ past experiences.”
You may access the article via our members page or the College English website.
**Access note: The meeting will be held in Tawes 2115, the Faculty Lounge on the second floor. When you enter Tawes from the front of the building (the side facing Anne Arundel Hall), you may take the stairs straight ahead or take the elevator down the hall on the right. Once you are on the second floor, turn left toward the Grad Office. Room 2115 is the first room down the hallway. I am happy to share that the basement floor of Tawes now has two gender-inclusive accessible bathrooms and a lactation room. Please contact us if you have any questions or concerns related to accessibility.**