Author: Hurst, Brandon

Fieldwork: ECE Workshop

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On Tuesday, February 18 at 4:00 pm, we are holding a virtual workshop on a vital component of First Year Writing, “Fieldwork”: students conducting primary research and investigation outside of the classroom. 

This hands-on, inquiry driven activity provides an opportunity for students to identify the connections between their work in the classroom and materials outside it. As they uncover these connections during fieldwork, students can come to recognize the many ways their writing is relevant to, embedded in, and impactful on the experiences of other individuals and communities. Ahead of the workshop, we thought it would prove valuable to spend some time dissecting and discussing the concept of fieldwork, its role in the FYW curriculum, and explore the possible ways ECE students can conduct fieldwork. 

Fieldwork, by definition, entails students’ movement outside the traditional classroom environment. By interacting with spaces, objects, and people outside the classroom, fieldwork invites students to explore questions beyond the walls that (often literally) frame their writing and the content they encounter. These boundaries may, in the minds of students, divorce the significance of their writing from “real-world” happenings, communities, and materials. Fieldwork, therefore, asks students to forge the link between classroom inquiry and their lives outside of school. Not only does this (hopefully) foster an investment and interest in the work they do in the writing classroom, but it also helps students write with ethos. 

As Rosanne Carlo writes, “Whenever we are discussing the material and place and people’s experiences, whenever we are talking about ourselves in community, these discourses fall under the rhetorical concept of the ethos appeal” (Transforming Ethos 6-7).  Students’ fieldwork efforts bridge the more abstract, wider-scope ideas discussed in the FYW classroom and in their research with the lived experience of students and their communities, particularly in the inquiry driven “reflective narrative and research investigations” that we ask them to compose in First-Year-Writing courses. Fieldwork works to materialize the significance and relevance of their writing, helping them to “communicat[e] lived experience as a form of knowledge” and empowering them to write confidently with ethos (9). Establishing a sense of material and/or personal investment helps students recognize the concrete stakes of their writing, enabling them to realize the purpose of their writing and in turn write with purpose. 

Fieldwork is a versatile course component, connecting to the habits of practice in a myriad of ways. It could be the act of collecting, curating, and circulating, or going out into the field to observe these habits of practice in action. Fieldwork may serve as a springboard for later work: establishing an anecdotal understanding of issues that drives further contextualizing research, critical engagement, and public contributions with their writing. Or this broader research may be the framework through which students conduct their fieldwork research. They can examine the way issues or topics they’ve researched and read about are relevant to their own daily lives, communities, and other individuals. In all cases, fieldwork serves as a specific, concrete foundation for composing works that make meaningful contributions to a specific audience. It helps solidify the connection in the mind of the student that the discourse communities they are participating in are just that, communities. They are comprised of real people, places, and objects impacted by the larger issues or topics discussed in class and in their writing. Students’ material awareness of their topics and audience facilitates the composition of meaningful responses to texts and issues, writing alongside other texts rather than about them. 

The realization of the material relevance of their writing through physical interactions helps students establish a concrete visualization of what they are writing about and who they are writing for. This in turn fosters an understanding of what it means to be rhetorically effective. It can be easier to identify and deftly weigh rhetorical considerations (considerations of language, tone, modality, etc.) when the intended audience, subject, and stakes of their writing materializes. Familiarity with the spaces their writing will circulate in and the audiences with whom their writing will circulate helps students make nuanced and sophisticated rhetorical considerations. It also brings to the fore the importance of writing ethically. When their work is related to and impacts their communities or spheres that they are deeply familiar with the potential ramifications of writing become more clearly visible. 

Bringing this long-winded preface to a close, during our workshop we will discuss prior experiences incorporating fieldwork in the ECE classroom, positive and negative, and share strategies for incorporating fieldwork in your courses—covering potential forms and possible assignments/projects. Finally, we will share some recent scholarship on fieldwork and community-based writing that may help frame or inspire the way you integrate fieldwork into your own syllabus.   

If you’re interested in attending the workshop, please RSVP here for the meeting link. We hope to see many of you there, but for those unable to attend all materials will be made available afterwards on our SharePoint site.  

Should you wish to read more of Rosanne Carlo’s work (which I highly recommend), you can access her whole book, Transforming Ethos: Place and The Material in Rhetoric and Writing, for free here. Simply log in with your UConn Credentials.  

What Does it Mean to “Circulate” Our Writing?

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Thank you all for staying with me over this three-post tour of Circulation. Today I want to discuss Circulation as it is most commonly conceived and presented in the first-year writing classroom: as the activity of circulating a piece of writing amongst a particular audience and setting. In the process, I hope to explore the many questions that Circulating asks writers to consider as they compose their writing for a specific purpose and set of contexts. 

Circulation as Rhetorical Context 

Circulation as “Rhetorical Context,” as all of you undoubtedly have heard numerous times, is the practice of writing with a specific audience, genre, form, media, accessibility, impact, etc. in mind. For a library, this is maybe the organization of the materials in their collection, the layout of shelves and displays for patron navigation, and which materials are displayed. It also describes the impact this has on how patrons physically circulate through the library, which materials get circulated, and why—taking into consideration:  

  • Who the library’s patrons are,  
  • What they are interested in or need,  
  • Their access to those materials,  
  • The impact these materials have on their patrons as they circulate?  

In the conference, we want to explore what questions we pose to students—and how we pose them—that can help them identify the affordances and constraints of different types or modes of Circulation. At the same time, we want these questions to promote students’ consideration of these pros and cons in connection with their own goals, enabling them to make purposeful rhetorical decisions with their writing. This may include:  

  • Who do they want to share their writing with?  
  • How does that audience conventionally circulate their writing?  
  • Do they want to adopt these principles or make the conscious, rhetorical decision to depart from certain genre conventions?  
  • What media and/or modalities are best suited to conveying and circulating their writing?   
  • How can a composition be effectively accessed and shared by the audience we want to reach?  
  • What tensions arise between voice and genre and how do we navigate them?  
  • How will it be received and is it expressing its ideas ethically and in good faith? 

When we practice Circulation as a rhetorical context, we are asking students to think about why they are writing, then make informed decisions about how to best achieve these writing goals. And during the conference, we hope to address how to best go about fostering this reflective approach to composition. 

Collaborative Circulation: A Recursive Roadmap 

As these different contexts coalesce, it becomes apparent that Circulation is a recurring and collaborative writing practice. We hope that by foregrounding the practice of Circulation in the classroom, we can enable students to be mindful of all the questions Circulation asks them to consider in every phase of the writing process—harnessing Circulation for their own thinking and writing purposes.  

I look forward to exploring the many ways Circulation takes place in the FYW classroom at the upcoming November 1st! 

Conceptualizing Circulation: Brainstorming and Feedback

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Hi all, as promised, here is the first of two follow-ups to last week’s preview of our Conference theme. In this post, I’ll be discussing the role of Circulation in Ideation and Feedback. Later this week another post will cover Circulation as Rhetorical Context with a summary of our tour of Circulation.  

Circulation for Brainstorming and Ideation GraphicCirculation for Brainstorming and Ideation: 

Thinking back to the library, any specific book that gets added to a collection is shaped by and in response to the active ecosystem of texts, social contexts, culture circulating in and around that library. New writings Engage with their conceptual antecedents, adopt (or reject) established genre conventions of form and style, and augment these precedents according to present social discourse, cultural trends, political, and physical environments. Moreover, which texts are accessible is also directly related to the social and political powers/movements governing circulation. This directly influences the writing that can be engaged with, directly influencing the ideation phase of writing and thinking. And as soon as a new book enters into the library, it becomes a part of the circulating texts and contexts that will shape subsequent readings and writings.  

During the conference, we will explore what Circulation as a tool and context for brainstorming and ideation looks like and how it can be emphasized in the FYW classroom. For example, it may prove valuable to consider that in any ECE writing class, when we ask students to Collect perspectives, Engage with difficult texts, and Contextualize their research question/inquiry, the circulating texts they encounter engender ideation and brainstorming.  

The act of reading, and the thoughts and responses in the margins and/or in the mind of the reader, is a product and practice of Circulation. A circulating text stimulates ideation as the reader “talks” back to the text during their reading. Students’ responses to an inquiry and text circulate in the classroom as they share initial thoughts—writing ideas and questions in their infancy. In a collaborative brainstorming session or class discussion, students’ conversations influence each other’s thinking, which in turn promotes self-reflection and a consideration of alternative perspectives that helps them develop these future writing ideas.  

We hope to discuss methods of working with students to help them recognize that participating in the Circulation of ideas in a public ecosystem is not only about “putting our writing out into the world.” It also consists of receiving, responding to, and then interrogating those responses in a way that helps us come up with concepts they can develop in writings that will make meaningful contributions to that ecosystem. We want students to see that they are participating in Circulation in every phase of writing.  

Circulation of Feedback and Suggestions: Circulation of Feedback Graphic

Similarly, the Circulation of feedback and suggestions helps students further develop their writing. When I think of the editing of a book, I am imagining the cinematic portrayals of an author bickering with their editor about what gets included. Or maybe the editor poses a question that prompts a total rewriting or reconsideration of an author’s stance. As feedback discursively circulates between editor and author it cultivates a more thoughtful reflection on the piece of writing, its goals, and its method in a fashion that is ultimately generative. When “editing” a library, staff must first reflect on which materials are being (or not) circulated most by patrons. This then informs the “editing” of their collection—what materials are weeded and what materials are added—to help the library best serve the needs of its patrons, i.e., achieve its purpose. And this does not take place in a vacuum but features a discussion amongst multiple librarians and between staff and patrons as they “revise” and “refine” the library. 

The FYW classroom is a comparable space; students circulate their work as they collaboratively revise and refine their writing to more effectively achieve their compositional goals. Group workshops and peer-review offer a low stakes environment where students can gauge audience reception, find alternative perspectives, receive feedback, and work together to develop their own and others’ compositions. These drafting and revision activities grant them freedom to experiment radically or minutely with their writing. Practicing how to provide and receive feedback—inside and outside the classroom—encourages students to reflect on their writing and its goals and how they might best achieve them. During the conference, we will explore ways to capitalize on the opportunities for growth and learning that Circulation affords during these activities. We also look to share and discuss the various forms, uses, and struggles of giving and receiving feedback. 

Circulating Our Conference Concept

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Ahead of our upcoming Fall 2024 Conference: “Collaborative Circulation: A Recursive Roadmap” I thought it might prove valuable to share how we arrived at this theme and the three session topics.  

When I think of “Circulation” the first thing I imagine are the materials circulating in a library. Any given book (or other material) itself and the ideas it contains and expresses, moves amongst and across discrete spaces (within a library or system of libraries), interacting with individuals as they read, and augments the cultural discourse or zeitgeist. At the same time, these texts are consciously and unconsciously indebted to centuries of literary antecedents and the precedents set before them. They are also shaped by the books already in circulation. They consciously adopt, build upon, or reject conventions of genre; they reiterate on concepts and themes in response to their present social landscape; and as they circulate, these texts shape the present cultural moment that will give rise to and contextualize the writings of others.  

In a First Year Writing (FYW) setting, the “Habit of Practice” of Circulation is most often discussed it in reference to how a writing will be shared, with whom, and the rhetorical decisions this informs (genre, diction, modality, etc.) But from the moment students step into the classroom, ideas, writings, and bodies are circulating. Student’s responses, discussions, collaborative work circulate responses to the course inquiry within the classroom environment. Circulation in an FYW classroom is a social and recursive practice, from the compositional act of marking/annotating their reading, responding to shared texts, group discussions, collaborative workshops, peer & instructor feedback, and the sharing of a piece of writing.   

In attempting to tease out the significant role that circulation plays in various contexts we have divided up the conference to give three Circulation zones individual attention (though they often overlap).  

  • Circulation For Brainstorming and Ideation: The role of circulating materials and ideas in a way that stimulates ideas to write about 
  • Circulation of Feedback and Suggestions: The process of providing, receiving and reflecting on feedback to inform purposeful revisions. 
  • Circulation as Rhetorical Context: Navigating the contexts of why, where, when, how, and with whom writing is being shared with.  

In posts coming early next week, I will explore each of these zones in more detail. But on a broader scale, by exploring the role of circulation in these phases of writing we look to broaden our definition of Circulation as more than just the final stop in writing, the sending out of “finished” compositions. During the November 1st conference, we will discuss some ways Circulation can play a role in the three zones we’ve identified, share strategies for dealing with the challenges of “Circulation,” and discuss its synergy with the other “Habits of Practices.” Ultimately, framing Circulation as a dynamic practice that is ever-present in an FYW classroom allows us to see it as a way into, a part of, and extending beyond the practice of writing.