A Dozen Tips for the Undergraduate Student

How to approach class

1. Go to class. Although this point should be obvious, many students don’t consider the consequences of missing class. In college, attending courses is a crucial "job." In the humanities, attendance is crucial because class conversation develops organically as students construct knowledge; therefore, there is no way to replicate the exact lessons learned in class. Even in courses where instructors post lecture notes online and don’t take attendance, going to class sets aside time every week for learning the material instead of saving it all for the end. Attending class also makes an ally of your instructor, who undoubtedly will be more cooperative if able to recognize your face.

2. Participate to the degree that your instructor suggests and your abilities can accommodate. By participating in class you remain alert and focused on the topic. Because knowledge is created and passed on through dialogue with others, your participation is practice in knowledge-making. For example, in this class you will try out various analyses of texts and discuss historical and cultural events relevant to the questions at hand. This practice will make you more adept at the skills needed to succeed in the class.

3. Take notes. Instructors do not speak just to fill the minutes of class. They relay knowledge that they believe is necessary to your success. Even if you don’t yet understand the point or the significance of the information, instructors’ explanations may come to make more sense later or provide a launching point for a question. If they repeat something or write it down, make sure it ends up in your notes. Research shows the very act of writing will improve your comprehension and retention. In this class, we'll practice hand-written notes, which I'll discuss more in depth later.

4. Fake it, if you must. Even if you have no interest in the topic at hand, at least maintain interest in your performance in the course and in being courteous. Instructors are people too, and they do not enjoy speaking to a group of blank, distracted, or antagonistic faces. Faking a better attitude may help you develop one too. Psychological studies in cognitive dissonance theory suggest that if you act in ways that conflict with your beliefs—for example, if you pay attention in class even though you don’t care about it—you will tend to change your beliefs to align with your actions. Doing things you don’t want to do, but know may help you, is a powerful way to make yourself into who you want to be.

5. Try to avoid distractions. To the best of your ability, don’t let outside things distract you from class like cell phones, games, Facebook, or college newspapers. Yours is the multi-tasking generation, but research suggests you aren't doing it as well as you think you are. Some instructors find it very offensive when student text in class. Moreover, your distractions may disrupt other students. Some students who text in class make a show of looking around for the teacher and voicing audible responses or noises to their texts. They often don't contribute to group work as effectively or complete in-class assignments. I will never "call you out" for texting in class, but if I see that it affects your work, you will naturally lose points for poorer quality assignments. If you have a pressing issue, such as awaiting an update on a sick relative or scheduling a doctor's appointment, please let me know, and you can take your call and then step out of the classroom.

How to complete assignments

6. Follow directions. Instructors create directions for a number of reasons: to facilitate learning, to increase the ease of grading, and to provide a common ground for understanding. Always read prompts and directions, and when you finish a major assignment, return to the prompt to make sure you've got everything covered. Moreover, use examples as a guide by discerning the formulas / patterns they reveal. For example, sample papers in our course will have correct MLA formatting, and as we will discuss, many will make successful writing moves. If the example is double-spaced in 12 point font, for instance, follow those guidelines. Look at the topic sentences, and use them as models. In our class, examples can often demonstrate more clearly how students might write than abstract guidelines.

7. Never, under any circumstances, cheat. In the ethics of academic work, plagiarism dishonors the university, disrespects instructors and peers, and discredits yourself. When students cheat they place themselves at great risk--they might fail the course, receive a mark on their transcript, or face expulsion from the university. I will do my part to create unique assignments, to space out the writing process, and to create flexible deadlines so that students don't have incentive to cheat. Please do your part in knowing that no assignment is worth plagiarizing. When I worked as an undergraduate advisor, I saw multiple cases of cheating, and let me honestly say, it is unpleasant. Students usually suffer from great regret, undergo uncomfortable court-like proceedings, and hear an earful from disappointed parents.

How to communicate with an instructor

8. Know the class policies. Many universities view the syllabus as a contract between student and instructor, and even in less strict views, it provides a guide for the course. As a result, students are responsible for all the information the syllabus contains, and many instructors feel that "ignorance of the law is no excuse." If you anticipate a problem with any policies, discuss your concerns with your instructor. If you need accommodations based on different abilities, you have a right to have these met. You'll usually need to register formally with a university office, often called the Office of Disability Studies. Try to let your instructor know of any situation or accommodations beforehand (unless impractical) so individual circumstances may be discussed.

9. Be courteous in e-mail. E-mailing your instructor is not the same as e-mailing your best friend, and some instructors feel offended by the tones that students use.  To be safe, you might follow more formal rules of polite communication. Begin the e-mail by addressing your instructor by his/her preferred name, follow with your message, and then close with your full name. Hostile or accusatory emails will often do more harm than good. You have a right to stick up for yourself and to solve problems with an instructor, but there are more rhetorically successful ways of doing that. If you find yourself in an highly emotional state, wait until you cool down to compose the e-mail, or write an angry one that you don’t send. This tip, in school and life, will save you many regrets.

10. Know "trigger phrases" for instructors. As instructors, we hear many of the same comments from students over and over, so they can become "triggers" that cause great frustration. For students, it's perhaps the first time that you've made such a comment, and it may feel like you are being punished for not knowing a secret language. Here's my advice: If you want someone to help you, try to put yourself in your their shoes and think rhetorically about your audience. Here's a short list of common triggers: "Did I miss anything important in class?" To instructors, each day is a chance to build knowledge, so yes, it is important. "How many pages is the paper supposed to be?" or any other question answered in the instructions/prompt. Instructors take a lot of time to create documents so students will have the information they need and answering these questions detracts time from class planning. "I didn't know we had anything due today." In my class, you are welcome to submit late work, but not knowing about course work (provided online, in syllabus, on in class) could tank your grade, so be careful. "What is my grade?/How many absences do I have?" In college, you will be responsible for keeping track of your performance in the class, and you will probably receive no progress reports as you did in high school. I suggest jotting down grades and absences on the syllabus, so you always have them on-hand.

11. Do not be afraid to visit an instructor’s office. If an instructor encourages you to visit during office hours, do so when necessary. Don’t let your fears or lack of initiative hold you back from learning. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness; rather, it demonstrates maturity and self-awareness. I ask students to schedule meetings beforehand when possible, that way I can be sure to be at my desk and students don't have to have to wait. Another tip: When you approach a cracked or closed door, give a hard knock, and wait to be invited in.

12. Tell the truth. I have created guidelines for absences and late work that make it unnecessary for you to explain your exact circumstances. In this way, I hope I have eliminated the need for students to lie to get me to "bend the rules." Instructors can often see through lies about missed classes or unfinished assignments and lose sympathy for students as well as incentive to help. Even with a “good excuse,” though, you must realize that in school, as in life, you must accept the consequences. If those consequences are not unfair, prejudiced, capricious, or malicious, your instructor will be applying the similar principles to your situation as she would to another student in the same circumstances. The best advice I can give you, then, is this: be aware of the consequences of your choices, make the best choices you can in a given situation, and graciously accept the consequences of your actions when fair.

Some parting words: Try to appreciate your college experience. There’s a reason for the saying “knowledge is power.” Be empowered through your learning. Find things that truly interest you, and begin the journey of becoming an expert. Share your knowledge with others. College is a privilege not afforded to vast groups of people.

Metaphors for the Mind

Directions: First, name the metaphor in the following quotes: the mind equals what? Next, analyze and critique the metaphors. What does the metaphor usefully tell us about the mind? What does it problematically imply about the mind?

At the end, consider all the metaphors as a type of set, a conceptual metaphor as George Lakoff calls them. More generally, what two things are compared in all of these examples. What is the A = B for the overall set? Now, think about these metaphors in their historical context, what do you notice about each individual metaphor and the context in which it was created? In other words, why these particular metaphors at these particular times? Can you make a larger statement or argument about how people create metaphors of the mind?

1. Galen, physician and scientist during Roman Empire, 200 A.D. (quote from  Rebecca Schwarzlose "Modernity, Madness, and the History of Neuroscience")

“pneuma fills the brain cavities called ventricles and circulates through pathways in the brain and nerves in the body just as water flows through a tube”

2. Julien Ofray de La Mettrie, L’Homme Machine, 1747

On the human brain and body: “a machine that winds its own springs—the living image of perpetual motion . . . man is an assemblage of springs that are activated reciprocally by one another”

3. Metaphor popular during the Industrial Revolution, usually dated as approximately 1760-1820; quote from Nicholas Carr The Shallows

There was a “metaphor that represented the brain as a mechanical contraption. Like a steam engine or an electric dynamo, the nervous system was made up of many parts, and each had a specific and set purpose that contributed in some essential way to the successful operation of the whole.”

4. Allen Newell, Herbert A. Simon, and John C. Shaw “Empirical Explorations of the Logic Theory Machine” (352), 1964

They describe a “functional equivalence between brains and computers . . . Our theory is a theory of the information processes involved in problem-solving and not a theory of neural or electronic mechanisms.”

5. Christiane Paul, “Neural Networks vs. Computer-Networked Environments” 2002

The neural network of the brain exhibits the same fundamental structure as that of social or computer networks. The brain can be understood as an assembly of distinct modules, each of them responsible for different tasks, such as speech, language, vision. In neuroscience labs, magnetic resonance imaging techniques — which use radio waves to probe the pattern of blood flow in the brain, revealing how much oxygen its various parts are using at any moment — are used to see these modules in action. This process reflects the level of neural activity.

Punctuation is Rhetorical

Punctuation does more than adorn words; it tells us how to read words. At the end of this exercise, I hope you will be able to think more critically about punctuation in all its various roles: creating meaning, controlling tempo, and conveying emotion.

Group Work

To learn how to analyze punctuation deeply, summarize the message of the text and explain how the punctuation contributes to that message. What does the significant punctuation usually tell us in any sentence? You might describe the role/"rule" of each mark, which you are welcome to Google. What effect does the mark have on the content?


1. Examine the effects of the punctuation in these titles:

Attention. Deficit. Disorder.

Mestiz@ Scripts, Digital Migrations, and the Territories of Writing



2. Examine the differences between the following statements, created solely by punctuation. Why does one of the versions produce a more humorous effect than the other?

Say ‘NO’ to Drugs. From the NMB Police D.A.R.E Officers.	Say ‘NO’ to Drugs from the NMB Police D.A.R.E Officers.
A woman without her man is nothing.	A woman: without her, man is nothing.
He eats shoots and leaves.	He eats, shoots, and leaves.
Let’s eat, mother.	Let’s eat mother.
Dear John: I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we're apart. I can be forever happy--will you let me be yours?	Dear John: I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men, I yearn. For you, I have no feelings whatsoever. When we're apart, I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?

3. Examine the effects of the parentheses & italics.

From “Let American be America Again”
-Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.



4. Analyze the effects of the ellipsis, present in one textual variant. 

From Percy Bysshe Shelley "Ozymandias"

I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

5. Analyze the following rhetorical questions. How does the fact that the sentences are questions affect their meaning? How do they work on an audience?

Will we be better off if more Americans get a better education? Will we better off if we depend less on foreign oil and more on our own ingenuity? Will we be better off if we start doing some nation-building at home? Will we be better off if we bring down our deficits in a balanced, responsible way without gutting the very things that we need to grow? When we look back four years from now, or ten years from now, or twenty years from now, won’t we be better off if we have the courage to keep moving forward?
--President Barack Obama, "Remarks" 

Can't Get Enough Punctuation?

Kathryn Schulz, "The 5 Best Punctuation Marks in Literature"
John Dawkin, "Teaching Punctuation as a Rhetorical Tool"
Jennifer Schuessler, "If Only Thomas Jefferson Could Settle the Issue: A Period is Questioned in the Declaration of Independence"
Anne-Marie Womack "Punctuation Matters" in The Pocket Instructor: Literature, edited by Diana Fuss and Bill Gleason for Princeton University Press.

Statistics and Rhetoric

The Basics on Numbers and Rhetoric

Joanna Wolfe's "Rhetorical Numbers: A Case for Quantitative Writing in the Composition Classroom" published in CCC (2010). For my students, a 6.5 page version is available on our class website.


Often students assume that argument does not function within fields that strive toward objectivity like math Famed statistician Nate Silver, though, writes, “The numbers have no way of speaking for themselves. We speak for them. We imbue them with meaning” (9). Numbers, while "true," have little value until they are brought into the world—until the minus sign means a withdrawal from your checking account, until three equals the number of pizza slices you have for lunch, or until the flu virus spreads exponentially in your city. Raw data must be interpreted and that interpreting always requires a person who is situated, biased, flawed, and emotional. These are the types of problems that students can evaluate with rhetoric.

Even with a closed-system like math, the rules are not created in a neutral vacuum. For example, our base 10 system groups items based on increments of ten—it takes ten ones to push a number over into the tens column and ten groups of ten to overflow into the next column to the left, the hundreds. There are symbols available for 1-9, but after that a single column can contain no more. Doesn't it “naturally” make sense: grade school children counting on their ten little fingers? In reality this system of numerical organization is dependent on culture and is not a universal. The Mayans in fourth century AD used a base 20 system (Encyclopedia of American Indian Contributions to the World 28); California’s Yuki tribe had base 4 and base 8 numbering systems. Some scholars believe the Mayans counted on their fingers and their toes; the Yuki counted the spaces between the fingers (When Languages Die 173-175). Not to be limited to body digits, ancient Iraq used various systems including base 120 and base 60 (Mathematics Across Cultures 103). Mixing things up even more, the Dozenal Society of America has promoted since World War II the use of a duodecimal system, in other words, learning to count in base 12. Among the benefits: alignment with systems of measurement (12 inches to a foot, 12 donuts in a dozen) and fractional simplicity—1/2, 1/3, and 1/4 of 12 all create nice whole numbers. All of these systems of numbers, from the way we count them up to the way they take on meaning, depend on culture and context, on the rhetorical situation.

Cold Open Video to Begin Class

Pros and Cons of Public Opinion Polls (listed on my Cold Open Videos Post)

Lecture

Class Work

Even though all statistics are rhetorical and biased, not all statistics are created equally. Like all rhetorical moves, statistics can be stronger or weaker, and people can employ statistical methods in better or worse ways. Let's identify some ways that statistics commonly go wrong.

Videos to Discuss

"Did You Know?"

"Wealth Inequality in America"

Captain America "Statistics Song"

More on Statistics

Some Examples of Misleading Statistics

Tim Wise Colorblind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equity  (93-96): In this section, Wise compiles analyses of faulty statistics that have been used by racism skeptics. These skeptics claim that the success of Asian Americans in the United States disproves racial inequality. The numbers more accurately suggest that when all other things are equal in education, location, and skills, Asian Americans are paid less than white Americans because of discrimination.

Metaphors for the Student

Metaphors influence public policy. In Texas over the last 5 years, for example, politicians have used metaphors describing the student as a customer to change evaluation procedures for faculty, changes which received national attention. Student evaluations became more important, and for a while the university awarded money to professors with high ratings (Student Recognition Awards for Teaching Excellence). Now job postings for the A&M system include "The Texas A&M University system requires excellent customer service skills of all applicants."

Class Work

1. What metaphors for viewing students does each author embrace?

2. What metaphors does each author reject?

3. Analyze the implications of these metaphors—think deeply. What are the connotations and associations with each metaphor for the student?

4. What are the benefits of each metaphor? What are the problems? Do you think any of these metaphors are false analogies? Why or why not? Which metaphors seems most appropriate?

1. Truma, Mary “Small MBA program in Austin Pioneers‘ Students as Customers'” Approach to Higher Ed” Oct 2011 American Independent.

Founded seven years ago, an intensive MBA program in Austin pioneered the customer satisfaction philosophy that is driving facets of education reform at other Texas public universities today. The Acton School of Business, a nonprofit institution taught by non-academics in the entrepreneurial field, was born from the collective idea of four former University of Texas at Austin professors. Since its inception, the one-year program has rewarded its instructors with financial bonuses based on weekly student evaluation reviews. The questionnaires ask students to rate their professor and course experience on a five-point scale. High professor ratings can lead to a $30,000 bonus, while low ratings nudge professors out at semester’s end. A forced curve system is said to circumvent bias from students based on grades.

“We are very focused on students as customers,” said co-founder Jeff Sandefer, an oil and gas entrepreneur. Ranked by BusinessWeek as one of the top 10 entrepreneurship professors in the country, Sandefer likened the classroom to a free market. “We break the idea that promotes ‘teacher as parent’ and ‘teacher as approver.’ We let classes set their own level which is always further ahead than ours.”

2. Fish, Stanley “Deep in the Heart of Texas” June 21, 2010 New York Times.

A number of responses to my column about my high school education rehearsed a story of late-flowering gratitude after an earlier period of frustration and resentment. “I had a college experience like yours,” the poster typically said, “and I hated it and complained all the time about the homework, the demands and the discipline; but now I am so pleased that I stayed the course and acquired skills that have served me well throughout my entire life.”        

Now suppose those who wrote in to me had been asked when they were young if they were satisfied with the instruction they were receiving? Were they getting their money’s worth? Would they recommend the renewal of their teachers’ contracts? I suspect the answers would have been “no,” “no” and “no,” and if their answers had been taken seriously and the curriculum they felt oppressed by had been altered accordingly, they would not have had the rich intellectual lives they now happily report, or acquired some of the skills that have stood them in good stead all these years.

The relationship between present action and the judgment of value is different in other contexts. If a waiter asks me, “Was everything to your taste, sir?”, I am in a position to answer him authoritatively (if I choose to). When I pick up my shirt from the dry cleaner, I immediately know whether the offending spot has been removed. But when, as a student, I exit from a class or even from an entire course, it may be years before I know whether I got my money’s worth, and that goes both ways. A course I absolutely loved may turn out be worthless because the instructor substituted wit and showmanship for an explanation of basic concepts. And a course that left me feeling confused and convinced I had learned very little might turn out to have planted seeds that later grew into mighty trees of understanding. “Deferred judgment” or “judgment in the fullness of time” seems to be appropriate to the evaluation of teaching…

Now an entire state is on the brink of implementing [a “customer satisfaction” style of teaching]. Backed by Texas Governor Rick Perry, the plan calls for college and university teachers to contract with their customers — that is, students — and to be rewarded by as much as $10,000 depending on whether they meet the contract’s terms. The idea is to hold “tenured professors more accountable” (“A&M regents push reforms,” The Eagle, June 13, 2010), and what they will be accountable to are not professional standards but the preferences of their students, who, in advance of being instructed, are presumed to be authorities on how best they should be taught. A corollary proposal is to shift funding to the student-customers by giving them vouchers. One respondent to the June 13 story in The Eagle got it exactly right: “In the recent past, A&M announced that it wanted to be a top ten public university. Now it appears to be announcing it wants to be an investment firm, a pharmaceutical manufacturer, and a car dealership.”

3. Bermudez,  Jose Luis “Students are not college customers” Sept. 2011 Houston Chronicle

Are students customers? For some, understanding that students are customers is the key to solving ongoing budget problems. For others, even mentioning the words "student" and "customer" in the same sentence is betraying the fundamental principles of higher education. Who is right?

Universities certainly have customers. For us at Texas A&M University, the state of Texas is a customer and we serve it in many ways. We provide a high-quality education to young Texas women and men, enhancing the skills of the work force. Students and faculty work together on research improving the economy and quality of life in Texas. And the university itself is a powerful economic engine for the local community. In some respects our students are obviously part of the customer base. Universities are in the restaurant and hotel business. They are subject to the same constraints and obligations as any other restaurant or hotel. Likewise for athletics facilities and tickets to sporting or artistic events.

But these services are not part of our core mission as a leading research university. Our mission is to create and transmit knowledge. We create knowledge by doing research. And we transmit knowledge by teaching. This is the heart of the issue. Even though we are transmitting knowledge to students, that doesn't make them customers. The real customers are the people on whose behalf we educate our students. This includes the state of Texas; the government agencies, private companies and branches of the armed forces that employ our students; and it includes all those whose lives are enriched by contact with graduates of a great university driven by academic excellence and its own unique spirit.

It is true that students and their families pay for the education that universities provide. But there are things that we pay for without thereby becoming customers. It is better to think of the money students pay for their education as an investment. They are investing both in their own future and in the university to which they have entrusted their education. We can measure the return that students receive on this investment. It takes different forms. One is financial. Texas A&M provides an outstanding "payback ratio" when graduate-earning levels are compared to tuition, fees and living costs. In fact, Texas A&M was recently ranked first in the nation for its payback ratio by Smart Money magazine. There are other, indirect, forms of return on investment. I have met many in Texas and elsewhere who have told me how their lives have been transformed by a single, transformative learning experience — often in an arts or literature course in the College of Liberal Arts.

[The current budgetary climate] will involve discussions with many different groups of stakeholders, customers and investors. But these discussions will only be constructive when we move beyond the idea that students themselves are customers. Universities do have customers. And they educate students on behalf of those customers. But the students themselves are not the customers.

4. Taylor, John S. “Absolutely the Best Dentist” Abbreviated. The School Administrator (2000)

My dentist is great! He sends me reminders so I don't forget checkups. He uses the latest techniques based on research. He never hurts me. And, at 52, I've still got all my teeth. When I ran into him the other day, I was eager to see if he'd heard about the state’s new initiative to help him succeed in his work. I knew he'd think it was great....

"Did you hear about the new state program to measure the effectiveness of dentists with their young patients?" I said. “They will just count the number of cavities each patient has at age 10, 14 and 18 and average that to determine a dentist's rating. Dentists will be rated as Excellent, Good, Average, Below Average and Unsatisfactory. That way parents will know which are the best dentists. It will also encourage the less effective dentists to get better," I said. "Poor dentists who don’t improve could lose their licenses to practice in South Carolina."

"But that's not a fair way to determine who is practicing good dentistry."

"Why not?" I said. "It makes perfect sense to me."

"Well, it's so obvious," he said. "Don't you see that dentists don’t all work with the same clientele? So much depends on things we can’t control.”

"For example," he went on, "I work in a rural area with a high percentage of patients from deprived homes, while some of my colleagues work in upper-middle-class neighborhoods. Many of the parents I work with don’t bring their children to see me until there is some kind of problem and I don't get to do much preventive work.

"Also, many of the parents I serve have allowed their kids to consume way too much candy and soda from an early age, unlike more-educated parents who understand the relationship between sugar and decay.

"To top it all off," he continued, "so many of my clients have well water that is untreated and has no fluoride in it. Do you have any idea how much difference early use of fluoride can make?"

"In a system like this, I will end up being rated average, below average or worse. My more-educated patients who see these ratings may believe this so-called state rating actually is a measure of my ability and proficiency as a dentist. They may leave me, and I’ll be left with only the most needy patients. And my cavity average score will get even worse. On top of that, how will I attract good dental hygienists and other excellent dentists to my practice if it is labeled below average?"

The program still sounded reasonable to me, so I asked, "How else would you measure good dentistry?"

"Come watch me work," he said. "Observe my processes."

"That's too complicated and time consuming," I said. "Cavities are the bottom line, and you can't argue with the bottom line. It's an absolute measure."

"You don't get it," he said. "Doing this would be like grading schools and teachers on an average score on a test of children’s progress without regard to influences outside the school, the home, the community served and stuff like that. Why would they do something so unfair to dentists? No one would ever think of doing that to schools."

5. Pausch, Randy. The Last Lecture (2008)

I don’t fully reject the customer-service model, but I think it’s important to use the right industry metaphor. It’s not retail. I’d compare college tuition to paying for a personal trainer at an athletic club. We professors play the roles of trainers, giving people access to the equipment (books, labs, our expertise) and after that, it’s our job to be demanding. We need to make sure that students are exerting themselves. We need to praise them when they deserve it and to tell them honestly when they have it in them to work harder. Most importantly, we need to let them know how to judge for themselves how they’re coming along. The great thing about working out at a gym is that if you put in effort, you get very obvious results. The same can be true of college. A professor’s job is to teach students how to see their minds growing in the same way they can see their muscles grow when they look in a mirror.



6. Perry, David M. "Faculty Members are Not Cashiers." The Chronicle for Higher Ed 17 March 2014.

For years now, corporate language and thinking has invaded academe....[T]he attempt to shift the world of higher education into the business paradigm seems rational to administrators: Without customers--i.e., students--faculty jobs will be cut, programs shuttered, and staff members 'downsized.'

Meanwhile, students (and their families) are taking on ever-increasing amounts of debt, paying higher tuition, and fearing they will never earn enough to make those costs worthwhile....They've paid their money--or they will over the next 30 years or so--now they want service.

But public discourse has consequences for how we think and act...Students who believe that they are mere customers are selling themselves short, as are the faculty members and administrators who apply business-speak to the classroom. Students are not customers to be served. They are far more important than that...

Perhaps I'm a romantic, but I believe in teaching as a vocation and a craft, not a sale. I believe that it's possible to turn a class into a microcommunity of learners and teachers. Such an approach yields some of the power back to the students and makes us collaborators, all governed by expectations, feedback, evaluations, and conversations.

Gun Debate Metaphors

Multimedia to Begin Class

"Loaded Words: How Language Shapes The Gun Debate"

Class Work

Analyze the following sets of metaphors. First determine the metaphor repeated by each selection. Next, analyze how each author uses the particular metaphor. Which side do you think benefits most from the connotations of that particular metaphor?

CASE 1

Barack Obama, “President Addresses Vigil for Sandy Hook Shooting Victims”
Since I’ve been President, this is the fourth time we have come together to comfort a grieving community torn apart by a mass shooting. The fourth time we’ve hugged survivors. The fourth time we’ve consoled the families of victims. And in between, there have been an endless series of deadly shootings across the country, almost daily reports of victims, many of them children, in small towns and big cities all across America -- victims whose -- much of the time, their only fault was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In the coming weeks, I will use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens -- from law enforcement to mental health professionals to parents and educators -- in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this. Because what choice do we have? We can’t accept events like this as routine. Are we really prepared to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard? Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?

Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President of NRA, “Standing Guard: Making Our Nation’s School Children Safer”

With the horrific series of mass murders culminating in the cold-blooded killing of children and teachers at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., last December, this latest iteration of “gun control” is entirely directed at making the sane pay the price for unthinkable acts committed by the insane. It is the root of the civil disarmament movement in America today.

But for the evil acts of these and other deranged killers, all of the sane people in America are supposed to pay the price with the loss of our freedom. On its face, that very concept is, well, insane. And the gun-banners know it. They cynically exploit these tragedies and their elite media enablers amplify what they, too, know to be a big lie: that, somehow, homicidal maniacs are going to be stopped through legislation, as if you can legislate morality, or sanity, for that matter.

In late January, NBC headlined its coverage of a Biden meeting and quoted Obama’s official gun-ban czar as saying, “Nothing we’re going to do is going to fundamentally alter or eliminate the possibility of another mass shooting.” So what on earth is all this push for massive new gun controls on innocent citizens about?

CASE 2

Tom Brokaw on Morning Joe

Gun control "reminds me a lot of what happened in the South in the 1960s during the civil rights movement. Good people stayed in their houses and didn't speak up when there was carnage in the streets and the total violation of a fundamental rights of African-Americans as they marched in Selma, and they let Bull Connor and the redneck elements of the South and the Klan take over their culture in effect and become a face of it. And now a lot of people who I know who grew up during that time have deep regrets about not speaking out . . . Now it's time for the people who do have strong feelings, who are feeling that they can't do anything about it, to kind of band together and have something to say here."

David A. Keene, “We Will Prevail” NRA President’s Column
The Sandy Hook murders gave the president and his allies in Congress, the left-wing media and activists the political opportunity they had been waiting for. . . .

What the president and his allies didn’t count on was your deep belief in freedom and the Constitution, the tenacity of those of us dedicated to preserving the rights handed down by the framers of our Constitution and the good common sense of most Americans . . .

We are awake now. There are millions of us and we will not be cowed. The struggle to preserve our rights will get ugly, and there will be additional attempts to demonize us, divide us and limit the rights of gun owners who have never done anything wrong.

Millions of Second Amendment supporters are rallying, speaking up and letting their elected representatives know just how they feel. [There are] tens of thousands of new members joining the NRA and the continuing flood of calls to Congress are making it very clear that we will Stand and Fight when our rights are threatened. If we don’t let up, we will prevail.

Bob Scheiffer on CBS News
Let's remember: there was considerable opposition when Lyndon Johnson went to the Congress and...presented some of the most comprehensive civil rights legislation in the history of this country. Most people told him he couldn't get it done, but he figured out a way to do it. And that's what Barack Obama is going to have to do . . . What happened in Newtown was probably the worst day in this country's history since 9/11 . . . Surely, passing civil rights legislation, as Lyndon Johnson was able to do; and before that, surely, defeating the Nazis, was a much more formidable task than taking on the gun lobby.

CASE 3

NPR Barbershop Segment, “Is Public Numb to Mass Shootings?”

IZRAEL: Thank you for the info, Michel. All right, fellas, so some people say these stories won't get the same attention that earlier shootings did, you know, and that maybe Americans are just getting a little too used to this kind of violence. Paul Butler, you live in the D.C. area. Do you see - do you think there's any truth to that at all?

BUTLER: Of course. I work about a mile from the Navy Yard. And it was kind of weird to go outside on Monday and wait in line at the food truck as if, blocks away, 12 people had not been gunned down. So I don't know if we're desensitized or if we're just suffering from combat fatigue because I've got some bad news - there's going to be another mass shooting this year and then another one after that. We know that from statistics. But is that supposed to change the way that I live my life? Am I supposed to be scared every time I go to work? I'm not going to live that way. So I wouldn't call it desensitized - I would call it a way of coping with a violent, scary world.

Emily Miller, “Inside Obama’s War on Guns: Rick Perry Decries Effort to Disarm Americans.” The Washington Times
The biggest fight in history over Americans’ right to keep and bear arms is being waged today. There were attacks on the Second Amendment in the early 1990s with the passage of the Brady bill and the “assault weapons” ban. The gun-control battle of 2013, however, could easily see the greatest losses of Second Amendment rights ever.

There are two key factors that make this assault more serious: billionaire New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who is willing to spend anything to win, and a longtime anti-gun fanatic Barack Obama, who is applying the full power of the presidential bully pulpit for the gun-grabbers’ cause.

Jules Witcover, “Obama’s Limited War on Guns” Chicago Tribune
The rich and influential Bloomberg so far is waging a more pointed and expansive war on the NRA and the nation's gun culture than is the man in the White House. Obama's pitch to Congress that the recent gun victims on the streets and in the schools of America "deserve a vote" pales in comparison to Democratic [predecessors].

President Obama should do no less now in the fight against gun violence, regardless of Harry Reid's grim reading of the prospects of restoring the assault weapons ban in the Senate. Better to fight and go down swinging than to concede defeat once again to the NRA and its grip on weak-kneed or wrong-headed lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Introductions

Students often struggle with introductions because they rely on two rules for introductions: 1) start broad and 2) catch the reader’s attention. Broad is relative to the rest of the paper, though, and the advice of Catherine Prendergast at First Year Comp describes the issue well: “In reality, the best introductions start specific. After that, they get even more specific.” So instead of starting out by describing “the beginning of time” or “today’s society,” think about the specifics of your paper.

Introductory hooks (like beginning with a question, opening with a startling fact or statistic, or crafting a narrative) only become useful if the introduction also 1) creates a substantial rhetorical context that 2) teaches the reader something new. Audiences are often interested if they feel like they are learning from reading. To engage audiences in this way, it just takes a little research on the rhetorical context.

Authors always speak, write, or perform within contexts. They respond to various statements, events, structures, and beliefs that came before they took part in the “conversation” on their topic. Your author(s), too, is in dialogue with other texts. As you introduce the text you are analyzing, then, you will want to consider the following questions: Why did this writer contribute to this topic at this particular moment? What cultural contexts do they draw on? What motivated them to communicate now? One of my students called this the “trigger;" rhetorical scholars call it kairos. You can create powerful introductions by discussing the timeliness  and occasion of the text, those things happening contemporaneously or which have historically informed the text.

In the following example, I provide the rhetorical context for a short dialogue. You can apply the principles and questions to your own article.

            Ben: Want to grab dinner with me tonight?

Cara: Sure, where are you thinking?

Ben: I’m pretty hungry, but I don’t know what I’m in the mood for.

Cara: Well, I know you usually don’t like Italian, but a new restaurant down the street is getting good reviews. They have pizza and salad, too, if you don’t want more traditional dishes.

Now, say we are analyzing Cara’s final argument. Cara wants to convince Ben to eat Italian food. What is the rhetorical context for her claim?

Cara’s Rhetorical Context	Some Principles of Rhetorical Context	Application Questions for Rhetorical Context
Ben spoke directly to her in conversation	Writers often respond directly to the words or actions of others. Writers join a conversation with people talking about the topic at the same time—sometimes directly (as here), sometimes indirectly.	Who else was talking about this issue around the same time your author was? What conversations is (s)he entering?
A critic released a review of the restaurant	Writers often respond to experts commenting on an issue in a new study, statistic, interpretation, or argument.	What experts presented findings on the author’s topic before (s)he wrote the text? What statistics emerged to show the significance of the issue?
The restaurant just opened	Writers often respond to current events, cutting-edge ideas or revivals of older ideas.	What events dealing with the topic occurred around the time the author wrote the article?
Ben doesn’t like Italian	Writers often respond to prevailing attitudes from individuals or from the culture at large.	What are the prevalent cultural attitudes about the topic? Does the author go with or against the grain of these attitudes?
Ben and Cara are hungry	Writers respond to things that affect them, their personal experience. Biography always informs writing.	What personal interest does the author have in the topic? Did something happen to the author to make her/him deal with this topic?

Assignment: Locate 2-3 academic sources that help build the rhetorical context for your text.

Think of it as setting the stage or describing the social milieu. In other words, you will want to provide relevant contemporaneous information about the issue/debate the speaker is addressing (e.g, overuse of technology, gun control, dedication of a new monument, etc.).

Your sources might describe current/historical events, disagree with your author and so show the debate, or provide biographical information. Your goal is to provide context for your readers who will know less than you about the article and its historical moment. Teach them something new.

Find Sources: You might start with a general web search on the topic of your text. First, limit it to the year the text was published.  You can always expand the date range if you need to. Read especially reputable sources like newspaper hits. You might also start with newspaper sources to get the facts first. For access to many newspapers at once, use your library website’s subscription to Proquest Historical Newspapers Database. If you don't have access, you can conduct a similar search through Google News Archives.

Student Examples:                                          

Research:

Question: I originally went looking for a text that addressed the changes to Medicare coverage for obese patients. So, what news articles can help me get the facts about the Medicare obesity debate in America around 2004?

Method: Search Proquest Historical Newspapers Database through library website

Search Term: Medicare Obesity 2004

Source: Found good news sources in New York Times

Question: What other (reliable) writings can I find on the Medicare obesity debate in America around 2004?

Method: Search Google. Look for reputable sources, not just random blogs or pages.

Search Term: Medicare Obesity 2004

Source: Found a lot of sources such as  Washington Post and Gallup

Question: What else was happening with obesity around 2004 in America when this comic was published?

Method: For web keyword search (google), Work on specific search terms: what, when, where?

Search Term: Obesity America 2004

Source: Found a useful statistic

Sample Introductions to Critique:

1. By 2004, more than one in three adult Americans were obese (Ogden et al.). In response to the problem, the United States government changed Medicare policies to cover certain obesity related treatments. Specifically, "the new policy... remove[d] the phrase 'obesity itself cannot be considered an illness'" to newly qualify treatments (Glassman). The legislation spurred debates over funding obesity with proponents of the plan arguing that the change would provide life-improving interventions and prevent premature death (McMurray). Yet 75% of Americans in a 2004 Gallup poll reported believing that obesity was due to "bad eating and bad lifestyle habits" as opposed to a "disease" (McMurray). Political cartoonist, Jeff Parker, sides with this majority. In the cartoon "Sick of Fat," Parker argues that Americans are to blame for weight problems and that the United States government not only inflates these problems by claiming obesity is an illness but also ignores the real problems of other countries.

Works Cited

Glassman, Mark. "Deletion Opens Medicare to Coverage for Obesity." New York Times 16 Jul. 2004.

Higgins, Marguerite. “Obesity Deemed an Illness.” The Washington Post.com 16 July 2004. 10 Aug. 2004.

Ogden, CL and MD Carroll, LR Curtin, MA McDowell, CJ Tabak, KM Flegal. “Prevalence of Overweight and Obsesity in the United States, 1999-2004.” Journal of the American Medical Association 295.13 (5 Apr. 2006): 1549-55. 

2. Obesity carries many stigmas in contemporary American culture, such as lazy, sedentary, and excessive. These labels reflect the prevailing view that obesity is a behavioral and therefore preventable problem. But as obesity affects more and more Americans—over one-third of United States adults were obese as of 2004—the United States government has displaced blame away from the individual American (Ogden et al.). In the summer of 2004, the United States Health and Human Services decided to “remove language in Medicare’s coverage that states obesity is not an illness” (Higgins). This change will allow individuals on Medicare and Medicaid to receive funding for obesity related treatments, and more broadly, it will influence the way Americans think about obesity. In “Sick of Fat,” political cartoonist Jeff Parker argues through the juxtaposition of American and the “third-world” that obesity is a moral disease caused by the excesses of American life. In contrast to the third world, America maintains excessive wealth, excessive power, excessive self-interest, and excessive disinterest in other countries.

Works Cited

McMuray, Colleen. "Public: Lifestyle, Not Disease Causes Obesity." Gallup.

Ogden, CL and MD Carroll, LR Curtin, MA McDowell, CJ Tabak, KM Flegal. “Prevalence of Overweight and Obsesity in the United States, 1999-2004.” Journal of the American Medical Association 295.13 (5 Apr. 2006): 1549-55.