Eloquentia Perfecta Ex Machina

In this recording from our Practical Pedagogy roundtable series, three instructors from SLU's writing program (Geoff Brewer, Lexie Broemmer, and Brook Shatto) discuss their tactics for surviving the end of the semester, from scaffolding syllabi to composing dopamine-inducing lists.

Welcome back! In our first episode of the fall, Sheila Coursey sits down with Lauren Terbrock Elmestad and Byron Gilman-Hernandez to discuss their use of legos as tools of multimodal composition. Our thanks to Byron and his students for recording their real-time reactions to the LEGO activity during class, which you can hear excerpted throughout this episode.

Welcome back! After a brief hiatus last spring, we have an exciting new lineup of episodes this fall. Our first episode features Katie Gutiérrez-Glik in conversation with Meha Gupta about transnational identity in the classroom. During her first semester teaching English 1900, Meha reflects on some of the tools and techniques she has used as an international instructor at SLU. Meha is the co-editor of "The Lit Archive," an Instagram-based literary blog and book club. You can find it here: https://www.instagram.com/thelitarchives/?hl=en

Welcome back! In this week's episode, Katie Gutiérrez-Glik sits down with fellow SLU graduate instructors Lexie Broemmer and Sal DiBono to discuss how and why they seek to diversify the curriculum and decenter the literary canon in their 1900 and 2000-level courses at SLU.

In this week's episode, we have a brief and temporary Michigan invasion! Sheila Coursey interviews friend and former colleague Anne-Charlotte Mecklenburg about her work on serial narratives, from Victorian novels to contemporary pop concert tours, and the way that seriality shapes fan writing and engagement. They also discuss how practices of reading and writing fanfiction have influenced their own pedagogy as writing instructors. For those not in the know about the Michigan RhetComp texts mentioned in this episode, they are: Mark Gaipa. "Breaking into the Conversation: How Students Can Acquire Authority for Their Writing." Pedagogy 1 October 2004; 4 (3): 419–437. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/15314200-4-3-419 Mike Bunn. "How to Read Like a Writer" in Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing Vol. 2. Edited by Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky (Parlor Press, 2011): 71-86. You can read it here: https://wac.colostate.edu/docs/books/writingspaces2/bunn--how-to-read.pdf

In this week's episode, Lauren Terbrock-Elmestad sits down with Dr. Amanda Barton to discuss Amanda’s recent transition from teaching for the Writing Program to a new position with the Billikens' First Chapter Program. They spend time thinking about their academic interest in the medical humanities, particularly as it affects their ideas about Cura Personalis and the First-Year student.

This week's episode is a recording of the Lab's virtual roundtable on ADHD Advocacy and Social Media, organized and hosted by SLU Graduate Instructor and Ph.D. Candidate Carol Hogan-Downey. Carol invited Jennifer Parker and Michael Ruffin to discuss their work creating peer advocacy networks on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Jennifer Parker started her page, Jenn Has ADHD, in 2019 to learn more about her ADHD and to advocate for herself. Now, she has reached over 260,000 followers on Facebook, 35,000 on Instagram, and two ADHD support groups with a combined 40,000 members. Jenn’s content draws on her studies in art, her love of memes, and her Maori heritage to promote ADHD awareness and advocacy through peer support. While she works on her own content, she also promotes the work of other neurodiversity advocates and leads a team of moderators in her peer-support group, We Have ADHD—all working toward her goal of ending the stigma about ADHD and furthering awareness of adult ADHD and its many presentations. Michael Ruffin is an ADHD coach and social-media advocate. He entered into ADHD advocacy after developing a following in 2020 as a Dungeons and Dragons Twitch streamer and TikTok personality @Words for Sale. In September of 2020, he was diagnosed with ADHD and started to pursue a career in mental health by becoming a Peer Support Specialist. While becoming more and more educated on neurodiversity, he discovered the similarities and differences between ADHD and ASD that resonated with his own experiences and was diagnosed with ASD in July of 2021. He began posting about neurodiversity in early 2021, amassing over 73,000 followers on TikTok as Words_and_ADHD. Michael incorporates his skills as a writer and actor to spread awareness about neurodiversity and its overlaps with topics of gender, mental health, creativity, and geek culture.

Our first episode of Season Seven is not about the classic 1996 basketball film starring Michael Jordan (perhaps next season). We are, however, featuring three SLU English instructors discussing the role of space in their courses, assignments, and research projects: Jonathan Sawday and the space of the page, Jo Rho and the space of the theater, and Nathaniel Rivers and the process of mapping space.

In our final COVID-themed episode of this season, Sheila Coursey sits down with Martha Allen, a librarian at Pius Library who liaises with Writing Program courses. They discuss how Pius Library has worked with "The Great Pivot" of March 2020 as well as hybrid research resources and practices we might keep for future semesters.

In this week's episode, Sheila talks with Assistant Professor of English Andy Harper about his Fall 2021 course, Spies and Secret Societies in American Literature. They discuss, among other things, Harriet Tubman's role as a spy, early American secret societies, and rhetorical techniques of spycraft.

This week, Byron Gilman-Hernandez and Lauren Terbrock- Elmestad are reprising an episode they recorded in Fall 2018 that addressed ‘stealing’ in the context of pedagogy. They returned to this conversation to explore what has changed about networks of stealing after a year of virtual and hybrid instruction.

In today’s episode, Sheila Coursey sits down with Anessa Kemna and Carol Hogan-Downey to talk about their journeys in getting diagnosed with ADHD. Carol and Anessa share particular techniques or support structures that have been valuable to them as both students and instructors, and they discuss what we might do to make higher education more equitable for neurodivergent students. In this episode, we discuss Kirby Conrod's article "So you're ABD and you're beginning to suspect you have ADHD," which can be found here: https://kconrod.medium.com/so-youre-abd-and-also-you-re-beginning-to-suspect-you-have-undiagnosed-adhd-661c57e99b7d Anessa Kemna's blog, Addapting in the Dark, can be found here: https://addaptinginthedark.com/

In our first episode of season six, Sheila Coursey interviews Katie Gutiérrez about what it means to her to be a visibly queer instructor. They talk about two texts that have influenced Katie’s pedagogical practices, particularly in courses like "Gender, Identity, and Rhetoric" that center conversations about intersectional identity.

In this final episode of Season Five, Sheila Coursey sits down with Colten Biro and Laura Hardin Marshall to discuss giving feedback to and receiving feedback from students in online or hybrid courses this past semester.

In this week's episode, Sheila Coursey sits down with four undergraduate staff members from the Compass Lab: Clayton Hill, Eva France, Lydia Estrada, and Wes Ragland. They discuss past and present work in the Writing Program and Lab and reflect on the last two semesters from a student perspective.

In this week's episode, Sharee Langenstein interviews third-year Ph.D. student Rachel Shields about how research in the medieval digital humanities shapes her approaches to teaching first-year writing. They discuss what it means to be a digital native, techniques for introducing students to the history of academic resource organization, and the importance of tangible objects in the classroom, from rare books to sea otter puppets. This episode was edited and mixed by Eva France.

In this week's episode, Sharee Langenstein sits down with third-year Ph.D. student Nicholas Gomez to discuss his experience as a first-generation college student. Nicholas reflects on how his educational background has shaped his pedagogy, especially when it comes to showing and receiving vulnerability.

In this episode, Lindsay Adams and Rachel Shields discuss how their backgrounds in creative writing shape their approaches to teaching rhetoric and composition.

For today's episode, Sheila Coursey interviews Katie Eck about her experiences as both an instructor and a student during the Spring 2020 and Fall 2020 semesters. Sheila and Katie discuss their techniques for online and hybrid teaching, the importance of centering student access, and the permanent changes that COVID-19 might bring to their pedagogy.

In this first episode of EPEM Season Five, Lauren Terbrock-Elmestad, Nathaniel Rivers, and Sheila Coursey explore the Compass Lab's longstanding relationship with the writing program and the rapid evolution of the lab amidst COVID-19 as we reimagine multi-modal education and composition.