The project to “create a genre” is continuing and I enjoy it a lot. It was a necessity before I felt ready to write my own contemporary works. I feel that students may have a story they wish to tell and write and could feel that its genre is undefined or that it does not fit in any existing genre exactly. Or students may be interested in the process to see where it leads. I have done it now myself and it is not yet completed. (I always assign students a project I have done myself so that I can speak with from experience. As I have been completing this project, I did the steps all out of order. So, I will keep that in mind as I am teaching it. What I did first was define a reason why the genre is needed (& how it seems to be missing) through personal reflection and a similar genre that just wasn’t encompassing my modern needs and I named it. The second thing I did was define a bit more about what the genre would include: voice and audience. The third step is the personal and professional reasons I have posted below which was a reflection I was able/ready to make connections with after doing the first steps. Perhaps students can do the steps in any order and just place the chapters in the portfolio in a certain order. We will see. This sequence-lesson is still being designed.

At the beginning stages there is inquiry, and further developments, about how the new genre differentiates itself and why a new genre was necessary.

“What is Syakara” by Grace Pearson

A project used for Native English Speaking Composition class as well as for students in Composition that are Second Language Learners.

The comic design is meant to be fun and simplistic. And the genre topic “Spaghetti” was chosen with careful consideration because it was derived after narrowing many genre topics and is perfectly suitable for this project. (I also want to leave as many topics as possible available for my students to choose from. They will not be able to use my example “Spaghetti” but I have a lot of confidence that they will find a genre they will enjoy writing about.

An important concept about Digital Journals/Gardens is that “the garden” or the “digital space” is never actually “completed.” It can always be changed, rearranged, edited, & added to.

One of the first assignments for the composition digital garden curriculum I am developing is a proposal project in which students present and “defend” their design choices. As an English 101 Composition teacher I do not necessarily require a defense of design choices. But this is a course to prepare students for real-world scenarios academically and professionally. (I trust that you know what you ae doing! I think you have a design and plan and that it is all going to work out and make sense. This is not the way people approach judging projects in the world. So we are creating proposals and explaining our designs to be prepared to defend our ideas in the future when necessary.)

Particularly since I have chosen an artistic design and eclectic theories to help inform the themes of the project it is easy to discern why I may need to defend those aesthetic choices and design ideas. (For example “The Perfected Mess” is one of the themes/theories I have chosen as I created the visuals.) Students are really just creating a journal in composition class and learning the process of making a digital garden. There isn’t a way to fail the proposal in my class.

The assignment will help ground and organize student ideas for design and themes which they may not have included from the beginning without prompting and wished they had later on. The proposal is therefore an organizational tool for cohesion.

A world of digital gardening.

In SLA we want to learn how to find a quote that is suitable. We also want to be able to articulate what works in any design and what does not. So we will learn vocabulary for discourse about literary texts and other artistic designs that often accompany them which would be useful terminology in the workplace.

Grammatically, Dialectically, Kinesthetically, and Dramatically Getting Serious About English Grammar: Modals of Obligation and Politeness for Learning English as a Foreign Language

Why be obliged? Must you?

Exploring obligatory language through an external and internal lens.

On a scale of 1 to 10, You are an 11!

Lessons exploring formal and informal English language.

An exploration about which literary theories and theorists are important to include in English 101 courses and university courses for English as a Foreign Language?