Honoring Our Students: Instituting Feminist Practices in the Composition Classroom

1. Honoring Our Students: Instituting Feminist Practices in the Composition Classroom Megan Adams, Ph.D. Student in Rhetoric and Composition adamsm@bgsu.edu

2. Play encourages dissonance, reminding us that writing is an imaginative, world-building activity. - Laura Micciche “The kind-of writing I finally want these students to be able to do brings together the personal and the political, the private and the public, into writing which is committed and powerful because it takes risks, because it speaks up clearly in their own voices and from their experience, experiments with techniques of argumentation and skillful organization, and engages, where appropriate, the insight of other writers.”- Pamela Annas We cannot separate theory from practice. sWe can begin to perceive rhetoric as a “multidimensional human enterprise with multidimensionality being defined as engagement across one or more boundaries, whether crossing entails sectors of knowledge, forms and genres, modes of expression, sociocultural logics, material circumstances, or other possibilities” – Royster & Kirsch

4. Encourage Multimodal Writing

5. Implications/Takeaways • As teachers we are learners as well • Sometimes relinquishing authority is good • A kind word and extra encouragement often goes a long way • Open yourself up to mentoring and sharing relationships with students that inspire you • Do not be afraid to “teach outside the box”

6. …and if all else fails, never underestimate the power of Starbucks and a cute cat