Bits Flashback for April 24

Bunny RabbitI have a weakness for bunny rabbits. I encourage them to visit my yard and exclaim happily when they comply. Not so for the folks at Long Beach City College. Their campus was so overrun with cute, fluffy-tailed bunnies that they embarked on a bunny-reduction campaign. The campus is now down to 70 bunnies from an all-time high of 300 rabbits, according to the head of the college’s Rabbit Population Management Task Force.

You think I’m making this all up, don’t you? That’s why I think it would make the beginning of some interesting classroom projects. How do you write about “Rabbit Population Management” persuasively? What strategies will convince readers to take your story seriously? How would you talk about the project with students, faculty, staff, and the public? This one little story from the Chronicle of Higher Ed has so many possibilities for discussing persuasion, business reports, and technical writing!

If you’re looking for other classroom activities and teaching strategies, hop on over to Bedford Bits for more on these entries, which were posted last week:

  • Holly Pappas considers the many concerns teachers face when they assign the personal narrative and wonders how teachers can best respond when students write about intimate or painful topics in The Trauma Narrative.
     
  • Andrea Lunsford describes the peer tutoring program at Stanford in Writing Tutors Save the World!
     
  • Jack Solomon explains why educating students about the complex operations of social class is one of our most important tasks in the teaching of cultural studies in The Middle Class Goes to the Movies.
     
  • Barclay Barrios discusses the difference between Ideas and Examples and shares a response worksheet and some teaching strategies.
     
  • Steve Bernhardt reflects on thirty years of attending the CCCC Convention and describes the highlights of the convention in What’s up at CCCC?
     
  • Traci Gardner reviews a free, online resource classes can use to share student work and discuss current events or pop culture in Paper.li in the Classroom: The Basics.
     

  • Jay Dolmage explores what Disability Accommodations look like in the writing classroom with some specific examples.

A Few Extra Links

Let us know what you want to know about teaching writing or about using digital tools in the composition classroom by leaving a comment. Your response will help shape upcoming posts.

[Photo: Bunny Rabbit by wwarby, on Flickr]

Cake! Bits Flashback for April 3

Chocolate cake sliceThe solution to writer’s block is cake! A round-up of Tips for Fighting Writer’s Block, from the Inside Higher Ed’s University of Venus blog, includes everything from setting rigid deadlines to sitting down for some cake and coffee.

Cake may not be the answer to every problem, but it can’t hurt to give it a try. My suggestion for curing writer’s block? Why not take a break and read one of the new entries posted on Bedford Bits last week?

  • Holly Pappas discusses her techniques to foster a sense of curiosity, inquiry, and wonder in Learning to Ask the Questions.
     
  • A picture might be worth a thousand words. But words paired with pictures? That’s worth even more! Andrea Lunsford discusses Words . . . and Images, and teaching graphic novels.
     
  • What role does the Writing Center play in Writing-About-Writing? Blogger Doug Downs explores how tutors contribute to the pedagogical approach in WAWriting Center.
     
  • What kind of progress students can make in one semester? Barclay Barrios shares another student paper and his comments in More Sample Work: Student Progress.
     
  • High School Bits blogger Jodi Rice asks why people read literature and what reading will look like in the digital age in Storytelling 2.0.
     
  • Where does the military get names for their operations? Reflecting on the Operation Odyssey Dawn, Traci Gardner talks about Naming and the Rhetoric of War.
     
  • Susan Naomi Bernstein reflects on classroom assignments and her own writing in Writing for the Catastrophic Moment.
     

A Few Extra Reminders

We’re still looking for suggestions. Tell me what you want to know about teaching writing or about using digital tools in the composition classroom by leaving a comment. Your response will help shape upcoming posts.
 

[Photo: Chocolate cake slice by alexanderward12, on Flickr]