Amanda J. Hedrick
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Art Moment: PillJoy workshop

9/27/2022

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Put down a finger if you take pills daily. 

Put down a finger if you sometimes forget to take those pills. 

Put down a finger if typical pill sorters remind you of hospital stays, your grandmother's kitchen counter, or the florescent lighting of a CVS. 

Put down a finger if you like fun things. 

Now throw that thumb towards the sky because I have some good news for you today in this Art Moment update!
PillJoy logo - a colorful purple and green pill on a bright yellow and pink triangle background
This month, I attended a workshop with Thredd, the creator of Pill Joy. Pill Joy sells cute, fun, colorful, magical, spooky-if-you're-into-that pill organizers they've made by hand. And when I tell you they are game changing... I mean, just look at them.
These pill organizers start off as the basic ones you're used to but Thredd figured out how to get things to stick to their plastic exteriors. They experimented with all types of mediums before figuring out what works to adhere all kinds of "toppings" to the little compartments. 

Thredd started making these organizers for friends but then the business took off as more and more people wanted to brighten up this neglected corner of our healthcare. 

If you want to know more about Thredd's story of Pill Joy, check out this news segment they were recently featured on. 

This month, Thredd offered their first in-person workshop where they took a small group of us through the whole process of decorating our own pill organizers from boring to absolutely joyful. I was lucky enough to snag a seat since I've been following Pill Joy on instagram for a while now. 

I didn't take a single picture while I was there because I was so busy being present in the learning and sharing space Thredd created that night at Fat Fancy. But someone was taking pictures! And you can see me in some of the shots Thredd shared on their instagram of the event. 

But since these Art Moments posts are all about me being inspired by someone else to create more art, let me show you the pill organizer I made with Thredd's help in the workshop. I'm calling it the Unicorn Convention. 
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Given the opportunity to select from Thredd's amazing collection of toppings, I went full Lisa Frank and chose rainbows, unicorns, sprinkles, and of course glitter.  And let me tell you, I am obsessed with this pill organizer. Who wouldn't want to attend this party???
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Getting to meet and work with Thredd, a fellow queer, disabled maker, has inspired me to look around at my daily habits and see what else could use some joy. If I've been overlooking my pill organizer this long, what else am I not seeing the potential in? 

I'm going to keep thinking on this challenge rather than forcing an answer right away. For now, I'm just going to be grateful for Thredd's creativity in thinking this up and generosity in sharing it with us. Each time I smile at my pill organizer (seriously, who thought I'd be doing that ever), I'll try to remember that joy can be infused in the little, necessary, every day things too. 
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On getting to be a student again...

9/15/2022

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This is the first fall I didn't go back school in more than 30 years. *Insert record scratch here*

I thought I was going to be telling you something surprising, but then the gravity of that sentence hit me. I've just broken a trend I've been sticking to for my entire adult life and most of my childhood! Let's get into it a little bit. 

My teaching career started in the last 2 years of my graduate degree when I accepted a teaching assistantship at the University of Maine. I was taking classes in Feminist Literary Criticism and teaching Composition to first year students, making a whopping $12,000 a year and getting my Master's tuition waived. After the first semester of dividing my mental space between feminist criticism and first year composition, I had an epiphany. Though I'd grown up loving reading (and I still do!), I found I loved teaching others even more. 

I saw the "aha"s in my learners' faces when something clicked and I was delighted. A student told me my class helped her read her first book, cover to cover in English and my heart swelled. Another student told us about his summer wakeboarding accident and I cringed at the reality but marveled at his choice of sensory details. Yet another student came to office hours frustrated and tearful and left smiling and feeling confident about their next steps and I realized the coaching aspects of teaching were pulling me in. 

I didn't fight it.

I switched my focus from feminist criticism to composition studies. I wanted to be the best teacher I could be for my students and learning as much as I could was my first step. My composition courses were my favorites. Learning about how to communicate, connect, teach, encourage, challenge... I couldn't get enough. I finished my graduate program wanting to teach full time and I was lucky enough to be able to do that the next fall at Georgia Southern University in the Department of Writing & Linguistics. 

At GSU, I found my passion in learning and development. I can thank my colleagues for recruiting me into the Georgia Southern Writing Project after my first year at GSU. They pulled me into an immersive, transformative, 5-week summer intensive that changed how I approached teaching and reminded me of the joys of writing for fun and community. I began as a teacher consultant and then became the go to classroom technology person and a few years later, I was co-directing GSWP with my originally assigned mentor from that first summer intensive. I loved getting to create and facilitate trainings for local school teachers and my college colleagues. Getting to learn alongside other engaged faculty was a dream scenario -- teaching and learning in an iterative way that benefits our learners directly. What could be better? 

The 12 years I taught college writing in Georgia, I was able to hone my teaching skills and become better and more effective each semester. At GSU, I moved from a temporary instructor to a lecturer, then a senior lecturer, finishing as Assistant First Year Writing Program Coordinator. 

All this brings me to the present... Fall 2022 and for the first time since kindergarten... I didn't go back to school. I'll have more to say about why later, but I just want to clarify that it isn't at all because I've lost my love of learning or teaching. I'm still super passionate about both. I just think there can be other ways of engaging in the learning process outside of the traditional school system I've made my career in thus far. 

It's not news to any of us that learning happens everywhere, not just inside the walls of classrooms. I'm looking to explore those non-classroom spaces these days. How do we learn outside the standards; outside the defunded, asbestos-filled buildings; outside the lines? How can I jump in and impact the way others see learning? How can my passion help someone else find theirs? 

For now, I have more questions than answers and that's a fun place to be! So much possibility. So many options. 

I said at the top of this post that I didn't go back to school this fall... but that's actually not completely true. While I didn't go back to the classroom in the ways I'm used to -- creating a curriculum, building a course, distributing a syllabus, and teaching about a hundred new learners -- I went back to being a student and soaking up as much as I possibly can about my new options. 

I'm currently finishing up a credential through ACUE (Association of College and University Educators) that is focused on Effective Online Teaching. 
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Click image to go to ACUE's website for this course.

​Though targeted to faculty educators, much of what this credential focuses on is adult learning theory and instructionally sound course design. 


I'm also in the first few weeks of an Instructional Design course through ELVTR with the super knowledgeable Liana Griffin. 

In this course, I'm learning that so much of my education career translates directly into the instructional design world. I'm following her curriculum to build out a course for a professional audience that will show off my instructional designer chops in my portfolio. I'm also meeting a lot of other great folks who are moving out of the education system and into learning and development. My ROI on this class is already solid. :)

So though I didn't go back to a traditional campus this fall, I'm feeling that new outfit, new notebook enthusiasm in a different way. Each time I log into Canvas for my ACUE course or Google Classroom for the ELVTR one, I get that rush of excitement that shows I'm in the right place. I'm still learning and always will be.

As long as I have that, I have all I need. 

What have you learned recently? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!
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Art Moment: Janet Dale's ghosts passing through

9/6/2022

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In this new series I'm calling "Art moments," I'm going to be sharing some piece of art I've encountered and a piece of art it inspired me to make. 

Today, I'm thrilled to kick off this series on the launch day of my good friend's new mini-chapbook! Janet Dale's ghosts passing through is available on Amazon from Alien Buddha Press. Janet's poetry is very cool and I recommend you check out this piece called "I Go Back to October 2018" for some ghosty vibes I think we might be seeing more of in the chapbook. Awesome perk of that link is that you can either read the poem or listen to Janet read it to you. 

Also, take a quick look at the blurb on the back of the chapbook. 
Janet Dale's debut chapbook ghosts passing through is haunted, yes, by the recursive presence of a speaker's lost beloved, their fate "always to be apart." But more than haunted, these poems are haunting--somehow spare and capacious, ethereal and incisive. Dale deftly merges physics with poetics in this elegant conceit, seeking a language that captures essence, until "not even words remain."

--Julie Marie Wade, author of Just an Ordinary Woman Breathing and Skirted
Haunting? Ghost(ing)? Physics? You can clearly count me in here. 

Also, according to Janet herself, this mini-chapbook is 70% new material, so these are poems we can't read anywhere else. I'm so excited to get my hands on it. (It should arrive Friday!!!)

While I wait though... some ghosts passing through inspired art! 
a postcard of the cover of ghosts passing through by Janet Dale. The cover features a black and white photo of an old hospital with vines covering most of the exterior.
I received this postcard in the mail this weekend and the black and white image and serif text reminded me a lot of the local newspaper I've been reading recently. Having just moved across the country and given away all my treasured collage clippings and found items, I haven't yet sat down to make a collage here. I've wanted to... I just haven't felt... ready? 

That changed when I saw this postcard though. Something about the combination of text and image and knowing the hard work Janet has put into getting this chapbook out into the world was just the kick I need to get to collaging. 

I ended up sourcing all the images and texts from several issues of Willamette Week and the collage came together quicker than I expected. Here's what I came up with.  
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Since all my materials came from newsprint today, the contrast is a little lower than I'm used to. It was a great stretch for me, creatively. My style is more loud and shiny than matte and muted. But I think that also aligns more with Janet's cover and the image of Central State Hospital in Milledgeville, GA photographed by Allison Renner.
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They're both a little dark, a little mysterious. Inviting contemplation in a ghostly environment that is both natural and engineered. 

So a big thank you to Janet, for the inspiration to get me back into collage today! And a huge congratulations on the launch of ghosts passing through!

If you are reading this and interested in more of Janet's work, info about the chapbook or upcoming readings, and even more, check out her linktree here.  And let me know in the comments if you've read Janet's work or better yet, were inspired to make something too! 
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Upcycling... the craft that gives back

10/16/2018

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​ A couple weeks ago, I mentioned picking up my first print copy of the gorgeous Art Journaling magazine. Since then, I’ve enjoyed reading the articles and drooling over the art. It’s a new goal of mine to get something published there… but more on that later. 

Today I want to zoom in on one article that really jumped out at me. I had an aha! moment when I read it, and I think it’s worth spending some time with.

A side note before we get into it... I contacted the editors at Art Journaling to ask about sharing some images here, but I haven't heard back. They are in the midst of changing editors right now, so I understand my email getting lost in the shuffle. I feel like this issue is important enough to write about even without their images though. Be sure to pick up your own copy of Art Journaling to see the beautiful images I talk about here!

trash to treasure

​Ingrid Dijkers’ idea for moving trash to treasure was published in the July/August/September 2018 issue of Art Journaling magazine. In “CD Holders with a Story to Tell,” Dijkers walks us through the process of creating one-of-a-kind art journals out of CD cases she found in thrift shops. Dijkers goes a step beyond telling readers what to do by actually showing a number of pages from her upcycled CD case journals. The pages are decorated with animal image transfers and earth toned washes of color. In addition to the narrative-based article on her practice, Dijkers’ provides some bulleted tips for art journalers interested in learning from her experience. ​​
A picture of a black, faux leather travel CD case with sleeves for CDs inside and a zipper closure.
A travel CD case like the kind Dijkers uses for her upcycled journals.


​making it work

The cover of Understanding Rhetoric: A Graphic Guide to Writing, 2nd edition, by Losh, Alexander, Cannon, and Cannon. The cover of Understanding Rhetoric.

When looked at through the lens of environmental friendliness, Dijkers’ article yields much more than an art journaling how to. I am using the concept of critical lenses discussed in Losh and Alexander’s text, Understanding Rhetoric: A Graphic Guide to Writing. Losh and Alexander talk about how looking at the world through different perspectives will allow us to see different things (95).

​In my case, the environmental approach jumped out as I read about Dijkers’ use of discarded (nearly obsolete!) CD holders to house her beautiful art journaling. This upcycling suggests Dijkers cares about turning trash to treasure and being responsible about her use of environmental resources. Her first lines “Oh, those thrift shops! They offer more ideas than I really have time for!” (75) show this is not just a one-time practice of finding inspiration in objects others might consider throwaways. Like the artist’s version of a dumpster diver, Dijkers doesn’t need a pristine, new journal in order to create art. She is clearly inspired to make the old look new and keep CD holders out of the landfill at the same time. Through an environmentally focused lens, Dijkers’ article serves as a challenge for artists to create with what they have.
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​The environmental thread is reinforced in the art journal pages shared in Dijkers’ article as well. Most obviously, Dijkers used image transfer to put black and white pictures of animals onto her pages before doodling on and/or journaling around them. Also, a quick flip through the pages of the article reveals a subtle color scheme that moves from a clay orange through burnt yellow, sage green, and finally sky blue. These are all earthy, natural colors that complement the animals depicted in these recycled journals.

An earthtone color pallette includes 15 colors on a range of backgrounds and behind a number of font colors.
Dijkers' colors can be seen in the pallette above on the far left: H, I, K, and M.
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The inclusion of animals and an earth tone color scheme are examples of intentional composition. Losh and Alexander tell us that intentional composition can be seen when visual elements work together to tell a story (16). In this article, the visuals tell the story of a calm, natural environment. This visual component allows us to see Dijkers’ message about experimentation and reimagining or recycling unused objects as tools for art in another way. I didn’t even notice this color scheme until I really started evaluating the visual argument, but if we think of this article attached to neon, 80’s style art… we would certainly notice that poor fit. Paired well, as they are here, the visual elements of any argument should only enhance the written message.

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Dijkers’ message is not limited to the text of this article, though that already is persuasive. By sharing her actual journal pages (complete with doodles, transfers, and personal writings), Dijkers shows she is practicing what she preaches. Losh and Alexander introduce us to the idea of performance, or the expression of the “fundamental features of your authority and identity” (139). By reading her bio at the close her article, we get a glimpse into how Dijkers performs this eco-consciousness in her everyday life. “Ingrid Dijkers recently moved to rural Michigan into a fairy-tale home in the forest,” her bio attests (78).
A wooden, cabin style home painted a subtle grey green and nestled into woods with trees showing gold, orange, and red fall leaves.
This is not Dijkers' home (as far as I know...), but it is a rural Michigan home that fits her description.

​Her description of the “fairy-tale home in the forest” (78)  is not an accident and shows her love of the outdoors. We’re also told “she is putting the final touches on her newly converted barn studio” (78), again taking the old and repurposing it to make it new. Dijkers is not just engaging in this eco-friendly activity to get published in 
Art Journaling magazine. On the contrary, this environmental focus is part of her ethos and can be seen in many aspects of her life.

Carrying it forward

The strongest aspect of Dijkers’ argument in this article is its subtlety. As we all know from living in the world in 2018, the environment is a big topic of discussion. For better or worse, it’s often a polarizing conversation with “tree hugging hippies” on one side and “climate change deniers” on the other.
A picture of a river view split in half. On the left side, the grass is vibrant green, there are rowers out on the river, and the far bank boasts a thriving city. On the right side, the grass is brown and dead, the water still, and there is no evidence of people.
Viewing any issue as black and white means we miss a lot of the reality.

Instead of jumping into the fray and choosing a side, Dijkers shares one small act she took that allowed her to use non-recyclable materials that might ordinarily end up in a landfill to create beautiful art. By showing art journalers (the target audience of the Art Journaling magazine) the inside of these one-of-a-kind journals, she inspires us to look around among the unused or discarded objects rather than running to the craft store to buy new materials. Losh and Alexander would call this an implicit message (80) because she doesn’t state it outright, but lets us come to the conclusion ourselves while we read about her experience.

​Implicit messages show up for the careful readers and thinkers. Had I been flipping quickly through Art Journaling magazine looking for visual inspiration, I would have missed the environmental message completely. Likewise, if I were on the hunt for journaling prompts, I might have caught the bulleted tips and totally missed out on the visual story. My guess is that many readers of Art Journaling fall into these categories, at least sometimes. I know I haven’t spent this amount of time critically reading the other articles in this issue. It’s not a shortcoming, just a reality of how readers engage with magazines. 

It might seem like I’m getting ready to say Dijkers could improve her argument by making it bolder and more obvious to people soft-eyeing the magazine. But… #spoileralert… I’m definitely not. I think the subtlety of Dijkers’ argument sets it apart from other environmentally focused rhetoric and allows it to reach readers who might be turned off by a strong approach. 

Her argument is simple, unstated, and really... a good reminder of the benefit of moving beyond pro/con stances. The effectiveness of her persuasion is in the ease of it. She’s not asking anyone to change (or even consider!) their stance on the environment. Instead, Dijker is encouraging us to take a small step. And we all know one step leads to two…

These days when politics are so ever-present and so life-changing, it can sometimes feel like we’re always on a soapbox for one thing or another. I know I often feel powerless in the face of laws made way above my head. I feel exhausted by bad news on every social media platform. I feel weighed down by injustices, both those that directly affect me and those that I see affecting other vulnerable populations. 

Dijkers’ argument in “CD Holders with a Story to Tell” reminds me that not every impactful act requires a hard line in the sand, millions of dollars, or a position in political office. Small actions add up. Even one drop creates a ripple. 
A photograph of a water drop creating a ripple on clear blue water. The text
(Click for original, unedited image.)

​What’s a big thing you’re worried about right now? What is one thing you could do to affect it, even in a very small way? 


Tell us in the comments and start the ripple!
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Feels like home to me...

9/19/2018

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Here’s a little something about me you may have caught onto if you know me well: I love people.

Seriously. Most all of them.

​I love talking to people, hearing their stories, and finding out what they care about. Don’t get me wrong, I prize my alone time too… but there’s something so great about meeting someone new or catching up with a trusted friend. Now, here comes the plot twist. One of my favorite groups to spend time with is made up entirely of people I’ve yet to meet in person.
A grid of nine square photos shows a range of artistic styles and mediums to include collage, painting, sketching, paper craft, type face, and mixed media pages.
A screenshot of some of the posts tagged #artjournaling on Instagram on 9/19/2018

​The not-so-little section of instagram where the art journalers come to play has become an awesome source of community for me. Through hashtags and follows, artists who may be journaling in their guest rooms, at their kitchen tables, or in beautiful art studios get to share their work and their lives with each other.

​In 2016 when I started sharing pieces of my early attempts at art journaling, I discovered I shared a lot with the art journaling community beyond our love of art and journaling. Many of the values I hold close are also important in the art journaling community. Take a look at these pages I did this week while thinking about the character of this group.
An open journal spread with a blue/lilac watercolor wash and layers of paper, floral clippings and doodles, and handwritten journaling on the following qualities of the art journaling community on instagram: safe, authentic, positive, social, encouraging, welcoming.
a spread I did on 9/18/18 on the IG art journaling community

​As my spread shows, I found the art journaling community to be authentic, encouraging, positive, welcoming, social, and safe. It’s important to me that the communities I belong to are inclusive and supportive of anyone who wants to be a part of them, so seeing a group of people from all over the globe inspiring and encouraging each other is goal status! And unlike other social media spaces, I have yet to encounter any trolls or negative feedback (except that once when I misspelled Justin Bieber’s last name, but we’ll consider that a special case).
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This community ethos is what jumped out at me again this week when I picked up the latest issue of Art Journaling magazine. I might have been especially aware of their use of ethos since I’m currently reading Losh and Alexander’s, Understanding Rhetoric: A Graphic Guide to Writing, but it’s also kinda my job to be a rhetoric nerd…
The cover of Art Journaling magazine features an abstract, mixed media floral background and four white article titles as described within this blog post. July/Aug/Sept 2018 issue of Art Journaling magazine
Even just looking at the cover of the magazine, we can see hints of the politics I mentioned in my spread. Two of the articles teased on the cover, “How to practice self-care through journaling” and “Empowered women empower women: Celebrating sisterhood with art” emphasize self-advocacy and community. “Facing the challenge of working on a small scale” invites journalers to try something new. The promise of an artist profile will introduce readers to a new-to-them artist or perhaps help them learn more about someone they already follow online.

By previewing these four article titles on the cover, Art Journaling magazine is showing their ethos. Losh and Alexander tell us that ethos is the trustworthiness a speaker develops through their argument. In this case, we art journalers can trust this speaker, Art Journaling magazine, because they’ve demonstrated they share the values of our community. This is all before we even talk about how they feature art journalers’ submissions on their cover and throughout their magazine! There’s no question that this magazine knows their audience (us!) and how to reach us. I’ll be writing more about what’s inside the magazine in later posts, but for today, I just couldn’t get past the ethos. Consider it a love letter to my art journaling community. :)

I’d like to continue this love fest in the comments. What is your favorite part of the art journaling community? What do you see as the core values or ethos of this group?
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For those of you who aren’t (yet?!) part of the art journaling community, I’d love to hear about the communities you belong to that you feel at home in. I can’t imagine the art journalers are the only ones who’ve cracked it!

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And now for something really different...

9/4/2018

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For the next several months, I’ll be blogging on a topic I care a lot about (drumroll, please): art journaling! 

If this term is new to you, the good news is it is pretty self-explanatory. Art journaling is the combination of art and, you guessed it, journaling. Typically this is done in a journal but other than that, the form the art and journaling take is completely up to the art journaler. In my art journaling, I tend use a lot of paint, collage, doodling, patterning, printed pictures, and ephemera. ​
An art journal spread with ephemera, painted patterns, gradations of color, doodles, and handwritten journaling.
A recent spread from my art journal

​I started art journaling in January 2016, so I’m fairly new to the game. If you want to know more about my beginnings with art journaling, you should check out my TEDxGeorgiaSouthern presentation. I’ve led art journaling workshops around Statesboro, co-hosted the July 2018 GlueBook Party (an instagram art meetup), and even incorporated art journaling practices into my first year composition course as brainstorming and organization tools.

Something that makes art journaling so easy and rewarding to share with others is that it is accessible to anyone with very basic supplies. Anyone with a pen and a notebook can do it! Add in some old magazines, a box of crayons, an old movie ticket stub, some stickers, well… you can see how easy it could be to get a lot of supplies without much investment. The most important supplies are creativity and a willingness to try. Because art journaling is personal, it’s not evaluated by any kind of rules or requirements. Anything you put on the page is good! As long as you are getting something from either the process or the product, the art journaling has served its purpose.

One thing I get from art journaling is a sense of community. I choose to share some of my art journaling pages online and through that I can connect with other art journalers. I have friends all over the world thanks to the art journaling community and I am regularly inspired and challenged by them. One thing going on right now that has inspired me is the Creative Bug and @getmessyartjournal collaboration: #creativebuggetsmessy. Here's their intro video. 

In case you weren’t sure what all the paint and excitement was about! Tell us your favorite thing about your creativity then sign up for a free trial to the 30 day challenge! Link in profile! My (@laurenlikesblog ) favorite thing about my creativity is how it connects me to the world. I love being able to translate the beauty around me into something new. It makes me feel like i am adding a little bit of magic to this place i Call home ? what about you? #creativebuggetsmessy #getmessyartjournal #creativebug

A post shared by Get Messy Art (@getmessyartjournal) on Sep 4, 2018 at 11:19am PDT

Throughout September, they'll provide daily prompts, instructional videos, and live instagram sessions. There’s even a free year of Get Messy membership to win, if you complete all the prompts! If you’re interested in checking out #creativebuggetsmessy, you can see membership info on their profiles. If you aren’t ready to pay, the instagram hashtag and live sessions are free of charge and allow you to create some art journaling pages along with the Get Messy folks. I watched a session tonight and it has me itching to get into my journal!

Now I’m curious about your experience. Have any of you tried art journaling? What about art or journaling separately? Let me know in the comments so I can get a sense of what you might like to read about as I go on. 

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Helpless no more: One professor's defense of little questions

8/22/2018

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A photo of classroom table, taken from above. Sitting at the table are five students, all actively on their phones. One student has over ear headphones on the table beside him, another has ear buds tangled in front of him. One phone is angled as if taking a photo of the person taking this photo. An unstaged picture taken before one of my classes began several semesters ago.
In “Can’t or Won’t: The Culture of Helplessness,” Professor Lori Isbell bemoans the growing reluctance of undergraduate students to take responsibility for their own educations. Citing emails from her composition students about deadlines and other obvious, easily answered questions, Isbell hypothesizes students either don’t know how to take control of their learning experience or they just don’t want to try. According to Isbell’s colleague, students email questions that are answered in assignment sheets or course texts to delay working on the assignment or perhaps to elicit the instant gratification they are used to receiving from the technology they’ve grown up with.  Isbell agrees with her colleague on this possible explanation but she also sees universities, like her own, allowing for this helplessness by offering credit-bearing student success courses and mandating prompt faculty response times. Ultimately, Isbell is exhausted by the continuous volley of responsibility between professor and student tiring and regrets that it comprises the majority of her interaction with students.

As much as I wish I could, I can’t pretend I don’t get these emails from students. The “when is this due?” and “what are your office hours?” questions are sometimes emailed, sometimes asked in person. Like Isbell, I wish they’d remembered these things from our first week conversations or their careful syllabus reading. At times I answer these little questions quickly, other times I suggest the syllabus, and yet other times I honestly admit that I don’t remember off the top of my head and I don’t want to tell them the wrong thing. Thankfully, these basic, easily answered questions are not, as Isbell reports, the majority of questions I get from students. Maybe it’s this difference in volume that allows me to see these emails in another way.
    
While I know there are and will always be students who don’t take responsibility for their own learning, I don’t think this is a new issue to be blamed on technology, millennials, or the public school system. Their reasons for shirking responsibility are as diverse as they are and most times I will never be privy to those reasons. These students exist, yes, but I don’t think every email about a basic question already answered on an assignment sheet belongs to one of these irresponsible students. I don’t think we should even assume that most of these questions come from these students. I actually see a very different possibility when it comes to these emails.

    
In psychology, the concept of cognitive load theory explains that our brains only have so much room for cognitive processing. Greg Ashman discusses this in his article, "Why students make silly mistakes in class (and what can be done about it)." As Ashman explains, when we are learning new and difficult things, our brains devote lots of processing power to that new and difficult thing. This can mean that other, more basic things we could easily handle yesterday are now complicated again, simply because we can’t devote the same amount of cognitive processing to them today as we did yesterday. This is why we might forget to specify units when doing Physics homework or why we struggle to get the breathing right when learning to swim a new stroke. Something we’d feel silly for forgetting normally suddenly becomes one too many things for our learning brains to juggle. In composition, students learning to synthesize research might forget to add a source to their Reference list because they’re so focused on incorporating quotations smoothly.

    
Applying cognitive load theory to the composition classroom helps me find a more charitable read for these seemingly helpless student questions. When a student asks what they need to bring tomorrow rather than reading our schedule, I try to think of it as one little piece of the cognitive load I can share with them. If I field an easy question, they can devote more processing power to the tough concepts. Student Success courses do the same by helping students transfer basic skills (like how to write an email or approach a faculty member) to their new environment.


I’ve been teaching first year students for 12 years now, so it’s easy for me to forget how scary my first year as an undergrad felt. When I find myself getting frustrated, I remind myself what it was like to be a first year student: constantly bombarded with new concepts, experiences, and demands each hour. I think back to the time I stood in my dorm room kitchen making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a panicked fog because I couldn’t decide how to prioritize the major projects due that week that I was so far from being done with. I can easily imagine that younger version of myself asking a little question that would seem deflective or avoidant to a faculty member. But I also remember how badly I needed someone to direct me, even just on how to start working. Looking back, I’m sure I was missing a helpful resource I had simply forgotten in the flood of information I was taking in.

If answering a quick email or pointing a student back to a resource is the difference between them crying over peanut butter and sitting down to work, then I’m happy to do it. The way I see it, maybe each student who asks a seemingly helpless question is devoting their cognitive focus to the critical thinking this class requires. The reality is probably halfway between me and Isbell’s takes, but my Prairie Dawn optimism will always pull me to the best case scenario. For my teaching style (and to be honest, my morale), this view on the little questions will keep me happy while teaching and emailing.

I also know that each email I send affects that student’s odds of asking another question. If I can be helpful over a little question, maybe soon they’ll be willing to ask me the big ones too.

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SPLC's Ten Ways to Fight Hate

8/18/2017

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Like many of us watching what is going on in Charlottesville and elsewhere around the country, I am often at a loss for what to do or say. Luckily, there are organizations that make it easy for all of us to educate ourselves and fight back against racism, xenophobia, transphobia, and other toxic manifestations of hate. 

The Southern Poverty Law Center put out a new publication, Ten Ways to Fight Hate: A Community Response Guide and I for one will be reading it very closely. 

Click the image to the right to go to SPLC's Ten Ways to Fight Hate page and either read there or download the full PDF. 

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The Power (or Problem?) of Numbers

10/23/2015

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A navy blue stencil with the numbers 1 through 10 stamped in it.
Having taught College Composition for 9 years now, I know that any time I ask students to include research I’ll get the same response: “So… like… statistics?”

They’re the go-to. The first stop. And for some students, the final answer.

Why though? Why do we see statistics as these great things that make our conclusions that much stronger and our points that much more relevant? If you’re asking me, and let’s just assume for a minute that you are, I think it has a lot to do with our understanding. Numbers are numbers. They are clear. Countable. Concrete.

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Though empathy and critical thinking are tough, nebulous concepts we have to work at, numbers are clean and easy to “get.” There’s a reason we learn them in our very first schooling experiences. In many ways, numbers help us understand our world and our place within it. A few weeks ago, I ran across some numbers that I couldn’t quite let go. I’m still puzzling over them and I’m wondering if maybe you can help me.

The Tweet

On September 22, 2015, The White House shared a simple chart and the tweet “#ItsOnUs to realize we all have a role to play in stopping sexual assault. Take the pledge at http://ItsOnUs.org.".

Though the text of the tweet restates the mission of the It’s On Us campaign, the chart provides new information about college demographics. According to It’s On Us’ research, 6% of college males admitted to committing sexual assault, leaving 94% of college males capable of preventing the same. The campaign shows this breakdown with a stark pie chart in white on a black background with the It’s On Us logo placed inside the 94% portion of the pie. The chart is framed by “It’s on us to step up and stop sexual assault” on top and a link to the It’s On Us website and the It’s On Us hashtag at the bottom.
Screenshot of the White House's tweet regarding the It's On Us campaign. Tweet is accompanied by an image with a black background and white pie chart, representing 6% of college men who admitted to committing sexual assault and 94% of college men who can stop it.
Screenshot of @WhiteHouse tweet (click image for source)
By presenting this chart on the White House’s twitter account, the It’s On Us campaign is reminding the whole country of the issue of sexual assault on college campuses and specifically asking male college students to “step up” and “take the pledge.”

The Attempt

Though this tweet is brief, both because it’s a tweet and because of the minimalist presentation of their data, there’s a lot of persuasion packed in.

One of the most subtle rhetorical moves in the White House’s tweet is concession. Jay Heinrichs, author of Thank You for Arguing, describes concession as more “Jedi knight than Rambo” (43-44). Heinrichs tells us concession allows the persuader to use their opponent’s arguments against them.

For example, in this tweet, the It’s On Us campaign is the Jedi speaker, using the force of It’s On Us detractors’ most common counterargument against them.
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Jedi Knight moves through stormtroopers with a wave of his rhetorical hand. (click image for source -- text is my addition)
Often those who resist talk of the problem of sexual assault or the efforts to prevent it will wave off the issue by saying that not all men are violent and dangerous. Knowing their opponents (often males) will make this case, It’s On Us acknowledges only 6% of college men admitted to sexual assault and asks the remaining 94% to step up to prevent further assault.
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It’s On Us taking the strength out of the #notallmen dismissal really makes sense. In order for someone to dismiss this campaign now, they’d have to change approaches and come up with a new counterargument. This use of concession is very smart for the It’s On Us campaign, since a large part of their audience (college males) could respond defensively to the campaign if they feel they are being attacked. By conceding right out of the gate, It’s On Us is working to make sure that isn’t the case.
The It’s On Us campaign actually does even more to cultivate what Cicero called the ideal audience (57). Heinrichs calls it “the ideal state of persuadability” to have your audience “attentive, trusting, and willing to be persuaded” (77).

Though It’s On Us does not always face the ideal audience, they do their best to create it with this tweet. Most of their effort can be seen in terms of attention and willingness to be persuaded.

First, It’s On Us gets their college-aged male audience’s attention by surveying them and tweeting about their findings. As we all know, audiences are most interested in themselves and the things that directly affect them.
Picture of group of smiling people, taking a selfie with one of their phones.
Group selfie (click image for source)
Second, It’s On Us gets on their audience’s good side by giving 94% of them a virtual high-five for not participating in sexual assault. By identifying them as the overwhelming majority and asking them to take the pledge, It’s On Us is showing the 94% they are already doing the right thing and could very easily do more by joining It’s On Us.

This strategy reminds me of a department store door prizes. As long as you show up on a certain day, they’ll give you a free gift. Their hope, of course, is that you’ll then look around the store and buy something else while they’ve got you feeling happy and special.

In the same way, It’s On Us is hoping to reach out to college males, congratulate them on being decent, and get them to support the campaign while they’re feeling good about themselves. This free praise may go over well in terms of getting their audience attentive and willing to be persuaded.
Once It’s On Us gets their audience attentive and willing to be persuaded, they then have to give them an action worth taking. In this tweet, they do that through the use of patriotism.

While we think of patriotism in terms of identifying with a country, Jay Heinrichs tells us we can feel patriotism towards any group we belong to, especially when that group is threatened by another group’s success (89).

In this tweet, the group we’re to identify with is our own campus community.
Georgia Southern's mascot, Freedom, with football players, stadium, cheerleaders, and fans in the background.
Georgia Southern's Freedom with football team, stadium, and fans in the background. (Click image for source)
It’s On Us’ hope is that college males who value safety for their college community will see that 6% of college males as a threatening group and will pledge to step up. Using patriotism in this way provides a common enemy, anyone participating in or allowing sexual assault on college campuses. 

Heinrichs tells us pathos is more effective than logos or ethos for actually getting people to do something. By tapping into this sense of protectiveness over their campus communities, It’s On Us is motivating all their readers (college males and others involved on college campuses) to take the pledge and step up for their communities.

The Hitch

On the face of it, anticipating your opponents’ counter argument, drawing them to your side with praise, and then getting them to unite against a common enemy seems like it would move people directly from reading the tweet to pledging with It’s On Us. I could see how this strategy could be persuasive and I’ve seen some of my students respond well to it.

I’ve also seen some students react with skepticism and I think they are right in doing so.

The biggest mistake It’s On Us makes rhetorically is in assuming we will trust them blindly. The whole message of this tweet relies on the big gap between 6% and 94%. Between those who have admitted to sexually assaulting someone and those who can stop it. ​
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My students and I question these numbers though. How do they find these numbers? How many people didn’t admit to it but did take part? How much worse would the percentages be if people were honest? ​
In fact, asking these questions is the point of college. Where is your research? Show me your steps. On what are you basing this conclusion? If every student left my class asking these questions, I’d nominate myself Teacher of the Year. Daydreams aside... Since the It’s On Us campaign is specifically targeting college students, they need to anticipate and answer these questions before they’re asked.

​A simple link to their research or mention of their study title would go a long way with this crowd. By showing their sources, It’s On Us would be demonstrating their trustworthiness and as Heinrichs would say, showing they know their craft (69).


Right now, it's a good tweet for those who are willing to blindly agree. College students are rarely known for their blind trust though, so the campaign must support their claims about college students with credible evidence.
As a composition instructor, this White House tweet is important to me and not just because it illustrates the importance of research and citation (thought it does an excellent job of that!). Even more important, I appreciate this tweet’s call to college males, who may not have been told that it is up to them to prevent sexual abuse on their campus. In a stage in their lives when peer pressure is arguably at its highest, knowing where the 94% lies is important.

We are all more likely to stand up for what is right if we know there is a crowd supporting us - whether that crowd is 94% of our peers or a slightly different It seems like a lot to ask for from one tweet, but I really think this short tweet and accompanying graph could make a big difference in campus safety here at GSU and across the country.

If this blogpost has inspired you to check out the It's On Us campaign, their pledge, and how you can help, start with their website. You'll find everything you need there to see how you can help stop sexual assault on our campus. 
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It's On Us Anniversary: A local look

9/23/2015

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This past weekend, the It’s On Us campaign celebrated its one year anniversary. You can find a full write-up of some of the nation-wide celebrations that took place in the White House press release here. One of the greatest things about the It’s On Us campaign is the way the prevention of sexual assault has been brought into public conversations. Between their celebrity studded PSAs and the twitter avatar edits, It’s On Us is popping up all over the place.

The national attention is great, but I’m most excited about some of the trickle down effects I see on Georgia Southern’s campus. Recently, our student newspaper, The George-Anne has been running a series on sexual assault on our campus.
Screenshot of The George-Anne's website. The George-Anne header appears over a draw image of a young, blonde woman surrounded by a dark cloud with the words
Screenshot from The George-Anne's website. Click image to go to site.
As of now, there are three pieces in the series, investigating the issues of sexual assault from a number of different angles. Here are links to the pieces, in case you haven’t read them yet.
  • Sexual assault in our community: Why education matters
  • Sexual assault in our community: Why students don't report it and what happens after
  • Letter from the editor: Sexual assault in our community
In each of the above pieces, students take on this difficult topic of sexual assault and prevention with sensitivity and research. 

In “Sexual assault in our community,” Lauren Gorla tells us to wake up the problem and get involved with stopping sexual assault in its tracks. In “Sexual assault in our community: Why students don’t stop it and what happens after,” Will Price introduces us to a victim of sexual assault; our Sexual Assault Response Team (SART); Joel Wright, our Title IX coordinator; and other helpful campus groups and offices. Price writes about Sex Signals and other campus initiatives in “Sexual assault in our community: Why education matters.” 

Each of these pieces should be required reading for Georgia Southern students, faculty, and staff. The reporting comes straight from our community, so it’s impossible to distance ourselves from what we read. Our George-Anne reporters are doing the work we’re seeing at the national level from It’s On Us at the local level for our school. I applaud them and look forward to a new piece being released on Tuesday.

One of the best things I think the George-Anne journalists are doing in this series is playing to their own and their readers’ ethos. They place themselves squarely inside the Georgia Southern student population and write to us as members of this shared community. Lauren Gorla writes, “It’s up to our community to make this happen.”  Will Price cites statistics from our Georgia Southern University Police Department and shares a story of a Georgia Southern student, knowing these are the cases and people we most care about. In Thank You for Arguing, Jay Heinrichs tells us to “get the group to identify with you and you have won half the persuasive battle” (p. 55). Since these writers are part of our Georgia Southern community, they’ve won me over already. They are writing about us and for us. 

I really think we need to listen.
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    Amanda J. Hedrick

    Story collector, recipe enthusiast, educator, striving for a constant input and output of all things art and learning.

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