The Rhetorical Situation: Our Launch into a New (Academic) Year

Welcome to the fall 2024 edition of our program’s blog, “The Rhetorical Situation”!

My name is Lara and this year marks my second working with the Teaching Team. I’ll be publishing the blog this academic year along with the help of my Teaching Team pals Brenda, Brij, and Ellen.

Before we get to any updates this quarter, I would like to extend a special thank you to the incomparable, creative, brilliant, and kind Lisa Schilz, whose work on the blog I would always look forward to. Lisa’s work created a fun reason to press pause on work to learn about our wonderful colleagues, mark our calendars for important dates for conferences, workshops, or trainings, and to get a great reading (or listening) recommendation from a group of pretty cool humans. Thank you for all your work in curating all of this information that has stitched our community together, Lisa! The Teaching Team and I will be working hard to create an enjoyable break for you from whatever with this blog. We hope you like it!

IMPORTANT DATES TO KEEP IN MIND

• Learning about “Ungrading”: TLC is organizing an Ungrading learning community in winter 2025. Participants will attend three sessions (Wednesdays 2:30-4:00 p.m. in TLC Lab at McHenry, on January 22, February 12, and March 5). You can learn more about this learning community here. Fill out the interest form by December 13.
• Writing Program Symposium previously known as the “mini conference” to take place on Friday, April 18, 2025.

Welcome to our Writing Program Community Corner: a place to find moments of connection, opportunities to connect with other faculty and campus community members, and reminders of upcoming community-building events.

• DEI RESOURCES (From Robin): A campus-wide DEI Resource List for the Writing Program is in the works! For now, please be aware that you are invited to join any campus-wide faculty community, development and support groups. These groups meet regularly and are funded by the CP/EVC    with a goal of engaging and creating conversation among faculty across  ranks and disciplines to improve faculty retention and success. Below you will find contact information for the current affinity groups that are open to interested faculty: 
  • Academic Mothers (chaired by Lindsey Dillon, lidillon@ucsc.edu)
  • Asian American/Pacific Islander (chaired by L.S. Kim, lskim@ucsc.edu)
  • Black (co-chaired by Courtney Bonam, cbonam@ucsc.edu and Myriam Telus, mtelus@ucsc.edu)
  • Disabilities & Chronic Illness (chaired by Megan Moodie, mmoodie@ucsc.edu)                                           
  • Indigenous (chaired by Katie Keliiaa, ckeliiaa@ucsc.edu)
  • Latinx/Chicanx (chaired by Alegra Eroy-Reveles, alegraer@ucsc.edu)
  • LGBTQ+ (chaired by Phil Hammack, hammack@ucsc.edu)
  • Women in STEM (chaired by Rebecca Braslau, rbraslau@ucsc.edu)
• The Don Rothman Awards Ceremony took place last Friday, December 6 via Zoom. It was first time having the chance to attend and I’m here to affirm what the Rothman Committee and Amy have continued to say: “it’s an incredibly heartwarming way to celebrate the end of the term, with evidence of excellent writing and pedagogy within the Writing Program!” It was such a privilege to listen to these students read their work, hear from their loved ones, and from their faculty mentors: Dina El Dessouky, Lindsay Knisely, and Brij Lunine. Actual image of me tearing up after listening to Dina introduce her student, Roberto Lopez, and then hearing his essay, “Staircases of Longing: The Fear of Change”:

• Teaching Circles: The Teaching Team is pleased to invite you to join another round of Teaching Circles for Winter 2025. You can see the description in the survey, but most important to know is that this is a non-evaluative opportunity for sharing and receiving insights into our work and enjoying a chance to build a community around our work, whether it be challenges, triumphs or goals.  If you have any questions, contact Ellen Newberry (esnberry@ucsc.edu).

• Survey Responses: What follows are responses to a survey I sent to WP faculty on Monday, November 25. I asked everyone the following questions:
  • How have you been holding space for the major political and social changes we’ve experienced this quarter–as educators, citizens, and people?
  • What’s brought you joy about this new academic year?
  • What have you been reading?
  • What’s been the biggest challenge you’ve faced this quarter?
  • What’s been the most pleasant surprise you’ve had this quarter (inside/outside/beyond the classroom)?
  • Are you setting any intentions (academic and/or personal) for the new year? What are they?

• RIDING THE WAVES AND HOLDING SPACE BY:
  • Processing with friends and neighbors
  • As Chair, I have been trying to create spaces for faculty to share their ideas and feelings, and I have worked to avoid acting like I have “the answers” (both because I don’t, and because if I thought I did that still wouldn’t be all that helpful)
  • Slumping into borderline depression and digging into work to keep myself from focusing on the next four years. 
  • Keeping in touch with my online network of activist friends.
  • Trying to come up with(and help make happen) community events that are productive and heartening—and that let us give voice to this moment.
  • Listening to Ralph Nader, Robin D.G Kelly and Bernie Sanders
  • A final formal project for W2: assigning students to write auto-ethnographies about social justice and/or trauma.
  • Lots of small and big group check-ins with students around reading NYT news including exercises from Joanna Macy’s book, Active Hope, which helps with both the election and climate change. 
  • In one section, our shares brought forth surprising revelations about the kinds of “manosphere” podcasts several students listen to (Joe Rogan et al.) and how it got them excited about the candidate who won. 
  • I do hold space for any position to be expressed. Privately, I didn’t feel safe then adjusted the exercise so other students who may not have felt safe could decide what to share.

• SILVER-LININGS (LIGHT IN THE CRACKS): 
  • My students–they’ve been lovely this quarter.
  • Expanding my friend circle, both within and outside of UCSC, has been something that is finally coming to fruition and bringing me joy.
  • I’m teaching Merrill Core this year, as I usually do. The Provost and one of our faculty put in a ton of work over the summer to update/streamline/rethink the course, and the changes are great.
  • Working on the Rothman committee! Meeting with Online Reading Group!
  • Experiencing the activism of some of my students who poured themselves into writing postcards.
  • My 3 pet ducks are as fat and sassy as ever.

• BOOKWORM VIBES (WHAT WE’RE READING): 
  • Too many political articles and posts! I need to stop doom scrolling!
  • I’ve been steadily working my way through everything Miriam Toews has written. She’s very dark and VERY funny (except Women Talking, which is inexplicably her most famous book).
  • Best reads in the last few months: Straight Acting by Tosh; Season of the Swamp by Herrera; Lightborne by Phillips; The Cautious Traveler’s Guide to the Wastelands by Brooks; The Sons of El Rey by Espinoza; A Last Supper of Queer Apostles by Lemebel; You Dreamed of Empires by Enrigue; Ours by Williams; Wandering Stars by Orange; James by Everett; The Mars House by Pulley; Martyr! by Akbar.
  • Mediocre thrillers and stuff about neuroscience.
  • Too much New York Times. Also, books of poetry by poets I interview on the Hive Poetry Collective podcast. Recently, Excursive by Elizabeth Robinson; The King of Prussia is Drunk on Stars by Marc Vincenz; Mojave Ghost by Forrest Gander.
  • I’ve been working my way through Qiu Xiaolong’s Inspector Chen mystery stories.

• CHALLENGES:
  • The biggest challenge has been trying to talk to my son (12 years old) about a possible, then a real, Trump presidency.
  • My absolute despair about the direction our country is headed and how many vulnerable people are going to pay a crazy price for the pleasure some people take in the ‘luxury’ of hating.
  • Teaching W2 during fall quarter for the first time in years (decades?). Thanks to colleagues who suggested that the quality of writing is weak probably because many students are retake W2 in the fall after failing it at least once
  • Other than hearing I need spinal fusion surgery… in class, students who don’t show up for class then write asking for ways they can make up [for] the absence. We only meet 10 times in a hybrid class, so it’s like teaching lots of individual classes. In general, this cohort is having a hard time reading guidelines and doing the work. The pandemic generation?
  • Discovering all the creative new ways students are using AI to do their work for them.

• PLEASANT SURPRISES:
  • The little box of chocolates from North Carolina that my wife gave me for by b’day. She ordered it because she wanted to do some spending in that region after the hurricane. They arrived very late b/c hurricane and collapse of infrastructure, but they were delicious—especially the chocolate stout truffle ones.
  • Reconnecting with an old friend.
  • I had to cut down this huge oak tree in my yard, which I truly loved. (It was diseased and dangerous.) In response, a pineapple guava tree got a LOT more sun and starting blooming like crazy. Also, this week, two rose bushes that are newly sunned are also having their first-ever fall blooms (they previously only bloomed in the summer).
  • New information about demographics and cultures of students at UC Santa Cruz from reading their auto-ethnographies.
  • Being invited to co-edit an anthology of poetry, Winter in America (Again) with poems responding to the election.
  • When a sold-out hotel in Palo Alto messed up my hotel reservation and I ended up sleeping on a cot in an “emergency” room, the hotel manager fully refunded the $800+ room charge when I complained.

• NEW YEAR INTENTIONS:
  • I don’t think I’m there yet. Last year my intention/resolution was to watch more Nicolas Cage movies, and I did that (though I could do more!). I plan to come up with something equally silly for 2025.
  • Eat fruits and vegetables, take walks, don’t live too much inside my mind, keep working to see beauty and give thanks.
  • My intention is to not get so busy, as I did this quarter, that I stop attending yoga class multiple times a week.
  • Spending time with my daughter before she graduates from high school. Lots of physical therapy and health management to prep for spine surgery. Continuing to try–not easy–to simplify my courses to accommodate the new cohort of students who are struggling. Trying to find time over winter break to work on my book. Being thankful for community to face the coming political changes.
  • Keep a list of every book I read in 2025.

• Faculty Profiles: The Teaching Team is continuing with the tradition established by the Pedagogy Development Committee (PDC) where Lisa Schilz would send along Google forms to solicit questions from new and continuing faculty. This quarter, to facilitate a smooth transition to the Teaching Team taking point on sharing faculty profiles, Brenda Sanfilippo, and I, Lara Galas, have participated in our version of the survey to share some “fun facts” about ourselves. I look forward to reaching out to WP faculty to get your responses for next quarter’s introductions. Here are the questions Brenda and I responded to:
  • How long have you been teaching in general?
  • When did you start teaching for the Writing Program (Quarter & Year)?
  • Have you taught at/do you teach for any other programs here at UCSC besides Writing? For any programs outside of UCSC? 
  • What brought you to teaching (in general and/or here at UCSC)? 
  • What is your favorite spot here at UCSC? In the world? 
  • What do you like to do outside of teaching? 
  • Any fun facts about yourself? 
  • Do you have any fur, human, or plant babies? 🙂 If so, tell us a little about them. 

• Brenda:
  • Since 2003, when I was a graduate student teaching German at UCLA.
  • I was a GSI for Writing 2 beginning in 2012. I became a Lecturer in fall 2014.
  • I teach American war literature classes; a class on supporting student veterans for the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; and a writing workshop for the Dickens Day of Writing every year.
  • Initially, I needed to support myself in graduate school and after I completed my PhD. I wanted to keep teaching because I love learning and love being in a community of learners.
  • I love to travel. My favorite spots to travel are Japan, Bora Bora, and Paris. I am happy anywhere in the Monterey Bay area.
  • I love the Golden State Warriors and watching K-dramas. I also really love musicals.
  • I used to be a singer when I was much younger. In high school, I sang the National Anthem with a small group at a Dodgers game. I lived in Italy for several years. I love learning languages. I’ve studied German, Italian, French, Russian, and am now working on Korean and Japanese.
  • Yes, I have two children. Noah is 17 and Charlotte is 8. I also have a yellow Labrador named Arrow. I’ve been married for 21 years.

• Lara:
  • I’ve been teaching since the fall 2016 quarter as a GSI for the Writing Program–where does the time go?!
  • Since the fall quarter of 2017, I also taught at the core course for Cowell College until last year. I’m now full-time with WP–yay!
  • I always share with my students that despite my enthusiasm as their instructor, I didn’t always want to teach. In fact, I started my PhD program thinking I was going to lead a lovely and solitary life in the archives. And, then, I started being a TA. In the fall 2013 quarter, I was a TA for a nineteenth-century American fiction course–something right in my wheelhouse of interests. Learning from the more experienced TAs–and the professor–but, especially the TAs–I fell in love with teaching. In fact, our own Lisa Schilz, whose praises I’ve already sung with her mad blogging skills, was one of those experienced TAs who never hesitated helping out a fellow grad student. I was so inspired by her wisdom and passion for teaching. I learned how to take up space in front of the classroom facilitating conversations and learning with students–something I’ve never forgotten. Thank you, Lisa! 😭 
  • This campus has SO MANY of my favorite spots like the Oakes College Mural Room, the Gloria Anzaldúa study room and altar in McHenry Library, and the rock garden in Pogonip. I’m from UT so I’m always up for exploring desert and mountain spaces. I also love to travel and hold several places from around the world close to my heart like the Reading Room at the British Library, the Plaza de las Tres Culturas en Tlatelolco, Mexico City, and a remote spot at Machu Picchu where I cried tears of gratitude for surviving my 3-day trek and tapping into my inner strength.
  • I have an-almost 5-year-old cat named Sammy after my brilliant and kind undergrad mentor, Dr. Wilfred Samuels. The name is the only thing that connects these two because Sammy the cat, while perhaps brilliant, is mostly mischievous, cuddly on his terms, and always down to trick you into rubbing his belly so he can give you a “love bite.” 
  • I also enjoy tending to my little potted herb garden with lavender, cilantro, rosemary, and oregano. I also have two indoor plants–my office plant, which I realize now has no name, and Doña Pelos (yes, Mrs. Hairs), who brightens the corner of my living room with her full beautiful palm leaves.

Did you know there’s an entire UCSC website dedicated to Sammy the Slug illustrations? Well, now you do and that’s where I got the images to decorate our community corner; I hope you enjoyed them!

This section of the blog, Teaching Tools, offers resources for you within and beyond the classroom. If you have a tool that you’d like to share, please email me (lgalas@ucsc.edu) the name of the resource, a description of it and how you use it, and anything else you think we need to know about the resource.

• DesignPlus (From Heather): Are you feeling like your Canvas is a little boring? Is everyone sick of the vertical scroll? Do you need a fast and easy way to make updates? Check out this new tool!

• More on DesignPlus from Heather:
  • To create this page in Canvas, I (Heather) adapted a premade DesignPlus template. The result is a summary/schedule Canvas homepage with links to key aspects of the course. At the bottom is an accordion menu (not expanded in the image) that lists the work due that week and links students to those assignments. Every Friday, I replace this page with a new one. That way, when students click on “home” in Canvas, they are offered immediate context for their upcoming work. 
  • DesignPlus is far easier to use than the normal Canvas interface. Easy-to-add features like accordion menus allow students to control the amount of information they see at one time—helpful with lists or text-heavy pages. And DesignPlus helpfully prompts me to attend to accessibility issues like heading levels and alt text. 
  • I and a few other people attended several hour-long training sessions in June 2024 (available here). These lessons were immediately applicable—so much so that I was able to use them to quickly spruce up my Canvas shell ahead of the start of Summer Session. I highly recommend it!If you want to learn more about DesignPlus, here is the cidilabs website and Themes Gallery. You can also reach out to Dana Conard (dconard@ucsc.edu) at UCSC for assistance or ask faculty who are using it, like Heather, Brenda, Terry, and Taylor.

• Teaching Workshop Write-Up (From Brenda):
• In October, Robin Dunkin, Noori Chai, and Roxanna Villalobos of the Teaching and Learning Center presented a timely workshop on “Preparing for Critical Current Events in the Classroom.” 
• Critical current events can bring up feelings of fear and anxiety in both faculty and students, making it difficult to teach and learn. The workshop focused on ways to respond to hot moments and difficult conversation as well as how we can show up for each other as a community.
• If recent events have made you anxious in the classroom, please check out the workshop materials. You can access the workshop slides, resources page, and other materials in the Google Folder here. There is also a TLC page on difficult conversations.

What do you meme?

This last section of the blog–What do you meme?–is a place dedicated to silly fun in the form of memes. My hope is that in the future the next blog writer will fill the space with their version of silly fun. 

One icebreaker I’ve used with students is asking them to bring in their favorite memes, printing them out, posting them on the walls around the classroom and asking them to stand by their favorite memes. Then, I ask them to discuss what’s funny about it–and, as we progress through the quarter–I ask what they think the rhetorical situation of their meme is. I hope this anecdote underscores the importance of learning via play. 

Anyway, enough of my thoughts, here’s the meme that changed my life by lighting a fire under my butt one quarter. Thanks to Amy for sending it along and forever changing my relationship to grading! (See, memes are powerful means of communication!)

Be on the lookout for another Google form from yours truly asking you for your favorite teaching/learning/education-themed memes. 

Bring on the laughs and we wish you all the best of luck as we wrap up this quarter and this year! Peace out, 2024!