A gif of a cat standing on its back legs, wearing boots, holding a sword, wearing a cape and a hat. Another, smaller cat stands behind the first cat playing a small guitar.
Welcome:
The winter 2025 quarter came and went and here we are on the precipice of a new adventure: the spring quarter filled with excitement for new classes, ideas, and the exchange of knowledge? Sure. And, we’re also closer, but still so far, from summer break, which we know is not an actual break for almost everyone.
With gratitude to the Teaching Team comrades for their unwavering support, intellectual exchanges, and great company.
Thank you to those faculty who responded to the end-of-the quarter questionnaire I sent out at the end of last quarter. And, a special thanks to Jamila Kareem, who is featured in our Faculty Spotlight.
Les deseo suerte, ganas, y amor for the beginning of this spring quarter!
Important Dates for April:
WP Symposium (online with an in-person reception to follow) THIS month on Friday, April 18 from 9 AM to 2 PM; followed by an in person reception in WP Conference Room 245
In-person faculty meeting on Tuesday, April 15 from 12-1 PM in HUM 202
TLC Convocation with Dr. Siva Vaidhyanathan on Thursday, April 24 from 5-8 PM at the Merrill Cultural Center (in-person and virtual registration required for this FREE event)
Finally, be on the lookout for the spring Teaching Circles Google form from Ellen next week!
Community Corner:
Faculty Spotlight
The Teaching Team is delighted to feature our newest member of the teaching faculty, Jamila Kareem, Associate Teaching Professor.
These are the questions Jamila 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.
A picture of Jamila, smiling, wearing a yellow dress and a white sweater, with a white flower on the left side of her head, stands in front of a pond at the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco.
It’s weird to think about, but I started teaching in 2012. Over a decade at this point.
Fall 2024
Not yet!
I believed that higher education writing education structures under served people who look like me and come from where I do–the hood, the ghetto, the slums, whatever you want to call it–so as someone with the access to knowledge and opportunities that could help change that, I wanted to play any role I could in bringing about change.
I’m not familiar with the names of things yet, so at UCSC, I’ll say the Arboretum. In the world, maybe Verona, Italy or Santorini, Greece. I had great food and danced to fun music in both of those places. As a chronic introvert, home is always a favorite.
Can I say sleep? Other than that, listen to, watch, research, obsess over K-Pop and K-Dramas. Star Trek is my other love, so I often have old episodes of TNG or DS9 on while I’m cleaning.
I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m ARMY. Always willing to chat about anything related to that. I love horror films, especially psychological and weird horror, so any recommendations are welcome.
🙁 Unfortunately, no. My dog of 12 years died in 2019 and I haven’t gotten another pet.
Interested in being featured in our next Faculty Spotlight? We’d love to hear from you. Complete this form.
Next up in our Community Corner, I’m sharing the responses to the end-of-the-quarter questionnaire I sent out at the end of the winter quarter.
As a refresher, I asked the following questions:
Is there a HIGHLIGHT from your winter quarter classroom that you’d like to share?
Is there a LESSON you learned, your students learned, and/or you and your students learned together this quarter?
Do you have any spring break adventures you’re looking forward to embarking upon?
Do you have any “bring on the spring” rituals you participate in to celebrate a new, sunnier, and warmer season?
Do you have a favorite flower? If so, why is it your favorite?
Have you shared any tips with your students for surviving daylight savings time?
Thanks to Joy and Brij for their responses!
From Joy:
There’s no escaping this year, so my adventure is reassembling the bathroom that I gutted in August🙄. My family claims the 80’s wallpaper was still better than the new normal of exposed studs, but I know they’re only saying that out of nostalgia for a second functioning bathroom.
Go to the desert to visit some wildflowers in ridiculous conditions, like pygmy poppies in Death Valley; too friggin’ cute for words, so here’s a picture: Pygmy Poppy Photos
No way do I have just one favorite, but I’m really into my Mimulus cardinalis (scarlet monkeyflower) lately. The hummingbirds love it and the scarlet color is very eye-catching.
Swapping video game playing from PM to AM is shockingly good for sleep hygiene and research studies back this up. Wake up extra early to play video games, because bright light and exciting things help set your rhythms on the right path. Plus, we’re more motivated to actually get up for something we want to do. Conversely, no late-night playing when we should instead wind down in dim light rather than winding ourselves up with bright or flashy light.
A cartoon of a hand reaching a finger out to turn off a light switch with the words, “LIGHTS OUT!” at the bottom of the image.
From Brij:
Nothing too specific but keeping both classes on track and morale up feels like a general highlight. I actually added a whole other essay project and it seems to have worked. (Trying to get back to more of a pre-COVID curriculum.)
A bit more of a strict late work policy and attendance policy were both successes and students appreciated them both.
Taking my father-in-law to Yosemite for three days/two nights to celebrate his 80th birthday!
A lot of house reorganizing/cleaning, getting the yard presentable, etc.
The California poppy. I love seeing them everywhere in the wild and the “golden state” color.
Afraid not. “Do your best!”
A gif of some CA poppies.
Teaching Tools:
The Teaching Tools section features a review of one of the important workshops we had in the winter 2025 quarter:
Writing Program Workshop, “Data and Dashboards for Equity-Based Teaching,” Robin Dunkin and Roxy Davis, TLC
From Brenda: On March 6, 2025, I attended the WP workshop on using data and dashboards for equity-based teaching. This workshop, organized by our own Robin King and presented by Robin Dunkin and Roxy Davis with TLC, introduced several tools to analyze and improve equity in our courses.
The first tool is the Getting to Know Your Students dashboard. This data is available shortly before each quarter begins and can be accessed either before or during your course. Using aggregated data, the dashboard provides information about student majors, demographics, and how students have done in previous courses. This information can be helpful to get to understand the make-up of your class as a group.
The second tool is the Course Analytics dashboard, which provides aggregated information about demographics, majors, and grades in specific classes. You can look at the data both in terms of specific groups (how do Underrepresented Groups do in your Writing 2) as well as intersectionality (how do Underrepresented male-identifying students do?). This information can help you track changes over time.
For example, if you see that first-generation students tend to not do as well, you can research new practices to implement, add them to your course for several quarters, and then look at the data again.
In a given course, you can use either or both dashboards. While WP faculty noted that there are gaps–several of us have advocated for including disability data in the analysis–these tools provide useful quantitative data that can help you to better understand where equity gaps might exist in your classes.
What Do You Meme?
A gif of “evil Elmo” holding up both arms with the words, “TIME TO MEMES” at the top of the image.
Once, again, the Teaching Team is asking for memes/gifs, reviews, and teaching tools. Please share your contributions via this Google form.
Hello and welcome to midterm week in the 2025 winter quarter:
A gif of all four members of ABBA grooving (two people in all white outfits dancing on the left side of the gif and the center person playing a guitar, and one person on the right side of the gif, playing the piano) to their 1975 hit, “Mamma Mia.”
Initially, I opened this message with an exclamation point and I had to delete it.
Rhetorical choices and whatnot.
I’m not in a very “exclamation point” kind of mood.
Unless those exclamation points signify yelling.
Out of fear and anger and powerlessness. (Oh, and if that yelling takes place deep on the inside because you’ve got so many tabs open in life and on your deviceand you have bills to pay, same, bb. ♥️)*
So, while I can only speak from my positionality as a bigger, queer, and first-gen Chicana, who is also “a childless cat lady,” I might “meme” it out and send you clunky Google forms that could use some re-working, and I’m yellingcryingfreakingout on the inside.
And I’m still here.
And, you, the one reading this blog instead of doing whatever else–good on you for taking a break–you’re still here, too. I’m so glad you are.
Without further ado, thank you to my wonderful Teaching Team (TT) homies (oh yeah, we’re going there): for their brains, brilliance, and bravery.
And, many thanks to you, dear colleague for your time. I hope the dates are useful, the faculty spotlights are enjoyable, the teaching tools inspire you, and the memes make you crack a smile.
Suerte y salud hoy y siempre,
Lara
*Real talk here: including this parenthetical twists my stomach in all sorts of shapes and I’m going to leave it because I believe it’s important to yell–in whatever form and especially “from the margins” (and here’s a lovely read about bell hooks by Crystal Wilkinson for you).
Important Dates:
Mark your calendars for the following events:
Douglass Day (3-7 p.m, Tuesday, February 18): From the website: “Each year, we celebrate the chosen birthday of Frederick Douglass on February 14th. During our celebrations, we join forces at locations around the world. We work together to transcribe an online collection of Black history and culture. We aim to make Douglass Day open to everyone. Our planning team offers guides to help you learn how to transcribe or how to bring Douglass Day into your classroom. Douglass Day makes a real difference. We help create new resources for everyone to learn about Black history. … Douglass Day is a collective act of radical love for Black history.”
Join our own WP faculty member, Alexandra McCourt, and her writing students in HUM 1, 202 from 3-7 p.m.
Stop by for all or part of the time. There will be cake! 🎂
How do writing courses invite, tolerate, and resist rhetorics and pedagogies of cure and overcoming?
What does it mean to resist fixing/curing students and/or their writing in writing courses? What does it mean to allow students to develop as writers and be unwell?
What does resisting cure/overcoming mean for writing faculty?
Readings:
1. Hitt, Allison. Rhetorics of Overcoming: Rewriting Narratives of Disability and Accessibility in Writing Studies. National Council of Teachers of English NCTE, 2022.
→ first three pages only – marked on linked article above
Teaching & Learning Center Events Calendar: “The Teaching & Learning Center in collaboration with the Committee on Teaching is pleased to announce that UCSC Teaching Week will be held February 24 – February 28, 2025. Teaching Week is an opportunity to celebrate and elevate the innovative teaching that is happening at UCSC in support of our shared goals of equity-minded and transformative learning for all of our students.”
Data and Dashboards for Equity-Based Teaching (WP DEI Workshop Led by TLC) (Thursday, March 6): “Quite a bit of demographic data is available to faculty that may promote equity-based pedagogy and course dynamics. This workshop will focus on data and instructor-level dashboards that Writing Program faculty can use to inform their teaching.”
Spring WP Symposium CFP (Friday, April 18): The Writing Program will be holding our annual symposium on Friday, 18 April 2025, 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM on Zoom with an in-person reception to follow in Humanities 210, 2:00 to 3:00 PM.
Please fill out the Google From by Monday, 3 March if you are interested.
Since its founding in 1965, UCSC has sought to provide a teaching-focused, liberal arts education often with small class sizes through a humanities-based approach. As we’ve grown to a more traditional research-based institution the role of the Writing Program has had to adapt to new circumstances.
This year our symposium will ask us to look forward and look back in our teaching and research on Writing Studies. How have we adapted and evolved, as teachers and/or as a program? How do we do things differently from other institutions? What are you doing that is new and innovative? What have you brought back?
You may want to talk about theory, curricular or course design, assessment, and activity or assignment design. Or, you may want to think about how you connect with our ever-changing student population.
We’ll share how we teach, and what we’re teaching and researching, with the opportunity to cover what’s unique about UCSC. Newer faculty can get a sense of the history and legacy of Writing at UCSC.
Submissions are welcomed for a variety of formats: short, ten-minute talks; longer twenty-minute talks; poster presentations; or, join us for noon roundtable discussion of how the UCSC Writing Program has evolved.
Community Corner:
The community corner features a timely message from the Writing Program DEI Coordinator, Robin King, Faculty Spotlights, Reading and Podcast Recommendations.
First, that important message from Robin King, Writing Program DEI Coordinator:
Dear Writing Program Faculty,
In light of current national moments, here are a few recommendations of culture to remind us and reflect on why thoughtfulness about demographics continues to be important to the social, professional and academic progress of the university. Some of these selections are older (but not outdated as they reclaim history or discuss overlooked social dynamics) and some are new; some are worth a second look if you have already worked with them.
Video: Manzanar Baseball Field Restoration, a “work-in-progress video journal’’ (2024); produced by an LA artist affiliated with the 18th Street Arts Center.
Fiction:James (2024), an excellent read, given the take on bilingualism and connections to history, literacy and social justice. Reviewed to be superb by many, including Sarah-Hope, if I remember correctly.
I hope that winter quarter is going well for you all, in spite of recent critical events.
Robin
Faculty Spotlights:
This portion of our community corner features faculty spotlights: images and fun facts about our colleagues. A special thank you to those who participated in this round of faculty spotlights: Robin King, Toby Loeffler, and Alexandra McCourt.
Here are the questions they 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.
Robin’s Family Photo
Robin:
35+ years
Fall quarter 1998, I think.
I teach the Oakes College Food Politics series of classes and Summer Bridge. Over the years I have taught a number of EOP/HSI courses and the Faculty Mentorship (research) writing course, as well as W169 and Oakes Core; I taught journalism at Cabrillo College a long time ago.
When I moved to New Jersey from Pleasant, CA where I had been working in corporate America (Viacom Cable TV), I wanted a change in career. So I applied and was hired to teach writing and mass media at Camden County College. A few years earlier I had taught an evening course at Palomar College, north of San Diego, while I worked days at Southwestern Cable TV as a program coordinator for the public access channel. This juxtaposition of work contexts so soon after graduate school made me consider whether I might be more interested in teaching at a university than spending my days working as a business administrator.
At UCSC, it’s a toss up: The Farm and Oakes College Amphitheater. In the world right now: Costa Rica where I spent a lovely week with my extended family in the middle of a rainforest this past year-end holidays.
Yoga and going for walks with friends.
I am known in my neighborhood for growing the best roses (St Joseph’s Coat climbing rose and The Stairway to Heaven climbing rose).
Two sons and one grand puppy: Drew, 33 years old, partner in an activist consulting organization that works on progressive issues; Reed, 35 years old, intellectual property lawyer for San Jose State University Research Foundation; Reed’s puppy, Calvin, who is 17 months old, mixed-heritage but mostly Rhodesian Ridgeback.
Toby Pressing Apples
Toby:
I’ve been teaching for over thirty years now, since 1993, when I began as a graduate student.
My first quarter at UCSC was the fall of 2008.
I began at UCSC teaching sections of Stevenson College’s core course. After that, I taught College Nine’s core course for many years.
Teaching is what I always wanted to do. I had many excellent teacher/mentors when I was younger and they got me started on this path. I actually grew up in Santa Cruz Country but left for college and never really thought that I’d end up returning to teach here.
My favorite spot at UCSC is probably the Alan Chadwick Garden. It’s hard to say what my favorite place in the world is, but it might be my garden or any place where my wife is.
Other than reading, I like to cook and bake. I’ve been baking bread at least weekly for over 20 years now, mostly sourdough loaves, bagels, and pretzels. I also cycle quite often and have been commuting to campus by bike, rain or shine, for over 16 years. If you’re out early on Saturdays, you might see my wife and me zipping around town on our tandem.
My wife and I make hard cider, apple with a touch of quince, yearly. On the first of the year, we bottled about 15 gallons. It’s resting now, and we’ll be testing it out in early March.
We don’t have any human babies, but we do have a garden and a small urban orchard of 25 apple trees, mostly heirloom varieties, along with citrus, pear, sour cherry, plum, aprium, and pluot trees as well as enough olallieberry plants to make jam and a pie or two
Toby’s beautiful and lush garden against a backdrop of soft, puffy clouds spread across a blue sky.
Alexandra:
Alexandra’s Family Photo
I used to teach for the First Year Writing Program at North Carolina State University and I used to teach English as a Second Language at Durham Technical Community College.
I knew I wanted to be a teacher when I was 5 and I taught my brother how to say his first word (Apple).
My favorite spot at UCSC is the quad by the humanities lecture hall. I love watching the changing of classes and hearing snippets of conversations from passersby. My favorite place in the world is Glasgow.
I make homemade mead and I love to cook with my daughter and nieces .
I speak Portuguese (even though I sound like a gringa lol), I can relate everything back to Grey’s Anatomy, I used to be a pharmacy technician.
I have a daughter, Marya Eduarda. She’s 12 and the best human being I’ve ever known. I have two nieces, Emelia, 3, and Giulia, 2, and they call me Titi.
I am working on developing my theoretical framework for a case study proposing the correlation between attendance and performance in writing classrooms post-pandemic. If you are interested in learning more about my framework, or would potentially like to pilot the framework, please email me and we can talk about it more. I will send an announcement out towards the end of the quarter, as well.
Sammy the Slug enjoying a sunny day by reading a book on a lounge chair.
Reading Recommendations:
Do you remember that Google form I sent out at the beginning of this quarter? Well, in addition to soliciting memes/gifs, I also made the following requests:
Is there a short review of something you recently read or a short summary of a workshop you recently attended?
Maybe you didn’t recently read something or attend a workshop, but you listened to a podcast that was particularly enlightening. Feel free to share the title of the episode here!
Finally, perhaps there is a new teaching tool that you think we, your life-long-learner WP colleagues would love to read and learn about and/or attempt to implement in the classroom, let us know!
Sammy the Slug, in a red pullover hoodie, sits at their laptop, which is decorated with various UCSC and CA stickers the redwood trees in the background. Sammy is listening to something as evident by their headphones .
Podcast Recommendations:
Thanks to Dev and Brij for sharing their podcast recommendations. And a special shout-out to Roxi Power on her podcast, “The Hive Poetry Collective”! Roxi shares that her “most recent show discusses the anthology [she] just co-edited that was published last month, Winter in America (Again: Poets Respond to 2024 Election. We’ll have some upcoming launches: San Francisco 3/1, Los Angeles 3/7; Bookshop Santa Cruz, 4/1; Satori Arts Santa Cruz, 4/25. All at 7pm.)”
Babbage The Economist’s podcast on tech has a good episode critical of AI. (I didn’t know they spell it “sceptical” across the pond)
East Bay Yesterday: “a podcast about yesterday that’s not stuck in the past”; a very well-researched and produced podcast about Oakland, Berkeley, etc., that focuses on everything from the Key System trains that used to run to SF, to the Lesbian Archives, to KPFA, to the Berkeley City Dump (where I used to marvel at “the pit”). The stories are multilayered and entertaining. E.g., who knew one African American family from Oklahoma ran the Berkeley City dump?
The Economics of Everyday Things from Freakanomics Radio: “Who decides which snacks are in your office’s vending machine? How much is a suburban elm tree worth, and to whom? How did Girl Scout Cookies become a billion-dollar business? In bite-sized episodes, journalist Zachary Crockett looks at quotidian things and finds amazing stories.”
A Sammy the Slug classroom with three slugs present. Two of the slug students are raising their hands and one is taking notes with a pencil and notebook.
Teaching Tools:
Identifying Types of Information (new library instruction module)
From Sheila Garcia-Mazzari (via Brij): The second library module, Identifying Types of Information, is now live on Canvas and can be directly embedded into any course. Along with the full module, I also uploaded 8 separate learning objects. These learning objects are all contained within the module but have been uploaded separately to allow instructors to mix and match content for their courses.
The learning objects include 2 videos, 2 handouts, 1 interactive scenario, 2 review quizzes, and 1 interactive tool. I’ve linked each of these below. The resources that do not have a preview available were created with Articulate software but will work smoothly once embedded into a course. Please let me know if you have any questions at any time!
Powernotes: A shout-out from Dev Bose for this tool.
From Heather: Public Domain Image Archive:
After the hundreds (thousands?) of hours trawling through online image collections since the PDR’s inception, we’ve decided it was time to create one of our own! We are really excited to share with you the launch of our new sister-project, the Public Domain Image Archive (PDIA), a curated collection of more than 10,000 out-of-copyright historical images, free for all to explore and reuse.
While The Public Domain Review primarily takes the form of an “arts journal,” it has also quietly served as a digital art gallery, albeit one fractured across essays and collections posts. The PDIA sets out to emphasise this visual nature of the PDR, freeing these images from their textual homes and placing them front and centre for easier discovery, comparison, and appreciation. Our aim is to offer a platform that will serve both as a practical resource and a place to simply wander — an ever-growing portal to discover more than 2000 years of visual culture.
We intend the archive to be a place of discovery, and to this end have developed various “views” to aid exploration:
catalogue view, to search and browse by theme, style, date, and more;
infinite view, for a more immersive experience of the collection;
shuffle view, a tool to easily summon images in a serendipitous manner.
And with more ways to visualise the collection to come.
Welcome to the silly send-off section: the memes. Enjoy!
Some context: this quarter I’m teaching W1 on the M, W, and F schedule. After the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and that other thing that took place that day, I came to Wednesday’s class a bit unsure how to hold space for students–if they even wanted that option.
I did so and in my style, meaning, with memes. The memes helped diffuse the deep sense of despair several students were feeling. I even had a few students check in with me after class to share how they had been avoiding any news, social media, and other updates. One student shared that they didn’t even want to laugh or give additional attention to that person’s ascension to the throne but, at the end of the week, they wanted to share a bright spot in the dark.
In the memes that follow, the first is from the aforementioned student. The second is from Maggie Amis, the third is from Robin King, and the third is from Dev Bose. Thanks for sharing the memes, y’all, and helping to bring about some joy.
A gif of the muppet, Animal, playing the drums.
From student:
A screen grab of a tweet from The Daily Show with an image of Melania Trump wearing the now-famous hat at this year’s inauguration, next to an image of Pizza Hut’s logo with the phrase, “No one out-pizzas the Hut.”
From Maggie: “there is plenty of reason to be upset but when those times arise, I need something to change my frame of mind so I can do something about it. This gif/meme (as the case may be) does that for me.”
A gif of a flying lawn mower next to a gorilla’s face with the words, “There is no need to be upset,” framing the top and bottom of the image.
From Robin:
A gif of a cute toddler with a pacifier in their mouth, wearing a pink jacket, jeans, and Maryjanes, who is running away from their shadow in a parking lot.
From Dev:
A gif featuring actress Eliza Dushku, as her character Missy Pantone, in the film Bring it On (2000)
I hope you smiled and maybe some of you even laughed. Whatever your position on the happiness spectrum, I wish you a lovely long weekend and I hope you can enjoy the break from the rain while it lasts!
Grumpy cat frowning with a one-word question, “Rain?” at the top of the image and the response, “I love rain” at the bottom of the image.
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