I’m continually amazed how the efforts of random bloggers make my life as a writing instructor all the more easier. For our second writing project we focus on the  epistemological dimensions of different academic disciplines and how those implicit expectations shape the scholarly writing in those fields. While students are quite familiar with different department in the university, trying to explain why they exist in the way that they do can, at times, be challenging.

I use class time to discuss the basic framework of how scholars of different disciplines ask different types of questions about the world, and how they marshal different types of evidence to support their claims. This is, as always, an exercise in raising awareness. I use a podcast (as homework) to explain the history of disciplinary divisions, stemming from the secularization of the German university system in the 19th century and “discovery” of the social sciences (political science, economics, sociology, anthropology, etc.).

I charge the students with researching a topic and finding appropriate scholarly materials on that topic from different disciplines – both books and articles. They have to decide which discipline the work falls under, which can be harder than it seems, especially if you are not used to trying to differentiate those characteristics already. At some level, having a list of options makes the job easier, where Claudia’s blog helps exceptionally. She has made a chart, mirroring that of the Periodic Tables of Elements, with academic disciplines – even grouping them according to field.

My only criticism is that it does not represent various area studies, such as Women’s Studies, Black Studies, Chican@ Studies. etc. Because of this, Religious Studies is placed in the Humanities field (which is not inherently problematic), but does not make it clear that Religious Studies is a “raider” discipline, pulling methodologies from various other disciplines (history, sociology, psychology, cognitive science, etc.).

I did not learn genre theory in my college composition classes, so when it was introduced to me at UCSB I was unsure of its application outside of just being another provocative theory. I’ve come to realize how the right approach to genre theory paints writing as a social practice, and when mastered, turns writing into a powerful and eminently practical skill. Part of genre analysis requires an assessment of the rhetorical situation, which is dissected in various ways by theorists and scholars, but always incorporates the element of intended audience.

When writers write they typically write for an imagined audience, and this largely dictates the choice they make while writing. Thus, while it is possible for anyone with an internet connection to read a blog post, depending on how it is written it may draw in certain audiences and drive away others. Those that come and stay would be the target audience (or intended audience) of a blog post.

When deciding to perform genre analysis on news genres, I was searching for another way to think about intended audience rather than the standard focus on demographics like age, ethnicity, gender, income, region, education, and so forth. After chatting with my writing advisor, Chris Dean, whose interests involve the critical analysis of urban legends and conspiracy theories, he highlighted the recurring issue of confirmation bias at the heart of all legend trippers and conspiracy theorists. This provided at least another way to view the audience of moderately (even grossly) biased Soft News articles, those looking to confirm their personal perspective on certain topics.

This lead me down a train of thought which wanted to play with audience and several other types of cognitive biases. In other words, how do certain cognitive biases direct what and how we read? I was reminded of the fabulous chart, originally posted by blogger Buster Benson.

I was surprised at how many other cognitive biases are similar to confirmation bias.

• Anchoring Bias: People are over reliant on the first piece of information they obtain
• Conservatism Bias: People favor prior evidence over new evidence
• Choice-Support Bias: People favor a choice they have made even if it has flaws
• Availability Heuristic: People overestimate the importance of information that is available to them

I gave the chart to my class and asked them to ponder some aspects of it to foster creativity in defining who the audience of news articles may be. I will say, however, for each person who is subconsciously looking to confirm his or her bias, there may very well be another person who is consciously looking to understand the “Other side” in order to challenge his or her own biases.

UPDATE: While the above chart is detailed and comprehensive, it may be too comprehensive for many to find a nice toe-hold. The more highly selective chart below may be a better alternative.

Peter Romaskiewicz [Updated December 2019]

The first-year composition class at UCSB requires students to engage in rhetorical and textual analysis through developing a “heightened awareness” of writing genres. Genre-based analysis works on a wide range of texts (really, all texts) and given the important role of media in the last (2016) US election and the prominent and recurring spotlight thrown on Fake News, I thought an examination into news genres would be timely and interesting.

While researching and analyzing the distinctions between news genres, one online resource stood above the rest because it offered a convenient visual representation of news sources along two axes of partisan bias and journalistic integrity. The chart (below) was created by Vanessa Otero, a blogger whose keen eye helped me make several important distinctions between news writing styles. [Updated Interactive Media Bias Chart 5.0]

There are several online resources which chart the political polarization of news media, including a well-researched report by the Pew Research Center and the curiously amusing “Blue Feed, Red Feed” maintained by the Wall Street Journal [now archived](also helpful are the AllSides and Media Bias/Fact Check websites). These resources, however, only measure partisan bias (horizontal axis above). I was looking for other measurements that may align with elements of genre analysis. Otero’s chart was helpful because it added a vertical axis that charted journalistic quality, highlighting important stylistic differences that I could easily map on to the traditional divisions of news genres: Hard News/investigative journalism (just the facts!), Soft News/Feature News/Editorials (analysis and opinion), and Fake News (plain fiction).

This was the perfect entry point for starting discussion, a convenient and astutely crafted visual chart showing the complexity of news writing. It also allowed me to handily visualize the close relationship between bias and interpretation without confounding them. Analysis and description of news articles beyond partisan bias became a core assignment for my students.

Many sources cite the standard distinction between Hard News and Soft News as a difference in topic coverage, with the former focusing on events (political, economic, disruptive), while the latter focuses on people (lifestyles, celebrities, and human-interest). The gendered implications of this division have been noted in Women, Men, and News by Paula Poindexter, Sharon Meraz, and Amy Schmitz Weiss. Otero’s chart, on the other hand, begins to suggest how writing choices also frame the categorization of news genres, suggesting attention also is paid to tonality, organization, length, and evidence, along with several other smart observations made by my students.

In order to discuss CNN’s position as an outlier, being both highly analytical and opinionated and yet only mildly left-leaning, I turned to the Vox series Strikethrough which publishes excellent videos on modern American media. In a short 6-minute video (perfect for class), CNN’s approach to telling news is compared to the ESPN’s “hot take” model, which favors heavy-handed opinion and argumentative debate over cool-headed fact-reporting. This serves to underscore how Hard News can be “softened.” Furthermore, I ended up pairing Otero’s chart with the insights of Colleen Patrick into the value of Soft News as providing much-needed perspective on simple fact-reporting.

Overall, these resources proved invaluable in helping me to conceive of the distinctive writing conventions found among Hard, Soft, and Fake News, and provided a good springboard into discussion on other important contextualizing rhetorical features, such as intended audience and purpose.

For other posts related to teaching Freshman Composition and Rhetoric see here.

For the seventh time I have the opportunity to teach a first-year composition and rhetoric class. I first taught this class in the Fall of 2012, and have taught it intermittently since them. This time, however, I will be doing a significant overhaul of the writing projects, as I have slowly developed ideas that better suit my course goals and personal interests.

Perhaps one of the biggest challenges I face this time around is making the point clearly that writing is a learned skill and (for many) a slow process. I plan to return to the mantra that this course is meant to help students develop a “heightened awareness” of their writing choices through the cultivation of particular sets of skill. Acquiring a skill requires repetition and incremental adaptation to higher level challenges.

I need to remind myself of this because inevitably students will just start asking me what I want to see in their writing – in the hopes of getting the best grades. Of course, at some level there are requirements, but these are always spelled out in the simplest terms in the class materials.

How to draft a thesis, how to support a thesis, how to organize an argument, or whatever other elements are necessary to “academic writing” need to be practiced through numerous iterations of drafting, critiquing, and revising. In other words, through the slow acquisition of a skill. The criterion of “good” writing is simply effective writing, and effectiveness can take on many shapes. There is no universal template for good academic writing. Sorry, Artificial Intelligence enthusiasts, computers cannot even grade essays, let alone compose them. As the prosaically named Professionals Against Machine Scoring Of Student Essays In High-Stakes Assessment (membership including Noam Chomsky) stated: “Computers cannot ‘read.’ They cannot measure the essentials of effective written communication: accuracy, reasoning, adequacy of evidence, good sense, ethical stance, convincing argument, meaningful organization, clarity, and veracity, among others.”

This is more about setting a tone for the class, where taking chances are rewarded and failures are framed as true learning opportunities, not shameful embarrassments. With this in mind, I am looking forward to class discussions and activities centered on their writing and hope they all can see growth in the next few months.