Tentative Winter Schedule:

Wednesday, January 16th:
Conversation about Independent Study Set-up, 3:30-4:30.

Wednesday January 23rd:
Dr. Candice Rai's reading group #1. 4:30-5:30. Introduction to Public Modalities and Edbauer’s “Unframing Models of Public Distribution”
Note: The meeting begins at 4:30 instead of 3:30!

Wednesday January 30th:
TBD

Wednesday February 6th:
Watch recent transfer presentation and discuss, 3:30-5:00. Dr. Geoff Norman: “A Cognitive Perspective on How People Learn: Implications for Teaching”

Wednesday February 13th:
Geoffrey K. Pullum Discussion, 3:30-5:00
The reading for this discussion will be Pullum's essay The Land of the Free and The Elements of Style.

Wednesday February 27th:
Dr. Gail Stygall’s presentation: “Death Penalty Jury Instructions: A Linguistic and Discourse Analysis 3:30-5:00.
Odegaard 220
Two recent cases in King County have been in the news as capital offenses. One was two young people killing an entire family; the other was a young, UW graduate in Law, Society and Justice, who is accused of shooting a police officer. The first case is no longer a death penalty case, but Christopher Monfort's alleged killing of a police officer remains a case that will be prosecuted as a death penalty case. I was contacted by the public defenders in that case for an opinion on the comprehensibility of Washington state's death penalty instructions. Earlier work had been done in other states on jurors' understanding of the death penalty instructions through the Capital Jury Project and the reports were quite frightening. Most jurors did not understand the instructions and especially did not understand what mitigation is, which may move the defendant to life in prison. My talk examines both the results of the Capital Jury Project and examines Washington's instructions for death penalty cases. I found that Washington's instructions were very difficult and likely to lead to lack of understanding of mitigation. I will also talk about the result of my report. We'll all examine the actual Washington pattern jury instructions.

Wednesday March 6th:
Dr. Candice Rai's reading group #2. 3:30-4:30 Introduction and Chpt 1: Jeff Rice’s Digital Detroit

New Events!

ATTW 2013 Research Methods Workshops

March 12, 2013 12:30-4:00

Deadline is December 1!

Scholarships Available!

The Research Methods Workshops are an initiative of the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing (ATTW) aimed at providing an opportunity for those entering the profession and those less trained in research to develop more sophisticated research skills.

This year, ATTW is sponsoring two Research Methods Workshops:

  • Charles Kostelnick, Iowa State University, on Analyzing Visual Data
  • Anne Wysocki, University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, on Analyzing Multimodal Data

These two half-day workshops will be held in Las Vegas on Tuesday afternoon, March 12, 12:30-4:30. This is the day preceding the ATTW conference (March13) and the CCCC conference (March 13-16).

Each workshop focuses on a methodology for data analysis and is designed to help researchers with data devise and try out an analytic approach. Analyzing Visual Data with Charles Kostelnick focuses on choosing an appropriate framework for analyzing visual data, using historical, cultural, and situational context to inform the analysis. Analyzing Multimodal Data with Anne Wysocki focuses on how differing media—when intentionally brought together to create a defined experience for audiences—play off each other's affordances in the construction of overall effects. Complete descriptions of these workshops can be found at:

Registration for each workshop is $100. Ten scholarships of $200 each are available to graduate students to defray the cost of the workshop and hotel.

Participation in these workshops is awarded on a competitive basis and constitutes a place on the ATTW program.

To apply for a place in one of these workshops, complete the application form found at:

ATTW2013WorkshopApplication.pdf

Send your completed application form along with a 1-page description of your project to cgeisler@sfu.ca.
Applications are due December 1, 2012 and acceptances will emailed to you by Jan 2.

Past Events!

"A Cognitive Perspective on How People Learn: Implications for Teaching"
Dr. Geoff Norman

UW School of Medicine Center for Medical Education

Thursday, December 6, 2012
11:00-12:00
Turner Auditorium, Health Science Building
Room D-209

Internationally renowned medical education researcher Geoff Norman will review the literature concerning how people learn, as well as teaching strategies that optimize learning.

He will review findings from the psychology of learning in five domains: memory (learning and remembering), transfer (using old concepts to solve new problems), deliberate practice and its critical role in transfer, experiential knowledge as a component of expertise, and the role of general strategic skills (problem-solving, critical thinking, reflection, etc.). In each area, he will begin with examples, review the evidence, and then draw implications for more effective teaching.

Norman received a doctoral degree in nuclear physics from McMaster University in 1971, and a master's degree in educational psychology from Michigan State University in 1977. He is the author of 10 books in education, measurement and statistics, and 300 journal articles. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2007. In 2008, he was awarded the prestigious Karolinska Prize for lifetime achievement in medical education research.

This lecture is open to all faculty, staff and students. Please R.S.V.P. to Shalley Lane at: shalley@uw.edu

Call for Papers

Coming Soon!

If you would like to participate in this series, please contact us with your pitch!

Give Us Your Ideas!

Informed by our goals, the Language and Rhetoric Colloquium seeks to sponsor both formal and informal events, limited only by the imagination of the people doing them and the needs of the audience attending them. Some examples of programs we welcome are:

If you have an idea for an event, please let us know!