Did Arizona "Ban Ethnic Studies"?

Controversial topics always bring out the rhetorical devices. Arizona House Bill 2281--Arizona's latest in a series of controversial actions related to immigration, race, and culture--has enjoyed more than its fair share of rhetorical spin. Because cultural and ethnic studies are a large part of my own research and teaching agendas, I decided to look more closely at what the bill actually says rather than the rhetorical spin.

The primary attack on the bill is evident in various forms of the oft-repeated headline:

Arizona bans "ethnic studies"

This is a fascinating rhetorical spin

Rules and Tools: Does New Media Warrant New Standards?

In a recent Twitter post, a colleague complained about an academic tool he had to use for compliance training.

Blackboard was obviuosly designed by engineers who have never used tech more advanced than an overhead projector.

Having recently been engaged in discussions with my class, other faculty, and instructional technology folks about the "hinckyness" of Blackboard in its current iteration, naturally, I reposted this to my own Twitter stream.

My tweets automatically post to my Facebook page. As a result, a parallel discussion about the eLearning née Blackboard software ensued within my Facebook community. The thread largely took the form of academic commentary about Blackboard, eLearning, Moodle, and course management software in general. That is, until this.

Maybe it was invented by English teachers. I guess it's "obvious" Dave isn't one..

The author of the original post is, indeed, an assistant professor of emerging media and communications at my university. My first thought was to delete the critical post in order to spare "Dave" (and myself) any embarrassment resulting from the criticism. I had noticed the typo

Facebook's "Diversity" Study: Fact or Fiction?

Facebook has just published the results of their own research about the diversity of their users. The introduction to a summary overview of the study states:

In order to make Facebook as open and connected as possible for everyone, one of our goals is to understand how different populations of users join and use the service. With that objective in mind, the Facebook Data team recently sought to answer the question, "How diverse are the ethnic backgrounds of the people using Facebook?"

While I applaud their efforts to determine how well they represent the population at large, I question certain of the Facebook Data team's techniques. The primary method of identifying users as a given ethnicity or race for the study

Visual Metaphors

In a Twitter post, Sean Zdenek asks "Which rhetorical figures can be redeployed visually?" He gives a great example of visual chiasmus, a rhetorical form that uses repetition of themes (also sometimes words) or structures in an inverted order. The name derives from the Greek word for the letter "x."

The most prevalent form of visual rhetorical figures may be the metaphor. Metaphors, in the simplest sense, simply refer to one thing as another.

CFP: CEA 2010, ATTW Sessions

ATTW Sessions at College English Association 2010: Voices
March 25–27, 2010, San Antonio, Texas

Call for Papers

ATTW 2010 Call for Papers

ATTW conference Proposals Deadline extended to 10/19/2009!
ATTW 2010 13th Annual Conference
Synergies: The Intersections of Research and Teaching
March 17, 2010
Louisville, KY

Honoring The Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation - September 22, 2009

Although not officially signed into law until January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln formally announced on September 22, 1862 his intent to free all persons held as slaves in the Conferderate States. This announcement generally is referred to as the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.

A little-known fact is that the Emancipation Proclamation actually did not free all slaves, but only those in states in which "the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States." Be that as it may, the anniversary of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation seems to me to be a good time to reacquaint ourselves with the text of that document, a document that forever changed the face of our Nation.

God bless America. God bless Abraham Lincoln. God bless those who suffer and strive for freedom everywhere.

The transcript of the text herein is from the National Archives. http://is.gd/3AdIs or http://www.archives.gov