Close Menu
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
    Recent Posts
    • Blog Carnival 23: Editor’s Outro: “Digital Circulation in Rhetoric and Writing Studies
    • Collage as Socialist Circulation
    • Play, Rhetoric, and the Circulation of J.D. Vance Photoshops
    • Attending to Scales of Intensity: A Viral/Chronological Method for Researching the Circulation of Activist Rhetoric
    • Is This for Real? Implications of Deepfakes on Learning and Research
    • Digital Circulation and the Question of Publics
    • The SEO to Skibidi Pipeline: Investigating Digital Linguistic Transference
    • The Circulation of Rhetoric from Stall Walls to Social Feeds: Notes from the Analog Underground
    RSS Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
    Digital Rhetoric Collaborative
    • Home
    • Conversations
      • Blog Carnivals
      • DRC Talk Series
      • Hack & Yack
      • DRC Wiki
    • Reviews
      • CCCC Reviews
        • 2023 CCCC Reviews
        • 2022 CCCC Reviews
        • 2021 CCCC Reviews
        • 2019 CCCC Reviews
      • C&W Reviews
        • 2022 C&W Reviews
        • 2019 C&W Reviews
        • 2018 C&W Reviews
        • 2017 C&W Reviews
        • 2016 C&W Reviews
        • 2015 C&W Reviews
        • 2014 C&W Reviews
        • 2013 C&W Reviews
        • 2012 C&W Reviews
      • MLA Reviews
        • 2019 MLA Reviews
        • 2014 MLA Reviews
        • 2013 MLA Reviews
      • Other Reviews
        • 2018 Watson Reviews
        • 2017 Feminisms & Rhetorics
        • 2017 GPACW
        • 2016 Watson Reviews
        • 2015 IDRS Reviews
      • Webtext of the Month
    • Teaching Materials
      • Syllabus Repository
      • Teaching & Learning Materials (TLM) Collection
    • Books
      • Memetic Rhetorics
      • Beyond the Makerspace
      • Video Scholarship and Screen Composing
      • 100 Years of New Media Pedagogy
      • Writing Workflows
      • Rhetorical Code Studies
      • Developing Writers in Higher Education
      • Sites of Translation
      • Rhizcomics
      • Making Space
      • Digital Samaritans
      • DRC Book Prize
      • Submit a Book Proposal
    • DRC Fellow Projects
    • About
      • Advisory Board
      • Graduate Fellows
    Digital Rhetoric Collaborative

    Mindfulness as a Reflective Lens in Composition

    1
    By Aleashia Walton Valentin on February 24, 2022 Blog Carnival 20

    I first became aware of mindfulness when practicing yin yoga, a slow yogic form that requires one to hold difficult stretches for long periods of time. In challenging situations, I often find myself seeking those deep breaths of relaxation referred to as the ‘ujjayi breath’ or ‘ocean breath’ making it easier to focus on the here and now.

    In a similar vein, I use mindfulness as a reflective lens when teaching composition online to encourage students to engage themselves as embodied writers via screens so they might begin to unpack the pandemic as a thing with which they’ve become codependent.

    Students respond to readings, videos, and questions surrounding the curriculum in private journal entries as part of the coursework. To incorporate mindfulness, I provide links to YouTube videos such as Sleepy Fish – Beneath Your Waves, while asking students to identify the first five things they see, followed by a prompt requesting that they provide an optional update on what’s happening in their lives, if they feel comfortable sharing these details. Since the beginning of the pandemic, I’ve been incorporating an average of four or more such journal entry assignments over the course of each semester.

    This has been useful in creating a deeper connection with students while gaining an understanding of where they are regarding potential struggles both in and outside of the classroom. Sharing and reflecting on YouTube videos and other media clips is hardly innovative as a technology form. Yet, when paired with mindfulness as a strategy it’s beneficial all around. Though I’ve yet to perform IRB approved research since using this as a teaching method, I have noticed that students communicate with me more frequently and with greater ease since making this adjustment. These assignments are also frequently referenced among student favorites in end-of-semester reviews.

    In the article “Writing Material,” Laura Micciche tells us, “Writing is codependent with things, places, people, and all sorts of others. To write is to be part of the world, even when viewed as an ironic turn away to an interior space of quiet and mystery” (501). For some student writers, the pandemic itself is a ‘thing’ with which they’ve become codependent. Unlike other things writers might be codependent with such as a favorite pen, desk, or a beloved editing pet, a global outbreak of disease is less predictable and can be, at times, all-consuming in ways that may not be beneficial for the writing process. In order to bring focus to the challenges that are implicit in these relationships, particularly in the first-year writing classroom, it’s inevitable that we shed light on the workings of such to better comprehend where we can provide support as teachers. “Turning away” to a journal entry, even if for a few minutes, might provide a type of “interior space” Micciche points to so that students can begin to make peace with this less than friendly codependency while finding ways to process it through a moment of mindfulness.

     

    References

    • Bennett, Jane. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham: Duke UP, 2010.
    • Haraway, Donna. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (Experimental Futures). Durham: Duke UP, 2016.
    • Micciche, Laura R. “Writing Material.” College English, vol. 76, no. 6, 2014, pp. 488-505.
    • Perl, Sondra. Felt Sense: Writing with the Body. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Heinemann, 2004.
    • Shipka, Jody. Toward a Composition Made Whole. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P, 2011.

     

    Author

    • Aleashia Walton Valentin
      Aleashia Walton Valentin

      View all posts

    1 Comment

    1. Mary Le Rouge on February 25, 2022 11:52 am

      Nice blog post on mindfulness, Aleashia!

      Reply
    Reply To Mary Le Rouge Cancel Reply

    Recent Posts
    By Marie Pruitt, Alex Mashny and Robert BeckJune 16, 20250

    Blog Carnival 23: Editor’s Outro: “Digital Circulation in Rhetoric and Writing Studies

    By Stephen PaurJune 15, 20250

    Collage as Socialist Circulation

    By Kyle CunninghamJune 14, 20250

    Play, Rhetoric, and the Circulation of J.D. Vance Photoshops

    By Jaclyn OrdwayJune 13, 20250

    Attending to Scales of Intensity: A Viral/Chronological Method for Researching the Circulation of Activist Rhetoric

    By Lauren K. DownsJune 12, 20250

    Is This for Real? Implications of Deepfakes on Learning and Research

    Digital Rhetoric Collaborative | Gayle Morris Sweetland Center for Writing | University of Michigan

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.