Why I’m not excited by (or even using) generative AI

Between all the hype and doom-mongering over AI text generators (ChatGPT and their ilk), there is a blunt reality: these products and the profit-seeking corporations that market them are not our friends and they have no place in education at this time.

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Don’t panic! Emergency and/or planned hybrid teaching

In the classic BBC comedy Dad’s Army about the Home Guard during WWII, one character-Lance Corporal Jones-would respond to every week’s presumed crisis by losing his cool and frantically shouting, “Don’t panic! Don’t panic!” It’s a peculiarly British comedy: the series depicts one of the darkest times in recent history by both valorizing and lightly mocking the veterans and others who, too old or unwell to serve abroad (hence dad’s army), volunteered to protect the homeland from the constant yet distant threat of invasion.

In the past 2 years (2 years!), I sometimes wonder if I sound like Corporal Jones urging my colleagues-and myself-not to panic while we lurch (sorry, pivot) from in-person to online to hybrid to everything at once. Covid is both lapping at our shores and a faint dark cloud on the horizon. And it’s nothing to laugh about. I watched re-runs of Dad’s Army as a child in a (mostly) stable, (somewhat) powerful country, (largely) at peace and free of the dangers that justified Jones’s comedic panic. I live through these times without those assurances and without the benefit of hindsight. So, yeah, sometimes I panic a little.

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(Reads, reading, has read): 5 smart tips for teaching grammar through extensive reading

Here’s a blog post I wrote for the OUP Global site on teaching grammar through (extensive) reading. It’s loosely tied to Q:Skills for Success, but I’ve been batting around these ideas for some time. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Source: (Reads, reading, has read): 5 smart tips for teaching grammar through extensive reading

Conferences 2017

Here’s my speaking schedule for the coming year. Come join me!

Kansas State University Intensive English Program (professional development workshop), December 15

EAP Conference at St. Andrew’s University, Scotland, February 24-25, 2017

  • Workshop, “Genres That Work in the Writing Classroom”
  • Plenary speaker. “Go with the Flow: Creating Cohesion in Academic Discourse”

AAAL Conference, Portland, March 17-19, 2017

  • Connecting Process and Product: Mixed-Method Research into Collaborative Writing

TESOL Convention, Seattle, March 21-24, 2017 (handouts & slides here)

  • “Myths of the Five-Paragraph Essay.” Second Language Writing Interest Section Academic Session, with Dana Ferris, Christine Ortmeier-Hooper, Luciana de Oliveira, Deborah Crusan, and Ann Johns.
  • ” Argue, Contend, Exort: Teaching the Language of Argumentative Writing” with Silvia Pessoa, Ryan Miller, Tom Mitchel, and Sandra Zappa Hollman
  • “Many Hands Make Writing Work: Planning Engaging Collaborative Writing Tasks” with Monica Farling

New book! Supporting Graduate Student Writers

cover.pngA new collection which I helped edit has just been published by the University of Michigan Press. Supporting Graduate Writers: Research, Curriculum, Program Design (Simpson, Caplan, Cox, & Phillis, 2016) is the first edited volume to discuss options in designing writing support for graduate students writing in English both as their first or additional language. You can find it on the Press’s website, amazon.com, and all fine booksellers. The blurb is below the break. Thanks and congratulations to editors Steve Simpson, Michelle Cox, and Talinn Phillips as well as the amazing cast of contributors. It was a fascinating project to work on.

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Introduction to SFL for K-12/ELL teachers

I just discovered this fantastic recording of a lecture by Mary Schleppegrell of the University of Michigan in which she introduces the use of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and argues convincingly for the incorporation of SFL metalanguage in order to give ELLs access to grade-level disciplinary texts. I’m going to use this as part of a blended course for Delaware K-12 teachers as they start to read Luciana de Oliveira and Mary Schleppegrell’s Focus on Grammar and Meaning.