Jennifer Forsthoefel: I think it is important to establish a writing culture on campus, really starting out with thinking what is the culture of writing on our campus currently, and what do we want it to be in the future? I think there should be an investment in considering that.

Paul Pribbenow: Augsburg University educates students to be informed citizens, thoughtful stewards, critical thinkers, and responsible leaders. I'm Paul Pribbenow, the President of Augsburg University, and it's my great privilege to present the Augsburg Podcast, one way you can get to know some of the faculty, and staff I'm honored to work with every day.

Catherine Day: I'm Catherine Reid Day, host of the Augsburg Podcast, and today we're speaking with Jennifer Forsthoefel who teaches English at Augsburg with a focus on writing. We'll be exploring with her what it means to teach writing across the curriculum, and what idea she has for improving writing across the campus. Welcome, Jennifer.

Jennifer Forsthoefel: Thank you.

Catherine Day: You've just, really just arrived here at Augsburg, right?

Jennifer Forsthoefel: Yes.

Catherine Day: Tell us about this experience of coming to know this English department that you're part of? What makes Augsburg's English department stand out to you, and what have you learned so far?

Jennifer Forsthoefel: The English department here at Augsburg is very welcoming. Being a new faculty member in a department there can be some expectations that you sit back, and listen for a while, and don't jump in too quickly, and while that's true in some ways, they do encourage me to have a voice already, and encourage my perspective, and my opinions, and value my opinions. I remember at the first department meeting something came up about courses that we were going to offer, and the ways we were considering changing our major, and I immediately jumped in with opinions about what I thought.

And, afterwards, I remember speaking to a couple of faculty members, and saying, “I'm so sorry if I was a little too opinionated. I know I'm new here, and I hope that I wasn't sort of overstepping by speaking my mind so early.” And, they laughed, and sort of said, “This is why we hired you, your expertise, your perspective on things, it would be our loss if you didn't include yourself in this conversation.”

And so, that has been really a wonderful experience to have as a new faculty member in the English department. There is this wave now of considering how we can better equip our students in terms of writing, and I really appreciate being one of the people that they look to, to get some perspective on how to do that well.

Catherine Day: Did you study, focus on English all the way through school?

Jennifer Forsthoefel: Yes. I went to the University of Florida, and got my degree in English, and I minored in education. When I first started college I was a business major briefly. I was a business major then a marketing major, then a PR major. Then I went, and decided to be a nursing major, and then, I think it was after that where I was just doing so poorly in my classes, even though I'd known that the English courses, and the writing courses was where I excelled, I was really convinced that I had to pursue a degree that had a direct correlation to a profession, and my, after sort of a really difficult semester my parents sat me down, and sort of said, “You are miserable, you don't enjoy your classes. Why are you doing this?”

I said well, “I wanna be able to do something with my degree, and I wanna, which you can do lots of things with an English degree, and I want to make sure that's very clear." It is such a versatile sort of degree to have, but it didn't translate one to one to me, and my parents said, "No, you will do better if you are invested, and enjoy what you're studying." They were right. I switched to being an English major, and it certainly wasn't easy, but came easier, because I was enjoying myself, and I found, and I was doing wonderful in my classes.

I got a master's degree in English education, secondary English education, and I taught high school briefly as a student teacher, and quickly realized that I was too young. I was about 22, and the students I was teaching were 18, and the ability for me to feel sort of confident in that classroom was far too difficult for me. I felt like I needed to go back to school. I decided to get a master's in English, and literature, and while I was doing that, I became involved in the writing center on my campus, and fell in love with that space, and that spurred some research interests, and intellectual interests in me, so I decided to pursue a PhD in English with a focus on rhetoric and composition. Sitting down one on one with students, and talking to them about their work, talking to them about their writing, I found I was really good at, but also I really enjoyed, and the students seemed to get a lot out of it.

And again, sort of getting the positive reinforcement like, "Oh, I'm good at this." Really made me excited about it, and so, it was something I was doing in the one on one space in the writing center quite a bit. The following year I was offered a course to teach writing, and that was extremely terrifying for me at first as I was not sure if my talents in the one on one space would really translate to a whole class setting, and so, it was really nerve-wracking at first, but again, I think it was being open to trying things, and seeing what worked, and seeing what didn't work, and giving myself the sort of space to figure that out. I did, and found that I enjoyed that also teaching students in a whole class setting.

Although I will say I do have a special place in my heart in my pedagogy for sitting down with students one on one, and talking to them about their writing, and their work. I think that, that is where I am at my best, and also where my students are at their best, and we are able to have truly wonderful teaching moments.

Catherine Day: You have come with a bit of an agenda it seems around writing. Can you talk about that?

Jennifer Forsthoefel: I think it's really important to know that writing is a skill, but it's also a muscle. It's something that you can't just learn, and then, it's sort of stored away in your brain, and you have that skill for the rest of your life. Writing is something that you constantly need to practice, and to work on to make that muscle strong, and so, if you're given a lot of space in between opportunities to write then certainly that muscle will weaken, and you will struggle more, and you'll maybe revert back to old habits, or problems in your writing that you didn't have before, because you haven't again had the advantage of having the opportunity to practice.

I think one of the things that I'm really encouraging Augsburg to consider, and adopt is the opportunity to incorporate writing throughout a student's curriculum here at Augsburg at several stages of their degree here at Augsburg, so it isn't just the job of the freshman writing course to teach the students to write, but instead is something that happens throughout their degree so that then when they get to be seniors, that they have a really strong muscle that they can use to write these senior projects, and do these [inaudible 00:08:31] things that are really important for them in terms of moving on from college to their career.

I'm hoping to assess, or figure out where is writing happening in students curriculum, and the various degrees that are offered here? At what points in their degree process are they given assignments? What kinds of writing assignments are they given? So that we can figure out where do we need to fill in those gaps to include a bit more writing practice, and potentially writing instruction.

Catherine Day: What do you think is the role of writing in the culture today if you look at it more broadly as a more global issue? We're a very visual culture, we're learning through YouTube videos.

Jennifer Forsthoefel: I think that there are, is as much writing being done now as ever by our students, and by us is just in smaller different formats. Certainly a space like Twitter, but also in these visual spaces that students ... social networking that students are using, there's always writing as part of that. They don't just put the image up, they want to describe it, or encourage the audience to view that image in a certain way with whatever their caption is. They're still writing. Politically, people are writing and presenting ideas that really differ, and so, I think it's important right now in terms of communication generally, be it writing, or any of the other ways that we communicate to consider our audiences, and consider what is our purpose? What are we trying to accomplish when we state this thing, or write this thing, and put this piece of communication out there?

Because, if it is to convince others, or to change another person's mind that entails something very specific in particular, but if it is just to state our own opinion so that it's out there, that entails something different, so really considering what the purpose is, and tailoring our rhetoric to serve that purpose.

Catherine Day: In what ways do you think it's important for you to show your students that being yourself is is valuable? Does that show up in the way you work with them in writing?

Jennifer Forsthoefel: Yes, I think it's difficult, particularly when we're teaching the expectations of academic writing in the freshman writing classes. There is one, there's expectation that we will teach students how to conform to the rules and regulations that have been established long ago as to what constitutes academic writing. That can sometimes be in a bit of conflict with also encouraging students to have their own voice, to have their own sort of identity, and selfhood be part of their writing.

I think we have those conversations, and I think that's, if I do anything to encourage being yourself in terms of student writing it's sort of making that a part of the conversation while also recognizing there're certain standards and expectations that I'm expected to teach, and so, how do we negotiate that? It's different with every assignment, it's also different with every student, and it's just an opportunity for them to explore the possibilities of that, and what that means.

Catherine Day: In doing academic writing are you in hopes of them making an argument?

Jennifer Forsthoefel: Yes, the end goal at the end of my effective writing class is for students to be able to make a rhetorically sound argument.

Catherine Day: And, that's been a challenge?

Jennifer Forsthoefel: Yeah, it is a challenge. I think that it's always a challenge in different ways at different institutions, and with different students, but asking students just to convince an audience that is not themselves, so really anticipating what does your audience need for them to be convinced, and your audience is not you, so even though you are convinced, and that's great, that's where you need to start from. You should believe in the conclusions of your argument. You need to somehow be able to translate, write that in a way that convinces your audience. Your own personal experiences can't be the only things that we rely on. Where else can we go for support, and evidence to persuade our audience at least to consider our argument if not buy it wholeheartedly?

And, yeah, it's challenging to assess your audience, no matter where you are, because it's a sort of nebulous abstract concept audience, what is that? And so, students find that challenging, because I think it is one of the first times that they're really having to consider what do people that are may be completely different from me need to understand where I'm coming from. I think certainly that can do nothing, but benefit us culturally at the moment too, is knowing how to do that.

Catherine Day: What investments do we need to make in writing and why?

Jennifer Forsthoefel: I think one of the ways to figure out what that needs to be is paying more attention to the spaces where writing happens, and where writing support happens. I think there are incredible opportunities for their writing lab as it's called here on campus to provide support to students who are writing across the curriculum, across grade levels, and across experiences. There's something really powerful about having another student sit down with you, somebody who's your peer, and respond to your writing, or have another student come to your class, and say, “Here is what, here's a workshop I'm giving you from my perspective as a student.”

They're much closer to the age that probably are, and the life experience in some ways the audience they're giving, so they're able to provide really, audience appropriate content for the workshops that they're giving. I think investing in that space, and the potentials, the writing lab that is, and the potentials that it has would be really beneficial to the Augsburg community at large.

Catherine Day: If there is a, that writing lab, is that something you'd be directing?

Jennifer Forsthoefel: Yeah, I'm directing it full-time next year. This year Sarah Kenny is directing it, because it is my first year here at Augsburg, so they sort of, the first year keep your service requirements very, very low if not at all, to give you the opportunity to really focus on the teaching, and things like that, but next year I'll be directing it full-time. My dissertation was on writing centers, sort of, that's the area of scholarship. I'm really passionate about the research area, I'm really passionate about the opportunity to finally have my own writing center to direct is really, really, really exciting for me, and a professional milestone for me, a goal I set for myself that I am now gonna have the opportunity to reach.

Catherine Day: Congratulations.

Jennifer Forsthoefel: Thank you.

Catherine Day: It's a big deal.

Jennifer Forsthoefel: It is a big deal. It's so exciting, and with the amount of emphasis that this campus right now is putting on things like [inaudible 00:15:58] and student research, and it's so exciting, because in that writing center [inaudible 00:16:04] can students provide support for other students while tutoring in the lab, but also the tutors themselves are going to have some really enriching educational experiences. Certainly a space like a writing center, and writing center scholarship encourages tutor voices, encourages directors to collaborate with tutors on research projects, and that's something that I am excited about doing, that there's support here already in place to do, and that I plan on making a part of the program of the writing lab here on campus.

Catherine Day: Is there a dream that you have for this time in your life as you embark you're so new to full-time teaching? What do you imagine for yourself in a few years, and for your practice?

Jennifer Forsthoefel: I imagine running a thriving writing center, writing lab, writing center, whatever it ends up being called on campus, and creating a reputation for the center here on campus for other small liberal arts colleges to sort of look to, and potentially learn from. That is certainly a dream, and I think a very, very possible dream for me, as well as settling down, and creating a life here in the Midwest, which is, again, a very different space than where I came from, but certainly, I think I can certainly do that here. Settling down, and creating a family, whatever that looks like here in Minneapolis. That's the dream.

Catherine Day: Thank you for joining us today Jennifer, it's been great having you on the Augsburg Podcast.

Jennifer Forsthoefel: Thank you.

Catherine Day: That was Jennifer Forsthoefel of the English department at Augsburg University.

Paul Pribbenow: Thanks for listening to the Augsburg Podcast, I'm President Paul Pribbenow. For more information, please visit augsburg.edu.