Teaching literacy (writing, speaking, listening, designing, visualizing) in an online environment must be grounded in the same principles as all my teaching. From Peter Elbow, I embrace the notion of “the believing game” in my teaching, which is defined by Elbow as

“the disciplined practice of trying to be as welcoming or accepting as possible to every idea we encounter, not just listening to views different from our own and holding back from arguing with them, not just trying to restate them without bias (as Carl Rogers advocated), but actually trying to believe them” (2).

He contrasts this with “the doubting game,” most often associated with critical thinking or rational skepticism. Elbow sees a need for both, advocating that belief must precede doubt. In teaching students this skill, we help them find “flaws” in their thinking, help them learn to “choose among competing positions,” and help them develop a number of other important habits of being that the “doubting game” fails to inculcate in learners, among them social interaction and individualism (5-9). Elbow’s work has greatly influenced my teaching, and it has helped me understand why it is important for students to write, debate, discuss, engage in rhetorical activities of all sorts—I want my students to understand others and communicate with them in productive and community-minded ways. I have found that teaching multimodal assignments in an online environment gives the teacher affordances that allow the “believing game” to flourish.

Active Learning. Because of the very nature of the online environment, lectures become a minor part of instruction, and of necessity, emphasis on what the students make is the core of the class. The quality of their final products seems often of lesser importance than the process of learning and doing in a new media or even in an unfamiliar literacy mode as they progress toward the final product.

Inclusion and Access. The variety of assignments using digital tools, along with visual, aural, and graphic presentation of instructions and student productions assists students to learn in modes of their choice and according to their needs. A range of assignments and modes helps invite all students into the learning of the class that promises flexibility and adaptability. Equally, because students are often creating public-facing assignments, they find themselves thinking about their own communication and how it invites or denies access to potential viewers. Their own awareness of the other is heightened. Online environments can also be places to implement other inclusive practices, such as labor-based, completion assessment rather than typical grading assessments. Course design in modular structures with all modules visible at all times allow students to modify their work plans to fit their lives and needs, working ahead, for example, or completing work within a set ranges of dates, easily adjustable for their purposes.

Real Audience: One of the great boons of teaching in an online environment and having students engage in multimodal assignments which can be posted to public audiences is that students are less likely to “overshoot” into negative and overly critical writing, thus getting at the Elbowian principle of belief as a principle of learning. This tendency is automatically tempered in a way that writing essays not to be seen by anyone except perhaps a teacher are not. The real and tangible presence of an audience bends students toward a desire for rapport and identification with potential readers, rather than impressing a teacher. Online teachers do not have to create an imaginary audience. I have found that students revise feverishly and rerecord presentations before we post them to a website. Suddenly, they find themselves shaping their work to avoid the appearance of bias or adding material to increase audience understanding.

Teaching for Transfer. Transfer of learning from the school assignment to future coursework in the college or future communication in the post-college world has become a key principle in writing instruction (Yancey, et. al.). The transfer of learning is one of the outgrowths, in my experience, for students who are playing the believing game. If students are invested in seeing the good in what they are learning, they incorporate it into their metathinking. It becomes a part of them. Online classes, because of the public-facing work and because of the active engagement in doing, discover their own affinity for communication tools and methods of displaying information which becomes a part of their work in their future. These methods can be a part of their literacy toolkit, as much as speaking and writing already are.

Reflection and Meta-thinking. Modeling behavior and learning is an increased responsibility for a teacher in an online environment. Borgman and McArdle talk about “responsive instruction” and how to effectively use our time and space with students in an online environment (57-8). The online environment allows the teacher is very conducive to reflection exercises and other kinds of metacognitive work. Submitting reflections with all assignments encourages process thinking and transfer. The teacher can use the affordance provided by the online class to post reflective videos and other communications as models for students. Mid-term surveys and reflections about the teaching and learning in the class seem also a valuable part of the learning experience of online instruction. The teacher has the opportunity in drafting assignments to increase belief on the part of students by reflecting on the value of assignments and the learning each assignment provides.

Along with the affordances and advantages which come with an online environment, knowledge of the challenges of this kind of teaching are also part of my constant retooling of my teaching.

Creating Community. A long-time concern of teachers in online classes is the need to create a community of learners. Both students and teachers need a community of support and a site of feeling “validated/legitimized for the work” they do (Borgman and McArdle 13). It is especially important for teachers to create spaces and opportunities for writer-to-writer engagement, as well as communication with the teacher. I have heard from students over the years that it is in their engagement with their classmates that they learn the most from seeing each other’s approach to assignments and receiving both praise and questioning of their own work. Online spaces are ideal for writer’s groups, shared documents, digitally annotating and video commenting, but this takes attention to course design, modeling, and encouragement from the teacher. With intentionality the online class can be an invitational space to create an identity within the community though assignments. Teachers model that community identity by participating fully in the community though mini-lessons and screencasts. For example when students are reading a text over a period of weeks, I regularly post very short videos of me doing a “deep dive” into a paragraph or two of the book to keep them reading on schedule and help model how to read difficult texts. When we engage in a group or small group discussion of the work, there is a foundation already laid for deep reading and themes which have been spinning in the short videos. They can approach the text with the confidence that they are already a community of readers with shared experiences and are welcome to engage fully in the learning to come.

Preparedness and Communication. Course Design and visibility for students are musts for online teaching. The development of instructional videos, clear outcomes and rationale for assignments is essential to successful progress of a course. Because they may not be getting constant verbal reminders of assignments and due dates, these things need to be laid out in a clear format and easily viewed by the students. The use of modules in the LMS or links and pages on a course website are the table of contents of the course. Being prepared before the semester begins, even communicating with the students in advance of the first day, all become part of the teacherly ethos of trust and support that is passed along to students.

Accessibility. The literature of online literacy instruction points to the importance and challenges of accessibility. Students with disabilities of all sorts approach the digital instructions, materials, and examples with their own set of struggles. Beyond this, my students have dealt with connectivity issues, lack of access to Wi-Fi, poor equipment, lack of equipment, lack of space, lack of privacy, and other problems created by their own home or school environments. Teachers need to develop insight and sensitivity to these issues, as well as building in flexibility and alternative options into their course design as much as possible. Surveying students early or even before class begins about particular struggles or needs they might have, seeking help from campus resources, and maintaining communication with students have worked for me in overcoming these challenges. Teachers do not only teach content in an online class—they also support the students in becoming effective digital explorers as they negotiate the learning management system and communicate their ideas within the digital environment.

In all these ways, online teachers give of their time, their knowledge, their work, and their very selves to their students. By being responsive, modeling inclusion, and creating a community of learners, I believe I teach my students that the pursuit of self-interest over the good of others is not a viable choice. My pedagogy, therefore, is inclusive in that it teaches an awareness of the other, an understanding of difference, and a more global concept of self as it is situated in community.

Works Cited

Borgman, Jesse and Casey McArdle. Personal, Accessible, Responsible, Strategic: Resources and Strategies for Online Writing Instructors. WAC Clearinghouse, UP Colorado, 2019.

Elbow, Peter. “The Believing Game or Methodological Believing.” JAEPL (Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning. 14 (Winter 2008-9): 1-11. Print. Archived at http://trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1160&context=jaepl.

Yancey, Kathleen Blake, Liane Robertson, Kara Taczak. Writing Across Contexts: Transfer, Composition, and Sites of Writing. Utah SUP, 2014.