by Stephanie Ramlogan
Recently, I’ve been thinking about the true objectives of my English Composition course at Baruch, and reflecting on effective course design that supports students during a history-making time of war, climate change and political chaos. In this context, the standard goals of this course (teaching students to write analytically, summarize effectively, and cite in MLA format) can seem small and unimportant. For students who attended high school online during a global pandemic, syntax and sentence structure can be the furthest things from their minds.
My students come alive in a good debate, though, especially about trending topics on social media like Cancel Culture and Trad Wives. My students are barely reading books, but they are reading the internet.
Since most of my students’ reading and writing happens online, my work as a teacher is to prepare students to resist engaging with (or becoming) internet trolls. “Trolls” deliberately provoke, insult, or spread misinformation to elicit emotional responses, disrupt conversations, or gain attention online (Phillips). With this in mind, I design courses and assignments that help students to engage in thoughtful discourse rather than defaulting to inflammatory, thoughtless rhetoric that dominates online spaces. Trolls thrive on reactionary arguments and generalizations; I help students converse with nuance, empathy, and critical reflection, which bolsters one of Baruch’s aims—to use writing as a tool of discovery. I do this by fostering an atmosphere of trust, creating assignments that encourage self-discovery, and by incorporating social media into lessons and assignments.
In my classroom, I emphasize trust and openness, creating a space where students feel comfortable exploring complex aspects of their identities through writing. Many students perceive academic writing as static and rigid—a template to follow, a series of points to organize—instead of an opportunity to grow, explore, and express their cultural perspectives. By encouraging students to bring their authentic selves into their work, I hope to contrast the shallow, divisive rhetoric from trolls who formulate opinions based on headlines alone.
Developing Individual Voices: Beyond the Academic Template
My pedagogical approach emphasizes the importance of discovering and developing one’s personal voice through writing. One way I implement this is by encouraging students to write in a way that is true to their identity. I start the semester with a personal essay assignment, leaving the prompt open-ended. Most recently, students wrote about an inner conflict they’ve navigated where they’ve faced two desires, but could only choose one. This prompt is effective because it helps students think through the complexity and contradictions that are part of being human, and encourages reflection instead of writing toward “correct” responses.
I am struck by how often these conflicts revolve around deeply held religious beliefs. One student wrote about navigating conflicts between Senegalese cultural practices and Islam; another reflected on body dysmorphia and her fear that she wasn’t living up to the standards of a “good Christian.” Another student discussed unlearning religious beliefs about heaven and hell, seeking new ethical frameworks for his life. Whether grappling with tensions between cultural traditions and faith, questioning personal struggles in light of religious expectations, or re-examining long-held beliefs, religion plays a central role in their sense of self and processing internal dilemmas. They care about faith and identity, so I intentionally create space to explore this in writing.
Strategies For Creating Trust in the Classroom
But it’s not enough to tell students to bring their full selves into their writing—they need to feel safe doing so. My students share thoughts and feelings that they hide from their parents and other authority figures. To create a sense of safety, I state in the syllabus and verbally that whatever we say in class is confidential. No one will be treated differently because of their opinions. I participate in the exchange of ideas, being honest about my own beliefs and uncertainties. I try to speak to them at eye level and organize in-class assignments that allow me to walk around and speak to each person individually, addressing them by name. If they share their country of origin, I learn that, too. Despite the subject matter, I aim to teach with a humorous and relaxed approach that leaves room for mistakes and growth.
To establish a nonjudgmental and open environment, I ask students to collectively define what “good” and “bad” mean in our classroom. We prioritize reflective responses over emotional reactivity. When someone shares their writing, we focus on how the author can best express themselves in essay form instead of disputing their arguments.
Short stories and personal essays are the foundation for our constructive conversations. Recently, we read Ramesh Parameswaran’s The Infamous Bengal Ming, Ingrid Persaud’s The Sweet Sop, and Shivanee Ramlochan’s essay “The Good Brown Girl.” In these texts, the narrators engage in actions that can be interpreted as both good and bad depending on your perspective. I created an in-class group exercise titled “Recipe for Goodness” in which students were asked to identify the “villains” and the “good guys” in each text. We compiled a list on the board of personal qualities that we agreed were generally “good.” I turned this list into a slide for us to reference and edit throughout the semester. What emerged from this exercise was a collective realization that characterizations like “good” and “bad” are more complex than they seem. For example, the tiger in The Infamous Bengal Ming felt guilty for killing his trainer, and students felt that “remorse” should be included in the Recipe. As our discussions evolved, students questioned the character’s sincerity and wondered if “remorse” is a “good” quality if it doesn’t lead to changed behavior.
Questioning traditional moral interpretations of texts like these is a significant part of why students are comfortable sharing their perspectives, as they expect to be met without judgment. While trolls attack ideas; we create questions that foster the genuine understanding, curiosity, and openness essential to cultivating the trust necessary for authentic self-expression.
Fostering Multimodal Literacy Through Social Media
While academic writing is the primary course goal, I recognize that students constantly engage with and communicate through social media. Despite its pitfalls, social media presents opportunities for developing rhetorical skills and multimodal literacy. Theoretical frameworks like multimodality (Kress 2010) and digital literacy (Rheingold 2012) suggest that reading and writing in today’s world require students to navigate text, image, and video in meaningful ways. By incorporating social media into the classroom, we can give students the chance to connect their academic skills with the platforms they use every day, and encourage them to do so thoughtfully.
One way I approach this is through teaching “summary” using social media. Students summarize an article in 280 characters, X (formerly Twitter)-style. They distill complex information into a concise and engaging format focused on clarity—skills that are valuable in traditional academic writing. This helps them think critically about reaching a specific audience, just as they would with an essay’s thesis statement or introduction. We acknowledge the existence and relevance of social media, and openly discuss what they read online.
Conclusion: Saving the Internet, One Student Voice at a Time
By strategically encouraging students to bring their full selves into their writing within the context of academic analysis, I aim to help students develop writing skills and become more thoughtful, empathetic digital citizens. When students are encouraged through specific assignments to connect their writing to their personal identities and cultural backgrounds, they become more engaged, authentic, and less likely to fall for the shallow troll-like thinking. Some students turn to AI due to fear of having “wrong” or “bad” opinions, an issue exacerbated by internet trolls; I want them to experiment with writing without this fear. Their confidence increases when they know that their perspective is informed by consideration, introspection, and clarification of their own truths.
Instead of focusing on helping students write smart-sounding essays, I aim to teach them to contribute to broader conversations with integrity, empathy, and a strong sense of self. In a world where AI can churn out an essay in seconds and trolls persistently disinform, it is hard to help students’ access and trust their voices, which are rooted in their cultures, religions, and lived experiences. By modeling vulnerability, creating a nonjudgmental and trusting environment, exploring texts that feature complicated narrators, and incorporating social media, I aim to help students write toward the uncertainty of what’s most important to their writing process—being human.
Works Cited
Kress, Gunther. Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication. Routledge, 2010.
Phillips, Whitney. This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship Between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture. MIT Press, 2015.
Rheingold, Howard. Net Smart: How to Thrive Online. MIT Press, 2012.
Smith, Nara. “Tradwives Are Leveling Up.” Dazed, November 2023, https://www.dazeddigital.com.
Wardle, Claire, and Hossein Derakhshan. Information Disorder: Toward an Interdisciplinary Framework for Research and Policy Making. Council of Europe, 2017, https://rm.coe.int.