Amory Orchard Interview, May 28, 2020

SEGMENT SYNOPSIS: Amory Orchard, a PhD student in Rhetoric and Composition at Florida State University, discusses the personal and professional impacts of COVID. As both a teacher and a student, she shares how this crisis has put her life into "a stasis of constant reflection" as she, along with others in her field, questioned how to transition to online. SUBJECTS: COVID-19; (Tallahassee, Florida)

Alright. Hi, my name is Amory Orchard. Maren Orchard, my sister, invited me to join this project. I'm really excited.

So, COVID-19 has impacted me a lot, personally and then also professionally. I'm a PhD student in Rhetoric and Composition at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida. And I'm also a graduate student. So COVID-19, when it hit, really put my life into, like, a stasis of constant reflection, right? How are we going to be able to help students with writing virtually as well as in person? So, in my field, we came together through hashtags and listservs in order to reflect on best

practices. So, is asynchronous better than synchronous? And we've found out that a mix of synchronous and asynchronous teaching really is better. Because you do want to keep in touch with your students and have that face-to-face interaction, right? But then there are people who also, because of, say, family illness or just not being able to be online due to accessibility issues with one reason or another, maybe they have a job, or just poor Wi Fi access, like it makes it harder for them to get in contact.

So COVID-19 as a student, as a teacher, as well as a student, has really made me cognizant of that. I feel pretty privileged that I've been able to, most of the time, log on to Zoom, barring the occasional issue. But yeah, it's really been making me think about how other people, especially my students, are able to get through this time.

So really, my students have been helping me get through this moment of crisis. I try to be a resource for them, available through email as much as possible. But also my cohort, and the Rhetoric and Composition program, has been really great. We have weekly Zoom hangouts, where we get together, play charades, or just vent about how things are going. My cat Teddy has also been such a great, yeah just a really great reminder that there's somebody for me to take care of during this time, in my own house, so. And then also, my parents and my family, we check in way more often than we usually do.

So I really hope that we learn from this crisis is, oh, let's see. Just, oh, let's see, just to be able to check in with each other even when there isn't a pandemic. Teachers, for example, should be, like, checking in with their students even if there isn't a moment of crisis, if they're not around, just making sure they're okay. Family should probably check in with each other too. And then of course, like, being around as much as possible. So yeah, thank you so much for inviting me to join this project.