The introduction to Chapter 5, one entry within the chapter, “Visualizing Composition: Audience,� and Jesse Gordon’s Op-Art “What is America?� from Chapter 7 in Seeing & Writing frame assignments I use with English Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) composition students. ESOL students who arrive in the United States just prior to beginning their collegiate experiences pursue academic literacy first by attempting to make meaning in ways their cultures have afforded them. Such affordances, though culturally rich in contexts with which students are familiar, often leave students challenged particularly by institutional contexts of higher education in the United States and generally by cultural contexts that produce America. Challenging contexts become educationally viable, however, when ESOL students begin a dialogue with the culture of their origin and the culture they explore in the US. They discover: "America has always been as much a place dreamed of-a site of hope and expectation-as it has been a real place to be lived in. This distinction-and often, discontinuity-between potential and actual America has been one of the most traditional features of American culture." Before and After. Students who travel from other countries to the United States bring with them many conceptualization of life in the US. The sources that inform these concepts vary as much as the conceptualizations. Because I value the knowledge students communicate in class, I enjoy creating assignments that build upon that knowledge. In this assignment, I ask the students to write an essay that answers the following questions:

1. Describe the ways you learned about the United States before you arrived.
2. What were the sources of the information you learned?
3. What have you learned about the US since your arrival?
4. How do you evaluate the sources of information?

Students analyze the culture they experience in the US as juxtaposed to the culture of depictions of the US they learned before their arrivals. When these students analyze depictions of America from sources including anecdotes of relatives or friends, movies, lyrics, videos and the US flag, their analyses prove that “America has always been-and remains-a “storied land’ a place in which it is increasingly difficult to separate hype from reality, copy from original, image from actual.� Bumper Stickers. Each student chooses seven bumper stickers from the car of another professor who is employed at the university. Then each student writes an essay on the selection and interpretations of bumper stickers in response to the following prompts:

1. Name the bumper stickers you chose.
2. Explain the reasons you chose the bumper stickers.
3. What do they say to you? What do these choices say about you?
4. Who has the privilege of uttering those words?
5. What are the reasons you did not choose the other stickers?

Students read peer’s essays, make suggestions for improvement, revise accordingly and submit essays to me. Next, each student writes a letter about the bumper sticker assignment to someone in his or her country. Then, students write a letter to the professor who owns the car with the bumper stickers. Finally, students compose three bumper stickers of their own. When these students analyze bumper stickers and consider intended messages and formulate personal responses, they, too, concede that “Analyzing-rather than simply consuming-language and imagery that seek to re-produce America as a place and a way of living is an important responsibility for every citizen and student of America.� Status. In America status may be attributed to many variables including wealth, power, and knowledge. These variables and others emotionally conceptualize America in Jesse Gordon’s Op-Art “What is America?� In this assignment, I ask students to think about their own status, that is their visa status. If they are f-1, they generally intend to stay in the US for several years until they complete one or more degrees. If they are j-1, they stay usually for one term as an exchange student. Sometimes f-1 students who complete their study become h-1 and stay in the US for additional years while working in their discipline. After students identify their status, they choose among Gordon’s representations or create representations that express what America is to them. Then they write an in-class essay examining whether a change in status would evoke change in their conceptualization of America. After the students write the essays, we discuss representation and status. Implications. Each of these assignments encourages students to understand that “Developing a practiced awareness of the person-or people-for whom a text is composed remains an essential ingredient in any successful act of composition." Students learn through issues like audience awareness that language embodies many dimensions including ideas-what we think and what we know, interactions-ways relationships with people influence our communication; text-means of presenting information—verbal, visual, aural, for example; identity and power.