Learning more

I've forgotten just what it takes to learn how to navigate in a new environment, for example a college environment. That's what my Engl 90 students are teaching me this semester.

Many haven't used computers before -- something I've not thought about for about four years, back when much of the discussion about technology and teaching reminded us to consider the "have nots" when it came to access. That conversation has died down because it seems as though more and more folks have access (laptops are a "mere" $400 these days!).

But I have students who don't have $400 for a laptop. They tell me stories of lost jobs, lost homes, having to put down a horse, having to move in with a brother's friend to sleep on a couch. These students come from all corners of the eastern suburbs, some driving an hour to class. They come from Hong Kong, Cambodia, Japan, Chicago, Memphis -- all cultures very different from White Bear Lake, MN. Many are in college for the first time in their 30s, 40s, and older.

Everybody's learning, it seems, especially me.

Important Poem for my students

I just read this poem by Franz Wright in my latest New Yorker magazine (the one with Mariana Cook's beautiful photo of Michelle and Barack Obama from 1996).

I'm going to post it to our class blog, I think.

Learning to Read

If I had to look up every fifth or sixth word,
so what. I looked them up.
I had nowhere important to be.

My father was unavailable, and my mother
looked like she was about to break,
and not into blossom, every time I spoke.

My favorite was the Iliad. True,
I had trouble pronouncing the names,
but when was I was going to pronounce them, and

to whom?
My stepfather maybe?
Number one, he could barely speak English;

two, he had sufficient intent
to smirk or knock me down
without any prompting from me.

Loneliness, boredom and terror
my motivation
fiercely fueled.

I get down on my knees and thank God for them.

Du Fu, the Psalms, Whitman, Rilke.
Life has taught me
to understand books.

Public Radio on our campus

Here's a audio file about Century College:

MPR has a profile about White Bear Lake, and Century is featured. One of our best most compassionate and intelligent instructors, Kathy Matel, is interviewed.

The Inaugural Address

Today in my writing courses, we began class with a discussion about genre, audience, purpose, and style as preparation for viewing this historical inaugural address.


Then we conversed about it on our class blog -- rather than having a f2f vocal discussion. This activity worked: in the writing about it afterwards, students expressed a range of opinions they probably wouldn't want to share in class. I've still got so many hard-core Republican students who just can't acknowledge the actual content of this speech; instead, they fall back on the "he won't be able to fulfill his promises" bumper stickers instead of listening to what he actually said.

Many, many lessons are embedded in today's historic events and in my students' responses to these events.

MnCEUW Conference

I'm trying to get the word out about this conference -- we need proposals!

Call for Proposals for April 3-4 MnCUEW Conference

First Annual MnCUEW Conference (Minnesota Colleges and Universities English and Writing), April 3-4, 2009 – Sponsored by MnSCU and the University of Minnesota

2009 THEME: "Across Borders: Assessment, Accountability, and Scholarship in Literature, Composition, and Creative Writing"

LOCATION: The University of Minnesota Continuing Education and Conference Center, St. Paul

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS: Fri., April 3, Paul Bodmer, National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Senior Program Officer for Higher Education in Washington, D.C. (retired), and former NCTE Associate Executive Director for Higher Education in Urbana, Illinois; subject – changing expectations for higher education in English in the 21^st century. Sat., April 4, Dr. Lynda Milne, Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) System Director for Faculty Development and Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning; subject – new methods of assessing students' – and one's own – teaching and learning.

PROPOSALS: Please send your proposals and proposal ideas for single sessions by one or more presenters (15 min.) and panels by three or more presenters (1 hr. with time for discussion). We are looking for proposals from any college teachers as above, full or part time, that address any aspect of teaching literature, composition, and professional and creative writing. Send your proposals to Carol Mohrbacher c/o writeplace@stcloudstate.edu with a title and 50-150 w. describing your session by Feb. 28, 2009. We encourage both interactive and traditional presentations and discussions. (You do not need to write a formal paper to present.) Possible topics include the following:

composition, literature, developmental writing, writing about literature, writing centers, WAC/ WAD/WI, computers/electronic delivery and English, English and NNS/ESL, creative writing, technical/professional writing, transfer, bridging gap between h.s. and college, working conditions/ teaching loads/adjunct or TA/GA issues, placement/assessment/exit procedures, diversity, research, et al.

DESCRIPTION: The 2009 MnCUEW Conference provides a forum for college and university English and writing instructors to discuss current pedagogies in teaching and learning English, assessment and other initiatives, research projects, and systems-wide accountability issues. Faculty will be able to share different methods, pedagogies, and styles in teaching literature, composition, and professional and creative writing and discover ways in which English/writing faculty members are collaborating in, crossing lines of, and extending English and writing instruction. We encourage proposals from MnSCU, UMN, and private college faculty, graduate students, and college-in-the-schools teachers in Minnesota and surrounding states.

This program is made possible through a Center for Teaching and Learning grant with generous funding from the MnSCU (Minnesota State Colleges and Universities) System Office of the Chancellor.

Bitter Cold

So the temps in the minus-twenties are enough to cancel class and close the schools in Madison, according to my pals over there. And I had a student a few days ago email me about tonight's class, wondering if it'd be cancelled because of the predicted -20 degrees and even lower windchills.

It's -20 right now in St. Paul, but feels like -33. In my house, we're all wondering if our cars will start! I wonder how many students are worrying about the same thing . . . .

First Class

Twenty-five students enrolled, twenty-one present: Of those present, only three female: the rest adolescent males of various hues. Weird energy.

And the room is long, skinny, plugged up in the middle with three round tables, the perimeter full of (some non-working) computers for writing, an instructor's "computer station" anchoring one end of the shoebox.

We got to know each other a little bit better than we'd've managed in a more ergonomically friendly space!

Spring begins?

Spring semester is here -- how is it possible to call this chunk of educational time "spring"? It's snowing and 9 degrees outside.

But I'm oddly ready for it: not that my syllabi are "done" or anything as exotic as that. But I'm looking forward *very much* to teaching a developmental writing course that I last taught in 2004 I discovered when I went file fishing through old syllabi to figure out how to shape the course. I was in a different office then, a rhombus-shaped closet.

The course will be hard for all of us, I think, since I'm using a new book by a colleague/friend I respect immensely: Linda Adler-Kassner's Considering Literacy: Reading and Writing the Educational Experience. It'll be hard for students because of the extended readings, even though the author's conversational tone should ameliorate that.

Two other exciting courses: I'm back to teaching women and gender studies, the intro course. It's been a while there, too, and the textbook is in a new edition: more good reading to catch up on. And an American Lit for the second time: new editions *there* too!

So sad

I just received an email from our college president about the death of a colleague: not unexpected, I suppose, since Mark has had a form of leukemia this past year. But I saw him in the hallway during finals week, a month ago, thin as a wraith in thick, baggy sweat pants and his characteristic dark-gray vest. All I managed was a "hey, there" and a smile as he turned towards the men's room.

Wow. He was a smart curmudgeon, the kind of irascible liberal arts guy that I respected and tangled with, alert to his intelligence and commitment to the old-fashioned virtues: self-respect, hard work, purposefulness, excellence, integrity. He thought his students capable of these and certainly exhibited them himself, even as he groused about paperwork and procedures, institutional innovations and the shenanigans of our current late-capitalistic education enterprise.

Mark almost never smiled, yet he seemed approachable and humorous, keeping a hallway bulletin board restocked each semester with historical cartoons and satirical images to show there's nothing new under the sun when it comes to human folly.

I will miss his uncompromising dismissal of stupidity, his unwavering certainty about his own views, his quietly scathing critique, his scowl, him.