Memorizing

So I'm working on memorizing an Emily Dickinson poem for my American Women Writers class tomorrow. I've assigned the task to students, so of course I have to do it myself. We're going to sit in a circle, with everyone reciting their poem. Some students have already emailed me about "alternate assignments" because they're so nervous.

I get it: it's tough! I memorized one poem a few years ago, the last time I taught this course, but I can't even remember which poem I chose! Just goes to show how weak my memorization powers are . . . as if this is news.

Takes me back to the first time I had to recite a memorized poem to a professor: it was Toni McNaron at the U of M who required this assignment. We would meet in her office and recite to her *personally*, which was scary. I chose Adrienne Rich's "Power," which begins something like this: "Buried, in the earth deposits of our history" but then I lose it: I know a bottle was buried: one bottle? brown I think?

The poem ends with "She died, not knowing her wounds came from the same source as her power" or something like that. It's about Marie Curie.

So of course now I've had to google the poem, to find out what it really says. Here it is:

Power

Living in the earth-deposits of our history

Today a backhoe divulged out of a crumbling flank of earth
one bottle amber perfect a hundred-year-old
cure for fever or melancholy a tonic
for living on this earth in the winters of this climate.

Today I was reading about Marie Curie:
she must have known she suffered from radiation sickness
her body bombarded for years by the element
she had purified
It seems she denied to the end
the source of the cataracts on her eyes
the cracked and suppurating skin of her finger-ends
till she could no longer hold a test-tube or a pencil

She died a famous woman denying
her wounds
denying
her wounds came from the same source as her power.

It's interesting that I lost the "crumbling flank of earth" and the backhoe -- and that my memory changed the ending from Curie's denial to her lack of knowledge. None of the middle details remained, either -- the damaged body so concretely described.

The Dickinson poem I've chosen is also about death (but of course so many of her poems are!). I've known the first line of "1773" for a long while, but now I have the whole thing. I'll try type it here as an exercise:

"My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality reveal
A third event to me
As hard and hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven
And all we need of hell."

Okay, I got a couple of parts wrong: Immortality unveils, it doesn't reveal -- an important, Dickinsonian distinction; the events are "so huge" not "as hard" -- another important Dickinson metaphor. But overall, not that bad!

I'll have to work on getting another poem, since I have some opening lines in my head: "Tell all the truth, but tell it slant / Success in circuit lies" and "I felt a funeral in my Brain" and "Because I could not stop for Death / He kindly stopped for me" and "I dwell in possibility / A fairer house than prose / [Something] for windows, / Superior for doors" (that first line the title of McNaron's memoir).

I should send Toni a "thank you" email. She started this.

She's teachable, I think

Dessa's music should impress students of all musical tastes: this MPR profile grabs me!

Time Flies

Prepping for the new semester is energizing, but I get in the weirdest time-warp. I'm just seeing the time, and it seems I have been at the computer, updating my course websites, for hours: the last time I really noticed the time was 4 hours ago.

Sheesh! Get to sleep! A big day tomorrow!

Starting up again

The holidays are almost past -- and I'm thinking about the new semester ahead of me. It'll be *so* great, with two comp 1 courses (I haven't taught that in a year), two literature courses (American women writers and American lit after 1865), and one intro women/gender studies course.

I should be able to read interesting work, talk about interesting ideas, and engage with interesting students.

The Dojka-Davis Brown Bag Series is starting up again, too: I have five volunteers and need to find three more. We're doing Tuesdays this semester, noon to 1 p.m. I think we'll alternate like that: Mondays and Tuesdays, 12-1 and 1-2. I hope it can keep going.

Officially Break

That's right: it's officially semester break for me. Of course, I have to do a bunch of class prep for Spring Semester (odd how spring starts in January), but for a few days I will be celebrating the winter holidays with friends and family. No grading. Amazing.

All but One

That's what's left for me to grade: just one class. I've submitted final grades for all my other classes. The class that had its final yesterday will have to wait until after the weekend.

Yay!

Too busy grading to blog

But I've finished two classes completely. That's good news. Still need to submit grades, though.

The other classes are in various states of uncompleteness: final essays/projects and final exams to read. Why do I ask for both, do you suppose?

End-of-semester Intimidation

I'm still reeling with suppressed anger/shock at an occurrance in my classroom over two hours ago -- here's what happened:

My WGST course ends at 5:15 on Wednesdays, and then another class is in the same room at 6:00. One student from my class stays in the classroom because she's in the 6:00 class -- it's comp 1, with an adjunct who I know a little bit -- so I don't lock the classroom for the 45 minutes between the classes like the college asks us to do (some things have been stolen from computer classrooms). The student who waits is responsible, and sometimes I'm not even out of the room until 5:30. Sometimes other students from the 6:00 class have come in as we're leaving.

Today, I was still talking with students at 5:30 (it's the end of the semester, lots of questions about individual papers/performance/etc.) when a student from the 6:00 class walked in and up to the table where I and about six other students were standing. It occurred to me to ask him to leave and wait outside for his class to start so that I could talk in relative privacy with my students.

He rudely refused.

I was stunned.

I asked again, tried to reason by explaining that we weren't done, his class didn't start until 6:00, so could he please just wait outside. No.

He escalated the situation, making many defensive claims (he pays tuition! he has a right to be there! my class is over! -- these are just a few of the things he said). Other students are watching, listening, and say things like, "Hey, dude, she's just asking you to wait -- we're still talking" which only eggs him on.

Did I mention that the door to the classroom was closed this whole time? That the student had to let himself into a classroom that had its door closed, a classroom that "technically" is not "his class" until 6:00. Can you say "privilege"?

Anyway, the thing is, this kid knows that our class is a women and gender studies course. The student who waits between my class and his even wrote an essay about her experience trying to educate some of the "vulgar" young males (her word) in her class about what she's studying. She'd been harassed for having our textbook on the table. To this woman's credit she impressively decided to turn that harassment into a "teachable moment" by interviewing four male classmates to find out if they might change their behavior if they knew more about the subject she was studying. I don't know if he's one the students she "interviewed," but she did say to me as she was leaving, "Now you know what I'm talking about in my paper."

So what could I do? I ignored this boy, asked my other students to ignore him ("No, we don't need to talk with him any more") and turned back to the students I was talking with. Another young man enters.

I ask him if he could wait outside until we're done. He starts turning around to leave but then looks to his friend -- who's sitting at a table right behind me getting out his laptop cord, plugging things in, making his presence known. The new boy turns back to me and says simply "No."

The two of them then sit behind me -- the second boy just six inches from my back -- while I continue talking with a student who was having a particularly hard time with an essay revision. The boys don't talk much, but they shuffle papers, pushing them into my field of vision, as they get out their [exceedingly ugly] laptops.

I'm shaking through all of this -- reeling, really -- while trying to listen and advise. Finally, about 5:45, I walk out with the last student. I bring my files back to my office. I realize I've left my textbook and keys back in the classroom. I go back: glare, glare, glare. I then to go the office of my colleague who teaches the 6:00 class, telling him what happened, asking him if he'd be willing to come back to talk with the students. He's surprised, dismayed, and agrees.

Here's the thing: I wanted my colleague to tell these students that I had told him about the experience and then to ask them what happened, perhaps asking them to apologize to me. I wanted the students to see a united professional front to demonstrate that their behavior was exceedingly disrespectful. I wanted to give the students an opportunity to do the right thing.

Of course that didn't happen. The boys got *really* defensive, saying things like, "Oh, so were your feelings hurt? You were rude to me!" My colleague tried to talk with them, even going so far as to say that the classroom space was mine until 6:00 when his class started (they had been insisting that there were there early because " We're responsible, coming to class early because we're prepared" -- other bullshit like that). The boys also got really buddy-buddy with their teacher, using his first name to say, "We've been coming in here early all semester and on the last day she tells us to leave?"

Finally, I turned to my colleague and said, "I guess you're seeing an example of exactly what I was talking about -- here's the evidence." That *really* got one boy incensed: he kept saying things like "Don't talk about me like I'm not here; talk to me if you got something to say; I'm an adult!" Uh huh.

I turned so my colleague and I could leave the room, thanking him again for coming. He was apologetic, sincere, saying he'd email me with the names of the students. I hope so because I talked later with my department chair who thought I handled things well -- but perhaps might want to fill out a form for the Dean of Student Life to put in the students' files. I'm going to do that -- the first student just seemed like he was on such a short fuse. I would imagine he's been intimidating and disrespectful in the past. Our Dean has asked us to report incidents like this one because it provides evidence needed if (or when!) a student needs to be disciplined in some way.

Whew - it's cathartic to write all this, but it also makes me realize how much of the incident I'm forgetting. I need to remember some more specific phrases, things the boys said like "You don't have this room, what time is your class over anyway? You can't tell me to leave. I'm not leaving. You're causing this problem. There was no problem when I came in until you escalated things. You're the one who's making a big deal out of this. You're not telling me what to do." This turning of responsibility is classic abuser behavior -- perfect.

Phrases from the conversation when the other instructor was present: "She was all in my face. There were only a few students in the room so I thought it was over. Only one student was in here. She waits until the last day of the class to tell us this stuff?"

Okay, that's enough now -- wow, police reports must be pretty tough to write! I'm leaving out so many details that contributed to the harassing, intimidating, almost violent atmosphere. And I'm usually a pretty good at noticing details! Tone matters, though, and posture (standing close to me, taller than me).

What a way to wind up the semester -- it's not simply end-of-semester stress. It's a powerful illustration of the power of the patriarchy, of the sexist culture in which we all live.

"This game is well known."

This weekend at an antique mall, I bought a book from 1923 called Four Hundred Games for School, Home, and Playground (Ethel F. Acker, F.A. Owen Publishing Company, Dansville, N.Y.).

I bought it because 1) it was $3.00 and 2) I opened it to page 159 to find a language game called "Composition Relay" that began like this:

"This game is well known. Besides furnishing an exercise in grammatical construction, capitals, and punctuation, it is a good drill in spelling and penmanship."

Hmm, I thought, to whom would this game be well known? What would teaching be like if this game was still well known? Here it is:

"Each row of players forms a team. The last player in each row at a given signal runs forward, writes the first word of a sentence on the blackboard, runs to his seat, and hands the chalk to the next player, who writes the next word. The last player writes a word to complete the sentence and adds the necessary punctuation. The points are usually scored as follows: Speed 25 points, grammatical construction 25, spelling 25, and writing 25. If played during the grammar drill period the score should be: Speed 50, analysis 50. No badly written sentences should be considered."

So I love almost everything about this paragraph:

• the second sentence's parallel structure, which mitigates the overload of prepositional phrases
• the way points are "usually" awarded (imagine having to write legibly in chalk when you're rushing, your teammates are hurrying you)
• the assumption that a "grammar drill period" is usual, well known, common
• the last sentence! It's passive verb is so great
• the fact that students are *moving* in the classroom while they're learning language skills (can you say "kinetic learners"? Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences didn't appear until 60 years later!)
  

How I wish we could reintroduce these physical movements in our classrooms -- at all levels. I like my students to move . . . rearranging them to create sentences ("you're an independent clause, you're a dependent clause, you're a comma -- rearrange yourselves!")

But moving requires space. With federal constraints on education professionals, we end up dropping out these kinds of activities . . . phy ed classes get cut! That's simply unjust, not to mention unwise. Students find a way to move -- often inappropriately.

It should be "well known" that physical activity is essential for learning. Ethel F. Acker says it this way:

"Probably no other single theory in the field of education has made greater progress in the minds of educators and laymen in the past few years than that of the importance of organized play" (11 emphasis added).

Analogies

Or perhaps I should say "metaphors"? These "Internet Vices" make sense to me!

Dojka-Davis Brown Bag Series

This semester, I've organized a little "intellectual conversation" on our campus. I've called it the "Dojka-Davis Brown Bag Series" after two fierce, crotchety faculty colleagues who died in 2009.

Both Stefanie and Mark cared a lot about maintaining the academic integrity of the college; both cared a lot about ideas and their clear expression; both insisted on making intellectual inquiry accessible to students, not as watered-down worksheets but as a serious enterprise.

I'd talked with Stefanie many times over the years about having some kind of faculty sessions where we could share our research interests. In fact, the first time I met Stefanie was when she discussed her dissertation research on Jane Austen at a faculty brown bag session back in about 1992.

Stef wasn't the only one who wanted to share more than teaching techniques with her colleagues. As my colleague Judith Roy wrote, "Mark Davis pursued his research and scholarly activities right to the end, submitting another article for publication just a few months before he died."

Many of us do this academic work, work that is so often hidden or overwhelmed by the demands of teaching at an open-admission community college. But we have few venues for sharing that work. So I organized these sessions -- just did it. We have a Center for Teaching and Learning at our college, but it focuses on teaching tips and techniques.

Anyway, the sessions have been terrific: today was the last one, a lecture about Russian intelligensia after Stalin. We've heard about disability rights in Korea, theories of comics, and just war theory. Every session has had at least four participants, with the largest session drawing nine. Sure, these numbers might be small, but I look forward to increasing them next semester. (I've switched the day/time to every other TUESDAY, noon-1:00 p.m.)

So I guess you could say I'm feeling proud about what I've been able to accomplish . . . work that's not rewarded or even recognized by the institution. But work that's central to the mission of the college and to creating a healthy climate.

However, I still miss my two friends. These brown bag talks will never replace the cranky hallway conversations, the delightful and exasperated critiques both Stefanie and Mark shared with the rest of us.

Meaning Making

I'm working through the final weekly progress memos from my technical writing students. They've been revising sentences to improve them, often by finding buried verbs. Here's a funny revision from this morning!

• Original sentence: "This manual gives instructions to end users."
• Most student revisions: "This manual instructs end users."
• Unusual student revision: "This manual instructs you how to end users."

Just what kind of manual would that be? And would I let students write it as a final project for the course? :-)

It's Typo Season

Here's a good one from a student paper about high school education: "I believe if the government spit evenly the amount of money to every school, there will be available funds for everyone to invest in afterschool."

Good cartoon for class discussion?

(click here to view)

Joel Pett Lexington Herald-Leader Nov 13, 2009 EditorialCartoonists.com

The hypocrisy of our current health-care "system" get summed up pretty well in this cartoon -- or at least one of the most egregiously sexist aspects of that hypocrisy.

Many more awful aspects to choose from, of course.

For example: why does no one talk about the *ethical* aspect of health care any more? Why don't we talk about the absolute necessity of *health* for anyone to exercise any of their human or civil rights? Why can't we have a system -- as do other democratic, industrialized countries -- that provides health care for all citizens?

A Writing/Reading/Texting Revolution

I'm reposting a message I received from a great listserv (techrhet, which means technology and rhetoric, the list where I find out all the cool stuff about technology).

One of the major list participants, Nick Carbone, noted SEED magazine's article called "A Writing Revolution," which he found via Andrew Sullivan's The Atlantic blog "The Daily Dish," a post he called "We're All Authors Now" (starting to feel like nested Russian dolls, huh? That's the power of the interwebs and the power of "reach" and "speed" as Laura Gurak once said).

Here's what Carbone sent to the list (emphasis added):

The key claim: Nearly universal literacy is a defining characteristic of today’s modern civilization; nearly universal authorship will shape tomorrow's.

The article measures the rate of authorship from 1400 to the present age, with a graph to show rates of change in authorship. It defines authorship as having a 100 readers. So one who tweets to a 100 follows, or writes an email like this to lists with over a 100 members, is counted as an author.

The analysis unfortunately includes some cyber-enthusiasm that makes some claims that stretch the argument too far, like this example of what seems to be a logical fallacy: "When United Airlines refused to reimburse a musician for damaging his guitar, the offended customer posted a song online—“United Breaks Guitars”—and United’s stock dropped 10 percent." -- is that Post Hoc Ergo Prompter Hoc?

There's no doubt more to pick at, but the chart and the measures of writing growth, and the fact digital technologies provide at least the potential for every writer to find at least a 100 readers (there's no guarantee that will happen) is very cool to see.

Insight of the week

Students write poorly when they don't know what they're talking about.

It's not that they're bad writers. It's that they're trying to write about something that they don't understand. Or they're trying to make stuff up.

So maybe the lament "They can't write!" should be modified to "They're not ready to write!"

Home sick

Yikes - what's the protocol? I'm achy and drippy and itchy: all I want to do is sleep, but I'm happy to report there's no fever, although I've got sore lymph glands. My immune system is doing its job!

I've been feeling suspicious about impending "'flu" because my Eustachian tubes have been itching like crazy for a week or so. Now the bugs seem to have moved into my sinuses and down my throat.

So I'm hanging out on the couch, drinking lots and lots of tea, using lots and lots of kleenex, trying to grade . . . but going slowly so that my impaired state doesn't disadvantage my students.

Wish me well.

Speech Act Theory-into-Practice

Today's Nobel Peace Prize for President Obama highlights the important accomplishment he's achieved: words matter. Speech *is* an action.

In our age of instant, global communication, Obama's changed the conversation. He's begun to resuscitate the American reputation. We can be proud that we no longer have a bully as a leader.

It's Rhetoric over War that's won: we rhetoricians should be proud to see the Nobel Prize's affirmation that words are actions, as John Austin reminds us in his philosophical How to Do Things with Words.

Austin reminds us that speech has "locutionary force" (the words refer to something); speech also has "illocutionary force" (there's a purpose for the words); speech too has "perlocutionary force" (it has an impact on the listener, who may then act or change).

In other words [ahem! :-)]

• Words are accomplishments.
• Words *are* the results that some people insist are necessary for the Nobel Peace Prize.

President Obama's rhetorical accomplishments are an example of the Practice of Peace. Negotiation and diplomacy lead to a more secure and peaceful coexistence than does violence.

Inviting is always better than Bullying.

Student email

Here's a recent message I've received from a student whose assignments also contain these features: what to do?


Hi Julie-
I left a little not by the door just to let you know in case you didnt see me... sorry about that. I didnt want to both you two.
Thats ok thought, I had to start my other class, so I left early. Since its a bit late in the week, then Ill just see you on monday for class :) If needed Ill just go over some questions if I still have them. Most are already answered. If I need a recap Ill let you know.
Thanks
Student

Still teaching

I started this morning at 9:30 a.m. with online Chat, a way to meet my tech writing students (who have a "blended" class, with on-campus meetings on Mondays and online meetings on Wednesdays).

After 10:30 a.m. (when the chat ended), I answered emails from four students (two who have the flu; one who scheduled an afternoon appointment), read and responded to online discussion posts from students in tech writing, WGST, and Nature Writers, checked the Engl 90 blog to see who'd written lately, and commented on a blog post from the tech writers.

By 1:00 I was driving to school to arrive for office hours, an honors student conference, and class prep for my 2:15 class. That Engl 90 class always surprises me: even seven weeks into the semester, some students don't yet know how to access our course D2L website, and others can't remember to bring their written homework in a form they can manipulate in class -- EVERY DAY we use our computer classroom to workshop on writing. Every day. Two students had to completely retype things today, which put them behind on the day's writing objective, which was to understand the function of a topic sentence and supporting sentences (i.e., paragraph structure).

Class ended at 3:30, but students kept talking with me until 3:45, which is an enjoyable thing most of the time. My 4:00 class got started on time, with a slight technology glitch as I used the document camera. The student facilitation ended up being very emotional -- from the "Women's Health and Reproductive Rights" chapter, these students chose to focus on abortion methods -- and I had to intervene three times, asking presenters NOT to use incendiary, inappropriate language that could cause their classmates pain. Three times. I came away shaken by the experience because I had difficulty being respectful to students who were not being so -- I'm never a fan of raised voices or students who're merely mouthpieces for propagandists.

By 5:30 I was in the Writing Center, where I proctored an exam, read some Leslie Marmon Silko and Barry Lopez's "The American Geographies," and helped a couple of students find an online research resource. At 7:00, the writing center assistant left me alone with my books, and I prepped a bit more for Thursday night's class before going back to my own office at 7:30. There I composed/recomposed, and finally posted a news message about the emotionally draining WGST course, read the first two tech writing reports on our class blog and posted a "Reminder" message based on the omissions of those first two reports, and updated online quizzes for tech writing and WGST.

I left the office at 8:45 so that I could get home to attend the 9:30 p.m. online Chat with the tech writers. By 10:30, I was back to my email, responding to a student's question about a room request for next week's "National Coming Out Day" film. Then I started writing this chronology.

So I'm about done teaching for the day, 13+ hours after I began. Sometimes people ask how many hours a week I "work." The answer is either something like 100 (all my non-sleeping, non-eating waking hours) or 0 because it's not work: it's my life.

Fun day

Today's classes went well -- energetic activities, students invested in what we were learning/doing, jokes and happy faces. I need days like this!

The Engl 90 students were turning in their second polished essays -- and all the prep work they'd done to create those essays (at least a half-dozen pieces of writing). Because they're all such visual folks (they'd already drawn some pictures -- reading someone else's essay about a person of influence and then drawing a picture of that person), I had them do another visual thing with their words:

Wordle

I've talked about it before on this blog because it's just so cool: you paste in any amount of text or the URL for a website, and the software generates a visual image of the words. Bigger words means greater frequency. You can play around with the colors, fonts, sizes, orientations, backgrounds -- even the languages! I told students that I wouldn't be able to read anything other than English - dang!

Oh, and speaking of language translation, today is International Translators' Day [this link has Wordles!]. I learned this from an audience member at Maxine Hong Kingston's talk tonight. And one of my tech writing students decided to give his oral presentation on Monday in Pirate. Yep, it's been a good day.

Anyway, the Engl 90 students loved Wordle; some of them went to other websites and saw what happened. A couple of students realized that if the biggest word on their Wordle was "the," maybe they need to use some sentence variety. Yes!

And now: here's a Wordle of this blog post.

Allegedly Real

This answering machine recording is supposed to be the real message that parents hear when they call a high school in Maroochydore, Queensland, Australia.

Good writers

This semester, I'm teaching English 90 again, a course that's to help students get ready to write college-level writing (whatever that is). The students have so many different kinds of issues when it comes to getting their thoughts down in writing.

Issues range all over the place: from not having thoughts they can clearly articulate . . . to not quite understanding what a sentence is; from not knowing how to read . . . to never having used a computer before; from getting by writing the most banal things to "please the teacher". . . to sharing so much of their lives that I feel pity and awe toward them.

But this semester, I have a couple of the strongest writers I've ever had in that class. These young people are investigating their lives and experiences in a profound, real way. They're connecting what they read to their own lives. They're grappling with complex topics related to literacy, education, identity, and meaning -- topics I think some of my colleagues don't yet grasp!

It's a pleasure to read their work -- sure, it's a bit raggedy when it comes to things like comma use and consistent verb tense. Sure, they randomly veer from first person plural to second person singular back to third person plural. But so what: they're thinking and writing, writing and thinking. I'm lucky to have them in class.

Getting cheerier

I received a lot of feedback on my last post -- primarily on my Facebook page (I sort of forget that I have the two linked). Thanks to everyone who's been sympathizing, strategizing, and listening to me.

Now here's another piece to cheer me up: In a recent Inside Higher Education, the excellent scholar and professor Dennis Baron [ignore the IHE typo of his name in the URL] answers questions about his new book on teaching, writing, technology, and history. The book's called A Better Pencil.

Baron offers a perspective I know but often forget -- that people being what we are (and have been), there is (and has been) more good than bad when it comes to how people teach, learn, and communicate with each other.

I especially like these lines about online education because they reflect my reality:

"But I do see some significant downsides to distance education. . . . I fear that completion rates for many online courses are still disappointingly low, that the quality of much of the education is also lower than what happens in the classroom -- of course I’m thinking about the kinds of courses that I [and] my colleagues teach, ones which don’t require memorization of a body of knowledge but instead call for analysis, speculation, exploration. Courses where reading is intensive, where group discussion produces many insights, and where evaluation can’t be done by machine." (emphasis added)

These are the kinds of courses I value, too, full of the kinds of spontaneous insightful moments that can't be predicted but can only be recognized and cultivated organically by an instructor who's paying attention to all of the people in the room. This instructor knows that "knowledge is socially constructed" and that the room of people s/he's with is a social organism with knowledge-making potential.

The whole interview is good: read it!

Very discouraged

A few college situations are converging to make me feel like I don't belong at this institution any more:

-- continued student complaint about a borderline grade that I have absolutely no reason to cut student a break on: s/he got many, many breaks already during the semester -- my honest attempt to help -- but now I'm feeling as if I should never be "nice" to a student because it will bite me in the butt.

-- department discussion about online courses dominated by [insert adjective here] faculty who have a vested interest in increasing online offerings because the increase will line their own pocketbooks. These are faculty whose "pedagogy" consists of 1) worksheet-type exercises, mostly graded by the software, so they simply have to "design" a course and go the the cabin or of 2) lectures (called "discussions") about topics of interest to said faculty, never bothering to help students understand why such topics might be of interest to the students, who are simply a captive audience.

-- college-wide committee work that serves the programs relatively well but the general education (or "liberal arts") courses/programs very poorly. I've been sitting in meetings listening to colleagues say things like "why can't they think like us?" [okay, not exactly those words], and my [silent] response is, "because what you're doing isn't thinking."

I'm beginning to think our institution isn't about student learning -- defined by me as students actually grappling with the difficult developmental processes that go along with absorbing new information, figuring out how to solve problems that are new, attempting to think for themselves and then articulate that thinking in writing.

Given a new campus-wide initiative, we seem to be about "student retention" (make them happy by giving a good grade so they come back) or more simply "student tuition" (sign up for the classes, pay, and then you have a tiny window for changing your mind and getting your money back -- barely enough time to figure out what kind of class/experience you've entered).

When I first joined this faculty, the institution still had a bit of its old reputation as the premier liberal-arts two-year college, the premier transfer institution. That's gone.

When I first joined, I was eager to make this place a place I wanted to work: joined a ton of committees and initiatives; committed a bunch of psychic and emotional energy. I still do way too much, to a large degree. There's absolutely NO recognition of this kind of commitment by the faculty -- done almost exclusively by the female faculty for no extra monetary compensation of any kind (dollars or reduced course load). It's outrageous.

It's way too early in the semester to feel this way. But I'm about ready to let students pick their own grades, to let me classes out 20 minutes early every day and/or skip a day a week like many of my colleagues, to spend no time commenting on student writing (just slap a good grade), to quit the teaching part of my job. I can still do the entertaining, the one-on-one tutoring, the course design. But why do I really need to teach when it's not valued where I work.

Why?

Update

Well, the keys I lost turned up the next day in the lost-and-found. So I guess I must have lost them somewhere (how's that for an obvious statement). I'm glad my suspicion is unfounded. Now if I could just locate my annotated textbook!!

Klepto Class

I'm beginning to think I have a kleptomaniac in one of my classes. Two very strange things have happened.

Strange thing one:
On the very first day of writing class, Aug. 24, my textbook was missing at the end of class. That's pretty odd since I bring my texts to every class. I thought maybe a student took mine home by mistake, and the mistake would be realized quickly because my text had notes, post-its, bookmarks, paper clips stuck all through it.

No one had my book when I asked on Aug. 26. Two students had dropped the course in the interim, so I suppose one of them could have the book and not know it.

Strange thing two:
Today, my car key went missing from that same writing class. I wore unusual clothes today -- boy's jeans and a t-shirt -- because I was doing a "gender is performance" talk in my women-and-gender-studies course later in the day. I wanted students to notice how differently I was dressed for this class meeting: I've worn skirts every day so far.

As I was walking to my first class, the writing class, I had put my office keys and car key in my jeans pocket, but it felt weird. I remember thinking, "But the point is to carry your keys in your pocket if you're doing masculinity." But I don't remember what I did with the keys after that.

At the end of the first class, which was a wild workshop because students had so many questions about the first essay portfolio they were turning in, I looked for my keys on top of my books -- just my office keys. "Oh, I must have left the car key in the office," I thought, and ran to the restroom for a quick break between classes.

Taught the second class, went back to the office to grade and read, then finally at 7:30 got ready to leave: no keys. Looked everywhere I'd been: no keys. The car's still in the parking lot, so no one's stolen it (which would have been easy since the keyring has an electronic locking/unlocking device), but still I have no car keys.

Luckily, Laura came to get me. Luckily, I have a spare set of keys and a spare car so I can get to work tomorrow.

But it's extremely, extremely weird that two things have gone missing during the same class. What other explanation can there be?

Blogging is New

Many of my technical writing students -- mostly sophomores -- have never blogged, don't know what a blog is, are a bit leery of this thing called "blogging." We're using a blog, hosted by Blogger, to discuss "Technical Writing in the News," which they find out about by subscribing to Google Alerts (use "technical writing" as the Search Term and "News" as the Type).

This casual, audience-centered forum lets students try out some conversation about information we might be able to chat about if we were in a residential-campus setting: we'd perhaps read similar news items, looking for stories about technical writing, and then chat about them in the cafeteria, hallway, student lounge.

Since we're a commuter campus, I try to make the blog an online space for such chatter: you get a news alert that has "technical writing" in it -- perhaps a job post, a human-interest story, a "jobs going to India" story -- and then post what you think about it on the blog. Classmates can read the same alert and concur/disagree/expand. Students learn about audience, diction, technology, purpose: all technical writing concepts.

I like this assignment, and even though many students are completely new to blogging, they end up liking it, too.

High School Stars

Tonight, I helped out a pal of mine who teaches English at North High in Minneapolis: she set aside time for her AP students to come by -- in the evening! -- to get some specialized information to help them get prepared for their AP courses this fall. She asked me to talk about literary analysis in particular, so this afternoon I created a handout, not knowing if I'd be talking with 2 students or 20.

In fact, six young men showed up -- and one young woman about 30 minutes into the session -- who were eager, intelligent, highly energetic and accomplished athletes. They listened, asked and answered questions, offered interpretations that showed they'd had practice thinking of alternatives.

I was impressed with the truly beautiful combination of rowdy joshing with each other and respectful listening with me (and the other teachers present, who were all known to them).

Ideally, they'll all attend college and earn degrees, but the demographics do work against them: ethnicity, race, and socioeconomic class matter. Here's hoping that these seven engaged young people defy the odds.

MIA!

The Voki avatar I made the other day for my online course "welcome" message took me about 45 minutes to create. I wasn't familiar with the software, and then the uploading to the course management system took more steps than were obvious.

But now, that work has disappeared! As I'm double/triple-checking the course websites for the semester that starts tomorrow, I do NOT find the avatar! I don't see the facsimile of myself saying "Welcome to this class" in the voice of Kate. :-(

Dang! What happened!

*UPDATE!* The issue is Firefox. With Safari as my browser, I can see the avatars. Yea!
*DOUBLE UPDATE* But I can't edit the html in D2L when I use my MacBook. Boo!

Does she look like me?

Revving Up

The new semester begins in three weeks (just less than that, actually), and I'm wondering where my summer went! Of course, I was teaching (both a f2f and an online course), driving around the country on great road trips (Bemidji, Madison, Chicago, New York, Montreal -- not always in that order), and next week I'll fly to San Antonio for a visit.

But I'm beginning to pull together ideas for my fall classes, and I found this new multi-authored blog: Ecology of Education | Exploring the Ecosystems of Learning.

Although the site seems primarily addressed to K-12 educators (the most amazing and under-appreciated public servants in our country), I'm finding some great information there, too. Just the metaphor alone needs to be more widely understood: Ecology, indeed!

Check it out.

P.S. Here's one more resource: a delicious.com list of sites for classroom ideas from Active Learning Carnival. I found it via the MnSCU CTL blog (see at right).

On another note

I have been considering whether or not to post the YouTube video of a bunch of boys (some quite young) harrassing a man after Sunday's Pride festival. Now that MPR has written a news story about it, I'll pass it along.

If you check out the original YouTube video, you'll see that some of the commenters just turn their hatred on the Somali boys: as if two wrongs make a right.

And one comment confirms Suzanne Pharr's assertion that homophobia is a weapon of sexism: the comment reads "you have to feel sorry for the guy, but in the few times you see him speak, he's handling himself like a 14-year old girl." Clearly, acting like a 14-year-old girl is NOT a good thing. Right.

Wouldn't it be great if we lived in a world where acting like a 14-year-old girl was a COMPLIMENT? Something to aspire to? To admire?

No Dumb Questions

This weekend I "worked" (it was just as much fun as it was work) for the college at the Twin Cities Pride Festival. Although I was pretty frustrated on Thursday (schlepping boxes, a tent, a table drape -- all at three different locations on the campus, all involving parking in weird and even prohibited spaces, all while in a long skirt on a hot-and-humid day), by Sunday evening with the re-packing of my car I was happy and energized, reminded why I do this important work.

I probably talked with nearly a hundred people: some current students, some alums and former students, some really interested prospective students, a few faculty members, and many random interesting folks.

The stories I heard made me think about this good website, "No Dumb Questions," which provides video clips of LGBTQA folks -- stories we all need to hear. Here's a good example:

Woolf

Virginia Woolf's brilliance still shines out through the Hollywood hype that's become her life story: a testament to her genius. Although students wanted to know if I thought Woolf was bi-polar (why does it matter, I asked back), they also wanted to wrestle with her formidable imagination and intellect.

We talked about "A Room of One's Own" today, and despite the students' insistence on talking *way* too much about the title's significance (yeah, duh), the conversation did turn around to her important honoring of the legacy of women who wrote despite *not* having that room (Austen, Bronte, Bronte, Eliot, Cavendish, Behn).

Her work gets better every time I read it: at 20, I didn't understand much but knew I liked her non-fiction more than her fiction. Now I think Mrs. Dalloway is one of the most *true* novels I've read.

What a great opening line: "Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself."

Data!

I've just found out about a couple of pretty amazing websites:
"City-Data.com" -- type in your zip code to find out TONS of information about where you live
"Wolfram/Alpha" -- type in names, dates, equations, you name it

The web is becoming a space/place where we can find out almost any countable thing . . . which means we have to remind ourselves of a sign hanging in Alfred Einstein's office: “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."

This sentence is reversed at a terrific website: Philanthropy Potluck, the blog of the Minnesota Council on Foundations.

MIA

This morning's class meeting held some surprises for me: the good one was the *excellent* activity our facilitators devised for discussing Jane Austen's "Love and Freindship" (a parody Austen wrote at age 15!). They had pairs of students write *response* letters to Laura, imagining what Marianne might write. Most of the young women students were *really accurate* in their Marianne voices: a pleasure.

The not-so-good surprise had to do with the presence of three students who haven't been to class in a l...o...n...g time:

• One had only attended the first day, May 26, and has missed the last five class meetings (out of 17 total meetings).
• One emailed me yesterday to say she'd had strep throat AND had just moved (ahem) to explain why she's missed the last three classes. I read and responded to that email yesterday afternoon.
• One emailed me last night at 1:00 a.m. to say she'd been in Chicago (her brother was injured and her parents, who are on vacation in France, asked her to go check on him) to explain why she's missed the last four classes. I read that email after class this morning.

Now I'm not quite sure what to do. I thought they'd all dropped! None of them has posted on the class discussion board. They don't seem to have read the attendance policy for our course, and when they asked about it, I couldn't remember the nitty-gritty details myself (I tweak my policies for every course, depending upon the time-frame and subject matter, but the overall idea is that I allow a certain number of absences for any reason before consequences kick in).

Evidently, my attendance policy this summer semester (for a six-week course that's supposed to be the equivalent of a sixteen-week semester) isn't clear -- here's what the syllabus says [emphasis in original]:

"You can earn up to ten (10) attendance points per face-to-face class period, which I determine based on your attendance and participation, for a total of 170 possible points. If you must miss a face-to-face class meeting, you can recoup some of those lost points by contributing a substantial discussion board posting within 24 hours for the class period you missed (by 8:00 a.m. on the day after the missed class). This posting can earn you up to five (5) points. Missing two class periods without posting to the discussion board will cause your final grade for the course to drop by one whole grade. Missing four or more classes without posting to the discussion board will result in an automatic F grade for the course. Missing four or more classes even with posting to the discussion board will cause your final grade for the course to drop one whole grade."

I suppose all that is confusing when you look at it in a big block of prose like that -- I should format the information in a box/chart/table or something. But the numbers seem pretty clear to me, and we note this paragraph on our first day of class when we review the course policies.

Also, I guess it's just fine for students to attend a course that they've already earned an F in . . . some learning can still take place (not that taking a class has anything to do with learning for most summer students -- ouch, I'm cynical!). But most of the students said they were taking this summer literature course because it "was cheaper" (two students are earning master's degrees at two of our local private colleges, and this 200-level community college literature course somehow fulfills requirements for them!).

Hmmm. Thoughts?

Frankenstein

Video clip of the 1994 Kenneth Branagh movie: much more faithful to Mary Shelley's novel than the Boris Karloff versions! Although the relationship between Robert and Victor isn't quite right, at least Robert Walton shows up -- as does the icy North Pole!

Really Great Workshop

I'd been nervous about giving a three-hour workshop on our college's Common Book (The Latehomecomer) to my colleagues: what if I bomb? What if they've just signed up to criticize? But all went well.

My partner was easy to work with: professional and approachable, sincere in her willingness to share what she's done with the Common Book. My colleagues were colleagial, sharing what had worked for them and inventing new ideas right on the spot.

We received compliments all around: one person even said she admired the way I demonstrated the techniques I was teaching about. All in all, a nice afternoon.

How I hate

Hate, hate, hate our governor's attitude: in today's press conference, he called us higher education folks "whiny" and "complainers"! He *consistently* disrespects us public servants -- especially in public, in the media.

Good News

Here's a Google News site that just posts good news! It's a great resource for students . . . for showing how a fake news site can look legit.

Wouldn't the world be good if this site was NOT a fake?

How can I already be behind?

We're three days into the summer session -- I'm caught up on reading for my class, but you may be asking why do I have to *re*read everything every semester? Don't I already know the Julian of Norwich/Margery Kempe/Aemilia Lanyer by heart? (yeah, well, the outlines of the narratives, the significant scenes/conversations/images, yes -- but not the nitty-gritty details)

But being caught up with reading doesn't mean I'm caught up with creating quizzes, figuring out good classroom activities, clearing off my office desk/table. Last semester's files still piled up!

Leftover student sentence

Did I post this gem? (I'm cleaning up my office.)

"She is known as a maniac depressant."

Can't remember to whom the students was referring . . . but a gem, nonetheless.

Everything takes longer

Why is it that tweaking a syllabus takes four hours instead of one? Maybe it's the three-day-a-week schedule. Maybe the new edition of the text.

Maybe the fact that I have to figure out how to schedule a chronological list of authors/readings over a compressed semester (sixteen weeks down to six!).

I've got Mondays for novel-length texts (Wollstonecraft, Shelley, Bronte, Woolf), which I hope works!

(From that author list, can you guess which course I'm teaching?)

Just lost

One of my summer courses has been really underenrolled, and the dean just called an hour ago to say it was being canceled.

Sad, especially since it's the Intro to GLBT Studies course that partners with the Twin Cities Pride festival . . . a *real* service learning experience. :-(

Wake up to homophobia

Every year, I organize the volunteers for our college's table at Twin Cities Pride. This task should rightfully be the Admissions office's responsibility, but they don't think the event has a big enough "yield potential for the college" (more than 400,000 people attend the two-day festival, so I'm just not sure what kind of "yield potential" the Admissions people need).

At any rate, yesterday I sent out my usual invitation for volunteers and woke up today to a half-dozen emails in response: five were "Yes, I can volunteer for a shift!" but one was as follows:

"Julie,

"I am NOT interested in this at all.
"Please remove my name off of your list for functions that pertain to this issues."

I wrote back, thanking her/him for the message [my inner good-girl coming out here], and noting that I did not know how to remove a single person from the "everyone" email ist I used: did s/he know?

I'm especially concerned about this situation because we've had some weird discussion on our campus about the "everyone" emails. Some people, evidently, hate them and are causing enough noise for our college to send out a survey asking about the use of "everyone" emails.

When I completed my survey last week, I couldn't imagine why anyone would object to the "everyone" emails -- if the message doesn't apply to you, just delete it is what I think! I personally like getting them because communication at our college is SO TERRIBLE that the "everyone" emails at least give a person the chance to know something about what's going on.

Since I couldn't figure out why anyone would object to the "everyone" emails, I brought up the topic at our department end-of-the-semester meeting last Friday. Two of my colleagues - one a long-time faculty member and one new-ish - railed against the "everyone" emails! They "hate" them because they go to class and come back to find "tons" of messages in their inboxes. The information "never" pertains to them. They "hate" them!

I was stunned by their reaction at first, but they are two very lazy colleagues, so it seems as though that characteristic may apply here.

The point related to the homophobic response, though, and the thing that makes me concerned is that our intensely incompetent and arrogant IT director will probably lock-down the "everyone" email option (currently, anyone can send an "everyone" email, which is just fine I think in terms of communication freedom). This man has come in and *wrecked* our IT infrastructure (and hired folks who are terrible, terrible, terrible -- the purple email above was from an IT person, coincidentally).

Anyway, it's now summer, and I should let go of the problems at work -- but I'm teaching summer school, including an Intro to GLBT Studies course, so maybe this homophobia will be a "teachable moment" for me. We'll see.

Avoiding

Don't want to check my college email because I think it'll be full of students asking, "Where are my grades?" which aren't due until Tuesday. I had such high hopes of grading during finals week, but I gave two finals (had to create one from scratch) instead -- and also traveled to Chicago twice for my own college-student-daughter's final performance.

I hate grades.

The last day

Today is the last day of classes, and yesterday a student asked if s/he could meet to talk with me about something. S/he had to leave right away, so we agreed to an online "chat" today . . . which we are in the middle of right now as I'm typing this blog post. [*Edit: we ended the conversation right as I typed up the last paragraphs below.*]

S/he wants to know if s/he can change the term paper topic because of "issues" with the first topic chosen. (Note: this essay was supposed to be turned in at midterm time, when I comment heavily on it so that students can revise for a better score. Our class is "writing intensive," so the students MUST get writing instruction and MUST revise.)

Whoa. A change on the last day of the semester. An assignment that was supposed to be done over the entire term.

Turns out that the student never turned in the assignment at midterm time. S/he is also missing another course essay (gave it to me yesterday with a bunch of other things, but it was due April 4). S/he's also missing another major assignment, although done relatively well on the "reading journal" and the course participation.

You've probably figured out the inevitable question posed on the chat 10 minutes ago: "Do you think I'll pass your class?" Hmmm. My guess is that it'll be really, really tough The final exam is next week, so there's a possibility of earning points there (the midterm exam was poor, so students can replace a poor exam score with a higher one).

But what's especially curious to me is the pronoun use in the question: "Do you think I'll pass your class." These indicate that the student hasn't gotten one of the things I hope to instill: that a class is a community of learners, that students should "claim their education" (we ever read Rich's essay this semester!).

The pronouns indicate I've failed in that goal. Dang.

Context is everything

This video from a Lawrence Welk show points out how important the milieu is for understanding the intent of a communicative act (like a song). These singers do not understand the words they're singing, but they *think* they understand them: "One Toke Over the Line, Sweet Jesus" is a "modern spiritual" according to mc Myron Floren.

Found because Andrew Taylor showed it to me on BoingBoing.
Enjoy!

Rhetorical sophistication?

This semester, I have had to apologize to my students about getting behind with grading: it seems to me that honesty is a good policy, and I wanted them to know I was working on their writing, but I wasn't finished with assessing/evaluating/grading everyone's work at the same time.

Now I have two students who are using my apology as a weapon by telling the dean that they "didn't know how to improve" because I "didn't give them any feedback." *Sigh*.

Aristotle defines rhetoric as "finding the available means of persuasion." I guess I've made a means available to these students. This morning the dean called to tell me what arguments my students are going to have "against me" when we meet later this afternoon. The dean counsels me not to say something like this again . . . maybe she's right?

It's that time in the semester

Some students are finding out that they've learned a LOT this semester, and they're surprised (and impressed!) with themselves. I, too, am proud of the strides they've made as they've taken the opportunities I've provided for learning.

Some students are feeling stressed, pressured, unhappy: various reasons, of course, but most of the reasons seem to be related to something I've done wrong. One needs me to meet with the dean *and her mother* to get her money back because somehow I didn't "treat her fairly" in the course.

Hmmm. This student got a job midway through the semester and stopped coming to class after spring break. Last week she contacted me . . . surprising me with her email because she'd dropped completely off my radar. Evidently, though, she's on her mom's radar!

We'll see how Monday goes . . . !

Not ironic

Found at the bottom of an email announcment/solicitation from a colleague (and I don't think s/he was being ironic):

"Please feel free to print this e-mail - it provides jobs at nurseries, the forestry department, logging companies, and paper mills and it can be recycled!"

At least the *font* was green.

Logical contradiction

I am SO TIRED of the crap spewed by the political leadership in our state: the current state education commissioner Alice Seagren (who has a degree in marketing, not education) is speaking on MPR right now, and she chastizes teachers and students for not being able to do what they need to do, such as meet standards or evaluating sources.

Yet she does not examine her own logical contradictions: in one breath she says that "students need more time on task" because it will improve students' "performance" in some way, presumably on tests. In the next breath she says that Minnesota has one of the "shortest" school years in the country. Her logic is that Minnesota has to lengthen the school year because other states have longer school years.

HOWEVER, here's the logical flaw: Minnesota is at the TOP of the national rankings in terms of education (on many, many measures, including number of students who graduate from high school, test scores, etc.) So if we're at the top but we have fewer class days than other states, why would students need more time on task?

There's not a positive correlation (or maybe there's a negative correlation!) not to mention causal relationship between the length of the school year and the educational achievement of students as measured against other states.

One big caveat: in some national rankings, Minnesota has *slipped* during the Pawlenty administration. For example, in 2005-06 MN was listed as #6 on the "Smartest State" ranking by Morgan Quitno. By 2006-07, we slipped to #13! So perhaps we can see that the policies by our current conservative, education-punishing administration are really condemning our state's educational system to a lowest-common-denominator: yuck.

On a related political note: this website correlates state's educational rankings with the "blue/red" characterization. Although the website doesn't say when these rankings were made, it *is* curious that the highest educational rankings correlate with blue/Democratic states. Hmmm.

More student writing

What is literacy these days? I'm wondering as I read emails like this one a student sent today (copied *exactly* as I received it, the big chunk of text that you see below) (P.S. I think "flustrarted" should be a word!):

hey Julie, ( i ment to write back but some how i sent it to myself? im not to good with computers, so this messages is actually from last wednesday april 15th)

I dont think im making sense threw email for you, Im really sorry. The essay project i picked out of the syllabus under the "essay project options" im not sure if thats what we were suppose to do now because i read somthing saying you had to sign up for a topic ( which i never did) so i became very confused. And now today i seen a list under content for topics that didnt match the ones in the syllabus and only had four peoples names in it. Another thing is i turned my essay in online under late work i dont know if you seen that or not and i read in the syllabus that you wanted our name on the back of the paper and of course i followed Mla standards like i do for my composition class. what worries me is not following what you wanted because it says here i will earn a zero. Im very flustarted with myself and want to achieve a good grade. I bombed the Test and will hopfully redeam myself on the final. For the quizes will i just be out those point thats say zero out of zero.. or is that just my computer that is saying i got zero for the first three? im crossing my fingers but i have bad luck so i wont be surprised if they just say zeros for you as well! im sorry i just wrote you a novel i hope i make better sense now then i did before. see you tommorrow

A Colleague's Work

My colleague and friend Phyllis Ballata has published a book based on her years of teaching and being one of the most ethical people I know. The book's called Living as Though There Is a Tomorrow: Creating the Future by Choice Using Reason, Duty, Love, and Belief. A Practical Handbook for Moral Growth

It's a super-long title, obviously, but it points out all the important aspects of the book. You can buy it at The Nest, Phyllis's fair-trade gift store in White Bear Lake. But you should ask your local *independent* bookstore to order it and/or stock it, too.

We need to get more people to read the book! It's important and useful.

*So-o-o-o* last election cycle

Will anyone even get the jokes in this video any more? Do we remember what these candidates said, stood for, did?

Student sentences

Any advice about how I (or anyone) might teach something useful about writing to students who write sentences like these?

Opening line of a student essay that's called "Women's Place Over Generations":

• Over many decades, ever since anyone can remember, women have been around.

In an essay that's supposed to identify and analyze campus barriers to people with disabilities:

• There are also many flyers and post boards which are pretty easy to read for anyone with hearing impairments although if you have vision I don't know how well you will be able to read!

In an essay titled "The Woman is Born":

• Today the woman stands strong with many different adversities and hurtles to prevail over, and yet they grow together with the rights of education, work, and choice.
  

Important video

I've been trying to figure out how to embed this video in Century's Q&S Club Facebook page. If anyone can help me, that would be great.

It's made by a gay teen in northwestern Pennsylvania, an area I know well, documenting the torment he and another teen endured in high school. They both decided to do something about the harassment.

Feeling more hopeful

I’ve just finished with my squirrely group of Engl 90 students, the ones who made me so depressed last week.

Last Wednesday's class almost made me cry with the “progressive story” assignment (the one designed to teach the skills of “unity” and “organization” by passing a paper around and having everyone add a sentence to a story). This class of 15 (3 women) made the characters commit crimes – assault, drugs, stealing, rape – visit prostitutes, get AIDS, flunk class, get drunk (many stories had this plot device), lie to teachers, “turn” gay, eat cockroaches, call the cops (many had this one, too), give lap dances, puke, walk into the wrong class and see an “attractive lady” (two stories took this turn), etc., etc., etc.

I was appalled. Here’s a sample:

“So after class one day, Student One would stalk and beat up Student Two for no reason better than the fact of her enjoying the class. Yet, the next day they were all run over by Student Three and his big truck. Student Three went to prison for vehicular manslaughter on three accounts. No one has ever seen him again, until he was found out in the prison yard wrapped around a big man named, Bubba. Student Three was wrapped around him like a fur coat. But, sadly that would be the last anyone had heard from Student Three. One thing is good, at least he provided Bubba with warmth.”

Some stories I couldn’t read to the class. Here’s an excerpt that stopped me in my tracks:

“Soon, the entertainment got out of hand. Their entertainment with poems soon turned into entertainment from strippers. Sooner or later their entertainment got boring, and they decided to do volunteering work. They gave their free time to the local whore house. They would clean out the girls, lube them up, and clean the ‘creative juices.’”

Students knew that these stories would be read in class, but each sentence was more-or-less anonymous after the story got back to the original writer. A little sleuthing reveals the writer of the sentences above – let’s just say that “Student Three” is the author of the terrible parallel structure that ends the preceding excerpt.

Today, however, in writing workshop four students read their new assignment, and three were very, very good. Feedback was encouraging and responsible, too. With accountability (we go around the circle after the “Featured Writer” has read, and everyone must offer some comment), the students –for the most part – pay attention to writerly things, imagining ways to make their classmates’ writing better. Students are kind to each other.

I need to keep organizing my writing classes into these writing workshop: smaller groups of 8-12 students show me more of what they're capable of and what they've learned. I like them SO much better.

Makes me cheerful

This video reminds me to be committed to the idea of collective action, art, and civics

I just love the energy and collaboration.

Student Writing

I've been thinking lately about the effect on a person -- me, perhaps -- that the continued reading of student writing has. I mean, what happens to expectations about coherence, fluency, style when one (me?) is inundated with novice/student/practicing writers? What does this immersion do to one's (my?) sense of the possibilities and polish of writing?

Maybe it makes me more compassionate, although I think I see a LOT more ridiculously unprofessional writing coming from my college's employees (don't ask). Maybe it makes me more pliable, able to make meaning out of discontinuity and sincere attempts at communicating. Maybe it makes me stuck, unable to recognize written prose as a communicative artifact instead of a thing to be graded. Maybe it makes me stupid. (That's truly what I worry about: that I lose a critical edge and then find any half-way coherent, innovative utterance to be impressive when it's merely pedestrian because I'm so used to seeing practice prose.)

Sometimes I think I should just quit reading all the writing my students produce (because I ask them to do so!), and indeed I don't read everything. But mostly, I want to know what they think, want to witness thinking on the page/screen, want to help them make sense of their own senses and sensations and sentience and sensibility. I really do.

4Cs

San Francisco is beautiful -- not that I've seen much of it. I'm inside the Hilton listening to thought-provoking and inspiring talks: Mike Rose, especially. I'm having good conversations, too.

That's what conferences are for, right?

For those who insist that we don't . . .

. . . need to share (AKA increase revenue AKA raise taxes): the National Center on Family Homelessness just released a study that says one in 50 children is homeless in any one year.

How can we live in a country that has allowed this fact to exist?

For those who insist that we don't . . .

. . . live in a patriarchy: consider this recent article in Slate.com.

Japanese video game that simulates rape: called RapeLay, the player/perpetrator stalks and attacks a young girl on the subway. Various endings include the player/perp being stabbed by the victim or the victim becoming impregnated.

I'm sickened. I can't even bring this obscenity into my WGST course.

Bill Holm, RIP

Bill spoke at Century -- and Lakewood -- more than once. He, like I, hated the name change, saying it sounded like something a committee of executives would make up, not a college name at all. He's right.

Here's a photographic tribute of him by the photography Jonathan Chapman, courtesy of my pal Cullen Bailey Burns.

Strong Bad writes an English Paper

This cartoon about writing a paper is probably funnier to others than it is to me -- am I right about this? Will my students think it's funny?
Received via Michael Day on <techrhet>.
P.S. Who is Strong Bad?

Snow Day

Many, many inches: classes cancelled! Now I can do a tiny bit of catch-up.

Why? That's a good question

I've decided to post another student message to my blog because my readers are offering helpful ways for me to understand my students.

In a night American Lit course at a local "urban" university, one student has me puzzled. S/he and I have already had conversations about the class, specifically about the student's lack of participation, and these conversations (both in person and via email) have gone fairly well, or so I thought.

But yesterday I read something on the course discussion board (under "Q&A about Course Policies, Procedures, Features"). Here's the complete post:

"Why the focus on group work? It doesn't illuminate anything. Closed, selective groups do not provide for open debate. It is a miserable experience to come to class every night and have to suffer. Nothing was said in a group that an individual couldn't do as well.

"It's a waste of time. What happened to good old-fashioned writing in response to literature. I get nothing out of the group experience except a headache. I resent that my grade is based on group participation. No one in this course helped my pay my tuition and book fees, so why is my grade based on group participation?

"I get the feeling that the lessons are not planned but made up on the spot."

Many other students responded to this post before I saw it. Those students all said that "group work" was valuable. Only one student acknowledged that such work was hard for her/him, too, and encouraged the unhappy student, "Don't give up on it!"

I, too, wrote a long response, which I may post in a separate blog entry. But I'd be curious to know what my colleagues would do in this situation.

How to help?

Sentence from a student's essay:

"I find out for the potential concept from reading to encourage my ability of learning."

I don't know what this sentence means. Can anyone help me?

Why has it taken so long for me to find this?

Part of my last-year sabbatical project was to catch up on pedagogy scholarship in three areas: feminist, online, and critical pedagogies.

My dean had heard of the first two, but not the third. I asked, "Maybe you've heard of Paulo Freire? Henry Giroux?" Nope. I was surprised. But one can't know everything, can one?

Now I've discovered an entire website that *I* should have know about last year: The Paulo and Nita Freire Project for Critical Pedagogy. Its home is McGill University, and here's a website excerpt that applies especially to community colleges:

"Housed in the project are the papers of seminal scholars who have contributed to the evolution of Critical Pedagogy. In addition, the project will promote research in Critical Pedagogy and bring together both local and international educators and continue its development globally while highlighting its relevance with marginalized and indigenous peoples" (emphasis added).

If our students and our teaching isn't "marginalized," then I don't know what is. I'm just beginning to explore the site -- I invite others to do so, too.

I'm struggling

My Engl 90 classes flummox me: I don't quite know what to expect of the students, and I have a HUGE range of abilities in these classes. A couple of students seem not to have much command of the English language at ALL, yet they've both passed our Engl 80 course.

A couple of other students seem to have no command of their giggles, and they constantly nudge and bump each other, wiggly as puppies.

A couple of other students smell -- really.

A couple of other students walk in and out of class, impatient with repetition and classmates who need the assignment explained twice and thrice.

A couple of students shouldn't be in this class because they're already fluent writers, thoughtful thinkers, bad test takers (evidently, since "the test" is what put them in Engl 90).

A couple of students have revealed their pasts in essays that haunt me: abuse, pain, terror, deprivation. How do I grade these stories?

A couple of students can't read. Or at least when their eyes go over each word, they recognize the words but can't figure out how to put them together into a thought.

A couple of students need to visit me in my office for clarification instead of listening to assignments and advice in class.

A couple of students are embarrassed to be in this class, but eager at the same time to get "good grades" and "move on" to another college-level course.

A couple of students go missing every class period.

A couple of students haven't turned in a damn thing all semester.

I am so lucky. Really. To be working with these people who are willing (for the most part) and engaged with the difficult task of learning to say what they think on paper (and to think of something to say on paper).

I'm struggling, and I'm so privileged to be doing so. How awesome is that -- to be taught by my students.

Amazing Inaugural Image

Check out this Gigapan photo by David Bergman: it's a 1474-megapixel photograph taken during the inauguration.

You can zoom in on it (sort of like Google Earth) to see who's doing what during the speech. It's very cool. Thanks for pointing me to it, Alison Bechdel.

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.