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.

What's next?

With one semester finished, I'm thinking about the next semester, when I'm teaching a course that I haven't taught in about five years. I'm looking forward to it because it's such an important course: Engl 90, our "Introduction to Writing" course that helps not-quite-ready writers become college-writing ready. Years ago, I taught it using the Utne Reader magazine as a text, crafting all the assignments as responses to the short current articles there. I'd end the course with a Letter to the Editor assignment that I actually sent to the mag. That method was fun for me because I never knew what topics we'd be writing about.

But the magazine's editorial vision seems to have changed, and it's become increasingly less fun/ky, so I've switched to a textbook this year. I'm rueing the choice, though, thinking it's more than the students can handle. We'll have to see what happens -- or how I can make something happen.

Portfolios Finished!

Whew - reading such good (huge) portfolios takes a LOT of focused time. Why do I do this method, I ask myself every semester, but ultimately the work seems to be worth it: I read good work. Most students seem to learn quite a bit, for the most part.

Funny sentences, do emerge, however. For example, these:

• "Preparing for the portfolio was the most changeling thing I had to do in our English class."
• "Writing has always been my weakest strength but I know this class has helped improved me to become a better writer."
• "Many call the gays bad, evil and other crazy names, but how many of us actually know an evil lesbian or a bad gay man."

Second and Third Final

Second was FYC with the M/W group: not as strong, let me tell you. The level of cliche and vague generalization hasn't diminished far enough over the past 16 weeks, even though we've practiced and practiced and practiced. Some students even resorted to the "5-paragraph theme" with its "three points," a genre we've repeatedly discussed as inadequate for college-level thinking. I guess a pressure-situation like an inclass final essay brings out the worst in us: stress is like that.

Third was the Intro to GLBT Studies students: I asked too much of them, relying on their input when they said they wanted to write about how they connected this course to their lives. They wanted to reflect rather than memorize: I get that, but the exam took too long. Some of them will just skip the second part and double the point values of the first part.

Okay, now to do more grading: 15 portfolios left (with 8 essays in each!), 15 final exams (all online), and 21 final essays/projects to read.

The end is in sight.

First Final

This afternoon, my T/Th FYC students took their in-class final, an essay exam. I had three options for them, and 16 out of 18 took one of the options, 2 chose another (the option no one chose at midterm), and none chose an option that I thought might be fun (discuss the relationship between words and images -- we've been Wordle-ing this semester, and I've given them a few talks about visual design).

Exams weren't terrible (I've graded them already). I wonder how the M/W class will do tomorrow. They've struggled all semester. We'll see.

So far, I've graded 13 of 36 portfolios (eight essays in each!), 18 of 52 final exams, and none of the 21 final projects I have left for this semester. This week is grading week, can you tell?

After grading comes grades calculation: I've begun that, too, with the accumulation almost accumulated. Only a couple of Fs for plagiarism -- not bad, I suppose, out of 64 students -- and some really lovely work, essays that I want to copy and distribute to future students. It's wonderful to read heart-felt expressions of indignation, pride, enlightenment. It really does happen.

Kill your babies

I've been telling my students that as they revise, they must get rid of some of the things they love (because they have written them) so that their essays are more focused, unified, organized. Now I find myself in a similar situation:

Going through files to organize before final portfolios come in, I'm clearing out all the old assignments and extra paper that accumulates during the semester. I'm finding essays/assignment that I've graded, commented on, and that weren't returned to students because those students disappeared. I have a hard time recycling these papers with all my carefully crafted penciled comments, all my conversation with the student.

All my hard work down the drain! I think to myself. Why do I *do* so much commenting? Why do I write so much on their essays? How can I possibly throw away all the evidence of my hard work?

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (1863-1944) coined the phrase "murder your darlings" in 1914, which came down to us as "kill your babies." I suppose he's right. Here's the full quotation:

“Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetuate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it – wholeheartedly – and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.” In 12th and final lecture “On Style (given at Cambridge on 28 January 1914 in a series published as On the Art of Writing).

So I have to take my own advice already! Dang.

Worst Meeting Ever

On Friday afternoon, I attended a planning meeting for the upcoming MnSCU English Discipline Workshop (April 3-4, 2009). Although we had a detailed agenda and superb attendance, we didn't get even a third of the way through the agenda before people started leaving: mainly because we'd reached the scheduled ending point of the meeting, 90 minutes after it'd begun.

Oddly, the person in charge of this workshop, who'd created the agenda, doesn't seem to have *any* grasp of time, of prioritization, of audience. S/he spent an unnecessary amount of time on minutiae, which gave random others the opportunity to chime in with additional unnecessary minutiae.

By 5:00, a full two hours after the beginning of the meeting, we were getting to the agenda items that needed committee member input (real decisions, real consequences). Only six of the original eighteen attendees were still present, and most of us had to leave. So we still don't know if the workshop's topics are still the same (how *does* "Assessment" differ from "Accountability" as one member so wisely asked).

Even my best students . . .

. . . can't work with sources. I've just read the most *horrendous* source-based essays that I've ever read in my life. Seriously, in my twenty-plus-year teaching life. Not even my own elementary school children wrote essays this terrible: disjointed, inaccurate, pointless, rambling, copied, unclear. Now I'm curious about where my previous students bought their essays.

I'm stumped: I stepped them through the process, with tour of the library and its databases, required annotated bibliography, conference with me, pre-research-paper essay persuading me that they had a reasonable research question and some idea of where to go to find their answer(s), rhetorical analysis of a sample student essay, three in-class workshops on drafts (for content [a variation of Elbow's Believer/Doubter exercises], for structure, and for citations).

I don't know what else to do. Are students that stretched that they can't do any work outside of class? We spent almost five weeks on this "unit," five weeks to produce a "researched essay" based on a question that they had related to our college common book.

The saddest thing is that I won't be teaching FYC again for at least a year. So what do I do with my terrible job this semester?

Excellent Movie

I highly recommend Gus Van Sant's Milk. See it immediately. Tell all your students to do so, no matter what you teach (hey, you remember that you teach *students* don't you?).

The film's content still resonates 30 years after Harvey Milk's murder. His message of hope is familiar to us, of course, but so, unfortunately, is the message of hate spread by some "religious" people. What I especially like is Milk's insistence that he wasn't the important thing: the movement was the important thing, the simple force of the simple *rightness* of the simple equality of all people. It's a simple, powerful, necessary message.

What's to learn?

I received a forwarded email, containing an article called "Obama's Use of Complete Sentences Stirs Controversy: Stunning Break with Last Eight Years." No attribution with the email, no author or originating website or source. These absences made me suspicious, of course, and I suspected that the article might be a spoof.

But the article cited a University of Minnesota professor of presidential history, Davis Logsdon, not a name I recognized, so naturally I googled him.

Turns out the entire article was written by Andy Borowitz, a writer who skewers politics and popular culture. Like Stewart and Kolbert, Borowitz's satire asks us to be critical, to see stupidities, to think.

How can I use satire with my students to help them think critically? I have so many students who don't want to read to learn, who instead want to be told. They ask, "What's the point?" and "What am I supposed to learn?" and "What do *you* think - you're giving me the grade?"

Something to work on, as usual.

BOT Awards

How to get the word out? That's the challenge in any large institution, like our college or the system within which our college exists, the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities. Such a communication challenge is especially difficult when the intended audience holds strong preconceptions about the message, as MnSCU faculty do about a terrific program created by the MnSCU Board of Trustees: the BOT Educator of the Year Award.

The preconception about this award is that once nominated, a faculty member must go through an onerous process of putting together a portfolio to document that excellence. However, the process doesn't have to be onerous at all: perhaps the (sorta cheesy) video below will motivate folks to see that?

Additions

So I thought I'd already ordered my books for next semester -- through the college bookstore's website, which is multi-layered, multi-stepped, multi-confusing.

A few days ago, I decided to add another book to my Engl 90 course, a terrific textbook called Considering Literacy by my most-excellent colleague Linda Adler-Kassner. I haven't read the entire text, but it seems perfectly suited for the course, which is supposed to help students develop college-level writing skills.

As I logged into our bookstore site, I found out that my previous order had never been processed: I don't know where the information went. I don't know why my previously ordered books did not appear. I don't know why.

Maybe I need to develop some "literacy" skills myself when it comes to reading/navigating websites, especially those designed without any consideration of users!