Composition Southeast

See you at the Cs if you please.

2007-09-12T04:34:00.000-07:00

My panel was accepted. Congratulations to us. :)

We'll be talking about academic literacy issues in the two-year college. I almost even remembered what I intended to say about it when I saw my title yesterday.

I'm sorry I've been out of touch with the blog world lately. I posted a little about that yesterday over at my Drupal place. I still intend to consolidate my various blogging efforts over at the other site eventually, but I still have some work yet to get that one up to speed. This blog is a comfortable old friend. I'll probably keep posting here for a time until I feel like I have things in place a little better on the other one.

A Drupaling I Go

2007-03-31T10:16:00.000-07:00

I'm in the process of setting up a new site that I think will become my primary academic blog now. I'm not quite ready to let go of this one. I've got a big learning curve on Drupal. Come on over and give me some tips on how things are done in the Drupaler's world, though. As soon as I get back from visiting my family and get caught up a little on grading, I'll get some discussions going...

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Cs

2007-03-28T17:29:00.000-07:00

Patti and I almost missed our plane to New York because we spent about an hour sitting in traffic on the Pontchartrain bridge. They were working on the bridge, of course, given that about a year and half ago it was just a little snack for big, bad Katrina. I've been living in this reality where things happen differently now all this time, but somehow I forgot. Last year I did a much better job of planning my trip to the airport. Last year I knew things were bad and not getting better. This year I forgot. I've had so much normal life force itself upon me lately that I forgot we still can't force Katrina's aftermath into any kind of normal routine.

Then we got past the bridge and skirted the city to make our way to the airport. I knew that things were in shambles. I'd spent a lot of time looking at the shambles. Still, the plowing up of one person's shambles while someone else's still just sits there empty and irreparable is almost too hard a thing to take in. Even Walmart is abandoned. Walmart. I don't know why that bothers me so much, but you have to know that if Walmart can't bounce back the little guy doesn't stand a chance.

I had only recently returned from a conference in Biloxi where it was the absence of a beachfront Waffle House that irked me. Don't ask me why. I'm just weird that way. I've always been drawn to the things that were a little out of place to begin with, and I loved that Waffle House that looked out at the water in one direction and the antebellum homes in the other.

People like to talk about the sense of place in the South, and I can tell you that when absolutely every familiar landmark is gone or changed or damaged, it physically disrupts every fiber of your identity, every ounce of being in you that understands who you are. I no longer have an accurate map in my head of entire towns I've known my whole life. It feels like amnesia.

I was glad to meet Daisy in New York. I very much appreciated her discussion of Katrina and the New Orleans bloggers--the way the blogs filled in where the mainstream media failed, the way people have continued to blog as a means of healing and of activism.

It's so easy to forget. If you even drive a few miles away where things are better, you can forget just how far New Orleans and many other coastal towns have to go. It's far easier to forget than to remember, but we can't afford to forget. Next year CCCC will be in New Orleans, but it will be in an area that will appear to be okay, mostly. "The Isle of Denial," people are calling it. Don't let it fool you. Don't come and go from New Orleans without getting out to see the real story. It will, even a year from now, be far from over.

The Horror! The Horror!

2007-03-27T16:26:00.000-07:00

Looks like people are noticing and talking about (whining, lamenting, bemoaning) the heavy teaching loads at community colleges. Scott Jaschik's Inside Higher Ed piece is interesting to me in that I see from it I'm at the shocking edges of the shock zone of out-lying difficult-to-believe statistics. Now I know why people always gasp when I say how many sections and students I teach each semester.

Not only has the norm started to greatly exceed desirable levels, but
significant numbers of instructors are teaching well above the mean. The
survey found that more than 20 percent of writing instructors
at community colleges teach between 111 and 130 students each semester.
And 9 percent report teaching 131 to 150 students a semester.

These numbers sound just plain easy to me.

Of course this is a travesty. Of course the students are not getting the best instruction they could. Of course we need to all be fighting to bring the course loads and class sizes down.

Yet.

It's also interesting to me that the very people who teach argument are often the first to address an issue from only one perspective.

There are factors beyond the ideals of the best possible instruction. This is also an economic issue. Who/how/where do the funds come in to accomplish reducing work loads for instructors? We're not talking about chump change. Not only would my school need to hire more people to bring down class sizes, we'd also need new facilities. Lots of expensive new facilities, buildings which would in turn necessitate the aquisition of new property.

Of course that money should be invested in our community colleges. Of course it's worth it to build new buildings and hire new teachers and adopt more technologies and bring our numbers closer to ideal or even to average.

Yet.

It's a poor area, a rural area in which many students struggle just for gas money to get to class.

Do we want to increase tuition? Do we want to reduce salaries? Do we want to increase taxes?

Out of which turnip do we extract the blood to make our preferred move?

Part of the mission of the community college is to bring education to the home grown, to those who might not otherwise be able to afford a college degree. We have to consider the economy of this reality even as we reach to improve the circumstances through which we teach.

Community college teachers for the most part, I believe, are very grounded in their realities, and they work very hard to give their students the best education they can in the conditions they have. Like my colleagues, I too like to vent about my lot in life, but I am constantly reminded that this is the life I chose. I serve my purpose, and I do my job, and I do the best I can where I am and with what I have to work with. It's hard work. It's often frustrating because I know I can't always do things the way I think they ought to be done, and I don't always have control over decisions that I think ought to be made one way or another.

It's also very rewarding, though, and people who don't see it that way should probably choose to do something else.

Work for change. Work to raise awareness. Work to promote proper funding for our community colleges. Just don't whine about the stupid administrators who don't understand how they ought to be staffing our classes without stopping to consider the financial difficulties involved.

The Cs

2007-03-26T09:13:00.000-07:00

I had a great time in New York. I went to lots of sessions, back-to-back, marathon style without even stopping for lunch. I hope to be blogging about them in the coming days, but for now I'm recovering, catching up on grading, and trying to find my focus for the jobs at hand again.

It was especially good to see the bloggers--Mike, Joanna, Dennis, Bradley, Clancy, Daisy, Timna, Lanette, Sharon (the other), et al. And does it count that I saw the back of Collin's head while I listened to Clancy speak?

I also got to see a little of New York. This is a pretty big deal for a woman from South Mississippi. Let me just say about this that I challenge any of you to keep up with Nell Ann Pickett. She might be 72, but those little legs keep going and going. I think we walked through all of Manhattan on Saturday. Then we went to the Metroplitan Museum and kept walking at the end of the day. A good time was had by all.

See You in New York!

2007-03-15T09:24:00.000-07:00

If I've managed to successfully set myself up with free file hosting, you should be able to click here for a pdf of my Cs handouts--or what I have as of now.

What does Amazon want you to have?

2007-02-28T18:25:00.000-08:00

Customers who bought items in your Recent History also bought:

Microphone, ME-15 by Olympus
SanDisk 2 GB SD Memory Card by SanDisk
A Guide to Composition Pedagogies by Gary Tate

Sharon Needs a New Word

2007-02-28T17:31:00.000-08:00

I'm just rolling in from two back-to-back conferences, TYCA-SE and CFTTC. Someone please remind me next proposal season that sometimes everything does get accepted, and life just isn't long enough to do everything. But what the heck. Both conferences were wonderful, and I'd fired up and ready to take on the world even if I am too tired to lift a finger.

Something kept nagging at me, though, as I listened to the fervor over podcasting in both places. Inevitably, once anyone started talking about podcasting everyone in the room wanted to know everything they could about it. It seems lots of college presidents have issued the mandate to "Go forth and podcast." People everywhere are anxious to learn. Some are anxious to share what they know. Yet somehow we've also made a kind of cool club out of the word podcasting in which the term itself is used in a spirit that shuts people out.

Over an over I heard people say, "Oh, no. If you only post audio online, that's not really podcasting. That's just making audio files."

So?

I'm well aware that technopurism defines podcasting as both episodic and available by subscription, but there are a lot of other great possibilities for digital audio in education. Many we haven't even discovered yet.

There's nothing wrong per se with limiting the term podcasting to mean only one kind of delivery for digital audio. The problem is that podcasting is the cool word, and we don't have one that sounds as savvy and impressive to bandy about for all of the other things we might do. Hence, we have people saying things like "That's not really podcasting. That's just making audio files." As if anything else is less cool and less important.

I don't mind a little technolitism here and there, but this particular variety of it was a constant at two very different conferences. I found it terribly counter-productive.

I think we can safely assume that most people who go to conferences to talk about technology genuinely want to share their knowledge in a way that is helpful to others. Saying things like "that's not really podcasting," however informative it might be, is not exactly helpful. It shuts people out. It makes people feel like the learning curve is insurmountable. It discourages them from experimenting with one little step at a time on the path to technotopia.

Therefore, Sharon needs a new word. Help me out, world. What can we call non-subscription based digital audio that will sound just as cool as podcasting?

Everyone is Talking About MySpace

2007-02-10T17:21:00.000-08:00

First we banned MySpace on campus. Then we unbanned it due to large numbers of student complaints. Then we rebanned it only during the morning hours when computer lab traffic is heaviest. After 2:00 each day the block is lifted.

The controversy might be the most excitement we've had in years. Add to this that the MySpace ban also affected our campus connection to Thomson.turnitin.com, and things have been downright chaotic. My students now joke that anything that goes wrong is a result of the MySpace ban.

It might take a little while, but sooner or later whatever is troubling the rest of world makes its way to Mississippi.

There are good arguments for the ban, though I don't agree with the sheer nervousness over what the students might be up to on there. My only real concession to the ban is that our campus isn't prepared to have massive numbers of students building social lives around our school computers. They were overwhelming our labs. Immediately before the ban, I walked into one of the student labs and saw nothing but MySpace. It was something to behold--a whole sea of social networking probably among people who could have gotten up and walked across the room to speak to each other.

Still, there's a lot to be said for students feeling like they do have a social network at school. In the old days, three or four years ago, we were often told that students who got involved socially on campus were much more likely to stay in school. To our way of thinking way back then this meant clubs and organizations. Maybe it means something else today. Maybe it is time for the campus to reorganize to meet the needs of the students rather than the other way around. Maybe.

Blogger Updates

2007-02-01T03:56:00.000-08:00

I converted my own Blogger account to New Blogger, and in doing so inadvertently dumped all of my blog partners on various blogs. Evidently an Old Blogger cannot blog on a New Blogger blog. Sorry about that. Since I'm the only person who ever posted to this particular blog, and even I've been very infrequent about it lately, I'm not so worried. However, if you were once a member of this blog and would like to be again, please contact me: sharon dot gerald at gmail dot com.

New Blogger is cool. It has drag and drop template editing and other nice additions. It is also associated with Google Accounts, so presumably I could type my stuff in Google Docs and post it directly from there to my blog. I haven't tried that yet, but it's still cool to know I could.

I've also gotten my students on board with the New Blogger. This is a real work in progress, but it's been a fun, productive class, and we all feel like we've accomplished something just by getting everyone signed on to Gmail and Blogger.

So how's it going, blogosphere? I'd say I was sorry for not being more faithful to the blog lately, but I'll just wait to see if I get any better before I bother. Busy, busy days. More later...

Hello, Blog

2006-12-04T18:09:00.000-08:00

I'm a little surprised to see how long it's been since my last visit. I have been busy.

I did a Harry Potter presentation on Halloween. That was fun. The best part was that I got mentioned on a blog called The Chocolate Frog, which should be everyone's aspiration in life. I know this, of course, because I did a vanity Google.

I'm also pushing ahead with my oral history project. I've been working with The Good Dr. Sloan at USM, and I'm getting very excited about the whole thing. It looks like there might be some promising grant opportunities, and I am very much in favor of any activity that has me playing with microphones, talking to old people, and passing it off as an academic accomplishment. :)

I'm looking forward to presenting some of my project at the Cs.

I've also had students doing some oral histories, and I've been very pleased with the motivation levels. I'm even downright astounded by the degree to which the writing improved when they began to really care about the subject matter and about taking it home to show their grandmothers in the end. It was heartening enough to even make wading through six sections of essays at once a good experience.

I'm a little bit on the overbooked side for spring. If I show up for everything, I've got four presentations scheduled so far. All on different topics, of course. That might be stretching things even for someone whose entire social life consists of drinking coffee in public places while grading papers. I might have to sub-let some of my students.

That's about it. In my next incarnation, I'm going to have a blog called "The Haphazardician" because I know I'll always have periods of neglecting any blog I try to start up a relationship with.

Take care, everyone. Stay warm and caffeinated for the upcoming grading crunch.

Confessions of a User

2006-09-23T07:27:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to respond to some of the Turnitin debates over at Kairosnews all week. I just haven't had time. I've also been considering submitting a proposal about Turnitin best and worst practices to a local technology conference. In light of that, here are some thoughts I've jotted down this morning.

Turnitin Problems

Turnitin does not distinguish between things that have been properly quoted and documented and things that have not. The percentage matched number cannot be used to determine whether a student has cheated.

Turnitin is inconsistent. In one student's essay, he had several quotes from the Bible. Some were marked as unoriginal; others were not. We know that the entire Bible is available online in all of its various translations. Anything quoted from it should have shown up as unoriginal.

Turnitin even marks the headings on the papers as unoriginal. We know that a certain amount of the percentage matched number can be accounted for simply in the student spelling the instructor's name correctly.

One student had several sentences marked as unoriginal in an essay about Harry Potter. The link provided by Turnitin for where the sentences had been copied took me to a message board where all of the users were posting under anonymous screen names. The “unoriginal sentences” were not all together in one place. They were scattered throughout various threads and topics on the board. For all I know, the student was only quoting herself.

If essays are submitted to Turnitin in rough draft form, revisions of those same essays cannot be submitted without showing up as entirely plagiarized. This discourages teachers from having students submit rough drafts and using the originality reports as a teaching tool.

One student wrote an essay about her senior project in high school. The portions that showed up as matched were linked to an article in an educational journal about possible assignments for senior projects. No whole sentences were matched, only phrases. It is my thinking that the student had internalized the instructions for her assignment after spending so much time working on it. It is also my suspicion that the high school teacher, on the other hand, had lifted the assignment straight from a journal without changing a thing.

Turnitin only catches one form of cheating. If a student gets another student to write a paper, Turnitin can only catch that if more than one student has submitted the same paper to Turnitin.

Turnitin Worst Practices

** Accepting Turnitin's word as law (or even as true)--anything identified as plagiarized by Turnitin should be carefully reviewed by the instructor to determine why it was marked.
**Using the percentage matched number as an indicator of how many points should be deducted from an assignment for plagiarism—even if a student has incorrectly copied some sentences from sources, a portion of that number can be accounted for by things that do not constitute plagiarism.
**Submitting student work to Turnitin without informing the student that this will happen.
**Having students submit their own work to Turnitin without explaining to them exactly what it is or how it works.
**Submitting only final drafts to Turnitin without working with the student on identifying and correcting possible instances of plagiarism first.

Turnitin Better Practices

**Submitting rough drafts only to Turnitin and using the originality reports as opportunities for student revision rather than as proof of crimes.
**Recognizing that not all forms of “unorginality” are plagiarism.
**Using the originality reports as an opportunity to revise for lack of original thinking and/or original voice in writing as well as for outright plagiarism.
**Recognizing that some sharing of information and some internalizing of information is likely to show up in these reports in ways that do not constitute cheating.
**Having students submit their own papers to Turnitin and giving them open access to their own originality reports.
**Recognizing that students have to be taught how to avoid plagiarism before they can be expected to demonstrate expertise in avoiding it.
**Recognizing that information sharing is so prevalent in our common business and educational practices that students have good reason to expect that some degree of “borrowing” is acceptable in their writing unless they are told otherwise.

Like grammar checkers, plagiarism detection services are unreliable. They should not be the only way that plagiarism is dealt with in student writing, and they should not be used as a means of creating less work for the instructor. Used correctly, plagiarism detection services do require time and attention on the part of the instructor.

It is my thinking that people trained as writing instructors are the most likely people to understand how to avoid improper use of plagiarism detection services. Like grammar checkers, however, it is the people who understand how to use them who are the least likely to need them.

Though I have been using Turnitin as part of my department's adoption of the service, I agree with Becky Howard and others who have spoken out against it. I also agree that compositionists should be educating themselves on exactly how Turnitin works and exactly how it is being used so as to be better prepared to educate others in its possible pitfalls.

Academic Fantasies

2006-09-21T05:12:00.000-07:00

There are some great discussions going on right now, but I'm too covered up with students and grading and committees to do any of them justice. Instead I'd just like to share a quick note about academic fantasies.

I finished my Ph.D. in 1996. Since then it has been my continuing dream to go back to school. There's just no life I love better than that of a grad student. Of course, anything I might want to take wouldn't actually advance my career. Often I consider ditching everything and running off to an MFA program. Hello. My Ph.D. is in creative writing. This wouldn't exactly be a move forward. Once I was going to apply for a Ph.D. program at Duke and just get a degree in another field of English. What can I say? I drove through North Carolina and thought it was pretty.

Often my fantasies actually stray toward other disciplines. I'd like MAs in history, philosophy, and graphic design.

I never fantasize about taking courses that would allow me to make more money. I'm just an arts and humanities girl through and through.

I could, however, change the particulars of my current job by getting another MA. Instead of two sections of literature and four sections of composition every semester, perhaps I could teach two lits, two comps, and two comparative religion classes. Wouldn't that be nice?

Ah, well. We all need our dreams.

The Year of the Pod

2006-09-13T07:19:00.000-07:00

I started the year off not with a bang but with a cough. I've been fighting off bronchitis and generally feeling like a drag on everything lately. I do want to want to make my new school year resolutions and plans, however.

Lots of changes around here. We have a new president, new department chair, lots of shifts in dean positions. We've lost administrators to both retirement and death.

Overall, though, there is a very positive air around here, and even through my Nyquil hangovers I can feel it. There is just a kind of attitude that everyone is ready and willing to try new things. It's a good attitude to work with and around.

My new thing will be podcasting. I've been adding audio clips to my online class. Those are just little five minute mini-lectures to help jump start their study efforts. I'm going to expand that, though, into recording actual class discussions to make available online for my day students and my online students.

This all falls in line with the oral history I've now obligated myself to follow through with by getting my CCCC proposal accepted. All along I've held back on my plans to do oral history interviews because I wanted to podcast them, and I was never quite satisfied with the quality of recordings or with my own game plan for how to work out the technical logistics of it.

Because our new president is very interested in podcasting classroom lectures, though, this has all worked together to help me find a solution for the classroom and for the oral history project.

My current podcasting plan is to use my new laptop computer and a high sensitivity microphone for recording along with the program Audacity.

I also plan to steal some ideas from Derek and from Steven who seem to have been working on some of these same issues.

I'll let you know how it goes.

The Blogging Continues!

2006-08-07T09:03:00.000-07:00

Joanna and I completed the 24-hour blogathon to raise money for Katrina victims in Pearlington, MS, but we aren't stopping there. We're going to keep going by adding at least one new thing a day to the Pearlington blog up until the Katrina anniversary on August 29. Please help us pass the word along, and if you weren't able to drop by to leave a comment during the blogathon, it's all still there. Come on over when you get a chance.

The Blogging Begins!

2006-08-05T05:13:00.000-07:00

As you may or may not have noticed, the planned blogathon for Pearlington had to be postponed because I had a funeral to go to last weekend. Joanna and I are blogging all day today and all night tonight, however, on behalf of the small town of Pearlington, MS that was just obliterated by Katrina.

Come on over and contribute what you can, whether it's money, labor, or good old-fashioned good wishes.

Have Blog. Will Type For Charity.

2006-07-20T16:15:00.000-07:00

Joanna and I are going to participate in Blogathon 2006 to raise money for rebuilding the small coastal town of Pearlington, Mississippi.

As anyone who has followed this blog knows, Pearlington was not merely devastated in Hurricane Katrina; it was decimated. I've done some volunteer work in Pearlington through University Baptist Church and The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Mississippi. I can attest first hand to how much the people of Pearlington have struggled this year and how much they are still struggling.

I will attest next Saturday, July 29 when we blog every thirty minutes for 24-hours straight for Pearlington.

Money donated through this blogathon will go to University Baptist Church in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. It will be used to purchase building materials for people in Pearlington who lost their homes in Katrina.

Please help us spread the word, and if you are able, don't forget to click on the PayPal link at the Pearlington blog to leave a much appreciated donation.

Playing with Odeo

2006-07-15T19:22:00.000-07:00

I've just discovered Odeo Studio, and I've taken that discovery as an opportunity to jump right in and do that pod thing everybody is so crazy about.

Podcasts, Access, Quality

2006-07-15T17:20:00.000-07:00

I've been teaching online classes for the past few years that were really hybrids. They met on campus five or six times per semester, and the rest was online. Now we are converting those classes to fully online. This has all of our online instructors scrambling to make the online instruction a little more sophisticated. Currently, I'm experimenting with adding audio clips, and I have a few thoughts/questions.

(1) Should I be worried about whether I have students on dial-up who will have trouble accessing the audio files?

(2) Where can I get a better microphone than the piece of junk I got at Radio Shack without spending a whole lot of money?

(3) If I want to imbed some audio clips into PowerPoint presentations, how can I end up with a file that isn't impossibly large for posting online?

(4) Is it better for mini-lecture audio clips to be scripted and polished, or am I okay to just wing it and hope for the "natural" sound?

New Normal

2006-06-07T19:41:00.000-07:00

This house is in Pearlington, MS. This is now a typical scene in Mississippi coastal towns. Many, many houses are sitting abandoned in this condition. It is overwhelming to think how much still needs to be done just to take care of storm clean up and meet basic necessities. At the same time it is heartening to see the sheer number of volunteers still showing up.

One group I met were high school students from Syracuse, NY on a civil rights tour of the South. They came to Pearlington for a service project as part of their trip. They learned important things that day like "Never open a refrigerator that's been sitting in a destroyed house for ten months." Some of them were also very excited about getting a close up look at some alligators.

Thumbs up to the teachers who put this together and the students who poured their hearts into the job.

Waveland

2006-06-01T07:17:00.000-07:00

Monday evening I rode down the beachfront with a group of volunteers from North Carolina. I took this picture in Waveland. You can't really get the effect from the picture, but we were fascinated with this house because it was the only thing left standing for miles and because you could see from it just how high the storm surge had been. There had clearly been water in that third floor.

Also, we all agreed that we would have stopped to look at this house even before the storm.

To Pearlington I Go

2006-05-29T04:34:00.000-07:00

I'm headed to Pearlington, MS this morning where I'm going work off and on this summer as a volunteer. Pearlington was absolutely wiped out by Katrina. The only business currently open there is a bar that is operating out of a tent. It once had a gas station, a grocery store, a bank, and a post office. All of that is gone now as are most of the houses.

I have to admit I'm pretty nervous about volunarily giving up things like flushing toilets and hot showers to camp out 70 miles away from my home, but the needs are tremendous in Pearlington, and I feel very humbled when I consider how the people there have been living all year.

Still, it's only about 25 miles from Slidell, and I'm not above burning up $3.00 a gallon gas in search of a clean bathroom. :)

Have a good summer, blogland. I'll see you soon. Probably very soon. My heart wants to help my neighbors as much as possible, but my back wants to come home and sleep in its own bed as much as possible.

Yo, Clancy!

2006-05-28T07:12:00.000-07:00

Congrats!

Couldn't happen to a better blog.

Summer Reading

2006-05-24T07:47:00.000-07:00

What's on your summer reading list?

I've been out of school for a week and a half now. So far I've read all seven of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books, Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson, and Walking Across Egypt by Clyde Edgerton. I'm currently reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon.

The Ladies Detective Agency books are just a pure delight to read. I can't think of a better way to relax, but you do need plenty of tea and cake on hand to read these books. :)

Housekeeping is incredible. I had read Gilead by the same author previously, and it is equally amazing. There is a sort of deep, philosophical grace to the writing style. If you don't read anything else this summer, my suggestion is to go with Marilynne Robinson.

Walking Across Egypt is just sort of silly. I enjoyed it, and I'd read more of the same. I even related well to many of the details of Southern culture depicted in it, especially those details of Southern Baptist culture. At times, though, the hillbilly slap-stick is just a little overboard for me.

I haven't gotten very far into The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time yet, but I'm already prepared to be impressed. A number of people recommended this book to me, and I fully expect it to live up to its reputation.

On my summer wish list are Bel Canto by Ann Pratchett, Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee, and The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. These are all books I've heard good things about and have just never gotten around to.

I'm also planning to re-read Life of Pi by Yann Martel, Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. These are books I'm going to discuss with a summer reading group.

So what's on your list? Do you have anything good to recommend?

Hurricane Season is A-Coming

2006-05-08T04:23:00.000-07:00

The Sun-Herald reports this morning that a major relief organization is pulling out of Waveland for the duration of Hurricane season.

The Morrell Foundation, a Utah-based relief group, has announced plans to pull out by Saturday, leaving a void in the volunteer effort to rebuild this Katrina-torn county.

The Morrell Foundation built a relief village at Buccaneer State Park just after the Aug. 29 storm, and has since housed thousands of out-of-town volunteers here to help haul debris, rebuild homes and just about whatever else was needed. The group also helped repair local spirits through holiday festivals and other gatherings.

According to a press release, the group is leaving the beachfront park because of the looming hurricane season. Weather conditions earlier this month that pushed saltwater over the beachfront road made it "abundantly apparent that our facilities would be unsafe for future volunteers," the release said.

I can't really blame them, but it still makes me sick to think of it. It also underscores the level of anxiety and uncertainty we are facing with the upcoming storm season.

The people who were living in solid houses that got blown away by Katrina are now in FEMA trailers or tents or cars. Places that were once used as shelters either no longer exist or have been banned by the government for use as shelters. And even without another hurricane, there are still whole towns along the Mississippi Gulf Coast where there are few jobs and essentially nowhere to purchase basic necessities. Residents could always drive to Slidell to stock up, I suppose--if they happen to have working vehicles, gasoline, and money.

We're looking at a grim, hot summer with or without the volunteer organizations. The steady presence of volunteers at least brings psychological comfort and the reassurance that things are being done. It brings hope that there is a normal to return to.

To watch a big volunteer group leave...

I'm sure I don't have to explain the psychological effect.

Remember Pearlington

2006-05-04T04:52:00.000-07:00

Here is a blog with photos from Pearlington, Mississippi. I've been there several times this year to work as a volunteer. I've seen everything in these photos and more. Pearlington is in Hancock County at the mouth of the Pearl River. It, along with Waveland and Bay St. Louis, was really Ground Zero for Hurricane Katrina. This is where the eye made landfall. Pearlington, however, is several miles inland. The people there did not expect to be affected by the storm surge, yet their houses were completely submerged in water. Many of them did not have flood insurance. I've talked to several people there who lost everything and got almost nothing from the insurance companies. One house I worked on, for example, was about $2000 square feet. The owners are in their 60s and retired. They lost everything, including their grandchild's car and school books that were left behind when they evacuated. They got $8000 from the insurance company. That was for a tree that fell on the roof.

Anyone who stayed in Pearlington during the storm and lived to tell about it is a walking miracle.

TrinaTrauma

2006-05-02T14:28:00.000-07:00

Doctor Daisy has a wonderful post on trauma theory.

I wanted to respond to it earlier, but I wasn't sure what I wanted to say. I still don't know. I want to say something probably for the same reason Dr. D. did. I'm very close to the subject of Katrina and trauma. My head is full of images of TrinaTrauma that I'm only just now starting to realize are not going to go away.

I have nothing smart to say about this.

All I have is the observation that I've now reached a stage where I want to say something.

At first I wanted to simply get out the information about what had happened or was happening. Beyond that I didn't know what I had to say.

I belong to a writing group, and most of the people in the group have said the same thing. They just aren't able to write in a creative way about Katrina yet. They might write in an informative way, but anything else falls into the realm of "nope, nope, not that, not yet."

Even now, I think the main reason I want to say something about the Trina is to abate my fear that people are forgetting. If I could take every single one of you by the hand and lead you through what I've seen and continue to witness in Hancock County, I would do it. If you could see for yourselves, you couldn't forget, and you couldn't not care, and you couldn't fail to want to do something to help.

So I'm going to give myself permission to blog about what it's been like to see absolutely nothing left in places where my memories used to live, what it's been like to watch my 74-year-old parents living in a gutted out house, what it's been like to learn how to use a hammer for the sake of total strangers who lived through the storm by swimming and climbing trees and hauling their grandmothers onto rooftops and their babies and puppies into boats.

Forgive me if I can't explain what it has to do with teaching composition.

Before and After, Green Oaks B&B, Biloxi

2006-05-02T07:05:00.000-07:00

From The Sun Herald.

Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me

2006-04-28T07:53:00.000-07:00

From the person who brought you the extremely nasty tirade against students that I linked to earlier...

Closed for Business

Not to be trite or to add to AP's feelings of persecution, but...um...grow up. Please.

The Grading Swamp

2006-04-25T18:08:00.000-07:00

I graded 15 research papers today, and I feel like my head has been through the pea sheller (If you live somewhere where you don't have pea shellers, insert your own bad analogy here).

I've got to find a way to step it up. I've only just begun. Lot's more where that came from. And so forth...

I've also got to find a way to keep my sanity for the next few weeks, and I'm assuming most people who read this blog are feeling the same way right about now.

I don't have an answer, but my strategy so far is actually not much different than it was when I was the one turning in the research papers this time of year.

Eat lots of sugar. Drink lots of coffee. Let everything good and good for you in life fall by the wayside as you pretend someone else has been leaving the empty Funyun bags in your office trash can. Forget to go to committee meetings. Sign things only when people follow you to the bathroom waving them in your face. Let the mail pile up for days without looking at it (but obsessively check email). Skip lunch, but close the door and act like you went to lunch. Explain to the cats that what happens in the litter box stays in the litter box. Spend amazing amounts of time procrastinating by thinking about how much has to be done. Eat lots of sugar. Drink lots of coffee.

Did I miss anything?

Players and Haters

2006-04-20T15:23:00.000-07:00

And I thought I was burned out.

Um...if you really hate students so much, have you considered that you may in fact be in the wrong profession?

Turnitin

2006-04-12T12:15:00.000-07:00

I know there's a lot of hatin' on Turnitin going on out there in the Composphere, and I am sympathetic. I really am. I had my students submit their research papers to Turnitin, though, and I think I'm glad I did. They submitted rough drafts, not final drafts. I wasn't trying to do a "gotcha" thing. I just wanted to have an object lesson in paraphrasing without subjecting myself to reading 3000 (bad) paraphrases.

It's worked out pretty well. They bring me their reports from Turnitin, and I tell them which parts really should be reworded and which parts strike me as insanely silly. It marks things like "in the United States," for example, as plagiarized.

I have noticed that no one yet has submitted a paper Turnitin said was 100% plagiarized. My theory is that the people who were planning to cheat have opted instead to just not turn anything in.

So if I have a point it's that automated plagiarism catchers can be made into useful exercises if the power to decide to take their advice or not is in the hands of the students. That is all I have to say.

National Poetry Month

2006-04-11T07:07:00.000-07:00

My first offering for National Poetry Month--Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Bad Deeds

2006-04-11T06:03:00.000-07:00

This morning I kicked a lady out of my parking place. She was obviously not a student. She looked more like a distinguished guest, but I'm guessing she was here for a workshop or fund-raiser or some special event. She seemed very nice. The only thing I had against her was that she parked in my spot. I'm not that terribly attached to my spot, though I've been parking there a long time. I could find it in me to see other lots. It's just that if I park in another reserved spot, someone will get mad and call campus police. If I park in an unreserved spot, the students will get mad and key my car. It's a lose-lose situation.

And I bet you all thought I was a pretty nice person until you heard about me going all Nazi over reserved parking and making little, old ladies go park in the back forty and walk.

The whole thing made me wonder if parking is just as difficult on other college campuses as I remember and if anybody else out there has a love-hate relationship with reserved parking.

Also, by taking the time to post this, I've delayed getting started on grading by at least five minutes. :)

Write Five Paragraphs, or Lose Your Salvation!

2006-04-10T13:02:00.000-07:00

A friend told me today that she once committed the blasphemy of telling her students that they did not have to have three supporting points, and only three and always three, in their essays. A student raised his hand and said, “But my teacher told me that it has to be three, like the Holy Trinity.”

Um…okay. The Father, The Son, and The Holy Thesis have spoken.

Volunteers Needed

2006-04-02T12:56:00.000-07:00

I'm throwing this out there just in case...

As you may or may not be aware, there is still a whole lot of work that needs to be done on the Mississippi Gulf Coast to clean up and rebuild after Hurricane Katrina. Many of the families were poor before they lost everything they had. Many of them have lost their jobs and their vehicles in addition to losing their homes. Insurance companies are not always paying out in areas flattened by the storm surge. The only hope these families have of getting out of the cars, tents, and campers they are now living in and back into homes is through volunteer labor.

Often, people in academics have some time in the summer when they can get away. If you are one of those people, and you would like to volunteer, let me know.

If you know of any church groups, civic groups, student groups, or just groups of friends who could come down to work, let me know.

Of course, people who have some carpentry skills are much in demand as volunteers, but even I've been down working on houses, and if I can do it, anybody can.

Keep it in mind. If you can make it down during the summer to work, I will put you in touch with a church group that is working very hard in the recovery efforts. I'll even come pick you up at the airport and lend you a sleeping bag and a tent. :)

Oh, yeah...people need money to rebuild too. If you can't come, but you can help financially, I can put you in touch with the people who will put your dollars to very good use as well.

Welcome to the Blogosphere

2006-03-31T06:10:00.000-08:00

Sharon Mitchler, the national chair of TYCA, has a new blog.

If I ever get around to updating my links, she'll be the first person I add. I'm looking forward to seeing what she has to say. Warm welcomes, Sharon.

Cs Report, Part 6

2006-03-28T17:46:00.000-08:00

I went to two SIGs, Christians on Thursday night and Bloggers on Friday night. Both were enjoyable and informative. I particularly liked the blogging SIG because I saw so many name tags I recognized and got to finally start figuring out the faces behind the blogs. I won’t really go into the meeting because Clancy has already posted the very thorough notes she and Mike put together.

The Christians were a very serious and productive bunch. I came away with a large stack of annotated bibliographies. They’d been working in teams on compiling them since the SIG last year. I didn’t recognize any of their names because I had not done any reading at all having to do with recent scholarship and Christian rhetoric before crashing their Cs party. I was interested to find out, though, that the woman running the SIG, Elizabeth Vander Lei, has a book out, Negotiating Religious Faith in the Composition Classroom.

There is also a Rhetoric and Christian Tradition web site.

I think the Christian rhet people are doing a great job, especially on banding together to plan research projects, conference panels, and so on. It’s not all up my alley. I’m a back-row Baptist. There’s only so much interest I can drum up in actually studying a faith-based rhetorical tradition. (Heh. Just kidding.)

What I mean is I recognize that I don’t have time to be seriously interested in everything on an academic level. I’m stretched a little thin as it is with the massive piles of papers from my six sections that I’m working so hard to ignore at the moment.

But I was interested in some of the more hip things going on there, like Christian rhetoric and popular culture or Christian rhetoric and blogging. I could ignore a lot of paper grading to get into thinking about these kinds of things.

I’m also interested in something that wasn’t discussed there—Christianity and Contemporary Poetry. I’d been thinking about this before, but going to the SIG kind of made it gel for me. I’ve read a little bit about Christian poets or poets writing about Christianity—Denise Levertov, Mark Jarman, Scott Cairns, Mary Oliver, etc.

Today I ordered this anthology. I’m going to let the idea keep bouncing around and work on it little by little. Maybe I’ll write a paper on it at some point (if I can start getting up at 4 a.m. instead of 5). But I probably start by just ordering books and writing blog reviews of them.

Someone has already made a bibliography.

Cs Report, Part 5

2006-03-28T06:26:00.000-08:00

One of the most exciting parts of CCCC to me, even more exciting than delivering my own presentation with Peter Elbow sitting next to me, was Clancy's talk in which I heard my own name. Ha!

Clancy offered an excellent example of how peer-to-peer reviewing happens in the blogosphere with a breakdown of a blog-to-blog discussion last year in which Collin responded to an article in Inside Higher Ed, and I responded to Collin, and well, check out Clancy's slide to see who all else got involved and how the debate bounced back and forth from blog to blog and how consensus was reached.

This was my first time to attend the Cs, and the reason I wanted to go was because of the energy I saw on the blogs when people returned last year. I was glad to be part of that energy this year. I was also glad, for the first time ever, to see myself quoted on anything at all in a presentation. Ha!

Clancy asked if this same kind of exchange might have happened on a listserv. Maybe, maybe not. I can say that I probably wouldn't have gotten involved had it not been for the blogs.

When I first started doing this, I didn't know that people could check their referrals and go read things that had linked to their blogs. I wrote my response to Collin, thinking that maybe only Tammy and Jeanne in the building across campus might read it. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been bold enough to take issue with him to his face.

I'm not sure what it is, but there is something about blogs, that has freed me to jump in and be part of a larger academic community in a way I was not before. I am going to put some thought into this, and if I come up with more to say on it, I'll share.

Thanks, Clancy. You did a wonderful job, and I got a big kick out of seeing my own name mentioned.

Cs Report, Part 4

2006-03-26T18:36:00.000-08:00

I went to a presentation by Senioritis, A.K.A. Becky.

She had some interesting things to say about not making assumptions about what kinds of sources are the most valid sources for student research. She gave examples of people, like herself, who have both books and blog entries on related subjects. Thus, we can't just make blanket statements in the vein of blog = bad source, journal = good source.

I have to admit I didn't take copious notes at any of the presentations I witnessed, and I don't actually remember if that was the main point she made, or if that's just what she happened to be talking about when I looked up and thought, "Hey, good point." I do remember thinking, "Hey, good point," though, and that's good enough for me if it's good enough for you.

Anyhow, I learned something else from her. I can't assume that people at more privileged institutions don't have the same problems I have. I want to do more with technology in the classroom. I want to push myself and my students to be more literate in new technologies (psst...now that I mention it I think there was something about techno-literacies in her paper too). In order to do that in a way I think works well, I need access to a computer lab all or most of the time. There just aren't enough labs for that to happen for all composition classes, and if even one does it, that class would take away time with computers that other classes need. Therefore, to do what I want to do with my students, I have to be a real jerk toward the other instructors and grab up their lab times in addition to my own. Given my seniority in my department, maybe I could get away with that. But should I? Really?

It never crossed my mind that people at places like Syracuse might be facing similar conundrums. It's probably a kind of reverse classism that I have the perception "they rich, we poor." But I sort of, kind of, distinctly remember Becky Howard saying she did face problems of inadequate lab space and had the same qualms about how to deal with this that I've had. Who knew?

Cs Report, Part 3

2006-03-26T17:22:00.000-08:00

I attended a couple of panels specifically about two-year colleges, and I found them quite informative and encouraging. First, TYCA has put out some documents that should be of interest to anyone teaching in a two-year college.

Research and Scholarship in the Two-Year College

Guidelines for the Academic Preparation of English Faculty at Two-Year Colleges

Second, it seems there is an organized and sincere effort afoot to lobby the powers that be in graduate programs on behalf of those who will one day teach in two-year colleges. I don't know anyone who was actually trained to teach in a two-year college. I don't know anyone whose graduate work would have been anything remotely resembling preparation for the job. It's good to see that future grad students have some hope of a different experience.

The semester I defended my dissertation I decided to move back to Mississippi. It was the general way of things for the newly graduated to hang around teaching adjunct until landing a "real" job, but I decided that if I was going to teach adjunct, I'd just do it from home. The following fall semester I taught one section of British lit, one section of creative writing, and two sections of composition at JCJC in addition to two sections of technical writing at USM.

I can tell you, I learned a lot more that year than I had in writing my dissertation or taking my comps. I can also tell you that those comps in poetics and contemporary literature only spread so far in helping me through my first year of what my professors called "pack mule teaching."

I'm happy to see that people are working toward raising awareness of a need for a more generalist degree geared specifically toward two-year college teaching.

I also remember from my first year on the pack mule track that one of my professors said, "Don't stay there more than two years. If you do you'll be out of the loop."

That was ten years ago. I guess I'm out of the loop.

I am, however, very heartened to see real support, promotion, and encouragement for the notion of two-year college faculty as a legitimate, productive, and necessary part of said loop.

Thanks, TYCA.

Cs Report, Part 2

2006-03-26T15:58:00.000-08:00

There are some great recaps on CCCC happenings already being posted by Mike and Dennis, both of whom I deeply admire for being awake enough for such industriousness today. I was also very happy to meet them both for the first time in Chicago, along with Clancy, Collin, et al.

**If I met you for the first time in Chicago and did not mention your name, it isn't because I don't love you. It's simply because I'm too lazy at the moment to link to your blog.

Cs Report, Part 1

2006-03-26T11:51:00.000-08:00

Peter Elbow was writing in a Gryffindor notebook. A good time was had by all. More to follow after a break for post-conference napping.

Writing is Thinking; Thinking is Personal

2006-03-15T07:51:00.000-08:00

I posted this to another (non-academic) blog, but I decided to put it here as well. I didn't write it with an academic audience in mind, but maybe it is fitting enough.

*****

I’ve been flipping through a Donald Murray book this morning in preparation for a conference I go to next week. It is a book I’ve read before, but it is one I’m always happy to pick up again. It’s not necessarily meant for entertainment, but it is pleasurable to me because it is about things that are close to my heart: writing and teaching.

Murray reminds us that “writing is thinking” (3). He quotes Peter Taylor: “Writing is how you discover what you think” (7).

These are pretty simple concepts, but they are profound to me. They are how I have lived my life. They are why I am writing this now.

Not everyone loves writing, but we do all need a place to think, a place to discover what we believe, what we care about, what our most important choices will be.

Writing is my sanctuary. It doesn’t matter to me whether I write for others or only for myself. Either way, it’s where I go to lay claim to my own thoughts—whether they be emotional, spiritual, academic, political, or social. They all become a very personal and reverent process for me as they move from the cluttered, chaotic stacks of information inside my head onto the page.

Everyone needs this. My father works in his garden and goes for long walks in the woods. My niece listens to music. My sister rearranges the furniture in her house. Some friends cook. Others shop. A few run or bicycle or do yoga. However we go about it, we all crave a place inside our own heads we can rely on, a place we can go to for decompression, a place where we can discover what we think and feel.

Because I teach writing classes, it is so important to remember this. It isn’t just about an academic skill. It is always personal. It is always sacred. Murray says writing is “a product of the interaction of the global and the particular” (5). It is also a product of the interaction between the persona we are willing to present to the world and the person we see when we look within.

I am about to start writing down what I will say about personal writing and composition students at the conference next week. This is what I will most likely not say. This is my discovery draft, my pre-writing, my warm up. This is where I am practicing what I will later preach.

In order to accomplish something real with writing, or with any decision making process, we have to first spend quality time in that place inside our own selves where we remember what is most important to us, where we understand what it is we honestly think.

Texas

2006-03-07T17:53:00.000-08:00

I'd heading out to AWP first thing in the morning. I just have one question. How many pairs of shoes is one person allowed to take on a three day trip?

On another note--spring has arrived. The pear trees are in full blossom in Hattiesburg, and this afternoon I noticed the dogs on my street were napping in the shade.

Call for Submissions

2006-02-24T07:31:00.000-08:00

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

1ST ANNUAL SCISSORTAIL WRITERS FESTIVAL

FEATURED AUTHOR:MARK COX
Award winning author of __Smoulder__,__Thirty-seven Years from the Stone__, __Natural Causes__, and other works

April 6-7, 2006
East Central University
Ada, Oklahoma

*Possible submissions: poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, mixed genre, or performance pieces involving text (15-20 minutes reading time).
*We are open to any form of creative work, traditional or experimental. We embrace "variorums of variation." Writers may address any subject, and they may also use the opportunity to perform work about the region or examine the idea of regional identity, etc.
*Email submissions are encouraged. Submit a brief cover letter with contact information and a brief career narrative with a short sample of the work to be performed. If the submission is electronic, the career narrative and sample may either be in the body of the email or attached as separate files.
*Festival participants will not be charged registration fees.

Deadline for submission: March 3, 2006
Notification by March 17, 2006

Send submissions or inquiries to:

Dr. Hugh Tribbey, Scissortail Festival Board Chair
Department of English and Languages
East Central University
Box P-1
Ada, OK 74820
Email: htribbey@mailclerk.ecok.edu

Sponsored by the ECU Cultural Affairs Committee, the ECU Foundation, Ada Arts and Humanities Council, and the Oklahoma Arts Council.

Responsibility

2006-02-21T10:08:00.000-08:00

I saw a survey recently in which someone had polled local instructors on what they believed was the single most important thing students needed to learn in order to be more successful in college. By far, the most common answer was responsibility.

How would you answer this question?

Paperless Classrooms

2006-02-02T07:32:00.000-08:00

I know people have been talking about and experiementing with paperless environments in composition for a long time, but this is the first time I've actually tried it myself. I'd be interested in hearing from people who have more experience with these sorts of electronic tricks (or treats?) in the classroom.

I'm using an online program that comes with our textbook. The students upload papers for peer reviews and for instructor comments and grades. There are drop down menus that allow the instructor to insert automatic comments in the papers along with pointers to the handbook and to exercises on particular errors. McGrading, I suppose.

As with anything, this has its ups and downs. I think it will work well for me in that I have big class loads and limited time for individual attention to the students. I also have students who need extra help with grammar, and I work in a place that does not have a writing center. The online classroom does give students the opportunity to seek more help on their own should they so desire.

The downside, I think, is that the students who "don't get it" and tend to fall by the digital wayside are the ones who are in greatest need of the extra pointers and exercises and online resources.

Thoughts, anyone?

Austin and Chicago

2006-01-23T08:14:00.000-08:00

I've taken care of all of my registrations and reservations for AWP in Austin and CCCC in Chicago now. When I look at the tally, I have difficulty shushing that scream inside my head of "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING??" There is no such thing as a travel budget at my school these days. Still, I'm sure I'll be glad in the end.

But...

WHAT WAS I THINKING???

Okay. That's one panic attack out of the way. :)

Storm Funds

2005-12-09T07:16:00.000-08:00

Three junior colleges and a university in Mississippi have received funds from money raised by former Presidents Bush and Clinton to benefit victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Pearl River and Mississippi Gulf Coast community colleges each received $750,000 — the maximum amount a two-year institution could receive — and Jones County Junior College received $400,000.

The University of Southern Mississippi received $1.5 million — the maximum available to four-year institutions. Officials from William Carey College — also a grant recipient — said they were unsure about the exact amount they would receive.

From The Clarion Ledger.

Katrina Cuts

2005-12-08T14:39:00.000-08:00

At Tulane.

Post-Katrina Budgets

2005-12-07T17:38:00.000-08:00

Things aren't looking good for the community colleges in South Mississippi.

Community colleges affected by Hurricane Katrina face a looming cash flow crisis that could result in personnel cuts as early as the spring, leaders of area two-year institutions said Wednesday.

“Six months out, am I going to be able to keep the lights on and pay salaries?” Pearl River Community College President William Lewis said during a meeting with the editorial board of the Hattiesburg American.

Semi-Normal

2005-10-31T12:29:00.000-08:00

That's where we are right now in Hattiesburg, and that is what is considered excellent these days. A number of businesses are still closed, debris piles still line the streets, and it is still most unusual to see a roof without a tarp on it. Traffic is still jammed, hotels are still overbooked, and roads are still blocked to make way for bucket trucks and tractors. A steady stream of FEMA trailors is still flowing down I-59. The main topic of conversation at lunch is still, "Have you seen your adjustor yet?" Other popular topics include: "Have you been treating for mold?"; "Does it seem like there is more illness and death than normal lately?"; "Are you sleeping normally yet?"

Semi-normal. That's where we are.

That's good. School is moving right along. We've added five extra minutes to every class period to make up the two weeks missed. Somehow this seems to translate to less time to get things done because nobody can remember when exactly things are supposed to begin and end anymore. Nobody really cares. We are just getting through from one thing to the next and making the best of the time we have.

I am somewhat overloaded. Okay, make that extremely overloaded. Make that to-the-breaking-point overloaded. Make that it's-a-miracle-no one-has-been-hurt-yet overloaded.

One instructor never came back after the hurricane. In the divvying up of her classes, I ended up teaching seven sections this semester. Yes, that's one, two, three, four, five, six, SEVEN! I have two lits, four comps, and a development reading class. I've never taught developmental reading before, nor do I have any background in developmental teaching at all. I'll leave it to your imaginations how I'm managing a new prep in the midst of grading for seven sections.

Then there is SACS. We're up for accreditation review, and I've landed myself on something called a QEP committee. More on that later, but suffice it to say for now, it seems to be all about having lots of meetings and producing lots of paperwork, paperwork, paperwork. I'm thrilled to have been chosen.

But that's enough of that. We're making it here. Here's hoping next semester progresses to near-normal. :)

Recovering

2005-09-09T12:08:00.000-07:00

When I left school on Friday, August 26, I never dreamed it would be two weeks before I returned. I didn't even hear that the hurricane was headed toward us until Saturday, and even then I had no idea how big or bad it was. We've had so many near misses with hurricanes in the past year, that I really just thought of it as an irritation. Here we go again...missing another day or two of school to evacuate for nothing. I never once considered that this was "the one." Even if I had, I could not have conceived of what would happen. As our governor put it, we knew what "as bad as Camille" meant, and we knew how to prepare for that. We did not know what "worse than Camille" meant. I'm afraid many people died because of these two things: sheer burn out on preparing for hurricanes and using Camille as a measuring stick for the worst of the worst.

Now here we are in the middle of "worse than Camille," the nightmare we never even knew to fear. But things are getting better. Some people have power now. I don't, but I did see guys with chainsaws on my street yesterday, so I'm hopeful the way will be cleared to get the trucks in there soon. Disaster relief seems to be pouring in. Red Cross trucks are all over town. The National Guard is passing out supplies (and arresting looters and curfew breakers). The churches are packed with donations (and evacuees). A few more businesses open up every day, and all in all people are starting to look a little cleaner and a little less shell shocked.

We go back to school on Monday. I have heard that Pearl River Community College is going back on the 19th. I have also heard that Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College is going back to school soon. I don't honestly know how they will manage, but I think the thinking is that the best thing is a return to as much normalcy as possible for as many people as we have left to make that possible for.

We don't know what we are facing. We don't know how many of our students will be able to even get to school now. We don't know how many new students we might have who cannot go back to their homes farther south. The campus, however, looks great...considering. There has been damage to some of the buildings, mostly in the form of roof damage. I know that some of the library collections have been lost, but we don't have a full assessment of that yet. The glass and ceiling tiles have been picked up, and the trees have been cleared, and we're as ready as we can be to get back to business, though.

We had one full week of classes before the storm. I'm not even sure where to start in the starting over, but we should not be at a loss for things to write about.

Thanks for all of the support and concern during this time. I'll keep you posted on my campus and how we deal with Katrina's aftermath.

Here we go again

2005-08-27T06:37:00.000-07:00

Looks like we might be starting another semester out by taking a hurricane break. Prayers and well wishes to those of you in Katrina's path.

238 Eager Young Minds

2005-08-23T06:42:00.000-07:00

I just made the mistake of tallying up the total number of students I have on my rosters this semester: 238. That's in six sections, so it comes out to an average of 39.6 students per section. Four are composition. The other two are literature. We are required to have six essay grades per semester. How many hours of grading does that add up to?

Never mind. I don't want to know.

I hope everyone is getting off to a good start. I actually expect to have a good semester. I just have to get a few panic attacks out of the way first.

1987

2005-08-16T13:25:00.000-07:00

I realize it is old hat to comment on the year the incoming freshmen were born, but I get a little more unnerved by it every year. This year's freshmen would have been born in about 1987. Wow. I feel old and out of touch.

New Player - An Introduction

2005-08-03T16:21:00.000-07:00

I have just come aboard (pardon the Naval allusion - but that's me). My name is Brian. I've just begun a new position at a small 2-year college in south Georgia, Abraham Baldwin Ag. College. Previously, I taught in Nashville, TN, for 4 1/2 years. My area of specialty is medieval literature with an emphasis in Arthurian literature. Consequently, I teach a lot of composition. There's not much call for medievalists these days, certainly not in 2-year colleges. Despite that, I seem to fit a few historical and etymological snippets into each semester. It's interesting how students find it fascinating or mind-numbing. There's not much in between.

As for the Naval reference, that predates my medieval bent. I spent 12 1/2 years as an engineering officer in the U. S. Navy before I started teaching. Don't ask how a theatre arts BA got me a gig as an engineer. It has something to do with naval "wisdom." Anyway, I have a lot of naval-ese tucked into my method and my language.

I look forward to learning about composition best practices and sharing with everyone here. I am particularly interested in incorporating technology into the classroom. I am building a blog into my comp sections this coming semester, so I will share my wins and losses as we go. I have already learned from reading past postings and following a lot of embedded links. Thanks for that up front.

Summer Hiatus

2005-07-28T09:05:00.000-07:00

I've been having a 3/4 vacation this summer. I'm teaching two classes, but it seems like I'm just barely in the office. I get to leave early in the day, and I have significantly reduced grading stacks. The time has also flown by with more of it spent on dodging hurricanes and visiting family than anything else.

I do, however, have one teaching thought to report. I've tried a kind of I-search sequence out on my summer day class. The continuity between assignments has been especially successful in the fast-paced five week course.

Comp II can be a pretty frustrating class to plan because the school wants a certain amount of uniformity between various sections and instructors. There is nothing wrong with that, of course, unless you happen to loathe the way the class is set up in the first place.

In short, I've found a compromise I've been very pleased with:

Paper 1: Narrative Essay, Research Proposal (3-5 pages, 10% of final grade)

Describe an event in your life that has made you want to know more about a topic. Explain why this would be a good topic for a formal research paper and how you could make a good argument out of it.

Paper 2: Argument Essay, Research Pre-Writing (2-4 pages, 10% of final grade)

State your current opinions about your chosen research topic. Defend your opinions with a combination of logical, ethical, and/or personal examples. Identify things you need to find out about your topic in order to validate your argument. Explain where you plan to look for this information.

Paper 3: Process Essay, Research Pre-Writing (3-5 pages, 15% of final grade)

Explain the process you have gone through to locate the information for your research paper as well as the process you have gone through to focus and organize your materials. Briefly summarize your best sources. Include rough drafts of your research paper outline and works cited page.

Paper 4: Definition Essay, Research Pre-Writing (2-4 pages, 15% of final grade)

Explain what plagiarism is, why it is important to understand it, and what steps you have taken to avoid it in your research paper. Include examples of paraphrases you will use in the research paper.

Paper 5: Argument Essay, Formal Research Paper (5-7 pages, 25% of final grade)

Take a position on your chosen topic and support it with evidence from credible sources. Include MLA documentation for all sources.

Paper 6: Cause and Effect Essay, Research Wrap-Up (2-4 pages, 15% of final grade)

Explain what you discovered while doing your research paper, how it influenced your opinions, and what actions or ideas you might change in the future as a result of doing the research.

John Lovas

2005-06-22T15:16:00.000-07:00

I was very sad today to learn of the death of John Lovas. John has been one of the handful of people I've encountered in my life who have truly known and taught what beauty is for. I believe that because he crossed my path, however briefly, I have changed my life.

The Swan

by Mary Oliver

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?

Call for Papers

2005-06-21T07:48:00.000-07:00

Call for Papers: Experimental Writing and Aesthetics
Abstract/Proposals by 15 November 2005
Southwest/Texas Popular & American Culture Associations 27th Annual Conference Albuquerque, NM, February 8-11, 2006

Panels now forming on topics related to Experimental Writing and Aesthetics in such areas as the aesthetics of experimental writing in any genre or in mutli-genre/multi-media works including digital and graphic compositions involving language, the poetics of performance of experimental compositions, critical studies of experimental writers, etc. Creative writers interested in the selective creative writing readings panel should contact Jerry Bradley, Creative Writing Readings Chair, via <http://www.swtexaspca.org> in the early fall. Scholars, teachers, professionals, writers not affiliated with academic institutions, and others interested in experimental writing are encouraged to participate. Graduate students are also particularly welcome with award opportunities for best graduate papers. If you wish to organize your own panel, I will be happy to facilitate your scheduling needs.

Send abstracts, papers, or proposals for panels with your email address by 15 November 2005: Hugh Tribbey, Experimental Writing and Aesthetics Chair
Email: htribbey@mailclerk.ecok.edu

Conference Website: <http://www.h-net.org/~swpca/> (updated regularly)

Confession, Part II

2005-06-14T16:50:00.000-07:00

I caved. I got a cell phone. Yikes!

In other news, I didn't really intend to go on an extended summer hiatus. It's just worked out that way. First came the post-semester crash. Then came the endless errands to be run both for myself and others. I've been busy, busy, busy, but not at all productive the past few weeks.

Now I'm about to take a couple of little trips, and I've used that as an excuse go ahead and get a cell phone like all the other girls and boys.

And as long as this is still a confession...I've been reading mostly "children's" books lately. I read Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials series. I read the Harry Potter books, and I'm really looking forward to the new one coming out soon. I don't have to turn in my lit degrees over that, do I? :)

Confession

2005-05-05T13:42:00.000-07:00

I don't have a cell phone. Nor do I have an iPod, TiVo, or one of those car lock key chain clicker things. In fact, my car has manual locks, and the last video game system I bought was a Game Boy. I mean a regular Game Boy, not even a Game Boy Advance.

I use the Blackboard grade book for my online students, but for my day students, I average grades by hand. I've tried spreadsheets and grade book software and have never found any of those things to actually save time. Thus, I prefer to do it by hand.

I know how to make a web page using a combination of Dream Weaver, Fireworks, and Photoshop, and if hard pressed I could probably figure out how to make my own cartoons. I just haven't figured out why I would feel pressed to do this yet.

I've been wondering lately if I have a resistance to technological change running counterpoint to my great love for experimenting with other kinds of technological change.

Maybe I do. Maybe not having a cell phone isn't at all about not wanting another bill. Maybe it's about not wanting to be plugged in 24/7. Maybe it's about not wanting to completely change my consciousness to digital ways of life. Maybe not having automatic locks is about a desire to retain things that are more tactile in nature in my daily routines. Maybe.

One That Puzzles Me

2005-05-04T15:22:00.000-07:00

My students often confuse the words "rather" and "whether." Even though I'm from this area, I can't hear in the local dialect why the two words would sound enough alike to be interchanged.

Does anyone else see this very often?

Poetry Month

2005-04-27T14:06:00.000-07:00

I love too many poems to pick just one, but in honor of Poetry Month and of grading my last research paper, I give you Robert Hass...

MEDITATIONS AT LAGUNITAS

    All the new thinking is about loss.
   In this it resembles all the old thinking.
   The idea, for example, that each particular erases
   the luminous clarity of a general idea. That the clown-
   faced woodpecker probing the dead sculpted trunk
   of that black birch is, by his presence,
   some tragic falling off from a first world
   of undivided light. Or the other notion that,
   because there is in this world no one thing
   to which the bramble of blackberry corresponds,
   a word is elegy to what it signifies.
   We talked about it late last night and in the voice
   of my friend, there was a thin wire of grief, a tone
   almost querulous. After a while I understood that,
   talking this way, everything dissolves: justice,
   pine, hair, woman, you and I. There was a woman
   I made love to and I remembered how, holding
   her small shoulders in my hands sometimes,
   I felt a violent wonder at her presence
   like a thirst for salt, for my childhood river
   with its island willows, silly music from the pleasure boat,
   muddy places where we caught the little orange-silver fish
   called pumpkinseed. It hardly had to do with her.
   Longing, we say, because desire is full
   of endless distances. I must have been the same to her.
   But I remember so much, the way her hands dismantled bread,
   the thing her father said that hurt her, what
   she dreamed. There are moments when the body is as numinous
   as words, days that are the good flesh continuing.
   Such tenderness, those afternoons and evenings,
   saying blackberry, blackberry, blackberry.

Stress and Grading

2005-04-25T03:53:00.000-07:00

I've been fighting off a sore throat for a couple weeks (allergy season). I feel bad because I still haven't finished grading my research papers despite dragging home three boxes of them this weekend. The loose ends don't seem to be tying themselves. Gimme some of that Aunt Joanna's Sabbatackle. I really need it.

I've got no blogging mojo right now. I have to get caught up on grading before I can enjoy anything.

Being Ahead vs. Getting Ahead

2005-04-14T05:06:00.000-07:00

Some things that Mike said have had me wondering how much of the trying to keep up with the techno-nerds is really worth it. How much will using the technology that we do have available pay off, and will the pay off be greater than the losses in terms of time and distractions from teaching what I'm really here to teach?

On the other hand, Jeff's comment, "It's not a question of the tools.
It's a question of how the tools shape the ways we communicate, whether or not we use those tools," has had me thinking that to at least a degree the technology is what I'm here to teach. Computer skills have become inseparable from writing skills in that the students have to know how to deliver the writing in order to make real use of it.

Yesterday, when my friend talked to her student about his grades, she said, "You keep charging around on white stallions, but what I told you to do was plow the mule." I feel like I've landed in a place with this blog where everyone is charging around on stallions, but I'm just here to plow the mule. Sometimes the posturing, theorizing, hoof-scratching, and snorting around stuff is useful to me. Sometimes it's not.

At any rate, Mike and Jeff are both right. We can no more afford to overwhelm our freshman writing classes with technology than we can to dismiss technology altogether.

I've been reading about community writing projects, and in the past few days I've been telling my colleagues about fifth grade classes doing PowerPoint presentations. I've been completely aghast at my own lack of ability to envision how to accomplish this in a college class. I kept repeating this to people on my campus, always ending with "There's no way I could do this here. Where would I get the equipment?" I told probably six or seven people who all agreed that it couldn't be done. The eighth person said, "I know where you can get a projector to borrow for a week or two on campus."

So sometimes it is our own defeatism that holds us back and nothing more. But we're still left with the question of how much it's worth it. That I simply don't know.

For Lack of Time

2005-04-13T05:03:00.000-07:00

I'll just say there's nothing wrong with being ahead.

I do have a question, though. Do you use things like podcasting and QuickTime videos in composition classes (or lit classes)? If so, how? Why?

Behind

2005-04-09T09:30:00.000-07:00

I must confess to being behind.

Collin is a trifle annoyed with an article from Inside Higher Education in which it is suggested that "Computer technology has swiftly become our key writing tool but it’s too easy to imagine everyone 'gets it.'" What really sets him off is the recommendation that Boolean logic can make for more sophisticated online research.

Collin's ~~rant~~ rebuttal:

Bottom line: it's not time to start thinking about technology. If you
haven't started yet, it's time to catch up. If you don't know how to put
together a QuickTime movie, you're behind. If you haven't futzed around with
sound tools, you're behind. If you're still thinking about how to do web pages,
you're behind. If you don't "get" blogs and wikis, you're behind. If you don't
think that the Grokster case has anything to do with you, you're behind. And I
could keep on going. There is nothing wrong with writing an essay, a view, a
site, whatever, addressing those who are (by now) late adopters, but why in the
world would exhortations to think critically about technology have any effect on
those people when they've been hearing the same song for years now?

This made me cringe...for several reasons. First, it brought out a good old-fashioned sense of self-doubt. I know there are many things I should know how to do and don't. I hate to think how many. Second, I've always had an aversion to the master lists, the master narratives, the tendencies to proclaim This is the story of what you must know and do and be. Stray from it at your peril.

But I'm not here to tar and feather Collin. I think he makes some good points, though I don't think the article he pounced on was actually written for the people who live and work in Collin's sphere. I think it served its purpose and that many people out there probably got good use out of it.

What I really want to talk about, however, is the technology gap. This is the way we define the haves and have nots these days. Who owns the technology? Who owns the knowledge of how to manipulate the technology? Who is plugged in and who is not? It's so vital for our students that we don't let them fall behind. They will live in a world even more defined by technology gaps than our own. And if they want to be one of the haves, they've got to own the techno-knowledge. Maybe it is master narrative making to say so, but it is also being realistic.

And that brings me to my own rant about reality and technology.

The computer in my office is running Windows 98. That's the year I got it. It will not be replaced this year or next year or the year after that. My school and my state are experiencing massive budget cuts. There just aren't the resources to keep the technology on campus up to date.

In addition to having an old computer with a small hard drive that is completely maxed out, I have no one to teach me technology. When I went to graduate school, we didn't even have computers much less training in how to use them. I had a Tandy that my father gave me when I was working on my master's thesis, and I used it and Norton Textra to write everything I did for my Ph.D. Up to that point I used a Smith Corona typewriter. Though we were beginning to get computer labs around campus while I was in school, they never really came into my consciousness. I never took or taught a class that used them.

In other words, whatever I do know I've taught myself by futzing around, as Collin calls it. But there are limits to what I can teach myself in that manner, and there are limits to the technology I can have access to even if I want to learn it.

I read recently about Duke University's iPod experiment in which they distributed an iPod to all incoming students in order to "facilitate the use of information technology in innovative ways within the classroom and across campus." I found that comforting. It made me feel like maybe I was okay and not so far behind after all if Duke University was struggling to figure out how to use technology in "innovative ways." And I know that it is these people and maybe not so much people like me that Collin is ranting about. If someone is teaching with all the resources afforded by a place like Duke or Syracuse or Hopkins and can't or won't figure out how to use technology in "innovative ways" without a bunch of free gadgets being passed out in the classroom, well, they deserve a good rant.

But the fact remains that more composition classes are taught in this country in places like Jones County Junior College than in places like The Johns Hopkins University. The everyday reality is that many of our teachers have neither the equipment nor the training to keep up. There is very little motivation to get on board new innovations if you don't even have a computer that will run the software, and if you know that no one will be available to provide technical support for you or your students should you decide to embark on a techno-adventure.

There will always be the technological capacity to do new things long before the necessary tools are widely available. There will always be a gap. There will always be a place for articles that are of no use to the advanced but of great help to the struggling.

My hope is that the big universities won't forget the rest of us. We need models that are realistic and encouraging if we are to remain even as little as five or ten years behind. We need people who will not simply sneer at us for having so little but who will help us figure out what we can learn on our own with limited resources. We need open communications. We have the technology now to make that possible. So what are we going to do with it?

For Profit Schools and Federal Funds

2005-04-08T13:58:00.000-07:00

From CNN.

According to the Career College Association, they now constitute 38 percent of the 2,500 higher education institutions where students can spend federal aid, and enroll 1.8 million of 23 million U.S. college students.
And they are growing rapidly -- unlike cash-strapped community colleges struggling to accommodate increasing demand. For-profits claim that their model, sculpted in marketplace competition, works (65 percent earn a degree or certificate within six years, compared with 25 percent beginning at public two-year institutions, according to CCA). They also claim to serve a higher percentage of minority and low-income students.

"If our institutions are doing a better job, particularly working with at risk-students, why should our students be denied the benefits of these competitive grant programs?" said Nancy Broff, the CCA's general counsel.

Hmmm...

Attracting more students equals "doing a better job"? Well, if nothing else that's a good PR line.

CCCC

2005-04-05T16:42:00.000-07:00

I'd like to go to the Cs next year in Chicago, but I've never been before, and I'd like to solicit a little advice. I see on the form that you can submit either a session proposal or an individual proposal. I'm curious about that. What do people usually do? Do you form your own panels before submitting, or do you just turn in individual proposals?

Also, what is this area cluster thing all about? You have to pick just one? Are there clusters in which a proposal is more likely to get accepted than others?

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

The Personal Continued

2005-04-03T08:19:00.000-07:00

Mike at Vitia has been blogging up a storm on The Personal and Personal Writing: Theory and Method. Mike also points to a discussion on the personal by John Lovas which is very well thought-out.

Mike has too much to say for me to respond to it all, but I would like to zero in on the question of whether there is intrinsic value in personal writing for the sake of personal writing (as opposed to personal writing for the sake of making connections to other forms of academic writing).

I think I made a comment about gratuitous navel gazing in the previous discussion on personal writing. Now I think that comment was a little too flippant for what I really believe.

Yes, there is intrinsic value in most any form of writing for its own sake. If we didn't believe that, we wouldn't assign journals or other forms of informal writing.

In my lit classes, I usually start out with a talk about why we are reading what we read and what we are supposed to get from it. In this talk I mention a quote from Confucius:

Confucius said to his disciples, "Why do none of you study The Book of Songs? Studying The Book of Songs can enrich the imagination, enhance the powers of observation, smooth the relations among one's fellow men, and help master the art of satire. On one hand, the teachings presented in The Book of Songs can help one serve one's parents well; on the other hand, the knowledge and methods provided in The Book of Songs can help one serve one's lord well. Moreover, one can learn a lot of names of birds, beasts, plants, and trees."

Just as reading literature that is about personal human experience can "enrich the imagination, enhance the powers of observation" and so forth, so too can writing about personal human experience.

The point is that we as instructors need to be clear on what it is we want the students to learn from any assignment we give. And we need to be sure we get that message across to the student.

I often start the year in composition with a narrative paper. The assignment is usually to write about something that happened either to themselves or to someone close to them that taught them a lesson or changed their minds about an issue. They write a descriptive story that they can use to support a claim. In this assignment I want them to learn how to make a clear point with a narrative illustration, how to narrow the focus and timeframe to an appropriate level, how to pay close attention to detail, how to be aware of the audience and how the descriptions might affect the audience, and how to fine tune their writing in terms of style, clarity, tone, etc. It's not just about confessing their hang-ups or bemoaning the loss of their loved ones. It's about making connections between experience and opinion and learning to speak with authority on topics that matter to them. We also, by the way, talk about the difference in personal testimony as evidence and academic research as evidence. And we discuss examples of ways people use personal testimony to persuade in advertising and politics and religion and other such arenas.

By the time the students finish this assignment we've done a lot more as a class than simply personal writing for the sake of personal writing, and I do realize I'm veering away from the original question. But I just wanted to make the point that I have a whole set of objectives for this assignment, but if I don't tell the students these are the things they are supposed to learn from it, they are never going to know.

Then the question becomes will they still learn any of these things (focus, support for a claim, attention to detail, style, clarity, audience awareness) if I never tell them that's what they are supposed to be learning? I believe the answer is yes, but I believe the degree to which they learn these things will vary greatly from student to student, as it does for all assignments.

People can learn writing skills from any kind of writing they do. It isn't so much a matter of what kind of assignment they are doing as it is how much feedback they get and how much they are aware of what they are supposed to be learning. It's also a matter of how motivated they are to learn.

Ideally, we want students who think for themselves and learn something from the class that goes beyond a set of objectives. Still, we have to start somewhere, and the first step in making sure any kind of writing is beneficial to the student is being clear on what the assignment is supposed to teach. If we are wishy-washy and uncommitted to whether there is value in the assignment, the students probably aren't going to learn as much.

Vanity Blogging

2005-04-02T16:23:00.000-08:00

I'd like to take this opportunity to link to myself. Is that vain or what?

Callie Cat Review is just a little thing I started for my own enjoyment. I don't know how often I'll update it, and I don't have any particular rules for myself for what I consider blog-worthy. It will just be whatever I've read and am interested in writing about at the time, whether it is old or new or literary or fluff.

I would probably save myself a lot of trouble if I just picked one place to blog and put everything there, but I like my blogs to have a focus. So now I have a book blog. Just thought I'd mention.

Rest in Peace

2005-03-30T14:35:00.000-08:00

Robert Creeley

Oral Histories

2005-03-24T17:28:00.000-08:00

I have this problem with always thinking about stuff that can be done and then thinking that I have to do it. Now. It's no wonder I'm always behind on sleep and little pesky things like that.

So I've come up with an idea for an oral history project which just popped into my head a couple of days ago, and I already have a committee assembled to start working on it. What I want to do is to build on USM's project and focus only on retired teachers in Mississippi, mainly two-year college teachers and even more specifically from my own school. The goal is to build an archive of materials chronicling the history of education in Mississippi as remembered by the teachers. I'm thinking that we will do interviews with retired teachers, record the interviews on digital voice recorders, then transfer them to CDs and to some sort of online format. Then the human experience of the history of the school and the state will be preserved for future students and researchers to access. And, of course, I'll have yet another item of interest to blog about.

Call me a nerd, but I'm excited about the idea.

I'm also trying to formulate how I might transfer this kind of thing to the classroom. I'm considering doing a local history theme in a composition class and have the students do oral history interviews then write about them. I also thought they could use the original response paper to the interviews as a springboard for getting into a more focused research project and paper.

Another idea I had was to give them a choice of doing a photo essay on local history and writing in response to it.

Have any of you ever tried anything like this before? Any advice would be welcome.

Book Talk

2005-03-22T20:03:00.000-08:00

Several people on my campus have decided to form a teaching-oriented book discussion group. I mean an actual face to face group. To start, we've ordered Writing Our Communities, Dave Winter and Sarah Robbins, eds.

Once we've read and discussed, I'll blog the results. I just thought I'd toss this out there now in case anyone else is interested in ordering it and participating in an online discussion. Or you could just save your money and wait to hear what we think. No spoilers, please, if you've already read it. :)

Regionalism Revisited

2005-03-21T17:56:00.000-08:00

The conversation on "The Utah Bubble" is still brewing at Composition Mountain West. We may not have come to any real consensus, but we have raised some interesting questions. Nancy at Random Thoughts also made a good point: In this case, the problem doesn't seem to be so much a question of geographic area but rather of how homogeneous a place is. When everyone comes from the same background, has the same belief system, the same attitudes and approaches to life, it can be difficult to teach there - especially if you don't entirely share those ideals.

I'd like to follow up on that idea of homogeneity because I think it is a very significant issue that affects everything about the job from the way hiring is done to the level of academic freedom enjoyed to what actually works or doesn't work in the classroom. More on that later.

For now, I have a few observations that have crossed my mind during these regional discussions.

1. There is as big a gap between rural schools and urban schools as there is between community colleges and universities.
2. We tend to gauge the right and wrong of teaching methods and decisions based on our own experiences despite the fact that those experiences might be very different from someone who teaches in another school or in another region.
3. There is a lot to be gained from discussing our differences and really stopping to listen to the reasons behind those differences.

When I first started the job I have now, I went into real culture shock. I thought I knew Mississippi. I was born here. I grew up here. My family has been here for generations. But there were things I never knew about my own state until I started teaching here. And the shock of what the students were like was nothing compared to the shock of what everything else was like. Nothing about the textbooks, the policies, the class sizes, the schedules, the department dynamic or anything else was remotely like what I'd been trained to expect in graduate school. I was horrified, and I had very little professional autonomy for making my own decisions about how to teach or what to teach...or at least that's how it felt at the time. All I accomplished by resisting doing things the way they'd always been done, however, was to antagonize people and alienate myself. I had to learn how to fit in. There was nothing else for it.

I asked some people at the university what to do, but their only reactions were the same horror I felt. Then one day I saw Nell Ann Pickett, my English teacher from my community college days, at church, and I told her about how frustrated I was with the textbooks and the class sizes and all of the other things that were piling up on me. I expected more expressions of disgust, but what I got was the best advice anyone has ever given me: "Pick your battles."

Wherever you might teach, there will be budget crunches and department disagreements and administrative policies that will be hard to work around, but work around them you must. We do the best we can with what we have to work with. None of us has an ideal situation, and none of us can win every battle we take on. Some things are worth stirring up; some things are not. Some things can be conquered once they are stirred up; some things cannot. Sometimes more can be gained by stirring a little at a time over a long period of time than by making a big mess of things all at once.

I think understanding where the lines are takes being in a place long enough to make yourself at home. It isn't so easy to see them right away. More importantly, it isn't so easy to see why the lines are there in the first place or who benefits from the status quo.

To paraphrase a friend, "The differences between us are as deep as they are vague." It may take some time for any of us to really understand them.

Errors and Grading Standards

2005-03-20T06:44:00.000-08:00

To what degree do you concentrate on grammar and mechanics in grading? Do you follow a rubric or a point system, or do you grade holistically? To you determine your own grading standards, or do you follow department guidelines? Are you confident that an A, B, or C in your class is the same quality as an A, B, or C in your colleagues' classes?

I ask these questions because I'm curious about how much range there is in academic autonomy among composition teachers in various states and schools. I'm also curious about how much consistency there is in grading standards.

My school has policies that regulate the number of assignments in all classes, not just in English classes. Comp 1 classes are supposed to have at least six graded essays. Comp 2 classes have 3 essays, a research paper, and a business writing unit that includes a resume, a letter of application, and a technical report. I've been there nine years, and I'm still trying to figure out how to fit all of that in. ;)

We also have grading guidelines for grammar. Major errors are supposed to count off 10 points each and minor errors 5 points each. Major errors are defined by the school as comma splices, subject/verb errors, sentence fragments and fused sentences.

If we really follow all of these guidelines, that leaves very little room for actually teaching them how to write. On the other hand, the students struggle with grammar, and since we do not have a writing center, they have to get instruction on grammar in the classroom.

I'm not sure there is a good answer to how to deal with all of this and really get down to teaching writing, but I would like to know how other schools handle these issues.

Blogging as Creative Nonfiction

2005-03-19T07:38:00.000-08:00

Creative nonfiction is one of those genres that is as self-apparent as it is difficult to pin down. It encompasses so many diverse styles and forms that many of its practitioners don't care to wear the label. Blogging, likewise, is so easy to define that the people who do it seem obsessed with continued attempts to explain what it is they do and why. Thus, to say that blogging is creative nonfiction is as much stating the obvious as it is courting trouble.

However, I've been flipping through a book called The Fourth Genre, a collection of essays on essay writing put together by Robert L. Root, Jr. and Michael Steinberg, and I'm intrigued by the connections. My copy of the book is the 2nd edition, and it looks like there is a 3rd edition out now, so this has been sitting around my office longer than I realized, but I'll roll with it anyway. (To the Longman book rep that gave me this book, I'd sure love to see the new edition, wink, wink.)

Some snippets:

From the introduction, Root and Steinberg--

The most pronounced common elements of creative nonfiction are personal presence, self-discovery and self-exploration, veracity, flexibility of form, and literary approaches to nonfiction. (xxiv)

Including this personal voice in cultural criticism surrenders some of the authority--or the pretense of authority--generally found in academic writing, but substitutes for it the authority of apparent candor or personal honesty. (xxv)

The great challenge of memoir writing is knowing how much we remember is reliable and accepting the likelihood that we are "inventing the truth." (xxvii)

From Nancy Sommers, "I Stand Here Writing"--

If I could teach my students one lesson about writing it would be to see themselves as sources, as places from which ideas originate, to see themselves as Emerson's transparent eyeball, all that they have read and experienced--the dictionaries of their lives--circulating through them. I want them to learn how sources thicken, complicate, enlarge writing, but I want them to know too how it is always the writer's voice, vision, and argument that create the new source. (181)

Being personal, I want to show my students, does not mean being autobiographical. Being academic does not mean being remote, distant, imponderable. Being personal means bringing their judgments and interpretation to bear on what they read and write, learning that they never leave themselves behind even when they write academic essays. (182)

From Rebecca Blevins Faery, "On the Possibilities of the Essay: A Meditation"--

The essay has, then, the potential for being at least an inroad, if not indeed an attack, on monumental discourse because as a form it negotiates the split between public discourse--formal, ordered, impersonal, knowing, with pretensions to universality and fixity, and private utterance--tentative, personal, questing, provisional. (249)

Carl Klaus has aptly termed the essay an "antigenre, a rogue form of writing in the universe of discourse." I would elaborate only to observe that he essay can be, has been, rogue or heretical not only in form but in effect. As "antigenre," it has the capacity to work against, even to undo, the presumptions that have structured western discourse. (249)

From Marianna Torgovnick, "Experimental Critical Writing"--

But when critics want to be read, and especially when they want to be read by a large audience, they have to court their readers. And the courtship begins when the critic begins to think of himself or herself as a writer as well, a process that for me, as for some other critics of my generation, means writing as a person with feelings, histories, and desires--as well as information and knowledge. (368)

From Bret Lott, "Toward a Definition of Creative Nonfiction"--

For self, however at the center of what you are writing or however tangential, must inform the heart of the tale you are telling. It is indeed self that is the creative element of creative nonfiction. (311)

I have many more little snippets marked to think about, but I'll stop here for now. The way I see it, no matter what the style or agenda, blogs are a way of organizing the world through a personal filter. We all experience information overload in one form or another, and blogs give us a way to distill down to smaller chunks of information that are suited to our reduced attention spans and busy lives in a technological age. They are usually comprised of a series of short, ad libbed essays that are quite personal in nature. And sustaining these personal chronicles requires the creation of a persona that is both the self and the created voice that we choose to make public.

For academic bloggers, I think what the blog offers is a venue in which to be academic without the pressure of having to produce at the "publishable" level. I know I have very little time for working on real academic articles, but that doesn't turn off the interest in academic ideas nor does it negate the desire to express a response to those ideas. Like Poe's definition of the short story as something that could be read in one sitting, the blog posting is something that can be composed in one sitting. The popularity of academic blogging I think lies in that aspect more than any other. It's a way of applying what we know to what we do. It's also a way of sharing that connection with others via an act that easily fits into our busy lifestyles. As such, personal honesty, as Root and Steinberg have said about creative nonfiction, provides the real authority in what we do.

The Regional Difference

2005-03-09T14:55:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about teaching and regional issues since Scott brought up the challenge of discussing these issues at CMW. At first I thought of dialect matters. When I taught in Oklahoma, for example, I had a lot of students who used "are" and "our" interchangeably. That doesn't happen much in Mississippi even among the poorer students. But really dialect isn't what I want to talk about right now.

Scott brought up Red State values, and that is something I'm interested in discussing. There is a certain level of distrust of academia in the community. I grew up in Mississippi, and I remember when I was in college at USM, a friend of the family asked me if I was being careful what I learned there. He said people who went to college came away with strange airs and weird ideas, and sometimes they even lost their religion. I was being warned not to be too receptive to college or to new or different ideas. Evidently, the warning didn't take because I just kept going on and on to school beyond all reason.

We have a large number of first generation college students in the school where I teach, and I know that being taught a distrust of "those liberal professors" in the home is only one the many factors that comes bundled in that package. My first year on the job, I was asked by a school administrator if it was true that I was teaching my students about false gods. He said, "You've got to be careful what you have them read." It took me a minute to realize the false gods that had been protested were Zeus and Athena and that someone had taken Homer's Odyssey as a threat to her religion. I just said "Yes, sir" at the time. I still teach the Greeks, but now I make sure to mention that none of us are expected to convert.

For the most part, outright conflicts over community values versus academic values are few and far between. But there is a definite undercurrent and an awareness that you have to respect where the students are coming from and not be antagonistic toward even the silliest of their objections if you are to survive as a teacher here. Once we had a student photocopy Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried" from the lit book, highlight every curse word in it, and take it to the dean's office to show what we were making her read. Again, we got a warning to "be careful." I kept right on teaching the story, but from then on every time I taught it, I started with the question, "Why do you think there are so many curse words in this story?"

But this is just one issue, and it's really not something that I concern myself with on a day to day basis. It might mean my approach to issues like the one Scott brought up concerning textbooks would be quite different from someone living and teaching in another region. I wouldn't fight the fight over a comp reader. I'm too busy trying to save Zeus. From my experience, taking up the banner of academic freedom to argue a cause is only worth it if academic integrity has truly been compromised. If I can get the same job done in a way that does not cause conflict, I will take the path of least resistance.

Does that mean that I'm limiting myself or limiting my students? Maybe. Maybe not. I do think the trust that I gain from the students is more tangible and more valuable than anything I may have lost by not going with my original plan, however.

I have a list of things related to regionalism I'd like to talk about, but I think this is enough for one post. I'll be very interested in continuing this discussion and hope to see others post on this as well.

We Got Blogged!

2005-03-07T20:16:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Community College English for welcoming us into the blogosphere. This is the site, more than any other, that inspired Composition Southeast. I hope we develop an ongoing relationship between the two blogs and create a kind of pedagogical synergy by feeding off of each other's ideas.

Also, my enthusiasm for creating teaching-oriented blogs appears to be catching. My friend Scott has also linked to us with a magnificent proposal to create a series of regional composition blogs. He is starting one called Composition Mountain West and encourages others to follow suit. Anyone who lives in Utah or the surrounding states and is interested in blogging with the Mountain West comp teachers please let us know.

The whole sequence of events that has led to Composition Southeast and Composition Mountain West is a perfect example of how blogging works. I first got interested in blogging after stumbling across Scott's blog and then from there his wife Shelley's blog. I went to Ph.D. school with them once upon a time but had lost touch. Then one day I clicked a link somewhere, and there I was, catching up on their lives and professional activities. Before that day, I had heard about blogging but hadn't really thought much about it. From then on, I was hooked.

I began to actively seek out academic blogs, and I thought more and more about what I could do professionally with blogging. I've tried several experiments, but what I knew I wanted to do more than anything was to talk about teaching with other teachers. I became a great fan of Community College English because it was closer than anything else I'd seen to the kind of blog I thought could directly benefit my own teaching. I was tempted many times to request to join, but I was still working out in my own mind what it was I wanted to accomplish by blogging. I also felt a little alienated from some of the discussions I read there. I wondered what a person teaching in a rural school in South Mississippi could contribute to a dialogue between people who taught in urban areas in far off states. Then I started looking around at my colleagues and at people I met at state or regional conferences, and I realized there are a lot of people who feel the same way.

And so we have the birth of Composition Southeast. My hope is to give a voice to the concerns of people teaching in the places close to my heart, in my own little corner of the world. My hope is that we can find ways to articulate some of the gaps we see between the textbooks, theories and NCTE resolutions and the realities we work around on a day to day basis. I believe, if done right, this could be one of the more important purposes a blog could accomplish. In traditional publication circles, information has been disseminated from the big universities down to the small colleges. What's been missing in the chain is a good way for information to cycle back from the small colleges to the big universities...or from small colleges to other small colleges.

That is where blogging can make a real difference. That is why we should all get behind the idea of regional composition blogs and encourage as many people as possible to participate.

Thanks again to Scott and to Community College English for helping us get off to such a good start here. May there be many more interesting exchanges to come.

Personal Essays

2005-03-06T05:13:00.000-08:00

Jeanne pointed out a discussion that took place in November at Vitia regarding personal essays in freshman classes. I have to admit to have gotten quite a kick out it. It sounds so much like the conversations I had as a graduate student. In those days I needed a theory for everything I did, and if I didn't understand the theory, I was uncomfortable with the validity of the practice. These days I tend to work from the opposite direction. I do what works and figure out how to explain it later.

But I digress.

Regarding personal essays, I think the gang over at the Vitia discussion are pretty smart people with pretty smart ideas, but they've failed to address the obvious.

From Clancy...

~Here’s the deal: Although I strongly encourage students to bring personal experience into their research papers when applicable, I don’t assign personal essays. I have before, when I taught at Tennessee and again at Roane State Community College, but in my current program, they want a lot of consistency across sections of FYC, so the course is designed in a pretty specific way (see “Genres"). So I can relate to you, Mike, when you point out the “institutional pressures” informing your views. However, my resistance to the personal essay goes back to high school. When I was a student, I never saw being required to write a personal essay as “a way of asking a student to take an initial stake in the writing that the course asks them to do, and towards seeing the personal essay as something accessible and open.” I already had a stake in the writing, and to be perfectly honest, God. I . Hated. Writing. Personal. Essays. for two main reasons: First, I felt that writing such an essay was a purposeless activity, really just done as a kind of minstrel show for the teacher with (as I perceived it at the time) an inappropriate, voyeuristic desire to pry into my personal life.

First, I'm struck with the irony of using an extremely personal form of academic writing in order to question the legitimacy of personal academic writing. Clancy, like anyone would, backs up her distrust of the personal essay with a personal example: "When I was in school..." Why does she do this? Because it is effective, of course. Because it adds authority to what she has to say. Because it gives the theoretical discussion a human quality that makes it more understandable and more believable.

Personal writing has a power like no other. When politicians campaign for office, they bring along regular folk to stand up and give testimony to what their policies have done for the regular folk. When pharmaceutical companies advertise drugs, they have actors play the parts of regular folk to give testimony to the miracles those drugs can work. When composition teachers go to conferences to tout their theories, they use personal examples from their own students and their own experiences to reinforce their reasonings.

None of these instances constitute real scientific evidence, and it certainly behooves us to recognize that. But the fact is personal testimony has a real life currency that scientific evidence does not. It resonates in people's memories. It engages their emotions. It entices them into the arena in which they might become a willing audience to the more scientific or theoretical.

The point is personal writing is academic writing. It permeates almost all realms of academia, and bloggers, of all people, should know that. The power of the blog lies precisely in the personal. People who are building their careers on a kind of discourse that depends entirely upon a blurring of the professional and the personal should be able to see how that same discourse can benefit their students.

The ability to speak with authority in a manner that blends the personal and the theoretical is the rhetoric of power and privilege. It is the kind of writing and speaking our students will most likely need to know when they leave school. We would be remiss not to teach it.

Two-Year College Teacher-Scholar

2005-03-05T12:30:00.000-08:00

I found this report on the blog of someone who posts as jocalo both on his own site and on the Community College English site.

This appears to be an NCTE committee report, and I found it quite interesting. Some of the salient points:

~At two-year colleges, good teaching matters most, but this committee views scholarship as a prerequisite and a co-requisite for good teaching--because teachers’ scholarship legitimizes their expertise, informs their classroom practice, and provides their students with models for intellectual inquiry.

~The conventional view of research and scholarship holds that the former involves the discovery of new knowledge while the latter amounts to a familiarity with, and understanding of, what is already known. Research institutions have historically assumed that faculty would engage in both activities: making new knowledge and keeping up to date with advances in their particular areas of expertise But is it realistic to assume that faculty at community colleges will have the time and skills to engage in conventional academic research?

~Finally, community colleges have had little success in recognizing the work of faculty outside the classroom.

The report goes on to discuss the types of scholarship currently coming out of community colleges. I was, in fact, amazed to find out that the poet Bruce Weigl teaches at a community college. He could certainly have his pick of jobs, and I always find it heartwarming to hear these stories of people who are choosing community colleges for whatever reasons when they could be at the most prestigious universities.

I thought this was a good opportunity for talking about what our roles and responsibilities are as scholars in two-year colleges. Sometimes I have such a hard time keeping up with the grading load that I can't imagine how I could add more pressure to what I'm already doing.

But I will say that I've had more fun working on the blog research than almost anything I've ever done. When you get excited about learning something, it spills into your teaching in very distinct, though perhaps indefinable ways.

I don't believe any of us would argue the point that it is our obligation as teachers to remain current in our fields and to learn as much as we can about the writing and the literature that we teach. But my question is to what degree should two-year college teachers feel obligated to make a contribution to their fields?

I have my own opinions on this, but I will hold off a little bit on launching into a diatribe. Anyone else?

Why We Do This

2005-03-04T04:50:00.000-08:00

Last night I walked into my classroom and found my students debating whether Oedipus had done anything of his own free will or if it had all been fate. They had started the debate themselves, on their own, with no prompting. They fired a couple of questions at me before I could even get the door shut behind me. Then they launched into a discussion of whether epics or tragedies are more interesting and how all these Greeks classics keep showing up in our pop culture with movies like Minority Report still questioning the conflict between free will and fate.

One student said that she had printed out a piece I posted to their discussion board about "Why We Love Epics" and given it to the librarian at her son's school. This librarian has banned Harry Potter books, and the student wanted to point out to her that those books are epics like the classic epics and that they have many, many references to Greek mythology in them. She used what she got from my class to argue her case that the books she wanted her son to read were educational.

The room was alive with mental energy and genuine interest in learning. This is the kind of day that makes you remember why you do it.

The Red Pen

2005-03-02T06:10:00.000-08:00

This is a discussion we had on another blog--now lost forever due to "The Great Ebloggy Crash of '04." It turned out to be one of the most active discussions we had. It seems writing utensils are close to the hearts of English teachers.

Anyway, what kind of pen, pencil, whatever do you use to comment on student papers? How extensively do you comment and/or mark errors? Why? Why not?

Blogs and Assessment

2005-03-01T06:42:00.000-08:00

Clancy at Kairosnews has a good discussion about assessment and student blogs.

Writing Exercises

2005-03-01T04:56:00.000-08:00

I'm bogged down in research right now, so I don't know that I'll have time to try any creative exercises in the foreseeable future, but I always like to collect them.

One idea I've had good success with for character development is to have the students take the Myers Brigg personality test...not as themselves but as characters they are trying to create. They then use the personality profile generated by the test as a reference in writing a character sketch.

On our campus the Career Resource Center offers the test. There are also a number of personality tests available online.

The students always enjoy doing this and maybe become a little too interested in personality types, but it does help them brainstorm characters.

Blog instead of Blackboard

2005-02-28T08:46:00.000-08:00

I am most excited about using blog instead of the Discussion Board on Blackboard, which I find tedious and time consuming. I was really amazed at how quickly I was able to set up an account and start blogging. I really despise all the clicking and waiting on Blackboard. Frankly, I use the discussion boards, but I do not read them as much as I would like because I do not have time to click, read, and respond to everyone. With blogging, I can view them all at once and reply to several postings at one time. Thanks for presenting this session!

TYCA-SE

2005-02-27T15:07:00.000-08:00

I had a good time at TYCA. My only disappointment was that Morgan Freeman couldn't stay longer, but I'm willing to console myself with the fact that he was able to show up at all.

I'm excited that so many people expressed an interest in blogging. I've become something of a blog crusader, and I hope we can really get an active, viable discussion group going on this blog. Then we won't have to wait a whole year before we hear from people from other schools and other states. We can gossip and trade teaching ideas and laugh at each other's jokes and generally get some personal and professional enjoyment out of knowing each other any day of the week.

Because we've all just come back from TYCA, I think the thing to do is to start out by talking about TYCA. Which sessions did you attend? What did you get the most out of? What do you plan to use from what you learned at the conference?

Greetings!

2005-02-20T07:31:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Composition Southeast, a blog for writing teachers.