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THINGS HAVE CHANGED:

Since I am no longer a professor in the classroom, this blog is changing focus. (I may at some future date change platforms, too, but not yet). I am now (as of May 2019) playing around with the idea of using this blog as a place to talk about the struggles of writing creatively. Those of you who have been following (or dipping in periodically) know that I've already been doing a little of that, but now the change is official. I don't write every day--yet--so I won't post to the blog every day--yet. But please do check in from time to time, if you're interested in this new phase in my life.


Hi! And you are...?

I am interested to see the fluctuation in my readers--but I don't know who is reading the blog, how you found it, and why you find it interesting. I'd love to hear from you! Please feel free to use the "comment" box at the end of any particular post to let me know what brought you to this page--and what keeps you coming back for more (if you do).





Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Still here....

I thought I'd be in a yoga class, or at home by now. Instead I'm still here, and still feeling frantic. I took a calculated risk that I'd be able to get reading journals done at Advisement, and that paid off: I was ready for today's class (tomorrow's are another story). However, the P&B business is hanging heavy over my head, and I have no clue when I'll get to it. And I have a couple of letters of recommendation that I've promised, and they're due very soon, too. Yikes, and likewise zoiks.

However, it was a blast working with my new apprentice, Kayla. She talked to the students about the value of their reading journals (which I'm now calling journal/logs, so they get the idea that they're keeping track of something, not just "journaling," which many of them associate with writing down whatever falls out of their left ears). We both circulated the room working with groups; Kayla tended to spend longer with each group than I do, so at some point I need to check in with what she's doing/saying. She may be tending to take on too much direction, not allowing them to do enough of the heavy lifting. At the end of the class discussion, I asked her if there was anything else we hadn't covered, and she very nicely pointed the students to another area of comparison between the two stories, one that might be useful to them in their papers.

I had one of those absolutely spontaneous moments of explanation--which I'll struggle to remember to use again, I'm sure, but I hope I can incorporate it into my explanations of journals: I said, think of your journal responses as the place where you try out the explications for quotations: the "E" in "ICE." Paul and I--and probably a few others--use the acronym "ICE" as shorthand for "Introduce, Cite, Explicate," which is what needs to be done to properly incorporate quoted material into papers. (OK, full disclosure: I raided the acronym from Paul. I use it because he did/does. Thank you, Paul.) I prefer the term "explicate" to "explain," as asking students to explain invariably leads to mere paraphrase. Explicate is to develop the idea in terms of one's argument: the fancy-schmancy term helps students understand that something more sophisticated is required.

I said "helps." It doesn't entirely work. Nothing does.

Anyway, after class, Kayla and I talked for well over two hours. Part of the time was spent with her helping me organize paperwork stuff, but a lot of it was about the "behind the scenes" stuff: how does one create a syllabus, come up with assignments, create class policies, decide on grade weights, try to head off problems at the pass, handle time-management of grading.... I'm sure her head is spinning (mine is), but it felt helpful to fill her in on all the work I've done to get to this point of the semester. And from here, I imagine we'll have fewer reasons for me to lecture so extensively (in effect, that's what it was), though I anticipate we'll touch base briefly before and after each class. I'm going to be very interested to experience this new dynamic. It's giving me a taste of what it would be like to do an independent study with a student (which is something I'm thinking about taking on at some point). Answer, brilliant. I'm loving this.

But god, I need to get home. No real sign off tonight, just throwing this up on the blog--unproofed and unedited, heaven help me--and running for the hills.

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