At the end of class today, the student I've been calling The Brit stayed to talk to me. He hesitated, unsure how to say what he wanted to say, and then finally said, "You don't like me very much, do you." Turns out, he'd read some of my blog posts. I can certainly understand why both the content and the tenor of my remarks about him would have led him to think I don't like him, but in fact I actually do like him. And he isn't British, nor is he trying to adopt a British persona: he said that he's often been told that he sounds like he has a British accent and the only reason for it he can imagine is that he has a lot of British friends. I have to say, that would make complete sense to me: I start talking with an Ozark twang when I'm around my father's family, and I'm about as Yankee as a person can get. In any event, I'm very glad he was brave enough to talk to me about it: confronting a personal issue with any authority figure takes real guts, and he did it charmingly. I did tell him that, of all the students in the class, he's the most obvious A student--or would be, if he had the time and energy to devote to the class that would be required for him to produce his best work. I want to go on record here as stating, very clearly, that he learns. That would seem like an obvious statement to make about a student, but in fact, seeing demonstrable evidence of learning from any student in a semester is relatively rare. In his case, the main evidence is in both how he phrases his critiques to his classmates and his sensitivity to how much time he takes over what he has to say. Both are much improved from where he started. And I'm looking forward to seeing his "portfolio" story in its final incarnation: he made a good choice for which story to revise further, so it will be fun to see what he can do with it.
Thinking about that class in general, I have to say that most of them show significant improvement in their ability to critique writing in progress. The substance of their comments is now aimed at a deeper and more significant level: I haven't emphasized terminologies, but in fact they're noticing things like character arc and character consistency/internal logic. I love teaching the class, and it breaks my heart that I don't feel I can ever in good conscience teach it again--unless every faculty member with an MFA has already turned it down. Including adjuncts. It's such a delight to teach, and I feel I do a good job of it--and would continue to do better at it, if I had more opportunities to teach it. It sucks having a sense of what is right that is strong enough that I actually feel compelled to act on it.
Today had such an inauspicious start that the class stands out even more than usual as a delightful experience. I won't tell the whole, long, detailed version, but the basics are that, on my way to the 9:30 Assessment Committee meeting, I stopped at Dunkin Donuts for a "box of joe" for the committee, and when I went back out to my car, it wouldn't start. After two good Samaritans, one guy with a portable battery dispatched by roadside assistance, a tow truck and a visit to Enterprise Rent-a-Car, I made it to campus--at 1:30, which is when my time in Advisement usually ends. That comes out of my sick leave: I cannot possibly make up the three hours between now and end of the semester.
But the good news--and yes, even in all that, there is good news--is that I had more time than I thought I would to read and comment on the stories for today's workshop, so I was able to get them all done and eat lunch: a rare and beautiful thing.
And now, I'm about to call the mechanics to find out if they know anything about my car (no call on the cell-phone as yet). I won't know how long I'm keeping the rental car until I know what's happening with mine, and that may throw a wrench into my plans to meet tomorrow evening with a colleague to talk about ecocriticism (as I may have to dash home to retrieve my car before the shop closes). I'm facing a ridiculously complex skein of if-then variables, but the main thing is, I want to get the hell out of here for tonight. Everything else can wait until tomorrow. You know: tomorrow, when I'm stronger.
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
Omens and absences
This morning, as I was trying to get all my bags and my coffee out of the car, while holding my umbrella against the howling monsoon, I thought, "I need to be careful not to spill my coffee"--and not 15 seconds later, managed to knock the mug off the roof of the car, promptly spilling every single drop of coffee into the lake of rainwater in the parking lot. I swore, I ranted ... I went upstairs, dropped off all my other crapola, and drove back to the place where I like to get my coffee and bought another cup, dammit.
I wondered if that might be some kind of omen or forecast for what kind of day I had in store, but it didn't turn out that way. Allen and I did as much scheduling as we could without tearing everything apart trying to cover the remaining classes--and that includes a number of electives (one of them, "my" Nature in Lit). I'm going to interview four adjunct candidates in the next week: if they're all OK, that will help us cover the classes that need an instructor. A few people wanted a class but didn't get one because they didn't give us days and times that would work; if any of them can add more days/times, that will help, too. And there's always the chance that Bruce will have to cancel classes because of low enrollment. Taking all those factors together, we may have everything covered--but we may still end up short a few faculty members, in which case either Allen or I will have to dip into the "B" category of applicants to see if any of them might do.
Allen and I ended up gossiping a bit, too--mostly just talking about the ratio of assholes to decent people folks and that it's pretty much the same ratio whether one is looking at the full-time faculty or the adjuncts. The same is true of those who aren't assholes but who simply are so decrepit they really shouldn't be teaching any more. When full-time faculty try to put all of that on the adjuncts, I'm always quick to jump in with a correction: nope, we've got 'em in the full-timers, too. And we have a pretty powerful bunch of adjuncts, to counter-balance the negatives.
I got a little bit of work done in the time when I'd usually have had to be in P&B, and then I went to my classes. I actually ended up doing my comma lesson (or an abbreviated version thereof), because the Young Intellectual said that his brilliant friend said you use a comma where you would pause. Nope, I said: that's a fallacy. He then amended it to where you'd take a mental pause, not necessarily a physical one. That's closer to right, but no: there are actually specific instances in which a comma is required and others in which a comma is, in fact, incorrect. One student was very clearly paying zero attention--which is pretty much how she's been all semester. he's clearly blowing off the class--and clearly is still in the high school mindset that it won't matter a damn what she does as long as she's there breathing. She doesn't have a chance in hell of passing, and I can't bring myself to give any more of a shit about it than she does. I've been bending over backward for the Young Intellectual and for Little Miss Arrogance, but for Miss Attitude? Nah. I'll give her the F and metaphorically tell her not to let the door hit her on the ass on her way out.
The second session was easier, in a lot of ways: a lot of students were absent, and those who were there either stayed and got some help from me or split. Fine by me: whatever is going to get that paper written is what they should do.
But one student in that second session--potentially at least a high B student, if not an A (I think he got an A- on his first paper)--has now missed class seven times. My policy states that at six, the only options are withdraw or fail. He also--much like the Young Intellectual and Little Miss Arrogance--has not been turning in much work since that first paper. Today, I got an e-mail (with a letter as documentary evidence) explaining that he couldn't get to class because the streets were flooded. I wrote back and said first, I trust my students when they tell me they have a reason not to be in class (I didn't add that I often know it's bullshit, but I'll still give them the benefit of the doubt where I can), but second, that number of absences puts him in real danger. Honestly, I don't think he has a chance in hell of passing either. What is it with these very bright students who simply do not show up, do not do the work?
And then there's someone like the Introverted Intellectual, who is constantly petrified that she's not doing enough when, in fact, she's doing way more than she needs to and could essentially sleep for the rest of the semester and still get an A.
Of course, there's also the usual pool of students who are simply AWOL: they've stopped attending and haven't withdrawn, so the only thing I have to do is decide whether each individual has turned in enough work to merit an F or whether the appropriate "grade" is an unofficial withdrawal (UW). I probably need to simply resign myself to the fact that, as long as I have the standards I do, and as long as I demand the amount of work I do, I'm always going to be faced with a large number of students who bail--because nothing else I do or say will outweigh the students' resistance to and/or fear of what I require.
C'est la vie.
I did a teeny bit of work on the promotion application today: I'm really starting to itch with the desire to dig into it, but I perpetually encounter other things I truly must do first. Still, doing even that little bit felt good. And I'm taking the risk that I'll have enough time in Advisement and after to read and respond to the stories slated to be workshopped tomorrow: I started on one before class, decided I'd do better to eat lunch at that juncture, and now have officially hit the wall: nothing more than bilge is coming out of this little brain tonight.
Up early for the last Assessment meeting of the semester tomorrow--and at that point, I'll be handing off all my responsibilities for that committee until I'm back next fall. (Wheeee!) Then Advisement, mini-break, and workshop. If I still have a brain left in my head at that point, maybe I'll be able to turn it to the promotion application. Now, however, the rain has let up, and though I may still have to traverse a few lakes along the way, very soon, I'll be home. (Whew!)
I wondered if that might be some kind of omen or forecast for what kind of day I had in store, but it didn't turn out that way. Allen and I did as much scheduling as we could without tearing everything apart trying to cover the remaining classes--and that includes a number of electives (one of them, "my" Nature in Lit). I'm going to interview four adjunct candidates in the next week: if they're all OK, that will help us cover the classes that need an instructor. A few people wanted a class but didn't get one because they didn't give us days and times that would work; if any of them can add more days/times, that will help, too. And there's always the chance that Bruce will have to cancel classes because of low enrollment. Taking all those factors together, we may have everything covered--but we may still end up short a few faculty members, in which case either Allen or I will have to dip into the "B" category of applicants to see if any of them might do.
Allen and I ended up gossiping a bit, too--mostly just talking about the ratio of assholes to decent people folks and that it's pretty much the same ratio whether one is looking at the full-time faculty or the adjuncts. The same is true of those who aren't assholes but who simply are so decrepit they really shouldn't be teaching any more. When full-time faculty try to put all of that on the adjuncts, I'm always quick to jump in with a correction: nope, we've got 'em in the full-timers, too. And we have a pretty powerful bunch of adjuncts, to counter-balance the negatives.
I got a little bit of work done in the time when I'd usually have had to be in P&B, and then I went to my classes. I actually ended up doing my comma lesson (or an abbreviated version thereof), because the Young Intellectual said that his brilliant friend said you use a comma where you would pause. Nope, I said: that's a fallacy. He then amended it to where you'd take a mental pause, not necessarily a physical one. That's closer to right, but no: there are actually specific instances in which a comma is required and others in which a comma is, in fact, incorrect. One student was very clearly paying zero attention--which is pretty much how she's been all semester. he's clearly blowing off the class--and clearly is still in the high school mindset that it won't matter a damn what she does as long as she's there breathing. She doesn't have a chance in hell of passing, and I can't bring myself to give any more of a shit about it than she does. I've been bending over backward for the Young Intellectual and for Little Miss Arrogance, but for Miss Attitude? Nah. I'll give her the F and metaphorically tell her not to let the door hit her on the ass on her way out.
The second session was easier, in a lot of ways: a lot of students were absent, and those who were there either stayed and got some help from me or split. Fine by me: whatever is going to get that paper written is what they should do.
But one student in that second session--potentially at least a high B student, if not an A (I think he got an A- on his first paper)--has now missed class seven times. My policy states that at six, the only options are withdraw or fail. He also--much like the Young Intellectual and Little Miss Arrogance--has not been turning in much work since that first paper. Today, I got an e-mail (with a letter as documentary evidence) explaining that he couldn't get to class because the streets were flooded. I wrote back and said first, I trust my students when they tell me they have a reason not to be in class (I didn't add that I often know it's bullshit, but I'll still give them the benefit of the doubt where I can), but second, that number of absences puts him in real danger. Honestly, I don't think he has a chance in hell of passing either. What is it with these very bright students who simply do not show up, do not do the work?
And then there's someone like the Introverted Intellectual, who is constantly petrified that she's not doing enough when, in fact, she's doing way more than she needs to and could essentially sleep for the rest of the semester and still get an A.
Of course, there's also the usual pool of students who are simply AWOL: they've stopped attending and haven't withdrawn, so the only thing I have to do is decide whether each individual has turned in enough work to merit an F or whether the appropriate "grade" is an unofficial withdrawal (UW). I probably need to simply resign myself to the fact that, as long as I have the standards I do, and as long as I demand the amount of work I do, I'm always going to be faced with a large number of students who bail--because nothing else I do or say will outweigh the students' resistance to and/or fear of what I require.
C'est la vie.
I did a teeny bit of work on the promotion application today: I'm really starting to itch with the desire to dig into it, but I perpetually encounter other things I truly must do first. Still, doing even that little bit felt good. And I'm taking the risk that I'll have enough time in Advisement and after to read and respond to the stories slated to be workshopped tomorrow: I started on one before class, decided I'd do better to eat lunch at that juncture, and now have officially hit the wall: nothing more than bilge is coming out of this little brain tonight.
Up early for the last Assessment meeting of the semester tomorrow--and at that point, I'll be handing off all my responsibilities for that committee until I'm back next fall. (Wheeee!) Then Advisement, mini-break, and workshop. If I still have a brain left in my head at that point, maybe I'll be able to turn it to the promotion application. Now, however, the rain has let up, and though I may still have to traverse a few lakes along the way, very soon, I'll be home. (Whew!)
Monday, December 8, 2014
Not bad
That's actually one of the few things I know how to say in Russian. I have no idea how to spell it (even transliterated from the Cyrillic), but I can say it. (I can also say "It's snowing out," which, mercifully, it isn't--or not enough to count for anything.)
The fact that I start this blog post being somewhat daffy indicates how utterly fritzed my brain cells are at this point. Fortunately, some of the pressure is lifting, just in time to keep all the fuses from blowing at once.
One reason for diminished pressure is a new twist in Advisement procedures. Starting last week, the Advisement Center stops signing students in at noon, and all the full-timers go to a different building specifically to advise new students. I, however, am exempt from that: all I have to do is mop up whatever students signed in before noon and have not yet been seen. Since my stint ends at 1:30, that usually means I actually am advising until about 12:45, and then I am able to do, well, whatever.
Today, I could have marked some assignments for 101, but I chose instead to pretend I was actually going to write something intelligent and ask to be on the list of speakers at tomorrow's BOT meeting. Right now, I've let go of the fantasy that I'll speak, but I'm still pretending that I'll actually go. I should go--even if just to be a body in the room (the more bodies there, the more seriously the BOT takes whatever is being discussed)--because the Board is now trying to make a unilateral decision to eliminate, or at very least significantly reduce, remediation for our students. As far as we can tell, their reasoning for this decision is essentially 1) we can't "prove" that students who take remedial courses actually benefit from the courses and 2) students get pissed off when they're placed in remedial courses and may decide to go to Suffolk instead--and we can't prove that our quality of education is any better than Suffolk's.
From our side, the counter argument goes something like this: 1) Actually, we do have concrete data, at least for students in English remediation, that those who get take the remedial course do better in credit bearing comp than the students who place directly into the credit-bearing course. Further, if students who receive remediation tend not to stay in their classes and tend not to stay at Nassau, it may be because they receive too little remediation. True, we don't have specific data to support that, but I'd be willing to lay any odds that if we could put more students in remedial classes and keep them there until we really think they're ready for college-level work, they'd do a hell of a lot better across the board. As for point 2, that's based on the idea of academic institutions as businesses and students as customers, and I can't explain the fallacies of that premise better than to share with you all the editorial by Joel Thomas Tierno from the blog "Academe" on the AAUP web site: http://academeblog.org/2014/11/18/how-many-ways-must-we-say-it/.
I care about this very deeply, and I can get pretty fierce about the ideas--but I find it inutterably painful to wait around until the private session of the Board is finished and they troupe in to the public session, which is likely to be maddening. This is why I frequently leave department meetings before they conclude: when people start pontificating and bloviating and taking extreme stances, I can either leave or explode. Not even productively, just explode. (Standing up and yelling "Will you fucking quit???" isn't terribly conducive to civil discourse.) So, I like to at least pretend I'll go to the meetings--and try to find ways to legitimize my ultimate decision not to go. (My body will sometimes cooperate very nicely and provide a pounding headache.)
But that's tomorrow night. Today was fine. Class went well enough--but the best part of the day was when one of the students left, then came back and very nervously asked me if I'd write a letter of recommendation for her. I immediately said, "Sure!" and she was quite taken aback at how easy it was. I don't know what she'd been expecting, but she even said, "That was easier than I thought it would be. I've never asked before, and I was really nervous about it." We ended up coming back to the office to talk a bit about letters of recommendation, applying for transfer, academic goals, career ideas... In our future seminar hours, that conversation would have fallen under the heading "mentoring/advisement." And I truly do love doing it. Any time I get to spend with the students individually is always the best part of the job. I can get pretty jazzed about exciting classroom discussion, too, but nothing beats working on that one-on-one level. I love it any way I can get it: e-mail conversations, face-to-face meetings, whatever.
I also, again, conveniently "forgot" about my meeting with my "conversation partner," until I heard him pawing at the door. We had another torturous "conversation"--but I'll only see him one more time, and then I'll wish him good luck and a pleasant journey.
I was hoping I'd get some time to work on my promotion folder today. It should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that I carried it home with me over the weekend and carried it back without even opening the bag it's in. Yet another of those ways in which I delude myself: "Oh, sure, I'll get that work done at home." Hah. But I do want to look at my calendar and figure out when I can set aside a good chunk of time this week to grind through it and get as much of it done as possible. It's not due back to P&B until January 20, and not due to the college-wide P&T (promotion and tenure) committee until March, but I want it out of my hair yesterday.
For now, however, I'll do a quick sort through of the triage pile, make sure the most urgent bits are on top. I will spend a chunk of tomorrow working on adjunct schedules with Allen, and I sincerely hope we finish everything as much as we can so I can turn it over to Bruce and say, "Your turn." Then I'm out of that loop: it's over to Allen from then until I take over again, either next summer or next fall. Realizing how little I can realistically expect to get done in the little time remaining of the term, I'm in "delegation" mode: figuring out what I can palm off on whom. I don't want to leave anything flapping in the breeze, but if I do, well, someone will figure it out and deal with it--or it will still be there, tattered and torn, for me to find again in the fall.
And whatever I forget tonight will be there for me tomorrow--or will be forgotten until it slaps me in the face at some future point. Here endeth this post.
The fact that I start this blog post being somewhat daffy indicates how utterly fritzed my brain cells are at this point. Fortunately, some of the pressure is lifting, just in time to keep all the fuses from blowing at once.
One reason for diminished pressure is a new twist in Advisement procedures. Starting last week, the Advisement Center stops signing students in at noon, and all the full-timers go to a different building specifically to advise new students. I, however, am exempt from that: all I have to do is mop up whatever students signed in before noon and have not yet been seen. Since my stint ends at 1:30, that usually means I actually am advising until about 12:45, and then I am able to do, well, whatever.
Today, I could have marked some assignments for 101, but I chose instead to pretend I was actually going to write something intelligent and ask to be on the list of speakers at tomorrow's BOT meeting. Right now, I've let go of the fantasy that I'll speak, but I'm still pretending that I'll actually go. I should go--even if just to be a body in the room (the more bodies there, the more seriously the BOT takes whatever is being discussed)--because the Board is now trying to make a unilateral decision to eliminate, or at very least significantly reduce, remediation for our students. As far as we can tell, their reasoning for this decision is essentially 1) we can't "prove" that students who take remedial courses actually benefit from the courses and 2) students get pissed off when they're placed in remedial courses and may decide to go to Suffolk instead--and we can't prove that our quality of education is any better than Suffolk's.
From our side, the counter argument goes something like this: 1) Actually, we do have concrete data, at least for students in English remediation, that those who get take the remedial course do better in credit bearing comp than the students who place directly into the credit-bearing course. Further, if students who receive remediation tend not to stay in their classes and tend not to stay at Nassau, it may be because they receive too little remediation. True, we don't have specific data to support that, but I'd be willing to lay any odds that if we could put more students in remedial classes and keep them there until we really think they're ready for college-level work, they'd do a hell of a lot better across the board. As for point 2, that's based on the idea of academic institutions as businesses and students as customers, and I can't explain the fallacies of that premise better than to share with you all the editorial by Joel Thomas Tierno from the blog "Academe" on the AAUP web site: http://academeblog.org/2014/11/18/how-many-ways-must-we-say-it/.
I care about this very deeply, and I can get pretty fierce about the ideas--but I find it inutterably painful to wait around until the private session of the Board is finished and they troupe in to the public session, which is likely to be maddening. This is why I frequently leave department meetings before they conclude: when people start pontificating and bloviating and taking extreme stances, I can either leave or explode. Not even productively, just explode. (Standing up and yelling "Will you fucking quit???" isn't terribly conducive to civil discourse.) So, I like to at least pretend I'll go to the meetings--and try to find ways to legitimize my ultimate decision not to go. (My body will sometimes cooperate very nicely and provide a pounding headache.)
But that's tomorrow night. Today was fine. Class went well enough--but the best part of the day was when one of the students left, then came back and very nervously asked me if I'd write a letter of recommendation for her. I immediately said, "Sure!" and she was quite taken aback at how easy it was. I don't know what she'd been expecting, but she even said, "That was easier than I thought it would be. I've never asked before, and I was really nervous about it." We ended up coming back to the office to talk a bit about letters of recommendation, applying for transfer, academic goals, career ideas... In our future seminar hours, that conversation would have fallen under the heading "mentoring/advisement." And I truly do love doing it. Any time I get to spend with the students individually is always the best part of the job. I can get pretty jazzed about exciting classroom discussion, too, but nothing beats working on that one-on-one level. I love it any way I can get it: e-mail conversations, face-to-face meetings, whatever.
I also, again, conveniently "forgot" about my meeting with my "conversation partner," until I heard him pawing at the door. We had another torturous "conversation"--but I'll only see him one more time, and then I'll wish him good luck and a pleasant journey.
I was hoping I'd get some time to work on my promotion folder today. It should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that I carried it home with me over the weekend and carried it back without even opening the bag it's in. Yet another of those ways in which I delude myself: "Oh, sure, I'll get that work done at home." Hah. But I do want to look at my calendar and figure out when I can set aside a good chunk of time this week to grind through it and get as much of it done as possible. It's not due back to P&B until January 20, and not due to the college-wide P&T (promotion and tenure) committee until March, but I want it out of my hair yesterday.
For now, however, I'll do a quick sort through of the triage pile, make sure the most urgent bits are on top. I will spend a chunk of tomorrow working on adjunct schedules with Allen, and I sincerely hope we finish everything as much as we can so I can turn it over to Bruce and say, "Your turn." Then I'm out of that loop: it's over to Allen from then until I take over again, either next summer or next fall. Realizing how little I can realistically expect to get done in the little time remaining of the term, I'm in "delegation" mode: figuring out what I can palm off on whom. I don't want to leave anything flapping in the breeze, but if I do, well, someone will figure it out and deal with it--or it will still be there, tattered and torn, for me to find again in the fall.
And whatever I forget tonight will be there for me tomorrow--or will be forgotten until it slaps me in the face at some future point. Here endeth this post.
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Rattled
On my way to class today, I encountered a colleague who is also a very close friend; as she was walking to her class, she had gotten word that her husband has a large mass on his thyroid gland that needs to be biopsied. She was, of course, in shock; I asked her if she could cancel her class and leave. She was worried about stranding a colleague without a ride, but I assured her that her colleague would understand. I offered to talk to her students for her, but she said they were a very sweet bunch, so she felt she could tell them that she had a family emergency she had to handle. She was still struggling against tears when we parted ways, so I walked into my class also on the verge of tears. Work is a wonderful "meaningful distraction," as Bruce would say, but I am very concerned for my friend.
However, if I can distract myself again by talking about the rest of my day....
It was another shoved down a chute with cattle-prods sort of day. Despite the early alarm, I did not, in fact, get all the papers marked for the second class--in large measure because the Tangential Philosopher showed up very late to class and then, after all the other students had gone, wanted to talk about his paper, his ideas. Because his mind is always on hyper-drive, he talks somewhat slowly, longish gaps between replies as he sifts the words out of all the ideas that are zinging around in his head. Usually, that's OK by me, but today, I was frantic to get him squared away so I could finish up those papers--and it just didn't work. I couldn't, in good conscience, shoo him away before the official end of our class period, and he wanted to keep talking even beyond that.
Still, I think the talk with him was productive--and I am his teacher, too, so he deserves the time and attention. And I spent a fair amount of time talking with the young man who has always been so completely crushed by my feedback on his papers--and was again this time. He is a musician, so I asked him whether he feels crushed when people give him feedback on what he can do to improve his voice. No, he said, so I tried to make him see the parallel. Then--duh--it dawned on me that he needs to handle revision in smaller chunks, one little piece at a time. I asked him--again--to point out what I say is good about his papers, and I reminded him--again--to focus on that, build from there. It's very human--especially when we are "ego involved"--to see the negative to the exclusion of the positive, but by the time I finished talking to him, I think he felt a lot better about both my feedback and his ability to handle it.
All my discussions with the earlier section felt good, productive, useful. I didn't talk to Miss Not-So-Arrogant-Any-More or to the Young Intellectual (whose paper is conspicuously missing--still), but I feel I've done all I can possibly do to help them, and I just can't keep trying to hold them up if they insist on falling down.
I also had the "withdraw or fail" discussion with another student in the class; he said he figured that was probably the case (in which case, I thought, why the fuck are you still here without a withdrawal form?)--and he left. I'll be interested to see if he shows up with the withdrawal form or just lets the F fall where it may.
I felt pretty awful heading into the second session, as there were three papers that I had not touched. I got about half-way through one of them before class (being pretty slip-shod in the depth of my comments, I must say), then I did my little discussion--which I did with both classes, actually: I reminded them about how to contextualize source material, about the difference between opinion and informed opinion (and that they actually need to provide the latter), and a few other little nuts and bolts stuff. Then, I showed them a few pages from one of my dissertation chapters in progress. I've saved those pages all these years, but I finally scanned them, so I could project the pages on the screen and show all the students at once what I wanted them to observe about my own process: that I question where ideas belong, that I have to make notes about which ideas go together and which need to be separated, that I have to remind myself--repeatedly--what my focus needs to be and ask whether I'm maintaining that focus. And I showed them that I will also mark things for a "cut file": ideas that I love too much to lose entirely but that do not fit with the point of the piece I'm working on. I literally cut them out and paste them into a separate file: that way, I keep the idea, but it isn't getting in the way of what I'm saying at that point.
I don't know whether they actually got anything out of that (I'll check in with them about it at some point), but I sure hope the visual aids were useful.
One last thing to unload out of my brain and into this post is the upshot of today's committee meeting. We're dealing with some very important policy: the committee is Academic Standing, so anything that has any impact on students' academic standing or progress in some way or another is deliberated by that committee. It's torturous sometimes: ideas are kicked back and forth for years, literally. I hope I helped at least a little in clarifying where two threads of an issue needed to be teased apart and addressed somewhat separately (specifically, what can and cannot be enforced, given the "plain vanilla" version of Banner that the school has adopted, as opposed to the policy itself, which is a whole different conversation).
The main thing, however, was at the end, I talked to two colleagues who provided very helpful thoughts and information of benefit to the Seminar Hours committee: I carried that stuff around in the back of my brain until I could get back to my desk, winnow through my e-mail, and compose a little report on those points for the rest of the Seminar Hours committee, as I probably won't meet with them again before I'm back in the fall. (There is a meeting scheduled for January, but I think I'm going to bail on that: I have to be around for scheduling, which is bad enough, but I really don't want to also devote several hours to the Seminar Hours thing when I'm technically not around.)
And the really scary part of all this? There's probably more I could report that I've forgotten. It was one of those days. Judas Priest, what an end to the week. However, I did manage to off-load some of the tasks on my "to do" list onto others--and, o joy, o rapture, Bruce has canceled P&B meetings for the rest of the semester. Party streamers and confetti!
Now, I have just heard the campus bells toll 7:00, and the only question that remains is, will I have scotch or bourbon with my dinner tonight? Anything, everything, else can damned well wait until Monday.
However, if I can distract myself again by talking about the rest of my day....
It was another shoved down a chute with cattle-prods sort of day. Despite the early alarm, I did not, in fact, get all the papers marked for the second class--in large measure because the Tangential Philosopher showed up very late to class and then, after all the other students had gone, wanted to talk about his paper, his ideas. Because his mind is always on hyper-drive, he talks somewhat slowly, longish gaps between replies as he sifts the words out of all the ideas that are zinging around in his head. Usually, that's OK by me, but today, I was frantic to get him squared away so I could finish up those papers--and it just didn't work. I couldn't, in good conscience, shoo him away before the official end of our class period, and he wanted to keep talking even beyond that.
Still, I think the talk with him was productive--and I am his teacher, too, so he deserves the time and attention. And I spent a fair amount of time talking with the young man who has always been so completely crushed by my feedback on his papers--and was again this time. He is a musician, so I asked him whether he feels crushed when people give him feedback on what he can do to improve his voice. No, he said, so I tried to make him see the parallel. Then--duh--it dawned on me that he needs to handle revision in smaller chunks, one little piece at a time. I asked him--again--to point out what I say is good about his papers, and I reminded him--again--to focus on that, build from there. It's very human--especially when we are "ego involved"--to see the negative to the exclusion of the positive, but by the time I finished talking to him, I think he felt a lot better about both my feedback and his ability to handle it.
All my discussions with the earlier section felt good, productive, useful. I didn't talk to Miss Not-So-Arrogant-Any-More or to the Young Intellectual (whose paper is conspicuously missing--still), but I feel I've done all I can possibly do to help them, and I just can't keep trying to hold them up if they insist on falling down.
I also had the "withdraw or fail" discussion with another student in the class; he said he figured that was probably the case (in which case, I thought, why the fuck are you still here without a withdrawal form?)--and he left. I'll be interested to see if he shows up with the withdrawal form or just lets the F fall where it may.
I felt pretty awful heading into the second session, as there were three papers that I had not touched. I got about half-way through one of them before class (being pretty slip-shod in the depth of my comments, I must say), then I did my little discussion--which I did with both classes, actually: I reminded them about how to contextualize source material, about the difference between opinion and informed opinion (and that they actually need to provide the latter), and a few other little nuts and bolts stuff. Then, I showed them a few pages from one of my dissertation chapters in progress. I've saved those pages all these years, but I finally scanned them, so I could project the pages on the screen and show all the students at once what I wanted them to observe about my own process: that I question where ideas belong, that I have to make notes about which ideas go together and which need to be separated, that I have to remind myself--repeatedly--what my focus needs to be and ask whether I'm maintaining that focus. And I showed them that I will also mark things for a "cut file": ideas that I love too much to lose entirely but that do not fit with the point of the piece I'm working on. I literally cut them out and paste them into a separate file: that way, I keep the idea, but it isn't getting in the way of what I'm saying at that point.
I don't know whether they actually got anything out of that (I'll check in with them about it at some point), but I sure hope the visual aids were useful.
One last thing to unload out of my brain and into this post is the upshot of today's committee meeting. We're dealing with some very important policy: the committee is Academic Standing, so anything that has any impact on students' academic standing or progress in some way or another is deliberated by that committee. It's torturous sometimes: ideas are kicked back and forth for years, literally. I hope I helped at least a little in clarifying where two threads of an issue needed to be teased apart and addressed somewhat separately (specifically, what can and cannot be enforced, given the "plain vanilla" version of Banner that the school has adopted, as opposed to the policy itself, which is a whole different conversation).
The main thing, however, was at the end, I talked to two colleagues who provided very helpful thoughts and information of benefit to the Seminar Hours committee: I carried that stuff around in the back of my brain until I could get back to my desk, winnow through my e-mail, and compose a little report on those points for the rest of the Seminar Hours committee, as I probably won't meet with them again before I'm back in the fall. (There is a meeting scheduled for January, but I think I'm going to bail on that: I have to be around for scheduling, which is bad enough, but I really don't want to also devote several hours to the Seminar Hours thing when I'm technically not around.)
And the really scary part of all this? There's probably more I could report that I've forgotten. It was one of those days. Judas Priest, what an end to the week. However, I did manage to off-load some of the tasks on my "to do" list onto others--and, o joy, o rapture, Bruce has canceled P&B meetings for the rest of the semester. Party streamers and confetti!
Now, I have just heard the campus bells toll 7:00, and the only question that remains is, will I have scotch or bourbon with my dinner tonight? Anything, everything, else can damned well wait until Monday.
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
That 6 a.m. alarm...
I "should" stay and keep working for a while longer, grade more of the papers for the 101s, as I won't have much time for them tomorrow--and the students need them back so they can start revising. However, I have decided that--painful as that 6 a.m. alarm is even to contemplate, never mind experience--I'll do better getting up early and then burning through the papers (interrupted by a meeting) than I'd do if I were to stay and try to keep working tonight--partly because I'm famished, but more because I can tell my focus is not where it should be.
One reason why I'm not where I'd hoped to be with the paper grading at this point is, after the Fiction Writing class, one of the young men--who had left the room--came back and asked if he could talk to me. I've not talked about him yet, or not much. He's a good student, earnest, wasn't sure at all how he felt about finding his creativity, but his writing has truly improved and his commentary on other students' stories is getting more insightful and comprehensive. He had two questions for me: the first was, whether I'd be willing to provide critique on a story his father has written. I was a little leery of the idea at first, because the student intends to surprise his dad with the critique--and for some, that would hardly be a pleasant surprise. However, the student--I'll call him the Engineer, as I think he wants to become an engineer of some sort--assured me that his father very much wants serious critique and is having a hard time finding venues where he can get it. So, I agreed to do it.
The second question was about courses he could take to fulfill his social sciences requirements. We talked a bit about the various options--but the conversation quickly became more an opportunity for him to simply talk about concerns in his life, and specifically, the relief of being able to do that with someone who is not part of his personal life at all, but a relatively objective outsider. It was lovely: he poured out his concerns about his romantic relationship, the mistakes he's made in his past, his desire to learn more but the frustrations of how the need to make money interferes with the need to get a solid education (and vice versa), his parents, his brothers....
I mostly simply listened--and agreed with him that he's in a difficult situation, dealing with a lot. But I truly feel honored that he wanted to share some of himself with me, and felt he could. He was concerned about taking my time away from work I need to do, but I assured him that talking with students is my favorite thing about my job--and it is.
In fact, that's something about the whole Seminar Hours thing that I can get excited about--even though today's committee meeting was roughly equivalent to a root canal. (I'd say to having a tooth pulled, but I was anesthetized for that--and I'd have given a lot for some anesthesia before the committee meeting so I could just wake up when it was over.) A few times, I looked over at Kristin and saw the same look on her face that must have been visible on mine. I don't want to replay the meeting by describing it in much detail: suffice it to say that the usual suspects engaged in the usual behaviors (tiresome), in addition to which, there were many instances of people talking over each other and consequently completely miscommunicating. However, as I contemplate options for my own personal fulfillment of those hours come spring, there actually are several options I'd be happy to consider. A faculty partnership with Paul would be great, if we can figure it out logistically, but I'd also be happy to have a group of students for whom I would act as a mentor (and I don't much care what target population I'd work with)--and I'd be equally content to put in my hours in the Writing Center in the evenings, which certainly would be the easiest option in terms of logistics (and there's a need for evening tutors, so, win-win there).
I'm hoping that I can do some of that kind of one-on-one with the 101 students for the next three class periods. I have some work for them to do on their own, too (mostly carefully thinking through my comments on their papers), but the advantage of having fewer papers to grade also means I can spend more time with the few students who wrote those papers. Several have not been submitted (of course), so I'll have to decide what to do about those: it isn't fair to give the same kind of feedback to students who missed the deadlines as I give to those who got their stuff to me within the required time frame, but I do want to give as much feedback as I can, where I can.
Of course, the Young Intellectual is among those who didn't submit anything. I've simply given up on that case. At the end of semester, I will again offer the W option and explain why, but he's dug himself into a hole there really is no getting out of.
Still, I can talk to him about his ideas. And I can talk to the other students who didn't submit papers on time about their ideas--even if I don't read and comment on their papers. And I can give more of my time--a lot more--to the students who did submit papers.
But I still have to read and comment on those papers. And that still means I have to be up at 6 (and probably, realistically, should be up even earlier). Still, all that is for tomorrow. For tonight, I'm going to take care of psychic needs (making sure I get my Recommended Daily Allowance of enjoyment, as Paul would say) and physical needs (dinner, sleep). And the cats' needs (dinner, time in my lap, sleep). Easy-peasy. And tomorrow is, self-evidently, another day.
One reason why I'm not where I'd hoped to be with the paper grading at this point is, after the Fiction Writing class, one of the young men--who had left the room--came back and asked if he could talk to me. I've not talked about him yet, or not much. He's a good student, earnest, wasn't sure at all how he felt about finding his creativity, but his writing has truly improved and his commentary on other students' stories is getting more insightful and comprehensive. He had two questions for me: the first was, whether I'd be willing to provide critique on a story his father has written. I was a little leery of the idea at first, because the student intends to surprise his dad with the critique--and for some, that would hardly be a pleasant surprise. However, the student--I'll call him the Engineer, as I think he wants to become an engineer of some sort--assured me that his father very much wants serious critique and is having a hard time finding venues where he can get it. So, I agreed to do it.
The second question was about courses he could take to fulfill his social sciences requirements. We talked a bit about the various options--but the conversation quickly became more an opportunity for him to simply talk about concerns in his life, and specifically, the relief of being able to do that with someone who is not part of his personal life at all, but a relatively objective outsider. It was lovely: he poured out his concerns about his romantic relationship, the mistakes he's made in his past, his desire to learn more but the frustrations of how the need to make money interferes with the need to get a solid education (and vice versa), his parents, his brothers....
I mostly simply listened--and agreed with him that he's in a difficult situation, dealing with a lot. But I truly feel honored that he wanted to share some of himself with me, and felt he could. He was concerned about taking my time away from work I need to do, but I assured him that talking with students is my favorite thing about my job--and it is.
In fact, that's something about the whole Seminar Hours thing that I can get excited about--even though today's committee meeting was roughly equivalent to a root canal. (I'd say to having a tooth pulled, but I was anesthetized for that--and I'd have given a lot for some anesthesia before the committee meeting so I could just wake up when it was over.) A few times, I looked over at Kristin and saw the same look on her face that must have been visible on mine. I don't want to replay the meeting by describing it in much detail: suffice it to say that the usual suspects engaged in the usual behaviors (tiresome), in addition to which, there were many instances of people talking over each other and consequently completely miscommunicating. However, as I contemplate options for my own personal fulfillment of those hours come spring, there actually are several options I'd be happy to consider. A faculty partnership with Paul would be great, if we can figure it out logistically, but I'd also be happy to have a group of students for whom I would act as a mentor (and I don't much care what target population I'd work with)--and I'd be equally content to put in my hours in the Writing Center in the evenings, which certainly would be the easiest option in terms of logistics (and there's a need for evening tutors, so, win-win there).
I'm hoping that I can do some of that kind of one-on-one with the 101 students for the next three class periods. I have some work for them to do on their own, too (mostly carefully thinking through my comments on their papers), but the advantage of having fewer papers to grade also means I can spend more time with the few students who wrote those papers. Several have not been submitted (of course), so I'll have to decide what to do about those: it isn't fair to give the same kind of feedback to students who missed the deadlines as I give to those who got their stuff to me within the required time frame, but I do want to give as much feedback as I can, where I can.
Of course, the Young Intellectual is among those who didn't submit anything. I've simply given up on that case. At the end of semester, I will again offer the W option and explain why, but he's dug himself into a hole there really is no getting out of.
Still, I can talk to him about his ideas. And I can talk to the other students who didn't submit papers on time about their ideas--even if I don't read and comment on their papers. And I can give more of my time--a lot more--to the students who did submit papers.
But I still have to read and comment on those papers. And that still means I have to be up at 6 (and probably, realistically, should be up even earlier). Still, all that is for tomorrow. For tonight, I'm going to take care of psychic needs (making sure I get my Recommended Daily Allowance of enjoyment, as Paul would say) and physical needs (dinner, sleep). And the cats' needs (dinner, time in my lap, sleep). Easy-peasy. And tomorrow is, self-evidently, another day.
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Well, that was nice
All in all, a good day.
I started the morning working on spring adjunct schedules with my colleague Allen, who will take over my "evening supervisor" position for the spring. I found I was getting more confused about days and times than usual--partly because I was trying to work without having the schedule grid in front of me, which is what I do when I'm alone. I finally realized that was the problem, and went back to my usual practice of comparing the days/times on the faculty preference form to the days/times on the grid, writing down the section designations, and then seeing if anything fit. It's a teeny bit laborious, but it sure helps me keep from assigning someone a M/W section when all they want is T/Th, for instance....
P&B was easy: a fair amount of simply sharing institutional memory with the newer members of the committee, and Bruce reported that so far, the administration seems OK with what we're doing regarding seminar hours. So, whew on that.
And both classes went fine. I did, in fact, put students in pairs to outline each others' papers, and they did pretty well with that--certainly they seemed to be giving each other good feedback. I gave an option to the students who were there without papers: take off and work on your paper (or your chem homework or whatever: how would I know?) and submit the paper before the expiration of the "late submission" period--or hang out and I'll come around and talk to each of you about any snags you might be encountering. And, across both sections, all but one opted to stay--and the one who left said she was almost finished with the paper, just had a little more to do. Fair enough. I think the process worked pretty well for everyone--especially, I think, fir the two bright students who've been falling down on submitting work. Both had good questions and were bringing up important concerns.
Little Miss Arrogant wasn't in the least arrogant: in fact, she seemed to doubt her own process and to genuinely want to understand from me how to go about reaching a thesis. She'd been trying to narrow down a plan, paragraph by paragraph, but was worried because she usually ends up changing her thesis over and over. I assured her that that is, in fact, what should happen--except for the narrow, paragraph by paragraph part. Instead, she should write her ideas out in vast, enormous, uncensored detail, chew through the argument, both sides, all the information, as comprehensively as possible. Only then will she really be able to see what matters, what she's really working to prove or persuade her readers to believe--and what her strongest points are.
The Young Intellectual (the frequently AWOL member of the buddy team) had gotten some wonderful pointers from a friend of his and wanted to find out if they would work for this assignment. Absolutely yes. In fact, I want him to tell me again the three words his friend used to explain what a paper can do: it can confirm, refute, or ... and I forget the third one. At least I think that was the language, but in any event, I want to adopt it myself, or at least have it in mind to tweak, as it does help clarify what needs to happen in an academic paper. The problem for the Young Intellectual is that he can easily argue both sides against the middle, so he wasn't sure what kind of stand to take. I honestly can't remember where we left things, but I think he has a clearer sense of how to tackle the problem.
The other thing I said--and I said it to the Introverted Intellectual in the later section too--was that it's perfectly OK to say 1) For these reasons, and for the purposes of this paper, we will accept X as a given (noting that it's important that there is sufficient support for readers to grant the premise) and 2) There are seven different aspects of this issue that are important to consider, but for the purposes of this paper, I am only going to focus on these three. They're both working on a more sophisticated level than their classmates, but that added layer of sophistication means that they have to be a great deal more selective in what their overall claim in order to keep the paper within the length limits.
Then there's the young man whose brother was in last year's Fiction Writing class: I guess I'll call him The Tangential Philosopher, as he tends to ask huge, abstract questions that are at best tangentially related to what we're talking about. Today, he really came out of left field: I was in the middle of setting things up so I could show two students how to narrow search results in the databases, and he suddenly asked, "Professor, do you believe in aliens, extraterrestrials?" I just answered the question (in brief: I do believe that probably, somewhere in the universe, life as we know it has evolved on some other planet, but I do not believe that any of that life has ever visited--or probably ever will visit--this planet). Now I wish I'd asked him what made him ask. He really wants to get into conspiracy theory kinds of topics, and his initial idea for his topic, about cyber-war and cyber-security, would have made a good idea for a doctoral thesis but was just the slightest bit too ambitious and large for a 5-7 page freshman composition paper. I tried to get him to narrow things down, too, but with less success than I had with the two Intellectuals.
I find I'm actually looking forward to reading most of the papers--in part because I'm not deluding myself into believing they'll be any better than anything else I've read this semester. At the end of the second class, I had a relatively long talk with one student--one of the young mothers--who is struggling to figure out how to use support in her papers. We looked at two paragraphs together: in one, she was setting up a hypothetical situation--no need for "support" but desperate need for formality of language; in the other, she was referring to studies, percentages--and there were no citations anywhere. I was able to show her a paragraph from the Introverted Intellectual's paper that indicated how to cite paraphrase, and we reviewed again how to treat paraphrase versus quotation (and the ways in which both have the same requirements).
That was an excellent reminder to me that I need to go over all that again. I mentioned it in the first section, too, as a young woman in the class indicated she wasn't fully clear about it. But I probably need to drive it home yet again, and yet again, and yet again. This is quotation. This is paraphrase. Both need citation boundaries (so readers know when your use of someone else's ideas starts and when it stops).
Lather, rinse, repeat.
I have a pretty good idea how I'm going to approach the remainder of the classes for the rest of the term, in all my classes, which is a nice feeling. And, just before starting this blog post, I had the pleasure of interviewing a potential new adjunct who I think will be a great addition to the pool. He may face a pretty steep learning curve, dealing with community college students, but I think he can handle it, and certainly, his credentials are sterling, as were his answers to the interview questions.
So, as I said, all in all, a good day. I'm afraid if I keep writing, I'll write my way into areas of worry or concern, so, let's all recite with Scarlett: "I'll think about that tomorrow, when I'm stronger."
I started the morning working on spring adjunct schedules with my colleague Allen, who will take over my "evening supervisor" position for the spring. I found I was getting more confused about days and times than usual--partly because I was trying to work without having the schedule grid in front of me, which is what I do when I'm alone. I finally realized that was the problem, and went back to my usual practice of comparing the days/times on the faculty preference form to the days/times on the grid, writing down the section designations, and then seeing if anything fit. It's a teeny bit laborious, but it sure helps me keep from assigning someone a M/W section when all they want is T/Th, for instance....
P&B was easy: a fair amount of simply sharing institutional memory with the newer members of the committee, and Bruce reported that so far, the administration seems OK with what we're doing regarding seminar hours. So, whew on that.
And both classes went fine. I did, in fact, put students in pairs to outline each others' papers, and they did pretty well with that--certainly they seemed to be giving each other good feedback. I gave an option to the students who were there without papers: take off and work on your paper (or your chem homework or whatever: how would I know?) and submit the paper before the expiration of the "late submission" period--or hang out and I'll come around and talk to each of you about any snags you might be encountering. And, across both sections, all but one opted to stay--and the one who left said she was almost finished with the paper, just had a little more to do. Fair enough. I think the process worked pretty well for everyone--especially, I think, fir the two bright students who've been falling down on submitting work. Both had good questions and were bringing up important concerns.
Little Miss Arrogant wasn't in the least arrogant: in fact, she seemed to doubt her own process and to genuinely want to understand from me how to go about reaching a thesis. She'd been trying to narrow down a plan, paragraph by paragraph, but was worried because she usually ends up changing her thesis over and over. I assured her that that is, in fact, what should happen--except for the narrow, paragraph by paragraph part. Instead, she should write her ideas out in vast, enormous, uncensored detail, chew through the argument, both sides, all the information, as comprehensively as possible. Only then will she really be able to see what matters, what she's really working to prove or persuade her readers to believe--and what her strongest points are.
The Young Intellectual (the frequently AWOL member of the buddy team) had gotten some wonderful pointers from a friend of his and wanted to find out if they would work for this assignment. Absolutely yes. In fact, I want him to tell me again the three words his friend used to explain what a paper can do: it can confirm, refute, or ... and I forget the third one. At least I think that was the language, but in any event, I want to adopt it myself, or at least have it in mind to tweak, as it does help clarify what needs to happen in an academic paper. The problem for the Young Intellectual is that he can easily argue both sides against the middle, so he wasn't sure what kind of stand to take. I honestly can't remember where we left things, but I think he has a clearer sense of how to tackle the problem.
The other thing I said--and I said it to the Introverted Intellectual in the later section too--was that it's perfectly OK to say 1) For these reasons, and for the purposes of this paper, we will accept X as a given (noting that it's important that there is sufficient support for readers to grant the premise) and 2) There are seven different aspects of this issue that are important to consider, but for the purposes of this paper, I am only going to focus on these three. They're both working on a more sophisticated level than their classmates, but that added layer of sophistication means that they have to be a great deal more selective in what their overall claim in order to keep the paper within the length limits.
Then there's the young man whose brother was in last year's Fiction Writing class: I guess I'll call him The Tangential Philosopher, as he tends to ask huge, abstract questions that are at best tangentially related to what we're talking about. Today, he really came out of left field: I was in the middle of setting things up so I could show two students how to narrow search results in the databases, and he suddenly asked, "Professor, do you believe in aliens, extraterrestrials?" I just answered the question (in brief: I do believe that probably, somewhere in the universe, life as we know it has evolved on some other planet, but I do not believe that any of that life has ever visited--or probably ever will visit--this planet). Now I wish I'd asked him what made him ask. He really wants to get into conspiracy theory kinds of topics, and his initial idea for his topic, about cyber-war and cyber-security, would have made a good idea for a doctoral thesis but was just the slightest bit too ambitious and large for a 5-7 page freshman composition paper. I tried to get him to narrow things down, too, but with less success than I had with the two Intellectuals.
I find I'm actually looking forward to reading most of the papers--in part because I'm not deluding myself into believing they'll be any better than anything else I've read this semester. At the end of the second class, I had a relatively long talk with one student--one of the young mothers--who is struggling to figure out how to use support in her papers. We looked at two paragraphs together: in one, she was setting up a hypothetical situation--no need for "support" but desperate need for formality of language; in the other, she was referring to studies, percentages--and there were no citations anywhere. I was able to show her a paragraph from the Introverted Intellectual's paper that indicated how to cite paraphrase, and we reviewed again how to treat paraphrase versus quotation (and the ways in which both have the same requirements).
That was an excellent reminder to me that I need to go over all that again. I mentioned it in the first section, too, as a young woman in the class indicated she wasn't fully clear about it. But I probably need to drive it home yet again, and yet again, and yet again. This is quotation. This is paraphrase. Both need citation boundaries (so readers know when your use of someone else's ideas starts and when it stops).
Lather, rinse, repeat.
I have a pretty good idea how I'm going to approach the remainder of the classes for the rest of the term, in all my classes, which is a nice feeling. And, just before starting this blog post, I had the pleasure of interviewing a potential new adjunct who I think will be a great addition to the pool. He may face a pretty steep learning curve, dealing with community college students, but I think he can handle it, and certainly, his credentials are sterling, as were his answers to the interview questions.
So, as I said, all in all, a good day. I'm afraid if I keep writing, I'll write my way into areas of worry or concern, so, let's all recite with Scarlett: "I'll think about that tomorrow, when I'm stronger."
Monday, December 1, 2014
Could be worse...
...could be raining.
No, quotations from Young Frankenstein aside, it really could be worse--or could have been, more accurately. I was afraid I was going to be frantic with trying to get things marked to return to the 101 students, but--fortunately for me (not so much for the students)--five students from the earlier section have not yet submitted an important component of their second papers, either the first versions (for those who submitted a first version) or the upload to Turnitin.com. And I won't grade the papers without the complete submission. So that saved me a lot of time.
The down-side of that, of course, is that tomorrow, I'll be collecting the first version of their final papers. Assuming they turn those in on time and also submit the stuff they're missing from their second papers, I'll be frantic trying to get everything marked and back to the little rotters by Thursday--though, honestly, I'm not likely to bust my gut trying to get papers back to them when they've been so lax about submitting all the components.
I'm also considering how to run classes between now and when the final versions of their papers are due. I'm wondering whether I should set up individual appointments with them next week, since we've made the second version optional: that way, I can work with each student on his or her paper for a slightly longer period of time and the other students don't have to wait around while I do. I have to figure out the math--X number of class minutes divided among X number of students--to see if I can get them all in using just the regularly scheduled class time. If not, I won't do it; I'll just have them all show up, every class, and try to figure out something substantive for them to work on while I circulate around the room, providing guidance where it's needed.
If I go with that second option (and honestly, that's probably how things will go), I'm debating whether they'd get anything out of pairing up and outlining a partner's paper, using the "post-outline" strategy that I frequently recommend (and which I've used to good effect in my own writing). I might have to concoct a form for that, just to help them get how it's supposed to work: by and large, they are very concrete thinkers, so providing that kind of scaffolding can be highly useful, perhaps even necessary.
But that's all looking forward. Looking back, the Fiction Writing class was fun today--and yes, partly because there were so few students whose stories were in line to be workshopped that we ended up reading through one of my stories. I did make the offer to do that process with their writing, have student volunteers as the writers whose work is read and evaluated paragraph by paragraph that way--but they were pretty unanimous in preferring to do it with my work. I imagine there are a number of reasons why (including that they don't have to think quite as hard--and, as they said, the process is enjoyable: they like reading my stories), but the main thing is for them to get something out of the experience. I think they are: one student noted that the story in question was third-person focused narration, and they asked if that was difficult to do. (Not for me, but I can see how it could be.) My sweet student from semesters past pointed out a few places where I could do more "show," less "tell": she's absolutely right, and I'm grateful to her for pointing those places out to me. So, unless I have some brilliant idea between now and a week from Wednesday, that's what we'll be doing until we workshop their final stories.
Interesting to note that the Brit is conspicuously AWOL. He was supposed to send his third story to me via e-mail for me to distribute to the other students. He didn't. He wasn't in class today. I have no idea where he is or what's going on, but clearly I'm going to need to have a serious talk with the young man when he returns to class. But the class went very well without him--and one of the things I liked best about the critiques today is that two of the young men had worked hard to write in a different stylistic voice than their previous stories, and both ended up producing their best work to date. Very nice.
Not much else to report from the trenches today. I'll be in working on spring adjunct schedules tomorrow morning--and a student from last semester (very quiet, shy, retiring young woman) has asked to talk to me about something, all very mysterious, so I'm looking forward to finding out what that's about. And I have an interview with a potential adjunct tomorrow evening. So that will be a day. And I'll call this one a day, now, too.
No, quotations from Young Frankenstein aside, it really could be worse--or could have been, more accurately. I was afraid I was going to be frantic with trying to get things marked to return to the 101 students, but--fortunately for me (not so much for the students)--five students from the earlier section have not yet submitted an important component of their second papers, either the first versions (for those who submitted a first version) or the upload to Turnitin.com. And I won't grade the papers without the complete submission. So that saved me a lot of time.
The down-side of that, of course, is that tomorrow, I'll be collecting the first version of their final papers. Assuming they turn those in on time and also submit the stuff they're missing from their second papers, I'll be frantic trying to get everything marked and back to the little rotters by Thursday--though, honestly, I'm not likely to bust my gut trying to get papers back to them when they've been so lax about submitting all the components.
I'm also considering how to run classes between now and when the final versions of their papers are due. I'm wondering whether I should set up individual appointments with them next week, since we've made the second version optional: that way, I can work with each student on his or her paper for a slightly longer period of time and the other students don't have to wait around while I do. I have to figure out the math--X number of class minutes divided among X number of students--to see if I can get them all in using just the regularly scheduled class time. If not, I won't do it; I'll just have them all show up, every class, and try to figure out something substantive for them to work on while I circulate around the room, providing guidance where it's needed.
If I go with that second option (and honestly, that's probably how things will go), I'm debating whether they'd get anything out of pairing up and outlining a partner's paper, using the "post-outline" strategy that I frequently recommend (and which I've used to good effect in my own writing). I might have to concoct a form for that, just to help them get how it's supposed to work: by and large, they are very concrete thinkers, so providing that kind of scaffolding can be highly useful, perhaps even necessary.
But that's all looking forward. Looking back, the Fiction Writing class was fun today--and yes, partly because there were so few students whose stories were in line to be workshopped that we ended up reading through one of my stories. I did make the offer to do that process with their writing, have student volunteers as the writers whose work is read and evaluated paragraph by paragraph that way--but they were pretty unanimous in preferring to do it with my work. I imagine there are a number of reasons why (including that they don't have to think quite as hard--and, as they said, the process is enjoyable: they like reading my stories), but the main thing is for them to get something out of the experience. I think they are: one student noted that the story in question was third-person focused narration, and they asked if that was difficult to do. (Not for me, but I can see how it could be.) My sweet student from semesters past pointed out a few places where I could do more "show," less "tell": she's absolutely right, and I'm grateful to her for pointing those places out to me. So, unless I have some brilliant idea between now and a week from Wednesday, that's what we'll be doing until we workshop their final stories.
Interesting to note that the Brit is conspicuously AWOL. He was supposed to send his third story to me via e-mail for me to distribute to the other students. He didn't. He wasn't in class today. I have no idea where he is or what's going on, but clearly I'm going to need to have a serious talk with the young man when he returns to class. But the class went very well without him--and one of the things I liked best about the critiques today is that two of the young men had worked hard to write in a different stylistic voice than their previous stories, and both ended up producing their best work to date. Very nice.
Not much else to report from the trenches today. I'll be in working on spring adjunct schedules tomorrow morning--and a student from last semester (very quiet, shy, retiring young woman) has asked to talk to me about something, all very mysterious, so I'm looking forward to finding out what that's about. And I have an interview with a potential adjunct tomorrow evening. So that will be a day. And I'll call this one a day, now, too.
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