Friday, January 31, 2014

Class Report, ENGL 1113.006 and ENGL 1113.007, 20140131

For ENGL 1113.006
Class began as scheduled at 11:30am in Classroom Building Room 108.  The class roster listed nineteen students, unchanged since the last class meeting.  Eighteen attended.

For ENGL 1113.007
Class began as scheduled at 12:30pm in Classroom Building Room 122.  The class roster listed nineteen students, unchanged since the last class meeting.  Seventeen attended.

For Both Classes
Discussion covered student impressions of the literacy narrative, a draft of which was submitted for instructor review in advance of the final assignment due date next Friday.  Discussion also covered rhetorical orders and some points of interest in self-review and proofreading.

Students were informed that a quiz is forthcoming.

Class Report, ENGL 2543.002, 20140131

Class began as scheduled at 9:30am in Morrill Hall Room 202.  The class roster listed twenty students, unchanged from last class meeting.  Seventeen attended.

Discussion closed out Beowulf.  Noted were patterns of foe-defeating; those who oppose Beowulf in the text tend to end up at the bottom of bodies of water.  Also remarked upon were the focus on the dragon-hoard in the final section of the poem and the impending doom of the Geats at the hands of their enemies.  Some cultural appropriations were noted as being examples of the kind of phenomena that can be treated in the research projects.

Attendance was taken through an informal writing exercise.  Students were exhorted to keep up with the readings and carry out the discussion board work.

Wesan ge hal!

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Class Report, ENGL 1113.006 and ENGL 1113.007, 20140129

For ENGL 1113.006
Class began as scheduled at 11:30am in Classroom Building 108.  The class roster listed nineteen students, unchanged from last class meeting.  Seventeen attended.

A lively class discussion covered concerns of the literacy narrative, smooth entry into papers, smooth departure out of papers, and basic transitions among papers.  Student participation as a whole was appropriate in terms of content and extent.

Attendance was taken via an informal writing assignment. Students were reminded to keep up with reading and to be sure to submit the instructor review draft of the literacy narrative via D2L before the beginning of class time on Friday.

For ENGL 1113.007
Class began as scheduled at 12:30pm in Classroom Building 122.  The class roster listed nineteen students, unchanged from last class meeting.  Fifteen attended.

Discussion covered concerns of the literacy narrative as well as smooth entry into and departure out of written work.  Dicsussion was still overwhelmingly professor-driven instead of student-driven, although some students did participate appropriately as individuals. The lack of engagement suggests that alternative means of assessment, such as additional quizzes, will be necessary.

Attendance was taken via an informal writing assignment.  Students were reminded to keep up with reading and to be sure to submit the instructor review draft of the literacy narrative via D2L before the beginning of class time on Friday.

Class Report, ENGL 2543.002, 20140129

Class began as scheduled at 9:30am in Morrill Hall Room 202.  The class roster listed twenty students, unchanged since the last class meeting.  Fourteen attended.

Class discussion asked after work on research papers, abstracts for which are due on 14 February 2014.  (Class discussion incorrectly asserted 7 February as the due date, conflating assignments with those in another course.  The error is regretted.)  It also returned to Beowulf, following student inquiry about gender roles and relations, particularly as applied to Grendel's mother.  Issues of naming of the character were voiced.

Attendance was taken via a quiz that emulates the first section of the summative exam.  In the interests of collecting student assessment data and of offering preparation for the first section of the exam, more such quizzes will be offered in the weeks to come.  (The discussion board posts are practice for the second section of the exam.)

Students are urged to continue reading deeply and carefully.  Discussions have been good, and it is hoped they will remain so.

Monday, January 27, 2014

Class Report, ENGL 1113.006 and ENGL 1113.007, 20140127

For ENGL 1113.006
Class began as scheduled at 11:30am in Classroom Building Room 108.  The class roster listed nineteen students enrolled, unchanged from the previous class meeting.  Eighteen attended.

Class discussion focused on concerns of improving the literacy narrative.  Of particular concern were the need to show instead of tell, develop sympathy for the protagonist/antipathy for the antagonist, be mindful of denotation and connotation, and be wary of the thesaurus (using it only in tandem with a reliable dictionary).  Some discussion of the Sedaris memoir ensued.

Attendance was taken informally.

For ENGL 1113.007
Class began as scheduled at 12:30pm in Classroom  Building Room 122.  The class roster listed nineteen students enrolled, unchanged from the previous class meeting.  Fourteen attended.

Class opened with a simple reading quiz as a direct result of previous class meetings being insufficiently student-driven.  It is hoped that the exercise will serve as motivation for students to be more active in classroom discussion.

Concerns of the literacy narrative were foremost.  Discussion of the Ortiz Cofer memoir as offering examples of techinque took place.  Noted was a prevalent opinion that multiple examples make for bad reading; concerns of evidence and explanation thereof will need to be addressed.

Attendance was assessed via the reading quiz.

For Both Classes
Students are reminded that discussion drives instruction far better than quizzes, but that quizzes will be forthcoming if discussion is lacking.  Students are also reminded that the instructor review draft is due before class begins on Friday; work to revise and improve from the peer review draft is strongly encouraged.

Class Report, ENGL 2543.002, 20140127

Class began as scheduled at 9:30am in Morrill Hall Room 202.  Prior to class, a recording of W. Francis McBeth's Beowulf--An Heroic Trilogy was played to set the mood for discussion and to highlight the mutlimedia nature of appropriations and refigurations of literature.

The class roster displayed twenty students, one fewer than at the last class meeting.  Of them, fifteen attended.

Discussion focused on context of Beowulf, offering comments about major editions and critical works.  Devices such as apposition and kennings were covered in brief.  Information about the runic insertions into the text was provided.

Attendance was taken through informal writing exercise.  Students are exhorted to keep up with the assigned reading and to be at work on their research projects; some are already doing so, and it is expected that their products will show the results of greater time and attention devoted to them.

Saturday, January 25, 2014

A Comment about the Spring 2014 Literacy Narrative

The literacy narrative I assigned to my students at Oklahoma State University in the Spring 2014 term focuses on redeeming a literacy experience thought negative at the time of its occurrence.  I have exhorted my students to consider something bad that has happened to them in terms of their literacy and to look for how that thing has been made good in the time since.  My initial, and admittedly cursory, review of their drafts has shown me that many students are focusing too much on the bad and not enough upon how it has become good for them; the latter is treated in a paragraph or two at most, when it really ought to be the bulk of the paper.  (And I have tried to model it in the literacy narrative example I posted for them.)

The specific prompt of the assignment is something I take from my experience as a graduate student.  Early in my master's curriculum, I had a class in how to teach composition.  (I am fortunate to have been explicitly trained in how to do so; I know that many who are asked to teach that most common college course are asked to do so without the benefit of such a thing.)  Part of doing so involved the students in the class discussing what brought them into the study of English, particularly at the graduate level.  I will not go into the details of my own discussion, although I will note that the essay I wrote (badly) in response to the assignment has the subtitle "My Plan B in English."  The professor (who has since moved on to publish more excellent scholarship and to take on an administrative position at a prestigious, if relatively small, school) left on it a comment indicating that her hope for me was that I would be able to someday rewrite the piece as a success story.

I am not in such a place yet as will allow me to do so.  But I am in such a place that I can hope my own students will begin for themselves the work I have not yet completed and can therein perhaps not continue to abuse themselves with misconceptions about their own failures.  I can hope that they do not make the mistakes I have made; that they will err is certain, as it is for us all, but I hope that they will make new and better mistakes.

And, just to clarify, I had determined the topic before I read this piece.  But I appreciate the piece, nonetheless, and recommend it to my students (again) for their consideration.

Friday, January 24, 2014

Class Report, ENGL 1113.006 and ENGL 1113.007, 20140124

For ENGL 1113.006
Class began as scheduled at 11:30am in Classroom Building Room 108.  Nineteen students were listed on the roster, unchanged from the previous class meeting.  Sixteen attended.

Class was taken up by peer review of the literacy narrative.  Drafts present were assigned completion grades depending on amount of text available.

For ENGL 1113.007
Class began as scheduled at 12:30pm in Classroom Building Room 122.  Nineteen students were listed on the roster, unchanged from the previous class meeting.    Seventeen attended.

Class was taken up by peer review of the literacy narrative.  Drafts present were assigned completion grades depending on amount of text available.

Students were exhorted to read the Ortiz Cofer and Roman pieces for Monday.

Class Report, ENGL 2543.002, 20140124

Class began as scheduled at 9:30am in Morrill Hall, Room 202.  Twenty-one students were listed on the class roster, unchanged since last class meeting.  Sixteen attended, with one of the absent students accounted for via previous contact.

Discussion noted the problem in the calendar of Dionysius Exiguus before moving into the Germanic heroic ethos and its interaction with Dream of the RoodSpeculum was recommended as a resource for students seeking to work on projects treating the medieval.

Attendance was taken via informal writing.  Students are exhorted to continue reading--Beowulf  is the text assigned for next week--and to be diligently at work on standing projects.

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Sample Literacy Narrative: Recognizing a Dissertation Error

Students, please find below a draft of an example of the kind of writing expected from you in your literacy narrative, as discussed here. When formatted for submission as a paper (which it currently is not, owing to the differences in media), it is of approximately three and a third pages in length, comfortably within what is acceptable for your own submissions.

One of the things expected of those in the professoriate is that they will publish books, the first of which for those professing in the humanities is usually revision and expansion of the dissertation.  It might seem counter-intuitive to need to do so; the dissertation is supposed to be a capstone experience in which a scholar demonstrates the ability to make an original contribution to human knowledge.  It is supposed to be a highly polished product of years of intensive study and research, thoroughly vetted by several already-established professors, and defended in an open forum from the attacks of colleagues and the occasional departmental enemy.  To think it is not good enough boggles the mind--yet it is the case that dissertations need revision.

I have been at slow work on my own, poring once again over the pages that I pored over for years on the way to earning my doctorate, reading again the words I have written.  In doing so, it occurred to me that I ought to follow up on one of the footnotes in my dissertation.  The note seemed to be a good idea for a paper, and I need to get more papers written so that my students appear the better for having studied under my kind tutelage, and so I began to do a bit of research to see if the idea voiced in it, an idea proceeding from one of the major assertions of the analysis underlying my second dissertation chapter, would work.  And I found to my dismay that it did not; I had used something fundamentally wrong to support a full chapter of my dissertation.

The realization embarrassed me greatly, and in that shame, I began again to question my worth.  Had I wasted the years spent in study (a question already too much prevalent among those who study the humanities)?  Had the time reading deeply and putting words together well and revising those words against the sometimes harsh comments of my committee members been for nothing?  Had I been promoted out of pity or out of political concerns rather than because of my merits as a scholar?  Was I a fraud to think that I have any expertise in literature?  Did I deserve to get to do what I do, to enjoy what is still in some senses a privileged position as a professor of the humanities?  My head reeled with such questions and began to range to darker ones yet, and hope began to flee from me.

The development of new knowledge begins with questions, however, and those I asked myself in a frenetic approach to despair began to lead me to other ideas.  Perhaps, if my receipt of the degree was political, I was used, but used to an end worth achieving.  Perhaps my committee had not noticed the error because even my faulty knowledge in the field surpassed their own--and they are mighty among scholars, so that it is no small thing to stand above them in even so small a way and so limited a set of circumstances.  Perhaps the error had escaped attention because it was overshadowed by the other points of proof in the chapter and in the dissertation as a whole, and if it is the case that my other work was so good, I have every right to take pride and be confident in it.

That pride, though, ought to motivate me not to rest easy upon success, but to build upon it and thus come to enjoy more success.  If my dissertation is deficient, I have a place in which to improve.  If the avenue through which I had thought to develop new knowledge and understanding is closed, its pavement torn up to expose the pipes as corroding away, I can turn to find an alternate route, one that may well offer better scenery or a shorter trip than that to which I had become accustomed.  Exploring it will help me to better know the geography of the texts I study, and that cannot but improve my ability to conduct work in the field.

Emboldened by such thoughts, I considered the matter further (although I note with some chagrin that the consideration interfered with my work on revising the dissertation).  In recognizing the error, I was reminded that no work of human writing is ever truly finished; there is always more to be said, always more to be discovered, and so no statement of learning ever truly concludes.  Even if I cease to work on a project, another may take it up, responding to what I write as my writing responds to that which others do.  Improvement is always possible, and there is some comfort in recalling that.  Certainly, such comfort upbuoyed me as I regarded my dissertation.

Too, I found a strange solace in the reminder to be humble.  I exulted in the completion of my dissertation; I shouted for joy when I sent the final draft of it to my committee members, and I danced in jubilation when they said to me over the phone (for I defended my dissertation remotely from New York City to my graduate school in southwest Louisiana) "Congratulations, Dr. Elliott."  It was fitting that I do so; I had labored on it long, and the labor was not easy, for I had to secure the approval of four professors, and their opinions were neither kindly couched nor always in accord with one another.  Yet I needed to remember that the dissertation is only one thing, one small part of the human knowledge I had advanced; more was already known than I will ever know, and certainly there is more to add to it.  And against that awesome truth, even while celebration is at times warranted, humility is appropriate.

As I think on the matter again while I write about it, a notion related to that of humility occurs to me: the error is a useful piece of my teaching.  Since my earliest childhood, I have known that I am supposed to be in the classroom, whether in the seats or standing in front of them.  There are times as an instructor that I have looked out over my students and felt the power my hard-won knowledge gives me over them.  I fall too easily into condemnation of them because I approach the world from the perspective of my study; the recognition of error serves to remind me that I am still very much learning, and so I ought to have a little more compassion for those who have not struggled to do so for so long as I have and are therefore not yet where I now stand.  It also serves to show my students that the process of revision is one all who will write must perform.  I am not exempt from it despite my graduate degrees in English and years of experience teaching writing, so they who have yet to do such things should not think that they are themselves removed from the need to improve their work.  And it allows me to model one of the many things I hope my students learn from my instruction; with luck, my doing so may at some point serve as a guide for their own labors in that regard.

Even in its deficiency, then, the dissertation has worked to better me as a scholar.  I have a focus for the development of new knowledge because of it, and I can improve upon how I disseminate that knowledge.  Thus, I address both of the scholar's tasks and hopefully make things better for those who will follow after me.

Class Report, ENGL 1113.006 and ENGL 1113.007, 20140122

For ENGL 1113.006
Class began as scheduled at 11:30am in Classroom Building Room 108.  The class roster displayed nineteen students, with one student having dropped and another having enrolled since the previous class meeting.  Eighteen were in attendance.

Class discussion covered concerns of the literacy narrative, of which a draft is due for peer review on Friday.  As part of discussion of rhetorical situations, the Aristotelian rhetorical triangle was mentioned and briefly outlined; discussion of ethos was expanded to incorporate information from Lisa Shaver's College English article "'No cross, no crown': An Ethos of Presence in Margaret Prior's Walks of Usefulness."  Attendance was taken via informal writing assignment asking after preferred riddle topics.

For ENGL 1113.007
Class began as scheduled at 12:30pm in Classroom Building Room 122.  The class roster displayed no changes since the previous class meeting.  All students listed were in attendance.

Class discussion covered concerns of the literacy narrative, of which a draft is due for peer review on Friday.  Clarification of assignment guidelines was offered.  Discussion ranged (informally) to reader response theory approaches to resolution of the literacy narrative.  Noted in the discussion was a disturbing lack of engagement by many members of the class.  The tendency is unwelcome.

Comments
The differences in engagement and enthusiasm between the classes is somewhat startling.  Some explanation may lie in simple timing; ENGL 1113.007 is proximal to lunch, with concerns relating thereo perhaps accounting for the relative dearth of participation by students in the class.  Corrective measures will need to be applied if improvement is not forthcoming in haste.

Class Report, ENGL 2543.002, 20140122

Class began as scheduled at 9:30am in Morrill Hall, Room 202.  Twenty-one students were listed on the roster, four fewer than at last class meeting.  Seventeen attended.

Discussion centered on the Anglo-Saxon elegy, including the problems of the term (noted by Klinck and Magennis) and cultural contexts supporting the elegaic mood.

Students are exhorted to keep in mind questions of what is mourned in the elegies and to continue reading.  Work on abstracts and research papers is strongly recommended.

A Comment about Why This Matters

In almost every term and in almost every class, I get the question of why what I ask my students to do matters.  Several answers are forthcoming, which I need not repeat; they may be read at the links below:

http://blogs.hbr.org/2012/07/i-wont-hire-people-who-use-poo/ (yes, the URL is funny)
http://m.chronicle.com/article/Ahas-Ahead/143867/
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/01/01/258674011/editing-your-lifes-stories-can-create-happier-endings?utm_medium=Email&utm_source=share&utm_campaign

To them I add the notion that the increasing media-saturation in which all of us are embedded serves to present increasing numbers of symbols at varying degrees of overtness and abstraction.  Being able to recognize and interpret them, using that interpretation to drive understanding of the things containing the symbols, the things being represented in the symbols, those who propagate the symbols, and we who perceive the symbols is therefore increasingly important.  Among many other things, my classes teach the recognition and interpretation of symbol.

I have said in class that the world tries to mess with our heads.  The symbols are a major avenue for doing so.  Drive well rather than being run over.

Friday, January 17, 2014

Sample Abstract: "Which Way I Fly Is Middle-earth; Myself Am Middle-earth"

The text below is a sample of an abstract which I take from another website I maintain.  It was submitted to a conference at which it was subsequently presented.

Much of the scholarly attention which has been devoted to Tolkien since the publication of The Lord of the Rings has focused on the Northern European derivation of the characters, cultures, and terms in his works.  Certainly, the author's own comments regarding his articulation of language in the works--notably Appendix F in Lord of the Rings and several of the author's notes in "Cirion and Eorl and the Friendship of Gondor and Rohan" in Unfinished Tales--and his own professional background substantiate such and approach.  Too, the assertions of such critics as Lin Carter support the Northern sources of Tolkien's work.

While assertions of Northern European derivation of the Middle-earth corpus are valid (even the name "Middle-earth" evokes images of Odin and Thor), a number of other critics, such as John Gough, Kathleen E. Dubs, and Kathleen O'Neill, postulate that Tolkien's works operate in a more Christian than Northern Pagan mode.  Such critics, while not inarticulate in their assertions, have yet to adequately explore what may be one of the strongest parallels between Christian theological writings and parts of the Middle-earth corpus; the correspondences between Milton's Paradise Lost and Tolkien's creation narratives are prominent, but largely unexplored.  Conducting such an exploration would serve to more fully ground Tolkien's work in the English Christian context others have asserted as being present.

Class Report, ENGL 1113.006 and 1113.007, 20140117

ENGL 1113.006 began as scheduled, at 11:30am in room 108 of the Classroom Building.  Nineteen students were listed on the roster, with no changes since the previous meeting.  All attended.

ENGL 1113.007 began as scheduled, at 12:30pm in room 122 of the Classroom Building.  Nineteen students were listed on the roster, with no changes since the previous meeting.  Eighteen attended.

Both sections discussed the results of diagnostic writing; commas with prepositional phrases, the provision of specific details, and over-reliance on the five-paragraph essay format were identified as concerns needing attention.  Also discussed were the ideas of writing as inquiry and academic writing as the creation of new knowledge.  Assignment sheets for the upcoming literacy narrative were distributed and reviewed.

Attendance in ENGL 1113.006 was taken informally due to attendance.  Attendance in ENGL 1113.007 was taken through a brief writing assignment asking after initial thoughts of topics for the literacy narrative.  Both classes received comment-bearing diagnostic essays.

Students are advised to keep up with the assigned readings, as quizzes are likley forthcoming.

Class Report, ENGL 2543.002, 20140117

Class began as scheduled at 9:30am in Morrill Hall 202.  The class roster indicated twenty-five students enrolled in the course, with no new enrollments.  Twenty-one students attended.

Class discussion covered concerns of the research paper, particularly its abstract.  It also ranged into discussions of Gildas and Bede, emphasizing divergences in the presentations of Britain they offer and issues of textual formation and development.

Students were encouraged to continue discussion board work and to develop ideas for the research paper.  Monday is a university holiday; class resumes in earnest on Wednesday.

A Comment Regarding Being Assessed

I have commented about doing a bit of outside writing work.  Being assessed is necessarily part of that.  For one, the client on whose behalf I do the writing has to approve the piece submitted.  I have been fortunate thus far to have accurately understood the assigned guidelines for the pieces I have written, so that they have been accepted with minimal need of additional editing and revision.  (I write "additional" because I do revise and proofread before submitting, usually several times.  I also typically have another person read my work and comment upon it; there are advantages to having married another writing teacher.)

In addition, the agency through which I get my outside work conducts periodic review of its writers.  I am undergoing one such now; how I am classified, and therefore what jobs I can take, depends on the result of the evaluation.  While I am confident in my abilities as a writer, I cannot say that I am not at all apprehensive about being assessed; there is always the nagging doubt about the quality of work, always the conviction that the writing could have been better somehow.  (This is despite the fairly tight turnaround required of most of the outside projects; the assignment is made a day or so before it is due, which does tend to inhibit reflection and distanced consideration.)

Although it seems like it would be a bad thing to continue to have such feelings, that having them is a reason to stop writing, it is not.  Rather, it is an internal motivator for constant work to improve; knowing that I could have done better serves as an impetus for me to do better.  It gives me something which I can prove to myself; it gives me a reason to improve.  And it never fails to do so; there will always be another goal for me to reach, another way I can better myself and my work.  It will never be done, so I will always have a new thing to achieve.

So, students, can you.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Announcement Regarding Exam Scheduling

Students in ENGL 1113.006, be advised: Either I misread the calendar or it changed out from under me, but your final exam is at **10am** on 9 May 2014, rather than the 8am previously noted.  A change to the course calendar posted to the website will be made shortly.

Class Report, ENGL 1113.006 and ENGL 1113.007, 20140115

Both classes started as scheduled, ENGL 1113.006 at 11:30a and ENGL 1113.007 at 12:30p.  Activity in both classes was a diagnostic writing exercise used to ascertain current student writing levels; although student submissions are being evaluated, they are not being graded as such.  Attendance numbers were taken from submitted responses to the exercise, however.

ENGL 1113.006 had eighteen students on the roster, one fewer than last class meeting.  One student was new to the roster.  Seventeen attended.

ENGL 1113.007 had nineteen students on the roster, unchanged in number or students specified from last class meeting.  Seventeen attended.

Students are reminded to read the assigned chapters in the course textbook.  They are warned that reading quizzes are forthcoming if evidence of student engagement with the texts in the form of discussions thereof is not provided.

Class Report, ENGL 2543.002, 20140115

Class began as scheduled at 9:30a in Morrill 202.  Twenty-seven students were listed on the class roster, three fewer than for the previous meeting; one student was new to the course.  Twenty-five students were in attendance.

Discussion centered on what it is to be medieval.  Framing of the idea was established in terms of time and physical geography; fluidity of beginning and ending dates was noted.  A general idea of prevailing tropes and features of medieval life in the British Isles was generated; more enhancement to it is recommended.

As an attendance-taking exercise, students were asked after initial ideas about their research papers.  Instructor comments regarding the ideas are forthcoming; they will not be punitive so much as (in some cases) corrective and suggestive of avenues for refinement and the pursuit of new knowledge.

Monday, January 13, 2014

Class Report, ENGL 1113.006 and ENGL 1113.007, 20140113

For ENGL 1113.006
Class began as scheduled, 11:30am, in Classroom Building, Room 108.  No problems with classroom and equipment were noted.

Nineteen students appeared on the class roster.  All responded as present when roll was called.

Course syllabus and course calendar were discussed in brief. Discussed also were readings assigned to be done before class time on Friday. Students are exhorted to begin attending to assigned work immediately and to seek help as needed.

For ENGL 1113.007
Class began as scheduled, 12:30pm, in Classroom Building, Room 122.  Classroom was a bit warmer than expected or entirely comfortable.

Nineteen students appeared on the class roster. All responded as present when roll was called.

Course syllabus and course calendar were discussed in brief. Discussed also were readings assigned to be done before class time on Friday. Students are exhorted to begin attending to assigned work immediately and to seek help as needed.

A Comment Regarding Reports

During the Spring 2014 term at Oklahoma State University, I will be trying to write brief reports of classroom attendance and activities in the hopes of providing a useful study guide for students.  I do not normally prepare lecture notes ahead of class time, instead setting out with general guidelines of what materials to cover and composing notes along with the discussion as class goes on; posting reports to this webspace will offer students a better chance to review.  Too, it makes use of a resource I know I have not been diligent in employing.

Generally, I mean to record attendance and major points of discussion as well as noting any major assignments made or soon to be due.  Long narratives will likely be lacking.  Other information will appear as needed.

Class Report, ENGL 2543.002, 20140113

Class began as scheduled, 9:20am, in Morrill Hall, Room 202.  Problems with classroom projection technology were noted.

Thirty students appeared on the class roster.  Twenty-five responded when roll was called, but some had departed the classroom due to schedule confusion.

Course syllabus and course calendar were discussed in brief.  Discussed also were the current D2L discussion requirement and readings assigned for be done before class time on Wednesday.  Students are exhorted to begin attending to assigned work immediately and to seek help as needed.

Friday, January 10, 2014

A Comment Regarding Profile Writing

I do some freelance writing work (Shaw's adage about those who cannot does not always apply), and as part of that, I was asked to compose what amounts to a profile of a person who does not exist, one not unlike earlier versions of a standard assignment for my ENGL 1113 classes at Oklahoma State University.  While I cannot discuss the details of the profile I wrote, I can note briefly my experience of writing it.

I was provided with a set of instructions to follow in composing the piece, instructions which were helpful in offering a framework in which to compose.  Not needing to do all of the work of narrowing the topic of the piece made the writing task easier for me, although I will admit that the limitations imposed by the instructions did prevent me from pursuing one or two ideas that might have been entertaining reads.  Still, knowing what dominant impression I needed to convey about the character (if there is a better word for a fictional person, I should like to know it) I was profiling afforded me a convenient focus, and that helped my writing.

Even so, I encountered some difficulty in developing the idea.  I wanted to impart a certain element of tongue-in-cheek humor about the piece, a subtle nod to the fictional nature of the character profiled in the piece I was asked to write.  Owing to my family background, I am aware of some pre-existing fictional constructs that would have indicated the inherent fiction of the character to those aware of those constructs but would have required others to do a bit of basic internet research to get the joke.  When I tried to include them, however, I found that they did not flow organically and authentically for me; they seemed forced, instead.  That I am aware of them does not mean that I have the right to them, and lacking that right made writing about them work less well than I would hope.  Thus, I abandoned those references, scrapping the draft I had made of the piece that included them and starting again.

When I resumed writing, I did so with thoughts of my own sense of place in mind.  My family background makes me aware of things, but my experiential background gives me the right to other things entirely, and it was those things I was able to use in the profile to make what I hope is an effective profile of the character.  Where I have lived, where I have studied, where I have visited, informed the piece, offering it both the authenticity it needed to be an actual profile and the sense of humor, the nod to the fictional nature of the character and a few other erudite jokes, which I hoped to embed in the profile.

I hope that my students can take from this a confirmation of the idea that all writing--not just the profile assignment towards which this comment is most specifically directed, although certainly including it--benefits from the experiential knowledge of the author, something Lisa Shaver calls "situated ethos" in her September 2012 College English piece "'No cross, no crown': An Ethos of Presence in Margaret Prior's Walks of Usefulness."  (I often refer to the article in lecture; my students will do well to read it.)  It is absolutely necessary to do outside research to inform writing, particularly the kind of writing that is done at the collegiate level and for college coursework (even in creative writing classes), but it is also needful to work from lived experience; the latter lends an immediacy and authentic authority to writing that compels, and that compulsion is far from a bad thing.

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

A Comment Regarding Textbook Selection

For the section of ENGL 2543: Survey of British Literature I I am teaching at Oklahoma State University in the Spring 2014 term, I am using the second edition of the Broadview Anthology of British Literature rather than the traditional Norton Anthology.  That the text is not the "usual" selection for such a course is known to me (as is the unfortunate additional cost), but there are reasons that I prefer it.

One of them is tied, I think, to the increased cost.  Compared to the edition of the Norton Anthology available to me when I had to select the textbook for my course, the Broadview offers a broader view (please forgive the wording) of the literary history of the British Isles.  It includes more authors and works outside the traditional canon, and I am making a point of extending my class outside the canon.  This is in part due to comments in Tim William Machan's January 2012 Speculum piece “Chaucer and the History of English" and Ernest Bernhardt-Kabisch's entry on Robert Southey in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography that argue against the use of celebrity figures as the representatives of their times; I am convinced by the line of reasoning that holds that the very exceptionalism from their contemporaries influences celebrities' celebrity.  Thus, to offer a more detailed image of what earlier British literatures were, I look to the anthology that reproduces more of the non-canonical, traditionally transmitted works (although I do not shy away from treating many of the old standards).

Another reason has to do with the versions of the texts presented, my views on which follow from my own coursework during my graduate schooling.  I inherited from my professors there views on the translation of Beowulf conducted by Nobel Laureate Seamus Heany (excellent poet but not the best translator), which is in the Norton Anthology, and of Marie Boroff's translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (one of the better if not the best done yet), which once was but is no longer.  That the one is present and the other absent argues against the Norton.  Also, I like Liuzza's Beowulf as a piece of poetry and as a reasonably accurate philological representation of the text in Cotton Vitellius A.xv, and I like James Winny's work with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight--and both appear in the Broadview Anthology of British Literature.

Yet another is a result of my own scholarly focus.  My MA and PhD were awarded by a department whose mission is explicitly generalist.  Within that literary generalism, however, I focused my attentions on medieval English literature and the ways in which it has been transmitted and appropriated; more narrowly within that, I have attended to Arthurian legendry.  Both my master's thesis and doctoral dissertation explicitly concern themselves with Arthuriana, as do one of my earlier scholarly publications and a number of my conference presentations.  That I am an Arthurianist is fairly well established.  That I would therefore focus my teaching in a survey of earlier British literature on Arthuriana therefore makes sense.  I think that the Broadview Anthology of British Literature does a better job treating Arthuriana than does the Norton, and for that reason, as well as the others I name, I selected it as the textbook for my Spring 2014 section of ENGL 2543: Survey of British Literature I at Oklahoma State University.

Monday, January 6, 2014

Updates to Course Pages

Students in my Spring 2014 classes, please be advised that I have made updates to the course pages for ENGL 1113 and ENGL 2543.  I have also begun to put materials on the relevant D2L pages.  It will be much to your advantage to begin to review materials early; while they will update, having a head start on things is markedly helpful.

I hope to make this semester a good one for everybody involved.  Your preparation will be of great help in doing so.