Monday, December 30, 2013

Regarding a Grading Practice of Mine

When I mark student work, I tend to make end-comments more frequently than I do in-line or sidebar comments.  What usually happens is that I develop a digital form which I keep open in a window alongside that in which I open the document I am evaluating, and as I read the latter, I make comments in the former.  From those comments, I determine the assessment I will accord to the student document, and the score and my comments are appended to the end of the student document before I send it back to the student and enter the grade into my records.  This allows me to evaluate papers fairly quickly while still allowing for reasonably thorough assessment.

It also allows me to set up yet more practice for my students.  I have found that when I do leave in-line or sidebar comments, my students make no other adjustments to their papers than the things specifically commented-upon.  When there are systemic issues, they are not corrected throughout the students' papers, and the students tend to repeat the same errors in future work.  (Too, if I do miss one or two errors--as happens, since I am but human--they are not corrected when the students go back over their work if all the students do is "fix" what is marked.)  Offering end-comments, however, denies the students the easy fix-what-is-marked-and-everything-else-is-fine option for correction.  It requires students, if they will actually work to improve upon their papers (and several have told me that they do not), to read through their work carefully, paying attention not only to the surface-level concerns that they and many members of the general public equate with "good" writing, but to the deeper issues of content and style that actually make for good writing.  Admittedly, it involves more work for students, prompting complaints (oddly frequently from the same students who will beg for extra credit opportunities), but it also involves the kind of self-evaluation and assessment that typifies good writing, meaning that it is a valuable exercise for students to do.

Friday, December 27, 2013

Beginning Comments Regarding the Spring 2014 Term at Oklahoma State University

I have received my teaching schedule for the Spring 2014 term at Oklahoma State University.  As of this writing, I am teaching the following:
Now that I am back from my own break, I am at work putting together materials for the class new to me and revising materials from classes I have taught before so that I can improve my performance in the coming term.  Some (hopefully) useful information is already online.

Calendars for the upcoming term are not among the materials currently posted.  I do not anticipate being away from classes for conference work this term, but I do expect to be called away for one or two class meetings in late March for family business.  The date is yet to be determined, although the event is expected.  More information in that regard will be posted as it becomes available.

Until then, please check this webspace and the course pages for updates and additional information.  I look forward to returning to the work of teaching.

Friday, December 13, 2013

Yet More Concluding Comments for the Fall 2013 Term at Oklahoma State University

More preliminary results from my Fall 2013 classes are available. For my ENGL 3323: Technical Writing classes, of which I had two, the following is true:
  • Total end-of-term enrollment: 35 (17 in earlier section, 18 in later)
  • Average course grade: B (819/1000 in earlier section, 787/1000 in later)
  • Number of students earning A (900+/1000 points): 0
  • Number of students earning F (<600/1000 points): 1, for procedural reasons
What I am to make of the data is still not clear to me.

More Concluding Comments for the Fall 2013 Term at Oklahoma State University

Some preliminary results from my Fall 2013 classes are available.  For my ENGL 1113: Composition I classes, of which I had two, the following is true:
  • Total end-of-term enrollment: 33 (15 in earlier section, 18 in later)
  • Average course grade: C (715/1000 in earlier section, 752/1000 in later)
  • Number of students earning A (900+/1000 points): 0
  • Number of students earning F (<600/1000 points): 2, both for procedural reasons
What I am to make of the data is not yet clear to me.

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Some Concluding Comments for the Fall 2013 Term at Oklahoma State University

I realize that I have been far from diligent in maintaining this webspace this term.  I will not make excuses for the deficiency, although I will note that it seems to have not affected student performance substantially; the average grades in the four classes I taught this term seem to be much as they were at comparable institutions, as does the distribution of individual assignment grades.  I take some small comfort in knowing that my deficiency has not translated into student deficiency.

Even so, I am annoyed by my lack of performance even more than I have in the past been with demonstrated lacks from my students.  They are in a position to learn, and so errors from them are to be expected.  I am still learning--I am not so arrogant as to believe that I know all that I need to know--but I am supposed to have demonstrated a work ethic superior to that I expect of my students, here and elsewhere.  That I have not done so galls me, despite the lack of actual and enforceable consequences upon me for the lack.

There is perhaps a teachable thing in this.  Even if I am not strictly accountable to others for what I do or do not do here, I am accountable to myself for my in/actions.  The intrinsic motivation demonstrated (if abortively) is something I hope that my students will develop in their own lives as readers and writers; to truly engage with the written word requires that the reason for doing so come from within rather than without.  Indeed, the purpose of the external motivation of the GPA and accolade is to get students--any of us who read and write, really--accustomed to engaging with text so that the internal drive to attend to text and respond to it in kind can be given mental space and material to develop.

Even if it is the case that the internal motivation sometimes falters, as I have shown this term, it is the only real means to find an authentic readerly method and writerly voice, and it is towards the development of those in my students that my teaching is in no small part directed.

Monday, September 30, 2013

Something of a Status Update

I know that this space has not updated as it ought to have during the Fall 2013 term at Oklahoma State University.  I know that I have not been as diligent or prolific in generating source material and examples as I have been in the past.  I do not know, however, that is is having any effect, negative or positive, on the students in my classes or in others, for I receive no comments regarding it from any quarter.  Only the occasional nagging thought reminds me that I ought to attend to this blog, and that thought is quickly buried among the many other things that I have to do to prepare for my classes each week; I happen to have a few minutes free at the moment, too few to begin work on something more involved, so I turn a bit to putting a few words here in the hopes of giving myself a relatively recent comment from which to resume work here as I have elsewhere.

I do welcome comments about this blog and its offerings, as well as the teaching website that I maintain in support of my current classes (I have left off working on the sections pertaining to institutions with which I am no longer affiliated).  They can be appended below or emailed to me at geoffrey.b.elliott@gmail.com; for emails, please indicate the specific entry or page being discussed in the subject line.

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Sample Summary

The following summary is adapted slightly from another blog I maintain.

On 24 June 2013, the online New York Times featured John Kaag's "On Writing with Others."  In the article, Kaag discusses the difficulties he faced in beginning to write explicitly collaboratively, going beyond referring to the writings of others and engaging in writing with others as co-author.  The difficulties inhere in writing as a professor of philosophy, he notes, as philosophers are trained to work as individuals and not in collaboration, as distinct from those in the academic sciences, who almost always author papers and books in groups.  Collaborative authorship, though, as with any collaboration, opens fruitful discussions that precede writing and publication, likely leading to better ideas and better-phrased ideas.  More importantly for Kaag, it guarantees that one other person will read what is written, validating the writing in a way that he and many of his colleagues have sought to be validated since childhood.  It is a useful statement on the value of including others in the writing process.

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Sample Literacy Narrative: A Professor Professes _Profession_

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 four and one-quarter pages in length, easily what is acceptable for your own submissions.

As a scholar working in English studies, I do quite a bit of reading.  Much of it is in academic journals, which I use to further the research I do and to improve the way in which I teach.  The journals thus speak to both parts of my duty as a scholar, even though it is not seldom the case that the articles are somewhat dry and may not speak to my specific set of interests as a literary generalist with an emphasis in late medieval English literature and in contemporary fantasy writings of the United States and the United Kingdom.  They are not always dull, however; some stick out in my mind, becoming common points of reference for me and exerting significant influence on the way in which I conduct myself as a scholar.  Perhaps most notable among these for me is Mark Edmundson's contribution to the 2009 issue of Profession, "Against Readings."

In the article, Edmundson, amid some unfortunately problematic comments, asserts that those involved in teaching texts, people such as myself, "need to befriend the texts we teach" (63).  They are, in his words, "the testaments of human beings who have lived and suffered in the world. They too deserve honor and respect" no less than the people who have produced them (63).  This is true even of the driest piece of technical documentation; someone went to the trouble of putting together the words, and the ideas which the words represent in fleeting bits and ill-defined glimpses, offering in doing some evidence of the writer's existence even if there is no author credited.  It is true of the criticism in which I and my fellow scholars of literature and other writings which may or may not deserve the title perform, examining texts to find out what they reveal about the ideas and attitudes of their writers and the contexts in which they live; in doing such things, we create our own texts that reveal much of who we are and what sort of world it is in which we live.  And the texts we analyze are themselves such testimonies, as our analyses reveal and as the experiences of readers attest.

I initially read the article while I lived in New York City, likely on the subway and probably on the Q train as I traveled from the Parkside Avenue station to that at 57th Street and 7th Avenue.  As is common practice for me, I read with a pencil in hand, marking up the pages as I went along; I know this because the copy I read and annotated sits on a small shelf in my office even now.  Some of the marks are of things with which I take issue in the text, and that is not infrequent in my reading.  But the comments near the end of the article, comments in which Edmundson encapsulates his vision, resonated within me, echoing in my thoughts ever since.  They recalled to me--and still recall to me--something fundamental to my study of English languages and literatures, something rooted deeper within me than the reason I began formal study of the material; they recalled to me the joy in which I began the work and which I had too often neglected under the burdens of teaching while trying to write a dissertation and continue to present research at conferences and publish articles in other academic journals, and of living in New York City, generally.

The joy soon manifested in my writing.  It is frequently the case that those who newly feel joy are eager to share it, to proselytize to others about that thing which has produced the joy, and I was very much in that mood.  In conversations with my co-workers, I repeatedly brought up the article and recommended it to their reading, knowing that the school's library did not have access to the publication, but that the New York Public Library very much did and does.  "Did you read the recent Profession?" I am sure I asked more than one of my fellow instructors, and I am sure I followed up with something like "Did you read Edmundon's article?  You need to read it."  I am sure also that I annoyed them with my insistence, much as many people are annoyed by a small child exulting in the delight at being able to do a new thing or young adults flaunting before wide audiences what they perceive as evidence of their ability to enjoy the sensuality of their bodies.

Like both child and young adult, I did leave off the open and overt rejoicing in my newfound wonder.  But I did not set aside the joy entirely, instead subsuming it into my work.  Aside from in some initial comments I published about the article, my more formal writing works to evidence my befriending the texts I examine.  One way in which friendship is shown is in familiarity, not just in knowing well, but in being able to relax away from formality and the strict dictates of etiquette that ease interactions among those who do not know one another or whose relationships involve much of the critical--as scholarship tends to with its objects.  My writing manifests both types of familiarity, the deep knowledge that is expected of intellectual, academic work in any event, and the transcendence of mannerly barriers of separation.  The acknowledgements page of my dissertation contains two or three quips that would not have appeared had I not held to at least one of the things "Against Readings" says (iv).  Other papers I have given have deployed litotes, a device not seldom used by older Germanic writers as a means to put across a joke, and at least two works I have in the slow process of drafting treat forms of humor as they appear in places where they are not currently recognized.  In putting in and searching out jokes, finding sources and outlets for my giddy joy, I continue to display the echoing effect of "Against Readings" on me.

It is not only therein that I act upon what Edmundson asserts, showing its influence upon me.  The ebullience Edmundson's comments had provoked from me manifests in my scholarly service.  Part of what I have done as a scholar for some years is promote the scholarship of others through proposing special sessions at research conferences.  The happiness, the attempt to befriend my material, that Edmundson asserts is vital to work in the academic humanities, appeared in my doing so as I proposed to one conference a special research session treating taruoscatology--and when the conference organizers contacted me to ask after the proposal, seeking more details, I did not hesitate to note, amid grounding the panel in publications from Princeton University's press and several major academic journals, that "Against Readings" and its thesis that evidencing a personal engagement with the materials being studied informed my putting forth the proposal.  That the proposal was accepted and the session offered to much favorable comment, confirms for me that Edmundson is correct, validating my reliance upon his article's core tenet.

Further validation came in the process of my being hired to teach at a major institution in the middle of the country.  While I was being interviewed for the position, one of the faculty conducting the interview referred to my curriculum vita--indeed to the very tauroscatological panel I had successfully proposed--and asked after my motivations for putting forward such an idea.  The other faculty chuckled a bit at the question, and I smiled deeply before answering much as I had earlier answered the conference organizers.  Once again, in addition to the more formal academic underpinnings of treating the subject matter of the panel itself, I referenced the need expressed in "Against Readings" to recall, and to demonstrate recall, the elation which brings people into the study of the academic humanities as justification for my having proposed such an unorthodox session.  It evidently served me well, for I was offered the position for which I had applied; through the article and what it encouraged me to do, I was able to further my career in academe, enabling me to do more to read and write well and, hopefully, teach others to do the same.

Reading Mark Edmundson's "Against Readings" in the 2009 issue of Profession has been a major influence on my work as a scholar.  It has changed the way in which I work to disseminate information and understanding of how language works.  It has more importantly reminded me that I got into doing so for the joy of it, something that I had neglected to recall and that many of my colleagues in the academic humanities would do well to bring to mind.   Doing so and showing that they are doing so would do much to combat the perception, too often held by people in the world, that what I and my comrades do is a dry, dull, detached thing, devoid of life and joy and not at all worth doing.

Works Cited
  • Edmundson, Mark. "Against Readings." Profession (2009): 56-65. Print.
  • Elliott, Geoffrey. The Establishment of Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur as the Standard Text of English-Language Arthurian Legend. Diss. U. of Louisiana at Lafayette. Ann Arbor: UMI, 2012. PDF file.

Monday, August 26, 2013

A Return to a Reading List

Quite some time back, I mentioned a beginning reading list that I came up with in response to a student question.  While I no longer clearly recall the student or the class in which the student asked the question, I have from time to time revisited the idea of a beginning reading list, something that can serve to help students who may have been less overtly and directly socialized into the mainstream cultural background of the American academic humanities than others to integrate more fully.  It continues to trouble me somewhat that the reading list I discuss in that long-ago post is so heavily Anglo- and male-centric as it is, although I must admit that my own reading has not gone as far outside that set as I should like for it to do.  But there are some additions I can make to it, additions that reflect my desire to be more inclusive and capacious in my reading and that reflect, if in only a small way, the ongoing process of globalization that is affecting the entirety of United States mainstream culture.  They are in no particular order:
  • Musashi, The Book of Five Rings
  • Sun Tzu, The Art of War
  • Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji
  • Cervantes, Don Quixote
  • Margery Kempe, The Book of Margery Kempe
  • Julian of Norwich, Ancrene Riwle
  • Isaac Asimov's Robot and Foundation novels
  • J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings
  • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes writings
  • Austen, Pride and Prejudice
  • Twain, Huckleberry Finn
  • Eliot, "The Waste Land"
  • Buck, The Good Earth
  • Morrison, Beloved and The Bluest Eye
  • O'Brien, The Things They Carried
  • Swift, "A Modest Proposal"
  • Jigoro Kano, Kodokan Judo
  • George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones series
  • John McWhorter, Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care and Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue
  • David Crystal, The Stories of English
  • Harry G. Frankkfurt, On Bullshit
  • Phyllis Wheatley's poetry
  • Anne Bradstreet's poetry
As I noted before, I note again: there are many, many others that can be added to such a list.  Perhaps, in time, I will return to the list again.

Until then, there is this to consider: What does it mean to have a standard reading list?

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

A Belated Opening Comment for the Fall 2013 Term at OSU

As I may have mentioned, I have moved, taking up a position as a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma.  My duties in the position have me teaching four classes, two sections each of ENGL 1113: Composition I and ENGL 3323: Technical Writing.  Each section has nineteen students enrolled, and I admit that I am looking forward to paying more individual attention to my students than my previous work, teaching six or more sections that began with an average of thirty students on the roster, allowed.

I am also looking forward to a return to the traditional American university experience.  I have not had access to it since my graduate work, and even as an undergraduate attending a doctorate institution, I did not have quite so much of it as might be supposed.  The school I went to for my BA is a relatively new creation, dating back no further than 1969.  There are and have been many excellent scholars there, but less than forty years is not time for a great many traditions to develop--and as a medievalist and student of textual transmission and reception, I am interested in traditions.

The lower teaching load ought to allow me more time to work on my own scholarship, as well.  While in my previous position, I did what I could to keep abreast of current research and to contribute to it in conference presentations, but there was only so much that I could do with the teaching load I carried.  With less of that to handle, as well as less time spent in commuting (I was an hour home to office in New York, and now I am half that--and a nice walk, to boot!), I ought to be able to spend more time writing the kinds of things that will help me to find a permanent position in the academic world.

I am quite happy to begin in this new venture, therefore, and I look to make the most of it.

Monday, July 29, 2013

Sample Conference-Length Paper

Students, please find below an example of the kind of paper discussed in detail here.  It derives from the position paper assigned earlier in the Summer 2013 term at TCI.  Accordingly, much of the material in this piece will be familiar to those who have read the previous.

Please note that, as with other examples posted to this blog, the formatting is medium-specific.  The content and pattern are offered as models; the formatting needs to conform to the class standards expressed as "General Paper Formatting Instructions 20130211" here.  When it is formatted appropriately for submission as a paper, it comes out to some six and a half pages, on the shorter end of acceptable length for the assignment.


My study of Japanese martial arts began when I was in sixth grade.  On a field trip, I had been beaten fairly badly by classmates, and my family and I determined that I would thereafter have the means to defend myself from assault.  A friend of the family had made a long study of Korean taekwondo and Japanese classical jiujutsu and offered to take me on as a student in the latter discipline.  In the years since, I have studied Kodokan judo and Aikikai aikido, finding the latter particularly enjoyable.  In no small part, this is because of the difference I have observed among students of jiujutsu, judo, and aikido.  The first seek to be able to render others unable to attack again, the second seek victory in competitions.  Students of Aikikai aikido, however, tend to pursue something different.  The art attracts students who wish to enact a just and ethical peace in the world.

There is, admittedly, something of a disjunction in the idea of a martial art attracting those who seek peace.  Popular media is replete with depictions--and popular ones--of martial artists in various traditions who directly and explicitly seek to wreak harm on others.  The popularity of Ultimate Fighting Championship mixed martial arts competitions offers one set of examples of those who are engaged in the martial arts not for the pursuit of peace, but for its opposite--as well as a financial payout, indicating that the fighting is done from a desire for money long recognized as the root of evil and therefore something far removed from justice and ethics.  In addition, the description of Aikikai aikido as a martial art belies the idea that its practitioners strive for peace.  The word martial means warlike, and war is regarded as the antithesis of peace.  For a person to practice a martial art, then, necessarily means that the person is preparing for war, which would seem to be far removed from the pursuit of any peace, ethical and just or otherwise.

The seeming, however, is only a seeming and not the truth of the matter.  One of the most widely recognized and authoritative commentaries on armed combat, written by Sunzi (more commonly known as Sun Tzu), remarks that "supreme excellence comes from breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting" (97; ch. 3, sec. 2), meaning that it is better to win without fighting than to win through fighting, a remarkable position for a manual of war to take.  It adds to the assertion that the object of war is "victory, not lengthy campaigns" (97; ch. 2, sec. 19), indicating that fighting is to be minimized, which is hardly the most warmongering of comments.  Indeed, it suggests that purpose of war is to return to peace with all haste--and Sun Tzu's comments also insist that high standards of conduct must be maintained.  For example, the text notes that "captured soldiers should be treated kindly and kept" (97; ch. 2, sec. 17), "The consummate leader [of warriors] cultivates the moral law, and strictly adheres to method and discipline" (99; ch. 4, sec. 16), and "soldiers must be treated in the first instance with humanity" (107; ch. 9, sec. 43).  Each bespeaks restraint, control, and compassion--and all three are conducive to the correct and appropriate treatment of others in all circumstances, necessitating the regard for them as people.  Clearly, then, the practice of war is not incommensurate with the establishment of peace, and an ethical and just peace.  Its study, as by those who practice martial arts such as Aikikai aikido, cannot be thusly incommensurate, either.

Part of the Aikikai aikido students' work toward an ethically just peace derives from the fact that aikido is a relatively recently developed Japanese martial art.  The English-language website of the Aikikai Foundation, which is hosted at the world headquarters of organized study of aikido, notes that it was "created during the 1920s by Morihei Ueshiba" and was "Officially recognized by the Japanese government in 1940."  The grandson of Morihei Ueshiba, Moriteru Ueshiba, is the doshu or head of the art and of the Aikikai Foundation, as its website notes, so it is only in its third generation, making it quite young.  The United States Aikido Federation, the major governing body of aikido study in the United States, reinforces the idea of aikido's relative newness, noting on its website that the first aikido dojo was established in 1927.  The time of its creation coincides with a series of world events that point up the problems of ethics and justice attendant upon attempts to dominate groups of people, those leading up to and at the beginning of the Second World War.  During that time, several nations were engaged in the systematic subjugation and destruction of peoples based upon perceived ethnic and racial differences, actions far from respectful of individual dignity and so neither ethical nor just.  Those problems were doubtlessly in the mind of the founder of aikido, commonly called O-Sensei, as he set up his school, and they therefore almost certainly exerted influence on his teachings.  As such, a desire for peace, which cannot exist save in the presence of ethical justice, is tacitly embedded in Aikikai aikido, and so it is those who seek peace who are most likely to study the art.

Moreover, the enactment of an ethical and just peace is an explicit goal of Aikikai aikido.  Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere is a standard textbook on aikido practice, and one written by two early United States students of Aikikai aikido (9).  The authors, Westbrook and Ratti, speak explicitly to the "ethical imperatives" of the art (33).  They note that the "ultimate in ethical self-defense," and the "goal of all aikido self-defense arts," is in neutralizing an unprovoked attack in such a way that the attacker is left alive and without serious injury (34).  The textbook is an influential one, reaching even outside of Aikikai aikido, and it overtly links the pursuit of peace--the neutralization of aggression--with ethical concern for others and an immediate, personal justice--the just and appropriate defense of self against attack (20).  Consequently, it embeds in much study of aikido an aspiration for an ethically just peace, and those who continue to study the art do so in recognition thereof.

Further, the Aikikai Foundation remarks that because "contemporary values stress respect for human life, Aikido is a highly relevant form of the Japanese martial arts."  This necessarily implies that aikido is respectful of persons, which concern is inherent both to ethics and to justice.  More explicitly, the US Aikido Federation notes "Aikido strives for the ultimate goal of peaceful resolution rather than defeat," that its performance works "to subdue and neutralize attackers without serious injury," done "without belittling others, without the intention of harm or fear of injury," but under a "premise of mutual respect and caring."  In emphasizing resolution rather than victory is a direct call for peace and tranquility.  In the goal of not inflicting serious injury is a recognition of the right even the errant have to the integrity of their own bodies, which is a remarkably high ethical standard with which to treat an attacker.  Similarly, in working not only to respect the other participant in the act of aikido (both by refusing to offer insult and to appreciate the potential of the other to enact harm), but to work to the betterment of that other--for what else is caring?--there is a degree of compassion that underlies the highest principles of just conduct.  Each is a fundamental goal of the art, and so each is presented as something towards which students of aikido are expected to strive from their earliest days on the mats of the dojo floor.  They are not easy things towards which to work, and so those who practice the art are necessarily those who have a strong desire to enact a just and ethical peace.

Without such a desire, it is not likely that the student will remain dedicated to the art.  Yet Aikikai aikido tends to attract people who remain in study for decades.  A number of those at my own dojo have been on the mats for thirty years and more.  They would not have done so were there not something peculiar to Aikikai aikido to attract them and retain their interest through injury and child-rearing, relocation and economic worry.  The physical techniques of Aikikai aikido have antecedents and direct parallels in other martial arts (Westbrook and Ratti 30-31), and many of those arts are far more widely studied and accessible.  The uniqueness of Aikikai aikido is in its ethical imperatives, and so it must be in them that the students of the art find what they need to sustain themselves.

It is admittedly true that the initial intention of a thing does not always continue to guide it.  Jude Roberts, for example, argues at length that law is easily turned to ends for which it was never intended--and which can, in fact, be antithetical to the desires of those who frame the laws.  If so revered and solemn a thing as a nation's law can be directed away from its original intent, many other things may, as well, and it follows that a martial art may be similarly shaded away from its first thrust.  In fact, there are many sub-schools which have broken away from their origins.  Students of Aikikai aikido, however, overwhelmingly follow the ethical path established by O-Sensei.  My own study of the art has been influenced by senior practitioners who have told me that those on the mats, practicing the techniques of aikido, are all brothers and sisters, united almost as family in the pursuit of what the art can yield.  Although members of a family might come to strife, the family itself ultimately seeks harmony--and it is in harmony with the world that just and ethical peace is attained.

In addition, one of the foremost instructors of aikido in the world, Yoshimitsu Yamada, remarks on the New York Aikikai's website that "one of [the] goals in studying aikido to emulate as much as possible [O-Sensei's] admirable characteristics," among which are compassion and the elimination of selfishness.  Both regard for others and a willingness to act in the interests of others rather than the self are often held to be primary ideas of both ethics and justice, and enacting them is likely to produce an active tranquility that can easily be called "peace."  Yamada continues to be in a position to influence thousands of students, both directly through his own worldwide teaching (the New York Aikikai's website reports his seminar schedule, which takes him across the Americas and Eurasia) and through his own students having opened dojo of their own (as noted in biographies of the teaching staff of the New York Aikikai).  Accordingly, his views guide much of the practice of aikido, and since his views explicitly speak to adherence to O-Sensei's vision, that initial vision still guides aikido.  Aikido, at least in its main thrust of the Aikikai style, therefore remains tied to the desire for a just and ethical peace, in its statements and in its students.

Even the techniques of Aikikai aikido conduce to the goal of peaceful resolution of conflict and the minimization of injury when conflict cannot be avoided.  Many of the techniques of aikido open with a motion intended to remove the attacker form the line of attack, and the opening motion has repeatedly emphasized in classes I have taken as being among the most important parts of successful aikido.  Techniques begin in avoidance, rather than confrontation.  They continue, as my teachers have repeatedly commented, in blending with the motions of the attacker or attackers.  Aikido techniques integrate with the attacks to which they respond, uniting the attacker and the attacked in their performance and signaling the desire of the practitioner to be in accord with the attacker rather than in opposition.  They also often result in joint locks applied well away from the major organs of the body; a series of wrist-locks, in fact, are typical of aikido techniques.  The locks do carry the potential for grievous harm, yes, but inflicting that harm requires much effort, and the bodies of most people will not allow them to continue to attack once the specific pressures Aikikai aikido exerts on wrists and other joints are brought to bear; there is rarely any need for injury when aikido is successfully performed.  In the individual iteration of techniques, then, Aikikai aikido promotes peace through building connections among people, and it signals that the peace is ethically just through allowing for effective defense while minimizing the injuries inflicted upon others.

It is not the case that, in its techniques, Aikikai aikido is more or less effective than other Japanese martial arts--or other traditions of martial arts. The fact that the traditions have been transmitted for decades and centuries speaks to their effectiveness as techniques, as means to manipulate the human body and equipment to end individual physical conflicts.  The chief difference is in the intention behind the performance of the techniques.  Classical jiujutsu seeks to render the opponent incapable of further attack.  Judo seeks to render the opponent defeated, usually in a supine position in a prescribed tournament setting.  Aikikai aikido seeks to make the opponent not an opponent, to neutralize aggression in the interest of permitting people to find and maintain their best selves.  The enactment by more people of their best selves will lead to the improvement of the world in which they live, an improvement which is promoted through a peace founded on ethical concern for others and a justice born of compassion.  Aikikai aikido serves that end, and its study by those who seek that end is well worth increasing, to the benefit of all.

Works Cited
~"About Aikido." United States Aikido Federation. United States Aikido Federation, 2013. Web. 17 June 2013.
~Aikikai Foundation. Aikikai Foundation, 2005. Web. 29 July 2013.
~New York Aikikai. New York Aikikai, 2009. Web. 29 July 2013.
~Roberts, Jude. "'Circumcision: everyone's talking about it': Legislation, Social Pressure, and the Body." Journal of Gender Studies 20.4 (December 2011): 347-58. EBSCOhost. Web. 5 June 2013.
~Sunzi [Sun Tzu]. Sun-tzu on the Art of War: The Oldest Military Treatise in the World. Trans. Lionel Giles. Ed. Bob Sutton. EBSCOhost. Web. 29 July 2013.
 ~Westbrook, A., and O. Ratti. Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere. Illus. O. Ratti. Rutland, Vermont: Tuttle, 2006. Print.

Sample Conference-length Paper: Searching the Hoard in _Words like Coins_

Students, please find below a sample of the kind of conference-length paper discussed here.  It derives from the paper proposal assigned earlier in the Summer 2013 term at TCI, working to meet the proposed goals of the project outlined therein.  Accordingly, some of the material in this piece will be familiar to those who have read the previous.

Please note that, as with other examples posted to this blog, the formatting is medium-specific.  The content and pattern are offered as models; the formatting needs to conform to the class standards expressed as "General Paper Formatting Instructions 20130211" here.  When it is formatted appropriately for submission as a paper, it comes out to some six and a half pages, on the shorter end of acceptable length for the assignment.

Note also that it does not use all of the sources suggested as potentially viable in the annotated bibliography composed in support of the research project.  It is frequently the case that not all the information available finds its way into the text--but it is far better to have the information available than not.

An increasing amount of scholarly attention is being paid to fantasy literature, which may be defined as that literature relying upon the enactment of personal will in defiance of the normal constraints of reality, typically through ritual (Elliott, "Manifestations" 2-4).  The most notable work of fantasy literature is Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, which is abundant on bookstore shelves and enjoyed great commercial success and broad cultural attention in movie form.  Tolkien is far from the only author in the genre, however, and although there are many writers of poor quality who publish fantasy, many others produce works that bear literary critique and analysis no less than the works traditionally valued as part of the literary canon.

One such author is Robin Hobb, whose works are beginning to attract attention by literary scholars.  Much of her fantasy writing depicts a milieu containing the Six Duchies, a fictive kingdom very much in the Tolkienan tradition.  In addition to the novels of the Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies, which comprise the bulk of the Six Duchies material, she has set several short stories and other works in that fictional nation.  One of them, the novella Words like Coins, serves as a commentary on the craft of writing, noting the perils in sloppiness of language.

The importance of words in the text is signaled in the title itself.  The simile links words--utterances both verbal in encoded in visual symbols--to currency.  Words are thereby equated with money, linked with the primary means of access to material sustenance both within the text and for the early twenty-first century readers of that text.  Accordingly, they are established from the outset as things to be valued, and it follows that if words are to be valued, they are to be treated with care.  They are to be prized, not treated sloppily, an attitude reflecting that expressed by Strunk and White in their seminal work The Elements of Style.  White notes in his introduction to the text that it is in its origin a "summation of the case for cleanness, accuracy, and brevity" in writing (xiii), which tends toward precision and away from sloppiness.  Too, Strunk and White emphasize clarity, explicitly bidding writers to "Be clear" and remarking both that "clarity can only be a virtue" and that "Muddiness [the opposite of clarity] is not merely a disturber of prose, it is also a destroyer of life, of hope" (79).  While it may be couched in hyperbole, the basic idea is one valued by many writers.  Clarity, the manifestation of precision in the encapsulation of ideas by language, is desirable, and its lack is perilous to writing.  In constructing the simile of her novella's title, Hobb indicates that the text will address the attitude Strunk and White express, both that precision is a boon and its lack a bane.

The attitude is carried on throughout the text.  Lack of precision in the use of language is repeatedly presented badly in the novella.  An early example comes in an exchange between the protagonist, Mirrifen, and a subordinate character, Jami.  The latter, a young, pregnant woman, has asked Mirrifen for a particular favor relating to Mirrifen's training as a hedge-witch.  In Hobb's Six Duchies, hedge-witches are makers of charms and other minor magical items that produce specific effects; Mirrifen had been apprenticed to a drunkard of a hedge-witch, from whom she was able to learn "how much water to mix with her rum" and "six different places to hide from her when she was drunk" rather than the mysteries of art that were supposed to have become hers.  She also learned a cautionary tale regarding the kind of request Jami makes of her, a sleep charm, and she relates it to Jami; a hedge-witch sought to make a sleep charm for herself, succeeding and consequently sleeping so long and so deeply that she died of starvation before being able to wake again.  Jami, who had asked for the charm as a sleep aid in her late pregnancy, reacts badly to the story, shuddering and calling it "'A pleasant tale to sleep on!'"  The reaction to the story and the story itself attest to the negative effects attendant on a lack of consideration for usage.  Jami's reaction suggests an unintended consequence of Mirrifen's story; told initially to explain refusal to comply, the story instead provokes a fear reaction that inhibits the sleep Jami had sought.  The story itself implies that the lack of concern for the outcomes of language--and the system of symbols Hobb's hedge-witches deploy in their charms is very much a language, as Mirrifen repeatedly notes reading specific ideograms in them--can have potentially fatal results.  Both therefore serve as an indictment of sloppy usage.

Other chastisements of sloppy language are more explicit.  At one point in the novella, Mirrifen falls asleep when she is supposed to be guarding a well.  When asked by a pecksie--a fairy-like creature repeatedly noted, if rarely depicted, in Hobb's Six Duchies--what she was doing, Mirrifen replies that she is guarding, prompting the pecksie to exclaim "with disdain.  'You not guard.  You sleep!'"  The lie, an imprecision, is reproved, marking such statements as undesirable.  It is not the only erroneous use the pecksie chastises.  For the pecksie had been the beneficiary of an attempt by Mirrifen to craft a charm against fever--one that was in need of correction, as the pecksie notes with seeming aspersion to Mirrifen, stating that it "Worked.  Just not as good as it could.  Lucky for me, it not do harm" [sic].  Also, as the conversation continues, the pecksie adds (in an authorial reference back to the novella's title) "Words are like coins.  To spend carefully, as they are needed only.  Not to scatter."  A later comment in the conversation between Mirrifen and the pecksie finds the latter ominously asserting that "Careless words are dangerous.  To all."  Here, again, Hobb echoes Strunk and White, who offer writers such advice as "Do not overwrite" (72), "Do not overstate" (73), and "Avoid the use of qualifiers" (73).  When, later, Mirrifen complains of pecksie actions taken in response to her own stated desires, the pecksie replies "You spent the words, and this is what they bought you" returning to the currency comparison and reasserting the peril of poor usage by connecting it to results not wanted or intended.  Linguistic precision and frugality are repeatedly emphasized by the pecksie, and their lack repudiated.  The fact of the repetition, occurring fairly often in a relatively short text, foregrounds in the text of Hobb's novella the idea that sloppiness in language is to be repudiated, suggesting that it is a key discourse of the text.

Hobb's pecksies themselves are much concerned with the effects of language, and therefore with its exactitude.  In discussions with Jami, who fears and loathes the pecksies for much of the novella, Mirrifen learns the power that words have over the pecksies.  Jami notes that pecksies become bound to those from whom they accept assistance, becoming obliged to perform the actions they are bidden by those people.  Jami reinforces the idea, stating explicitly that "Words bind pecksies," an idea that does much to explain the frequency with which the pecksie known to Mirrifen berates those who are sloppy in their usage; as happens in the novella--for Mirrifen had aided the pecksie with whom she speaks before speaking with Jami about pecksies--sloppy wording results in sloppy binding.  While any binding of a sentient being is likely to be objectionable, an inadvertent and careless one is particularly loathsome in its display of lack of concern for the rights of other thinking beings.  And Jami, continuing her conversation with Mirrifen, comments on the need to target commands issued to bound pecksies--and on the potential effects of not targeting them:
You can't just say, 'wash the dishes' or they'll wash the dishes all day long.  You have to say, 'wash the dirty dishes until they're clean, wipe the dishes until they're dry, and then put them in the cupboard.'  They do exactly what you say.  So when my mother told them 'Go away!' they had to go and keep going.  Forever.  Because no one ever gets to 'away', do they?  They had to keep walking until they dropped dead in their tracks. [sic]
The pecksies are themselves aware of such dangers.  The pecksie bound to Mirrifen flatly asks if Mirrifen will issue her the fatal command to "Go away!" and exhibits displeasure at what she perceives as an insulting and ill-considered command.  For pecksies, an accidental word or phrase can result in horrific consequences; a deliberately hateful one can kill off whole families.  They are therefore at pains to ensure that their utterances are exacting, giving no more than is necessary to be clear so as to minimize the possibility of unintended consequences.  Their demonstrated attention to precision in language, their repeated avoidance of sloppiness in it, highlights the perils attendant upon not taking care with utterances--something particularly true for those whose lives depend on the ways words work.

The primary textual example through which Hobb imparts the notion that inattention to the specifics of language use is a danger is in the birth of Jami's child.  That the danger proceeds from inattention to the details of usage is made obvious well in advance of the peril presenting itself; at Jami's request, Mirrifen attempts to make a charm to keep the pecksies out of the room in which Jami is to give birth.  As she does so, however, she realizes the limits of her understanding, but arrogantly pushes on anyway.  Hobb writes of Mirrifen that "She didn't know the charm symbol for 'pecksie.'  No matter.  She knew 'person' and 'small' and the warding words that prevented creatures from passing through.  Those would work well enough."  Mirrifen recognizes her incapacity, her lack of specific understanding, yet proceeds ahead with magic she knows from experience to be potentially dangerous, as her early comments about the sleep-charm-slain hedge-witch indicate.  She also knows that, in matters involving pecksies, specificity of language is of overriding importance; both Jami and the pecksie bound to Mirrifen repeatedly emphasize the point.  That Mirrifen disregards both concerns, and fairly blithely, does much to indicate that danger resulting from sloppy language is forthcoming.
 
That danger manifests in short order.  Birth is always perilous in a milieu such as that of the Six Duchies.  As remarked upon earlier, Hobb's fantasy kingdom is one very much in the Tolkienan tradition, which means that it is "loosely evocative of romanticized notions of Continental Europe in the High Middle Ages" (Elliott, "Divergent" 1).  The medieval period was hardly the height of obstetric practice, and even in glossed-over, sanitized versions of such narratives, mothers frequently die in childbirth--as do their children.  "Grittier" iterations of the Tolkienan tradition--such as the main line of Hobb's Six Duchies narratives--imply even more risk of death in childbirth.  Mirrifen is well aware of the already-existing potential risk; she "longed for the birth [of Jami's child] as much as she dreaded it....the closest midwife was a half-day's walk away," suggesting the danger in the event and the lack of access to convenient help for it.  The inherent risks of childbirth contribute to the sense of foreboding that Mirrifen's overconfidence fosters, making it no surprise that Jami's accouchement goes as it does.

How it goes is poorly, and all as a result of Mirrifen's lack of specificity.  Jami's delivery is long and arduous; it lasts from near dawn well into the night, wracking Jami's body without ceasing for hours on end without producing the child.  Mirrifen realizes that the delivery has gone dangerously, fatally wrong, leaving Jami weakened almost to the point of death by exhaustion, noting at length that "Jamie [sic] would die, painfully, the child dying within her."  The pecksies eventually are able to intervene, and their own skills leave Mirrifen deep in slumber--and Jami and her child alive and well.  The pecksie bound to Mirrifen notes that it was Mirrifen's charm that had held the baby--a "small person"--inside of Jami before the pecksies could intervene, and Mirrifen realizes that it was through her lack of specificity in language that the near-fatality of the delivery came to be.  It is through sloppy usage that Jami's child is imperiled, and as a direct result of it, Jami is herself imperiled.  Two lives are risked through an arrogant misuse of systems of symbols, making such misuse, such inattention to the details of language, something Hobb uses the novella to argue is very much to be avoided.

For a writer to be concerned with language is to be expected; language is the means through which writers seek to sustain themselves, so that words are very much like coins for them.  That Hobb's novella is preoccupied with pointing out the perils in poor use of language, then, is accordant with her identity as a writer.  Even for those who do not identify as writers, however, the message that exactitude in language is desirable is worth noting.  Those who have had to handle legally binding documents such as contracts and the texts of laws can easily be made aware of what dangers lurk in unclear wording and phrasing.  Those who have been given directions know that precision in them is vitally important.  And for all people, attention to the details of words is of a piece with attention to the details of all things.  In such attention is mastery, and in its lack, a path to potential ruin.

Works Cited
~Elliott, Geoffrey B. "A Divergent Medievalism in Robin Hobb's Farseer and Tawny Man Trilogies." 2013. TS.
~---."Manifestations of English Arthurian Legend in the Farseer and Tawny Man Trilogies of Robin Hobb." MA thesis. U of Louisiana at Lafayette, 2007. Print.
~Hobb, Robin. Words like Coins. Burton, MI: Subterranean P, 2012. E-book.
~Strunk, William, Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style. Fiftieth Anniversary Edition. New York: Pearson, 2009. Print.

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Sample Summary

Students, below appears an example of the kind of summary I have requested of my students in remedial English coursework, as discussed here.

In the 13 July 2013 New York Times article "The Trouble with Testing Mania," the editorial board of the New York Times argues that the testing situation in place across the United States needs substantial correction.  The board notes that although testing is well intentioned, it has been ineffective at improving instruction, largely due to the haphazard way in which it has been implemented and the institutional pressures it generates.  Other countries and other measures work better, as the board notes, but alternatives will be adopted only slowly it at all unless state and federal governments take measures to ease the transition.  Although substantially correct, the board's comments are late in coming; educators have been making such remarks for many years, and no real changes have been implemented.  It is therefore unlikely that the article will be effective in its implied purpose of driving changes to educational policy.

Monday, July 15, 2013

Comments about an Article Read in Flight

Certain affairs required me to take a trip this July.  The details of the trip are not relevant, except to say that I flew via United Airlines, and so I had the opportunity to read the July 2013 issue of Hemispheres, the in-flight magazine offered by the airline.  It was a quick read and for the most part unentertaining, but one point did stand out as particularly relevant to teaching.  To wit, in Arnie Cooper's article "Mr. Fix-It," Kyle Wiens of iFixit is reported as refusing "to hire people with poor grammar.  'I understand missing a comma, but if you use "to," "too" and "two" [sic] incorrectly,' he said at the time, 'it shows me you have no idea what you’re talking about.'"  The remarks serve as a reminder that it is not only English teachers and professors who care about such things.  It is not only in the academy that adherence to prescribed standards of usage matters, but in professional contexts as well.

While Wiens's comments do seem to partake of narrowly prescriptivist views that are not necessarily in accord with the best understandings of language and usage held by linguists and rhetoricians, they do align with prevailing popular understandings of "good" writing.  Freedom from "error" is one of the things for which people look when they decide that a piece of writing is worth reading, and it is often (if incorrectly) used as an indicator of competence and intelligence--as Wiens indicates of his own hiring practices.  Having a firm command of the "standards" that have grown up through repeated use and tacit social agreement, then, is something that is immensely helpful for those seeking work, and not just in the "soft" fields of the academic humanities, but in the "practical" field of electronics repair.  It is likely true in other fields, as well, allowing for a quiet assertion of authority and credibility, as an authoritative, credible source is more likely to be believed and valued than one that is not.

Also to be noted is an issue of context.  In-flight magazines are frequently read by those who fly, and many of those who fly do so for concerns of business and profession.  Many of my own flights are taken to get me to research conferences, and I often overhear others talking about business they will conduct when they get where the planes take them.  The in-flight magazines are therefore poised to spread their messages through the middle socio-economic strata of mainstream United States society (the lower being unlikely to fly much and the upper enjoying chartered flights that offer different entertainments)--where much hiring and economic activity take place.  Wiens's comments thus have the potential to spread widely, and although there are problems with them, they do serve to spread the idea that control of one's prose is a skill not just for the classroom, but for far outside of it.  And that is a welcome vindication of the years-long efforts of those who teach English.

Work Cited
Cooper, Arnie. "Mr. Fix-It." Hemispheres. Illus. Carl Wiens. Ink, 2013. Web. 15 July 2013.

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Sample Summary

Below appears an example of the kind of summary discussed here, although it treats a different source than is acceptable for the class assignment.

On 25 June 2013, Cracked.com published Luke McKinney's "6 Important Things Nobody Tells You About Graduate School."  In the article, McKinney lays out a series of what he perceives as truths about the graduate experience, grounding them in his own stated experience of graduate school.  Throughout the article, he repeatedly returns to the idea that the kind of learning distilled in postgraduate academic programs is the major driving force behind human advancement and achievement, using the six points of his title to illustrate how it is so and the value of its being so.  Although McKinney restricts his discussion to the sciences, he expresses himself clearly and in such a fashion that the article is a useful piece for consideration no only by his own colleagues, but by all engaged in the highest levels of formal education.

Announcement Regarding Office Hours, 26 June 2013

Students, as I have been advised that I have an 11:30a meeting, my office hours will be truncated tomorrow, 26 June 2013.  I expect to be available after approximately 12:30p until approximately 3:30p.

Monday, June 24, 2013

Sample Summary

The summary appearing below is adapted from another blog I maintain.  It conforms to the standards laid out here.

On 22 June 2013, the New York Times featured Verlyn Klinkenborg's "The Decline and Fall of the English Major."  In the article, Klinkenborg offers an elegy for the decreasing numbers of undergraduate students of English language and literature.  Cited are graduation numbers from Yale and Pomona College as well as a tripartite reason for the decline those schools evidence.  Presented also is a statement of the value of the humanities in general and of the English degree specifically--not a direct monetary value, but a value insofar as it represents being able to effectively express thoughts and ideas, thereby effecting agency in the world.  Unfortunately, Klinkenborg's statistical data offer too small a sample to be representative, and the statement of value--a fairly standard view among humanities scholars--is too vague to convince those who are not already convinced of the value of the humanities that the decline of their study in one form at the undergraduate level is lamentable.

Friday, June 21, 2013

About an In-Class Assigment in Technical Writing and Presentation

A few semesters ago, I began using a particular in-class assignment in my ENG 202: Technical Writing and Presentation classes at Technical Career Institutes.  In the assignment, I give students a document to read, usually one originating online.  I ask them also to examine the document in terms of how well it does or does not fulfill the functions of technical writing, as determined early in the semester through guided class discussion of students' background knowledge of technical documents (that the classes are at a technical school helps with this).

Students do, admittedly, have some difficulty with the assignment.  Several fail to understand the prompt that is given--"Discuss how [the selected document] functions, and how it fails to function, as a piece of technical writing.  Please refer to specific textual and paratextual details to support your discussion"--and offer instead a summary of the piece or a free response to it.  I am happy to see that the students can write an adequate summary and are able to engage meaningfully with their readings, but within the context of the course, I cannot necessarily reward their doing so on the assignments given.  If, as is often assumed to be the case for a technical writing class, the task is in large part preparation for the workforce, then I very much cannot reward inattention to the assigned task.  Employers are hardly likely to, after all.

Even with the difficulties some students face, however, the assignment is valuable.  Other students perform increasingly well on the designated tasks, improving each class meeting in terms of their abilities to stake claims, identify and deploy appropriate textual evidence to support those claims, and explain how the evidence functions to support their ideas.  They also improve in the usage issues upon which I comment as part of the requirements of the course and of academic instruction in writing generally.  And all of the students are repeatedly engaged in examination of "real-world" materials that correspond with the concepts covered in textbook readings and continued classroom discussion.  They are therefore offered abundant practice in working with technical writing materials and in interpreting evidence, both of which are likely to be helpful to them in their careers and the lives which enfold them.

The assignment could be easily deployed in other contexts.  For a technical writing class at something other than a technical school (and even at a technical school, although I do not do so with my own classes as explicitly as I perhaps could), the initial discussions of technical writing features that undergird the assignment could be supplemented with provided exemplars of technical writing, arriving at something of a list of genre features from representative high-quality examples of it.  Also, the documents I offer to my students tend to reflect my own personal and professional interests--they have included such disparate ideas as aikido, gaming, and tenure processes--largely because I am able to access them easily.  Some of the difficulties students have faced with the assignment possibly stem from unfamiliarity with the content.  Examples of  technical writing in other areas of inquiry could be meaningfully deployed to correct for that particular problem.  (This presupposes that it is a problem, which may well not be the case.)  Further, the documents I provide, owing to the limitations of the teaching environment in which I offer them, are somewhat decontextualized; they are often print-outs of online materials, and the shift in medium affects the way in which they can be interpreted.  Presenting them in their native hyperlinked online context could allow access to more illuminating paratextual features--as well as to hypertextual features which teaching more aligned with digital media can more effectively address.

While the above paragraph identifies ways in which I might improve upon my own use of the assignment, it is still one well worth using.  It, like the riddle assignment about which I have written before, does much of what I want to have done in the classroom, offering students practice in the specific skill proficiencies mandated by course descriptions and connecting that knowledge to the larger cultural contexts in which my students will work and live.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Sample Annotated Bibliography for "Searching the Hoard in _Words like Coins_"

Students, an example of the annotated bibliography discussed here appears below.  Use it as a model for the kind of writing you are asked to do in my literature classes, but keep in mind the limitations on its applicability due to the differences in media between the model and what you are expected to submit to me.

~Carroll, Siobhan. "Honor-bound: Self and Other in the Honor Culture of Robin Hobb's Soldier Son Series." Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 18.3 (Fall 2007): 308-18. General OneFile. Web. 13 June 2013.

Carroll argues that Hobb uses fantasy tropes to lay bare conflicts among and within honor systems.  She posits that in so doing, Hobb effectively interrogates the "standard" ideas of appropriate conduct that appear in fantasy literature, offering instead a nuanced and therefore more authentic view of the interplay between public and private expectations of behavior.  Carroll illustrates her point primarily through two examples from the first book of the Soldier Son trilogy, acknowledging the limitations imposed by the then-incomplete series on her conclusions; she nonetheless asserts that Hobb offers a potentially helpful analogy of the dealings of the United States in its contemporary conflicts.

It is true that the Soldier Son novels are set in a milieu unlike that of Words like Coins, which would appear to limit the usefulness of Carroll's article in analyzing and discussing the novella.  Carroll's is one of a limited number of scholarly sources that directly treat Hobb's work, and so is valuable for the project in that regard.  In addition, in interrogating the relationships among peoples--something which does figure in Words like Coins--Carroll's article offers what might be taken as a paradigm of analysis to apply to the novella.

~Elliott, Geoffrey B. "Manifestations of English Arthurian Legend in the Farseer and Tawny Man Trilogies of Robin Hobb." MA thesis. U of Louisiana at Lafayette, 2007. Print.

Elliott examines deployment of Arthurian tropes and figures in the six novels of Robin Hobb's Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies.  While there are not one-to-one correspondences, Hobb appropriates a number of features of milieu, protagonist, and supplemental characters employed in the major works of Arthurian legend in English, notably Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur.  The thesis ultimately argues, using Hobb as an example, that the medieval continues to merit study because it continues to inform the present.

As one of the relatively few scholarly sources directly treating the works of Robin Hobb, and one of the earliest, Elliott's thesis is particularly relevant to the study of her works.  In addition, the text focuses in large part on the milieu of Hobb's Words like Coins, explicating the derivation of a number of the features of its setting and social structure.  Accordingly, it serves as a possible resource for further understanding the novella.

~Roberts, Jude. "'Circumcision: everyone's talking about it': Legislation, Social Pressure, and the Body." Journal of Gender Studies 20.4 (December 2011): 347-58. EBSCOhost. Web. 5 June 2013.

Roberts uses the short story "Cut," written by Hobb under another pseudonym, and major theorist Judith Butler's work to illuminate how both fail to effectively move beyond the concerns of the individual to the possibility of effective collective action regarding female body modification, including genital cutting.  In effect, Roberts uses the two writers' works to demonstrate that legislation of body issues is ultimately futile, as any law will ultimately undermine itself through being appropriated for purposes the law's framers could not foresee.

Roberts's work is useful as an entry into plumbing Hobb's work for concerns of gender studies.  It tacitly asserts that at least some parts of the author's corpus have engaged with serious cultural concerns.  In so doing, it validates continued study of the author's corpus, for if one of a given writer's works can sustain academic critique, then others may well be able to do so.

~Strunk, William, Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style. Fiftieth Anniversary Edition. New York: Pearson, 2009. Print.

Long held to be one of the standard texts on appropriate composition practice, The Elements of Style lays out a number of principles of usage, compositional practice, form, use of common expressions, and style.  In addition, the Fiftieth Anniversary Edition of the text offers commentaries about its utility and development, illuminating further the value of the text.

Strunk and White admittedly do not directly engage with Robin Hobb.  They do, however, engage fully with the tasks of writing as traditionally--and in many cases still--understood. Their recommendations carry such weight as to be accepted as fundamental principles of writing.  What they say about the task of writing, then, can serve as a paradigm for it, offering a standard of comparison against which Hobb's statements concerning writing can be evaluated.

~Tolkien, J.R.R. “On Fairy-Stories.” J.R.R. Tolkien: “The Monsters and the Critics” and Other Essays. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. London: Harper Collins, 2006. Print. 109-61.

Tolkien argues in "On Fairy-Stories" that fantasy literature is as deserving of study as any other form of literary art.  In his view, it depends largely upon magic for its character, and while the presence of magic is necessary, the more closely the milieu of fantasy literature adheres to the observable reality of the reader, the more effective it will be.  Also, in its use of magic, fantasy literature offers a form of escape more appropriate to adults than to the children towards whom much fantasy literature is directed.  In addition, Tolkien posits that any literary art partakes of the divinely creative, so that even fantasy literature becomes an act of devotion.

Any consideration of fantasy literature seemingly must take Tolkien into account in some way.  As "On Fairy-Stories" forms a nucleus of fantasy criticism, being perhaps the seminal work in the field, it suggests itself as a starting point for the conduct of any analysis of fantasy literature.  It offers an early--and fairly reliable--idea of what marks fantasy literature as fantasy literature and as successful fantasy literature, and so it provides a standard of comparison against which Hobb's novella can be measured.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Sample Summary

The summary below is of an article to be summarized by students in a section of ENG 202: Technical Writing and Presentation at Technical Career Institutes for which I served as a midterm exam proctor.  It conforms to the standards for summaries in my own classes at that institution, which are discussed here.

Sam Howe Verhovek's "Mars in 39 Days" appears in the November 2010 issue of Popular Science.  In the article, Verhovek discusses the idea Chang Díaz has for a craft to take a manned mission to Mars and points beyond.  That idea is to use a magnetically-driven plasma engine to propel the craft at a speed of approximately 123,000 miles per hour, which will greatly reduce the transit time from Earth to Mars.  If successfully tested, the idea could possibly be used to support interplanetary transit of goods and people, allowing for effective colonization of the Solar System.  Verhovek also offers biographical data about Díaz and his experiences in and with space programs, helping to contextualize the discussion.  The article effectively conveys the hope of its subject and the potential of its material, presenting an optimistic view of the prospects of a return to human exploration of space.

Sample Position Paper

Students, below is an example of the kind of position paper discussed here; it is of average acceptable length for the assignment.  Use it as a model for the kind of writing you are asked to do in my writing classes, but keep in mind the limitations on its applicability due to the differences in media between the model and what you are expected to submit to me.

My study of Japanese martial arts began when I was in sixth grade.  On a field trip, I had been beaten fairly badly by classmates, and my family and I determined that I would thereafter have the means to defend myself from assault.  A friend of the family had made a long study of Korean taekwondo and Japanese classical jiujutsu and offered to take me on as a student in the latter discipline.  In the years since, I have studied Kodokan judo and Aikikai aikido, finding the latter particularly enjoyable.  In no small part, this is because of the difference I have observed among students of jiujutsu, judo, and aikido.  The first seek to be able to render others unable to attack again, the second seek victory in competitions.  Students of Aikikai aikido, however, tend to pursue something different.  The art attracts students who wish to enact a just and ethical peace in the world.

Aikido is a relatively recently developed Japanese martial art.  The English-language website of the Aikikai Foundation, which is hosted at the world headquarters of organized study of aikido, notes that it was "created during the 1920s by Morihei Ueshiba" and was "Officially recognized by the Japanese government in 1940."  The grandson of Morihei Ueshiba, Moriteru Ueshiba, is the doshu or head of the art and of the Aikikai Foundation, as its website notes, so it is only in its third generation,making it quite young.  The United States Aikido Federation, the major governing body of aikido study in the United States, reinforces the idea of aikido's relative newness, noting on its website that the first aikido dojo was established in 1927.  The time of its creation coincides with a series of world events that point up the problems of ethics and justice attendant upon attempts to dominate groups of people, those leading up to and at the beginning of the Second World War.  During that time, several nations were engaged in the systematic subjugation and destruction of peoples based upon perceived ethnic and racial differences, actions far from respectful of individual dignity and so neither ethical nor just.  Those problems were doubtlessly in the mind of the founder of aikido, commonly called O-Sensei, as he set up his school, and they therefore almost certainly exerted influence on his teachings.  As such, a desire for peace, which cannot exist save in the presence of ethical justice, is tacitly embedded in Aikikai aikido, and so it is those who seek peace who are most likely to study the art.

Moreover, the enactment of an ethical and just peace is an explicit goal of Aikikai aikido.  Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere is a standard textbook on aikido practice, and one written by two early United States students of Aikikai aikido (9).  The authors, Westbrook and Ratti, speak explicitly to the "ethical imperatives" of the art (33).  They note that the "ultimate in ethical self-defense," and the "goal of all aikido self-defense arts," is in neutralizing an unprovoked attack in such a way that the attacker is left alive and without serious injury (34).  The textbook is an influential one, reaching even outside of Aikikai aikido, and it overtly links the pursuit of peace--the neutralization of aggression--with ethical concern for others and an immediate, personal justice--the just and appropriate defense of self against attack (20).  Consequently, it embeds in much study of aikido an aspiration for an ethically just peace, and those who continue to study the art do so in recognition thereof.

Further, the Aikikai Foundation remarks that because "contemporary values stress respect for human life, Aikido is a highly relevant form of the Japanese martial arts."  This necessarily implies that aikido is respectful of persons, which concern is inherent both to ethics and to justice.  More explicitly, the US Aikido Federation notes "Aikido strives for the ultimate goal of peaceful resolution rather than defeat," that its performance works "to subdue and neutralize attackers without serious injury," done "without belittling others, without the intention of harm or fear of injury," but under a "premise of mutual respect and caring."  In emphasizing resolution rather than victory is a direct call for peace and tranquility.  In the goal of not inflicting serious injury is a recognition of the right even the errant have to the integrity of their own bodies, which is a remarkably high ethical standard with which to treat an attacker.  Similarly, in working not only to respect the other participant in the act of aikido (both by refusing to offer insult and to appreciate the potential of the other to enact harm), but to work to the betterment of that other--for what else is caring?--there is a degree of compassion that underlies the highest principles of just conduct.  Each is a fundamental goal of the art, and so each is presented as something towards which students of aikido are expected to strive from their earliest days on the mats of the dojo floor.  They are not easy things towards which to work, and so those who practice the art are necessarily those who have a strong desire to enact a just and ethical peace.

Without such a desire, it is not likely that the student will remain dedicated to the art.  Yet Aikikai aikido tends to attract people who remain in study for decades.  A number of those at my own dojo have been on the mats for thirty years and more.  They would not have done so were there not something peculiar to Aikikai aikido to attract them and retain their interest through injury and child-rearing, relocation and economic worry.  The physical techniques of Aikikai aikido have antecedents and direct parallels in other martial arts (Westbrook and Ratti 30-31), and many of those arts are far more widely studied and accessible.  The uniqueness of Aikikai aikido is in its ethical imperatives, and so it must be in them that the students of the art find what they need to sustain themselves.

It is admittedly true that the initial intention of a thing does not always continue to guide it.  Jude Roberts, for example, argues at length that law is easily turned to ends for which it was never intended--and which can, in fact, be antithetical to the desires of those who frame the laws.  If so revered and solemn a thing as a nation's law can be directed away from its original intent, many other things may, as well, and it follows that a martial art may be similarly shaded away from its first thrust.  In fact, there are many sub-schools which have broken away from their origins.  Students of Aikikai aikido, however, overwhelmingly follow the ethical path established by O-Sensei.  My own study of the art has been influenced by senior practitioners who have told me that those on the mats, practicing the techniques of aikido, are all brothers and sisters, united almost as family in the pursuit of what the art can yield.  Although members of a family might come to strife, the family itself ultimately seeks harmony--and it is in harmony with the world that just and ethical peace is attained. 

In addition, one of the foremost instructors of aikido in the world, Yoshimitsu Yamada, remarks on the New York Aikikai's website that "one of [the] goals in studying aikido to emulate as much as possible [O-Sensei's] admirable characteristics," among which are compassion and the elimination of selfishness.  Both regard for others and a willingness to act in the interests of others rather than the self are often held to be primary ideas of both ethics and justice, and enacting them is likely to produce an active tranquility that can easily be called "peace."  Yamada continues to be in a position to influence thousands of students, both directly through his own worldwide teaching (the New York Aikikai's website reports his seminar schedule, which takes him across the Americas and Eurasia) and through his own students having opened dojo of their own (as noted in biographies of the teaching staff of the New York Aikikai).  Accordingly, his views guide much of the practice of aikido, and since his views explicitly speak to adherence to O-Sensei's vision, that initial vision still guides aikido.  Aikido, at least in its main thrust of the Aikikai style, therefore remains tied to the desire for a just and ethical peace, in its statements and in its students.

It is not the case that, in its techniques, Aikikai aikido is more or less effective than other Japanese martial arts--or other traditions of martial arts. The fact that the traditions have been transmitted for decades and centuries speaks to their effectiveness as techniques, as means to manipulate the human body and equipment to end individual physical conflicts.  The chief difference is in the intention behind the performance of the techniques.  Classical jiujutsu seeks to render the opponent incapable of further attack.  Judo seeks to render the opponent defeated, usually in a supine position in a prescribed tournament setting.  Aikikai aikido seeks to make the opponent not an opponent, to neutralize aggression in the interest of permitting people to find and maintain their best selves.  The enactment by more people of their best selves will lead to the improvement of the world in which they live, an improvement which is promoted through a peace founded on ethical concern for others and a justice born of compassion.  Aikikai aikido serves that end, and its study by those who seek that end is well worth increasing, to the benefit of all.

Works Cited
~"About Aikido." United States Aikido Federation. United States Aikido Federation, 2013. Web. 17 June 2013.
~Aikikai Foundation. Aikikai Foundation, 2005. Web. 17 June 2013.
~New York Aikikai. New York Aikikai, 2009. Web. 17 June 2013.
~Roberts, Jude. "'Circumcision: everyone's talking about it': Legislation, Social Pressure, and the Body." Journal of Gender Studies 20.4 (December 2011): 347-58. EBSCOhost. Web. 5 June 2013.
~Westbrook, A., and O. Ratti. Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere. Illus. O. Ratti. Rutland, Vermont: Tuttle, 2006. Print.

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Sample Paper Proposal: Searching the Hoard in _Words like Coins_

Students, an example of the research proposal discussed here appears below; it is at the short end of acceptable length for the assignment.  Use it as a model for the kind of writing you are asked to do in my literature classes, but keep in mind the limitations on its applicability due to the differences in media between the model and what you are expected to submit to me.

An increasing amount of scholarly attention is being paid to what is termed "genre fiction," or stories that do not tend towards verisimilitude, but instead adhere to norms that do not correspond with observed reality.  Among the genres of such fiction is fantasy literature, whose most notable work is Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, and which is abundant on bookstore shelves.  Tolkien is far from the only author in the genre, however, and although there are many writers of poor quality who publish fantasy, many others are quite good.  One of them is Robin Hobb.

Much of Robin Hobb's fantasy writing depicts the milieu of the Six Duchies, a fictive kingdom very much in the Tolkienan tradition.  In addition to the novels of the Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies, she has set several short stories and other works in that fictional nation.  One of them, the novella Words like Coins, serves as a commentary on the craft of writing, noting the perils in sloppiness of language.

The importance of words in the text is signaled in the title itself, which equates words with money--and the significance of money needs little explication to readers in the United States of the twenty-first century.  Words are therefore immediately linked with the primary means of access to material sustenance, foreshadowing their importance in the narrative.  And the foreshadowing is borne out by comments made throughout the text, particularly by the pecksies (fairy-like creatures who are bound by the words they utter) and regarding the workings of hedge magic (reliant on symbols--words--for specific effect).  Indeed, questions of specific wording serve to drive the plot of the novella.  Accordingly, the concern with exact language use is foregrounded throughout the text, thereby drawing significant attention to itself and inviting investigation.

Such investigation is merited for a number of reasons.  One is to uncover what the persistence of the device reveals about the writer.  For a professional writer to be concerned with specifics of wording and phrasing is expected, and writers are often exhorted to write what they know.  Hobb's attention to lexical detail is therefore unsurprising and entirely appropriate.  Too, as a writer, Hobb likely receives questions about the process of writing and things that are important in performing the tasks of writing.  A comment about factors of importance in writing, couched in a form not unlike a moral fable, permits response to such questions while allowing her to practice her craft yet further.  Examining how the response is carried out explicates how stories can be used to transmit information beyond their plots, making narrative more obviously important than is often the case.

Hobb does not write in a vacuum, and so her writing--as the writing of any writer--likely responds to ideas at work in the context in which the writer exists.  Investigation of the work may well point to those ideas, allowing for a case study of how social tendencies manifest in individual utterances.  Because such an examination potentially reveals aspects of broader social concerns, matters in which Hobb, the people among whom she lives, and perhaps even her readers are enmeshed (and which would themselves need to be explicated to fully undertake such scholarly work), it is of singular importance that the examination be conducted.  In serving as a vehicle for revealing more of the human condition to humanity, Hobb's Words like Coins marks itself as particularly deserving of study, and a conference-length paper offers a venue to begin conducting such work.

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Announcement about Office Hours 29 May 2013

Students, as I have been advised I must attend a meeting beginning at 1130a tomorrow, 29 May 2013, I will not be holding regularly scheduled office hours.  I do expect to be available for some time after the meeting, however, so if you need to meet with me, email ahead to let me know you are coming.  As usual, I can be reached at geoffrey.b.elliott@gmail.com.

Saturday, May 25, 2013

Comments on What Might as Well Be a Paper

That a person who holds a doctorate in English does a lot of reading is unsurprising.  That said person, living in the twenty-first century in the United States, reads a number of websites is equally unsurprising.  Perhaps a bit of a surprise is that one of those websites is Cracked.com.  Perhaps more surprising is that an article on it, Gladstone's "4 Reasons Raiders of the Lost Ark Is Secretly about Drugs" suggests itself as an example of essay formulation such as is practiced in composition classes and of the deployment of close reading such as is practiced in literature classes.

Admittedly, there are some limits to the applicability of the piece as a model for classroom writing.  One of them derives from the medium of publication.  Transmission of text on internet sites intended for the general public (as opposed to specialized professional groups, sites for which are frequently protected by paywalls and which will, as most professional communication does, deploy jargon extensively) requires features of form--typically brevity--that are not entirely appropriate to the detailed investigations required of composition and literature students.  Additionally, internet writing typically relies more upon hyperlinks than formal citation,* which is not wrong but is, again, inappropriate for the academic writing to which collegiate coursework is an introduction.  Adjusting for medium is fairly easily done, however, so that, despite the limitations of orthographic and paratextual form, Gladstone's essay serves as a useful example for students in collegiate English studies.

In addition, the article is presented as a light piece, not to be regarded as "serious" or authoritative.  The host website, Cracked.com, describes itself as "America's Only Humor Site," a description not entirely accurate and one that, in explicitly offering the site as a venue for levity, encourages readers not to take it--or the articles hosted on it--seriously.  The first few paragraphs of the article itself actively ridicule the idea of essay writing, both in collegiate composition coursework and for online consumption.  The former emerges in the author's comments about his college English program having "placed absolutely no emphasis on researching historical context or referencing previously published literary analysis. You could just read and spin your wheels."  The description hardly speaks to academic rigor, but aligns instead with oft-heard comments that courses in the humanities and liberal arts are wastes of student time.  It does not mark the author as particularly expert in the study or practice of writing, and so appears to undermine the credibility of the article.  So does the description of writing for online audiences the author offers: "If you write an essay for the Internet, however, and you want people to read it, you number your points, keep the conclusion super short, and write an introduction no one reads."  The simplification of presentation and the futility of seemingly necessary parts of that presentation are made explicit, openly labeling the article as a base thing of no true importance.  The article, then, situates itself in a position of obvious abjection, one in which it ought not to be taken seriously.

The position facilitates the presentation of the article as a work of humor through the deployment of irony, however.  The juxtaposition of expectation with its opposite, irony is a frequently used comedic device, and the self-positioning of the article in abjection serves an ironic function, helping to make it funny.  It is not entirely expected, after all, that a piece of writing will label itself as unreliable, yet statements of incapacity are frequently deployed by those who seek to assert their own authority; major examples of the behavior appear in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal.  Gladstone's deployment of self-denigration, then, links his work to major threads in traditionally canonical English literature, ironically and tacitly asserting its authority in the very denial of it and thereby developing comedic effect at the same time.  Humor is often used as a means of social critique, permitting discussion of issues in a relatively non-threatening way, so that the position of the article on the site potentially enables it to carry out sustained explication of social phenomena--which is a privileged position.  Again, the act of denying authority serves to accentuate the authority of the piece, an ironic function that marks the article as one crafted well and therefore deserving of attention and consideration.

That attention quickly reveals that the article functions as an admirable example of the kind of work students are encouraged to do in composition and literature classes.  "4 Reasons Raiders of the Lost Ark Is Secretly about Drugs" exhibits a clear breakdown of introduction and discussion.  The introduction serves to provide context for the discussion to follow, laying out the circumstances of composition, the topic to be discussed, and the claim to be supported, much as standard compositional doctrine has long held should be the case.  In addition, the introduction engages the Aristotelian rhetorical triangle not only making an appeal to the audience's emotions through the aforementioned humor, but also in establishing the author's credibility.  It does so through invocation of the author having studied English at the collegiate level and written a number of essays thereby, as well as referencing his current profession as an essayist by noting his standing employment and reciting the features of form that work has shown him are necessary for his audience.  He demonstrates a decided rhetorical awareness in doing so, which further reinforces his credibility and aids his introduction in serving as a model for college writing in composition and literature courses.

The essay's thesis, noted in the introduction, also offers a useful model.  Gladstone's piece is relatively short, totaling less than two thousand words.  It does not seek to treat the entirety of film, or even the whole of one film franchise.  Instead, it focuses on the treatment of a single character in the film, and not even the ostensible protagonist.  The thesis is narrowly tailored to the constraints of the medium of publication and the individual project, as those of students are well advised to be.

The discussion also offers an example of work worth emulating.  It is conducted point by point in easily understood chronological order, opening with a brief note about action prior to the beginning of the movie and moving through the entire arc of the plot.  In addition, it appears to follow a blended rhetorical order, opening with a strong point then moving to a relatively weak point before progressively intensifying the strength of its points to arrive at the strongest available support.  The first of Gladstone's four points deploys just over five hundred words of discussion and four photos.  The second takes fewer than two hundred seventy-five words and five pictures, while the third deploys approximately three hundred seventy-five words and six photos.  Frequently, the more discussion that a given point of support will sustain, the stronger a point it can be taken to be.  The pattern of the first three points of discussion form therefore openly corresponds to a standard pattern of argument.

The fourth and final point of discussion may appear to violate the pattern; it offers only some three hundred eighty words and three photos, so that in terms of raw content it appears to be weaker than the initial point of discussion and only marginally stronger in text than the second and third points.  And there is an obvious weakness in an admission of the author's; Gladstone notes "no independent research beyond the confines of the source material will be done" in executing the project, introducing a possible error through failure to consider the relevant outside information (although even this offers a valuable lesson to collegiate composition and literature students: do not eschew relevant outside research).  But there is a peculiar strength in the final point in the discussion.  In the work discussed in the essay, Raiders of the Lost Ark, the existence of the Judeo-Christian Deity is taken as a given, and the artifacts associated therewith are necessarily accorded--and regarded as having--overwhelming power.  It is only the fourth point of discussion that treats the Deity and the associated artifact of the titular Ark.  It discusses the focal item of the film, an item of rare and extraordinary power, and it does so in a hauntingly penetrating way that lingers in the readerly mind.  Despite its relative lack of heft, then, it is a particularly strong point, positioned at the end as is appropriate to the model of composition taught in college writing and reading courses.  The essay ends up providing examples of two systematic presentations, helping the audience to follow along in a manner towards which composition students could usefully aspire and modeling the dominant pattern of argumentation that students are often explicitly encouraged to adopt for their own.

Each point of discussion in Gladstone's essay also follows a model advocated for use by students of collegiate composition and literature.  After introductory contextualizing materials that serve to move the essay into the new point, each section of discussion articulates a claim in support of the central thesis, then offers evidence to support that claim and explains how the evidence does so.  For example, the first point of discussion notes events prior to but referenced in the movie being discussed, offering context and transition.  It then makes a claim about the extent to which Marion--the character about whom the thesis is articulated--is chemically dependent: "Marion owns a bar and seems to have a serious drinking problem.  She appears to be at the worst level of alcoholism where the addict doesn't even feel the effects of alcohol."  Immediately thereafter, it moves into offering and explaining evidence to support the claim: Marion drinks an exceptionally high amount of alcohol to defeat an opponent in a drinking contest, then ejects people from her bar, indicating that she is so accustomed to the influence of the chemical that it exerts little effect on her even in extreme amounts.  The other points of discussion function similarly, and in so doing, they model the end-result of the kind of writing that students are often exhorted to do in their college writing and reading classes.

Some features of the essay specifically address concerns of college literature classes.  Gladstone notes that his own English program focused away from conducting outside research, and while that can be a weakness (as noted above), it does offer an example of a method of literary analysis called close reading.  The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory notes that close reading is a method involved in I.A. Richards's practical criticism (142), itself described as "Criticism based on close analysis of a text in isolation" (694).  Although it does not stand effectively on its own, as the restriction of text from its contexts imposes artificial limitations upon the text and therefore upon understanding of it, close reading is a necessary component of literary analysis.  Gladstone demonstrates carrying out such close reading throughout "4 Reasons Raiders of the Lost Ark Is Secretly about Drugs."  For example, his second point of discussion offers the idea that Marion's conduct in Cairo serves to indicate that her association with Indiana Jones imposes upon her a chemical abuse problem from which others unsuccessfully try to free her.  He explicates how narrow features of her attire (white clothing), behavior (drinking, an eerily haunted smile and seemingly unfocused eyes, hiding in a basket), and environment (the monkey) serve to indicate the resurgent drug-associated difficulties that surround her involvement with Jones.  The explained interaction of evidence from the film, described and displayed in stills from it, and larger symbolic contexts allows the underlying thesis to be borne out, exemplifying close reading.  In offering an easily accessible summary definition of the process--"You come up with a thesis. That's a theory. Then you point to specific examples within the context of the examined work to prove your point."--Gladstone introduces a fundamental component of literary analysis.  That he then works through a model thereof illustrates the results of the writing process he describes.  It is admittedly cursory, failing to note the cycles of prewriting, drafting, and revision that lead to the finished essay, but it is nonetheless useful as an illustrative example of a short critical essay treating a text, broadly defined.

Another feature of the essay particularly helpful for literature classes, and perhaps the most notable, is that it advocates a position divergent from common understanding.  Gladstone's thesis is that "Raiders of the Lost Ark is not an action-adventure movie about an archaeologist who plays by his own rules and saves the day. Instead, the film is an exploration of Marion Ravenwood's crippling drug addiction."  He argues that the story is not, in fact, about the character after whom the franchise is named, which is an extravagant claim to make; the eponymous character is supposed to be the one the work is about.  The author makes the claim unashamedly--the thesis appears in bold type on the website where it is hosted--and he works to support that argument in detail.  It is possible that his assertion is incorrect; Gladstone admits of limitations in his own argument, and there are others he does not explicitly address, as noted above.  That he makes the attempt to voice and support an opinion, despite going against conventional wisdom, is the important feature; students of literature and of culture more generally will do well to emulate the behavior.  This is not to say that the argument should be contrarian for the sake of being contrarian.  It is to say instead that the argument should not be avoided because it is contrarian; if there is sufficient evidence to sustain the discussion, then it is a discussion worth having.

Gladstone's essay offers a useful compositional model.  It serves as a reminder that good writing appears in many places and many forms.  It also demonstrates that the skills developed in college writing and literature classes, far from being isolated from the "real" world, are valuable outside of the classroom as well as within it.  Paying greater attention to improving those skills suggests itself therefore as well worth doing.

*Note that this essay, as it appears online, does make use of hyperlinks.  It is also a somewhat academic treatment, so it also deploys formal MLA-style citation, both in text and at the end of the text, as is obligatory.

Works Cited
~Cracked.com. Demand Media, 2013. Web. 24 May 2013.
~Cuddon, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. Rev. C.E. Preston. 4th ed. New York: Penguin, 1999. Print. 
~Gladstone. "4 Reasons Raiders of the Lost Ark Is Secretly about Drugs." Cracked.com. Demand Media, 24 May 2013. Web. 24-25 May 2013.
~Raiders of the Lost Ark. Dir. Steven Spielberg. Perf. Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, and Paul Freeman. Paramount, 2008. DVD.
~Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Trans. W.A. Neilson. Cambridge, Ontario, Canada: In Parentheses, 1999. PDF file.
~Swift, Jonathan. A Modest Proposal. Renascence Editions. U of Oregon, 1999. Web. 24 May 2013.