I received an email this morning. As I have discussed before (here and here, among others), I do a fair bit of research work in addition to and in support of my teaching, much of which takes the form of conference presentations. When discussing course calendars, I make note of when I will be away for conference work, and I comment (I well remember) that conference travel is nice work when it can be gotten.
I am going to get to do a bit more conference travel, it seems.
I received an email today which tells me that an abstract I submitted in response to the call for papers from the 2013 International Congress on Medieval Studies has been accepted. Once again, I will be heading off to Michigan in May to give a talk about something about which I know a fair deal--and I will do so knowing more about it than I do now.
It is possible (although I make no promises in this regard) that I will use my work on the Congress paper as a model for paper development in my classes. I am not about to offer sections of it here (that would actually be a breach of etiquette, since conference research is supposed to be original and not before published), but it does offer me the opportunity to engage, directly and intimately, in the writing processes I discuss with my students once again. I will be able to reconnect with the kinds of things my students face in the assignments I offer them, and that ought to aid me in discussing things with them in what I hope will be a helpful fashion.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Announcement
Due to the faculty convocation, I will not have regular office hours today, 19 September 2012. Next week, due to advising, I will be meeting with students in Room 3005 at the 56th Street campus.
Friday, September 14, 2012
Announcement: Update
Students, please be advised that, due to the receipt of new information, the course calendar for ENG 101: Freshman Composition 1, Section 117, has been revised. The updated calendar is available for download at the course website, here.
Hard copies of the revised calendar will be distributed in class during the first meeting, as planned.
Hard copies of the revised calendar will be distributed in class during the first meeting, as planned.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Announcement
Students, please be advised that Fall 2012 syllabi and course calendars are going up on the course website. Links below connect to the relevant pages; please be sure you get the course calendar from the correct section of your class:
ENG 099: Basic Communications
ENG 101: Freshman Composition 1
ENG 202: Technical Writing and Presentation
HUM 110: Speech
I hope that you find them useful references. I hope also that I will not need to change many things.
ENG 099: Basic Communications
ENG 101: Freshman Composition 1
ENG 202: Technical Writing and Presentation
HUM 110: Speech
I hope that you find them useful references. I hope also that I will not need to change many things.
Monday, September 10, 2012
More on Teaching Philosophy
Quite some time ago, I mentioned that I was engaged in revising my statement of teaching philosophy. I have had occasion to work on it and review it a bit recently, for reasons that will remain private for now, and I am reminded, as the Fall 2012 term is about to begin at the school where I teach, that it is frequently helpful for me to discuss my own thoughts and understandings as I try to get students to develop their own.*
I remain convinced that if there is no challenge, there is no reason to improve, and the improvement of the self is the reason behind education, formal and informal. Even an online satirist is aware of the latter, although he couches his assertions...indelicately.** Although, as I know and have noted, many of my students are not convinced of the utility of what I teach--mostly rhetoric and composition, despite my academic background being mostly in literature--their lack of conviction does not negate the truth. For we are all engaged in telling stories and in presenting arguments, and it behooves us all to be able to do so convincingly. Too, we are all presented with stories and arguments seeking to compel our beliefs and actions, and it is incumbent upon us to be able to understand and analyze them so as to be able to reject those which are made poorly or are based upon bad ideas.
Thus, while it is perhaps true that my students will not ever have to compose a formal essay after leaving my classes, and they may never be positioned such that they are in direct opposition to another person in a debate, they will have to convince their bosses that they deserve to keep their job--and maybe that they even deserve a raise. They may have the misfortune of being in a position to have to convince a jury of their peers that they are innocent of wrongdoing, or the similar misfortune of having to convince a jury of someone else's that they have themselves been wronged. They may be in a position to be asked to do a thing that they find somewhat questionable, and so they will have to decide if the cost is worth the benefit. Many will find themselves needing to impart lessons to the young without making the overt statement that so often prompts resistance. Some of them will seek to prevail upon another person to give them the time and opportunity to fall in love with them. None of these are insignificant concerns, and all of them are aided and abetted by deploying the skills my assignments teach and of which they foster practice.
Those assignments offer a relatively low-risk laboratory for those skills. The worst that can happen to a student in my class as a result of the assignments is that the student gets a bad grade--and, in many cases, that grade can be brought up. It is a far lesser consequence than erring in the "real-life" applications of those skills outside the classroom, and so it seems to me that students are well-served to be well and truly challenged in the classroom.
*Lad Tobin's Opinion piece, "Self-Disclosure as a Strategic Teaching Tool: What I Do--and Don't--Tell My Students," from College English 73.2 (November 2010: 196-206) comes to mind as one resource related to discussing one's own personal engagement with the subject matter being taught. Mark Edmundson's "Against Readings" in Profession (2009: 56-65) springs to mind, as well. So, too, does much of the training in teaching I received as an undergraduate and a graduate student. It is not formal citation, I know, but it should suffice in a piece of writing so informal as a blog to account for whence some of my ideas derive.
**I make a point of trying to invoke current and popular media in my teaching and examples, as noted here, here, and occasionally here, among others. Sometimes, my sources use naughty words. Then again, so do major authors such as Shakespeare and Twain...
I remain convinced that if there is no challenge, there is no reason to improve, and the improvement of the self is the reason behind education, formal and informal. Even an online satirist is aware of the latter, although he couches his assertions...indelicately.** Although, as I know and have noted, many of my students are not convinced of the utility of what I teach--mostly rhetoric and composition, despite my academic background being mostly in literature--their lack of conviction does not negate the truth. For we are all engaged in telling stories and in presenting arguments, and it behooves us all to be able to do so convincingly. Too, we are all presented with stories and arguments seeking to compel our beliefs and actions, and it is incumbent upon us to be able to understand and analyze them so as to be able to reject those which are made poorly or are based upon bad ideas.
Thus, while it is perhaps true that my students will not ever have to compose a formal essay after leaving my classes, and they may never be positioned such that they are in direct opposition to another person in a debate, they will have to convince their bosses that they deserve to keep their job--and maybe that they even deserve a raise. They may have the misfortune of being in a position to have to convince a jury of their peers that they are innocent of wrongdoing, or the similar misfortune of having to convince a jury of someone else's that they have themselves been wronged. They may be in a position to be asked to do a thing that they find somewhat questionable, and so they will have to decide if the cost is worth the benefit. Many will find themselves needing to impart lessons to the young without making the overt statement that so often prompts resistance. Some of them will seek to prevail upon another person to give them the time and opportunity to fall in love with them. None of these are insignificant concerns, and all of them are aided and abetted by deploying the skills my assignments teach and of which they foster practice.
Those assignments offer a relatively low-risk laboratory for those skills. The worst that can happen to a student in my class as a result of the assignments is that the student gets a bad grade--and, in many cases, that grade can be brought up. It is a far lesser consequence than erring in the "real-life" applications of those skills outside the classroom, and so it seems to me that students are well-served to be well and truly challenged in the classroom.
*Lad Tobin's Opinion piece, "Self-Disclosure as a Strategic Teaching Tool: What I Do--and Don't--Tell My Students," from College English 73.2 (November 2010: 196-206) comes to mind as one resource related to discussing one's own personal engagement with the subject matter being taught. Mark Edmundson's "Against Readings" in Profession (2009: 56-65) springs to mind, as well. So, too, does much of the training in teaching I received as an undergraduate and a graduate student. It is not formal citation, I know, but it should suffice in a piece of writing so informal as a blog to account for whence some of my ideas derive.
**I make a point of trying to invoke current and popular media in my teaching and examples, as noted here, here, and occasionally here, among others. Sometimes, my sources use naughty words. Then again, so do major authors such as Shakespeare and Twain...
Thursday, August 30, 2012
To Begin the Fall 2012 Term
It has been a while since I last posted to this blog, it seems, and with good reason. I did not teach over the summer, after all, taking some time off for the first time in some years. But I am back now, and I will be teaching at TCI this fall. As such, I offer the following comments:
First, I have my teaching schedule. In the Fall 2012 term at TCI, I will be teaching three sections of ENG 099, one section of ENG 101, one section of ENG 202, and two sections of HUM 110. This is a bit different a distribution than has been true for me in the past, and some of the courses are changing. Updates to the relevant pages on my teaching website are therefore still forthcoming. I will likely post announcements about them as they happen.
Second, I will be performing more in the way of collegiate service during the term. Some of the specifics are not up for public discussion. At least one set of them is, however; I am chairing a special session at the 2012 South Central Modern Language Association conference in San Antonio, Texas. I look forward to it, and while I will be away from TCI to do my work at the conference, I will leave materials behind me for my students to do. So, dear students who read this, do not feel as though I am neglecting you. Even did I not leave stuff behind me for you to practice those skills we discuss in classes, I learn much from conferences, and so I come back from them with more to teach you.
Third, I look forward to working with my new sets of students. I do hope that some of the changes and some of the things I am trying out in my teaching this term will help students to learn better--and me, too.
First, I have my teaching schedule. In the Fall 2012 term at TCI, I will be teaching three sections of ENG 099, one section of ENG 101, one section of ENG 202, and two sections of HUM 110. This is a bit different a distribution than has been true for me in the past, and some of the courses are changing. Updates to the relevant pages on my teaching website are therefore still forthcoming. I will likely post announcements about them as they happen.
Second, I will be performing more in the way of collegiate service during the term. Some of the specifics are not up for public discussion. At least one set of them is, however; I am chairing a special session at the 2012 South Central Modern Language Association conference in San Antonio, Texas. I look forward to it, and while I will be away from TCI to do my work at the conference, I will leave materials behind me for my students to do. So, dear students who read this, do not feel as though I am neglecting you. Even did I not leave stuff behind me for you to practice those skills we discuss in classes, I learn much from conferences, and so I come back from them with more to teach you.
Third, I look forward to working with my new sets of students. I do hope that some of the changes and some of the things I am trying out in my teaching this term will help students to learn better--and me, too.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
About Negative Evaluations
The academy--that is, the totality of the practicing and aspirant scholars involved in formal schooling--has two primary purposes: the dissemination and development of knowledge. Both are necessary, as knowledge is of no value if it is not shared, but without the development of knowledge, there ceases to be something which can be shared. It is therefore the duty of all scholars to work towards both ends--even if it is all too often the case that one is neglected in favor of the other.
I strive to perform both of the scholar's duties, to teach and to uncover more to be taught. It is a commonplace that the latter informs the former, that by doing research in the literary humanities I increase my own base of knowledge, which I can then pass on to my students. The type of knowledge gleaned, however, is not always of the expected sort, as I was reminded this morning.
As part of my work to develop new knowledge, I write papers (much as I ask my students to do). As part of my work to disseminate that knowledge, I try to get those papers published. That means that I have to send the paper out so that other people can read it and evaluate it for its form, its content, and a few other factors that vary by the publisher (again, much the same thing that I ask of my students, if on a slightly different scale). A bit more than a year ago, I sent out a paper; today, I got an email saying that the paper had been rejected.
Not "Fix this up and we'll take it," but more like "No, it's not getting published."
I was not entirely pleased to find in the email what I found (again, as is often the case with my students when they receive my comments). I have never excelled at accepting criticism gracefully, and, like many others, I do not like being told that something into which I put some effort does not suffice. How unfortunate, then, that the world little concerns itself with my likes and dislikes.
After thinking on the email and the paper for a while, however, I was able to get far enough away from my initial emotional reaction to consider what the comments were actually saying. The first thing was that they were discussing the paper and not the writer; it was my work, not myself, that was being evaluated. Since it is the case that even the great ones err in the areas of their greatness, it is no shame to me that one individual effort was found lacking; it simply means that I must learn more and work harder. I can hope that my students can come to the same realization for their own efforts.
The second was a reminder of something that I tell my own students. For in the paper, I had performed a close reading of a particular poem. That is to say that I went through the poem, line by line, and laid out its features of rhythm, rhyme, and syntax. Doing so left me with several pages of details, which I gathered together in coherent prose, complete with appropriate citations, sound transitions, and all the adherence to the conventions of academic American English that could be asked. What I lacked was something to do with the detail. I got so caught up in picking out the small bits of information that I neglected to employ them for an end beyond themselves. Thus the paper was incomplete despite its merits and despite butting right up against the maximum acceptable word count, so that it deserved the evaluation it received.
My knowledge developed as a result of my writing and submitting the paper. I do have a much better understanding of the features of the poem about which I wrote, which is good. Better, though, is that I have something teachable (even while I am on leave): at times, a solid, well executed effort just is not enough to meet the requirements of a given task. That does not mean, however, that no good comes of the effort, and it does not mean that the person who makes the effort is of no value. It just means that the person has not succeeded...yet.
I strive to perform both of the scholar's duties, to teach and to uncover more to be taught. It is a commonplace that the latter informs the former, that by doing research in the literary humanities I increase my own base of knowledge, which I can then pass on to my students. The type of knowledge gleaned, however, is not always of the expected sort, as I was reminded this morning.
As part of my work to develop new knowledge, I write papers (much as I ask my students to do). As part of my work to disseminate that knowledge, I try to get those papers published. That means that I have to send the paper out so that other people can read it and evaluate it for its form, its content, and a few other factors that vary by the publisher (again, much the same thing that I ask of my students, if on a slightly different scale). A bit more than a year ago, I sent out a paper; today, I got an email saying that the paper had been rejected.
Not "Fix this up and we'll take it," but more like "No, it's not getting published."
I was not entirely pleased to find in the email what I found (again, as is often the case with my students when they receive my comments). I have never excelled at accepting criticism gracefully, and, like many others, I do not like being told that something into which I put some effort does not suffice. How unfortunate, then, that the world little concerns itself with my likes and dislikes.
After thinking on the email and the paper for a while, however, I was able to get far enough away from my initial emotional reaction to consider what the comments were actually saying. The first thing was that they were discussing the paper and not the writer; it was my work, not myself, that was being evaluated. Since it is the case that even the great ones err in the areas of their greatness, it is no shame to me that one individual effort was found lacking; it simply means that I must learn more and work harder. I can hope that my students can come to the same realization for their own efforts.
The second was a reminder of something that I tell my own students. For in the paper, I had performed a close reading of a particular poem. That is to say that I went through the poem, line by line, and laid out its features of rhythm, rhyme, and syntax. Doing so left me with several pages of details, which I gathered together in coherent prose, complete with appropriate citations, sound transitions, and all the adherence to the conventions of academic American English that could be asked. What I lacked was something to do with the detail. I got so caught up in picking out the small bits of information that I neglected to employ them for an end beyond themselves. Thus the paper was incomplete despite its merits and despite butting right up against the maximum acceptable word count, so that it deserved the evaluation it received.
My knowledge developed as a result of my writing and submitting the paper. I do have a much better understanding of the features of the poem about which I wrote, which is good. Better, though, is that I have something teachable (even while I am on leave): at times, a solid, well executed effort just is not enough to meet the requirements of a given task. That does not mean, however, that no good comes of the effort, and it does not mean that the person who makes the effort is of no value. It just means that the person has not succeeded...yet.
Monday, June 11, 2012
Sample Summary
William H. Green's "King Thorin's Mines: The Hobbit as Victorian Adventure Novel" was published in Extrapolation 42.1 (Spring 2001: 53-64). In the article, Green asserts that Tolkien's children's book The Hobbit partakes of a long tradition of juvenile novel commonly associated with Stevenson's Treasure Island, largely because it closely mimics H. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines. Green explicates a number of textual parallels to support his thesis, including the socio-economic status of the protagonists, their marital status, and a number of specifics of plot and milieu. Green is not always wholly accurate in his parallels, however. In one example, he asserts that Tolkien's Bilbo Baggins is an old man, while Tolkien makes clear that Baggins is instead in early middle age. In another, Green draws a parallel between Tolkien's depiction of Thorin and Company's encounter with the trolls and Haggard's recounting of danger from elephants; it is not as clear a textual parallel as a number of his other examples. Those other examples, though, admirably support Green's key point that Tolkien borrows much from Haggard, leaving the article a solid piece of scholarship.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Sample Summary
As with a few previous examples of summaries, this one has been excerpted and adapted from another blog I maintain.
Joan DeJean's "A Long Eighteenth Century? What Eighteenth Century?" which appears in the March 2012 issue of PMLA, bemoans the increasing presentism of foreign language departments in the United States. DeJean does not claim any scientific rigor or statistical validity, simply noting that "Enough of a trend emerged" from those surveyed for the author "to feel that it was time to sound an alarm" (317). The alarm derives from the increasing dearth of new hires--and of faculty positions generally--in period specializations in pre-modern non-English languages, although Italian manages to hold onto its "holy trinity--Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio" (317), and Spanish, because of other factors, has enough enrollment to keep its variety to some extent (318). Even so, DeJean paints a depressing picture, one which forebodes ill for the study of language in the United States.
Definition
Presentism /prĕz'ĭnt*ĭzm/ (n.)- focus on the present and near past (within the last fifty to one hundred years), to the exclusion of earlier events
Joan DeJean's "A Long Eighteenth Century? What Eighteenth Century?" which appears in the March 2012 issue of PMLA, bemoans the increasing presentism of foreign language departments in the United States. DeJean does not claim any scientific rigor or statistical validity, simply noting that "Enough of a trend emerged" from those surveyed for the author "to feel that it was time to sound an alarm" (317). The alarm derives from the increasing dearth of new hires--and of faculty positions generally--in period specializations in pre-modern non-English languages, although Italian manages to hold onto its "holy trinity--Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio" (317), and Spanish, because of other factors, has enough enrollment to keep its variety to some extent (318). Even so, DeJean paints a depressing picture, one which forebodes ill for the study of language in the United States.
Definition
Presentism /prĕz'ĭnt*ĭzm/ (n.)- focus on the present and near past (within the last fifty to one hundred years), to the exclusion of earlier events
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Sample Summary
The following is excerpted and slightly adapted from another blog I maintain.
In Gail Collins's 27 April 2012 New York Times piece "A Very Pricey Pineapple," the author reminds readers about the massive economic underpinnings of the various educational "reforms" that have been pushed through in the past decade or so. Collins points out that a few companies are making quite a bit of money from the emphasis on standardized testing in the executions of the tests themselves as well as in the production of textbooks to suit the tests and even schools and teaching programs in which to embed the whole thing. By bringing out the pineapple imagery, she links edu-business to the absurd, offering an effective satire on the institution and calling therefore for a change to it.
In Gail Collins's 27 April 2012 New York Times piece "A Very Pricey Pineapple," the author reminds readers about the massive economic underpinnings of the various educational "reforms" that have been pushed through in the past decade or so. Collins points out that a few companies are making quite a bit of money from the emphasis on standardized testing in the executions of the tests themselves as well as in the production of textbooks to suit the tests and even schools and teaching programs in which to embed the whole thing. By bringing out the pineapple imagery, she links edu-business to the absurd, offering an effective satire on the institution and calling therefore for a change to it.
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