Professor J's Place

I love the beginning of the Fall semester! This time of year has always felt like the New Year to me. This is the time of new beginnings, of clean slates, of promises and resolutions. As I was looking for some ideas for new ways of approaching comp I, I ran across this video I've seen before. It is, of course, outdated already, but it is good for an idea or two. I am up for any ideas about how to make Composition I relevant in my student's lives. Suggestions?

Working in a soup kitchen, donating to the poor, or servicing our nation's armed forces are all examples of different ways to impact our nation.

I was feeling blue after meeting with a student this morning. "Sally* dear, when there are no words in the essay written by you, it is called plagiarism." But then this got sent around. I want to take this class. I would especially enjoy week one, "Reading is Stoopid," because reading essays is stoopid. But it beats digging ditches for a living (as my friend Pat likes to say).

I am still struggling through the end of the semester. For those of you who don't know, let me tell you what an idiot I really am. I teach composition full time (four sections) at our local satellite school. I also teach composition and literature part time (two sections) for an adult degree completion program at a local private university. Last summer, I took on a section of World Literature online, as well. Yes, my fellow university people, I had seven sections--two full time jobs plus. Well, this term, a fellow teacher was unable to fulfill his commitment to the online classes he was assigned, and we didn't know until two weeks into the term. So when my dean contacted me in desperation, what was I to say? I do know the word no. I just don't seem to be able to say it. So now, I'm teaching 9 sections, which a normal school would call three full time schedules. And most of those sections (7) are composition. Are you getting a sense of my idiocy yet? Of course, I'm n...

I'm about mid-way through that pile of papers (okay, more like a server full of documents), but I had to share this with you. Jozet sent it to me, and you know how I heart her. I was lecturing the other day and I said, "I am not endorsing any political candidate," and one of my students said, "Oh yeah? I've read your blog!" Busted.

Don't expect much anything from me for awhile. Just one question: do you suppose I'm burning calories doing this?

Excerpt from student paper today: Being politically correct is a way that we speak here in America so that we don’t offend any whining babies. Only pathetically weak people that don’t have the balls to say what they feel and mean are politically correct [idiots]. Society and the media have made it to where people are now afraid to say what they actually mean. Comedians are now the only people who actually speak the truth about society. Except now even Saturday Night Live wont put anything that is not politically correct for fear that some left wing idiot will throw a fit a make NBC apologize. At this point in her reading of this cogent argument, my boss said, "does he realize you will be reading this paper?" Oh yes. And it gets better! Today’s society has become way to obsessed with how things need to be right and to make people feel better. The correct term these days for garbage man is a sanitation engineer. No, a garbage man is no kind of engineer he has no college degree...

Anastasia Beaverhausen asked her readers to add her new site to their blog rolls if they hadn't done so already. I read and obey. But while I was there, I realized that there are several blogs I read everyday that haven't made it to the blog roll. So, I've updated the roll. I may still need to add you--Let me know if you've been left out, will you? ALSO a student from my developmental writing class stayed after class until I got my things together and walked with me as far as the library building--JUST TO TALK! I am so happy. Happy, happy, happy. I shall dance and sing.

Well, my friends, I have survived two more days of developmental writing. What's more, so have most of my students. On Wednesday, I entered the class, sat down with them, and had a talk. I told them that I knew that none of them had voluntarily chosen to take developmental writing. And, I said that this was my only Monday, Wednesday, and Friday course, so I drive across town at six-thirty in the morning just to see them. "So," I said, "Let's try to have some fun in this class. Let's try to enjoy the process." I asked if any of them had any ideas for making the class more enjoyable. Silence. Then we listened to David Sedaris reading an essay about when he was an elf at Macy's. Silence. No smiles. So, I had them write. First they did some freewriting . Then I asked them to write about a time when they had a conflict with someone. I had them read this to the person sitting next to them. Then I had them write about the same conflict from the ...

Well, the first days of school have passed fairly well, with one notable exception: Developmental Writing. Our class was at 8:00 on Monday. When I walked in the room, there were seven of the fifteen enrolled students there. Not an auspicious start. A girl came in about fifteen minutes into the class; she was a fine addition. She sat and stared off toward the side of the classroom and occasionally made remarks to the person sitting next to her (followed by snickers--and not the delicious chocolate kind). The other kids were more polite, but it took dynamite to make them respond to anything. Of course, non of them had their books or paper to write upon. I did find that most of the students in the class had failed dev. writing last semester. With attitudes like that? I am shocked. Anyway, we need to get a handle on this--AND FAST. Ideas? Suggestions? I meet with them tomorrow morning. Wish me luck!

In response to my last post, many of you kind readers mentioned that I was good at bouncing back from adversity, landing on my feet, making lemonade, etc. While I like to take credit for emotional strength whenever possible, I would like to posit another possible scenario. At the beginning of 2007, my work was not making me happy. I took pride in it, and I loved my students, but I did not enjoy supervising other people, and my dean had made it clear she wanted change, but every change I suggested was shot down. I just did not feel I was getting the support I needed. And so, two days (TWO DAYS, dear readers) before my meeting with the dean, I went to a large box-shaped book store and purchased these two books. Did I know that the dean was going to let me go? Perhaps. I wasn't exactly surprised when she told me. But, as the result of many conversations with Susan , I have come up with some alternatives to that line of thought. Because I was unhappy, because I was thinking about diffe...

Well, I wrote all about this in my Christmas letter, but since most of my bloggy friends aren't on my list, I thought I would go over some of the main events of 2007 as I prepare to enter into a new year with new hopes and dreams. So, here goes. 2007 began with the usual fanfare at the usual time. I wanted more than anything to continue moving forward in my relationship with Susan and to continue to improve in my job/career. To start things off with a bang I got fired decided to make a career change in February. I should mention here that I wasn't really fired, I was just informed that I would not be offered a contract for 2007/2008. There's a big difference. For one thing, I still had a salary. Nice thing, that. And I had some time to plan. Also nice. I was the chair of the developmental writing program at a local university. I was teaching many (7) sections, supervising other people, and attending meetings around the clock regularly. It was really a drag. I was especial...

While my day time students find themselves stuck with the usual final exams, my evening students--who are adult returning students--get the special treatment. Our final exams are always at a local restaraunt featuring really good margaritas. This is the life!

Early this morning, I had one of those teacher dreams. I was in my Algebra II classroom, it was the final weeks of the semester, as it is now, and I was utterly unprepared. After a few minutes of winging it and going over the homework, I decided to let my class go early. Normally, that is cause for student celebration. But today there was an angry student who complained that he had learned NOTHING all semester. This was not surprising to me as I am an ENGLISH teacher who never took a math beyond the required Algebra I and remembers nothing of it beyond the abject terror and her temptation to offer sexual favors to her teacher in exchange for a passing grade (thank God that wasn't necessary--he was not an attractive soul, poor man). Anyway, I apologized to the poor student who only wanted to learn something, and I awakened in a cold sweat two minutes before my alarm went off. Ah, November; it makes a teacher want . . . . . . some encouragement.

As you might imagine, I'm agin it (as my mother would say). Pat Conroy wrote a lovely article for the Charleston Gazette in response to the banning of two of his novels at a Charleston school. When I teach World Literature, I have one goal. Of course, it is important to me that the goals of my department are addressed in my class and how it is structured, but I really only want one thing. I want my students to enjoy one thing I teach. I want them to find one book or story or poem that moves them. I desire more than anything that a few of my students will remember an author's name and want to read more. I once made the mistake of voicing that desire in a departmental meeting. The chair of the department looked at me with something like pity, something like disdain, and said, "You really are a romantic, aren't you?" I guess so. But I love to read the words of this one former English student who went on to be a writer. I love his description of the affect g...

Okay, about this time of year, writing instructors start talking about errors. We'll say: "Listen to this!" and read a particularly egregious (or amusing) error for our officemates. We send emails with malapropisms around to each other. I have heard it argued that it is not okay for us to make fun of our students in such a way. But here's what I think. We are usually just as willing to make fun of our own errors (today I wrote to Susan about her palate when I was talking about the board she puts dabs of paint on--and I'm willing to own up to it), and we never mention names or make fun of anyone publicly. Does that make it okay? Probably not. But laughing at mistakes (not students) prevents us from doing what my friend Mark talked about today (stabbing people in the eye), so I think we're going to continue the practice. Check out "Just for fun" in the right-hand column. I really enjoy the " unnecessary " quotations blog. I always g...

I have been furiously grading papers lately. Unfortunately, that adjective is stunningly appropriate these days. I caught another plagiarist yesterday or the day before. Hint to cheaters: freshmen writers rarely say things like "Prospero is an enigmatic protagonist" unless they are English majors. Of course, if it were only that sentence, I might not have caught it, but cheaters aren't the smartest people. Another thing that gets me is the refusal to follow directions when writing a paper. I can't tell you how many papers I have read that are on a subject that does not come close to the assigned topic. I recently gave one student a 50 for putting words on a paper; but the fact that she did not write about the topic I assigned, did not use any kind of formatting (up to and including no name on the paper), and did not have a bibliography acted against her. Honestly--it's a little insulting. Perhaps it's time for another walk in the woods. Was I a more ...

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to read a short piece of writing by my young friend Stella (16 I think). It was a little thought experiment in which she explored the idea that plants might have feelings. I was really touched. Empathy is the one thing I think needs to be taught more often. People my age and older often fuss about politeness--but it is empathy that is the root of all good in this world, including politeness. How does one teach empathy? Does it have to be done early in life? Is it something you are born with? I don't know. I'm just proud of Stella for being that kind of a girl.

Last week was a good one for me as a teacher--it served to remind me that learning occurs when there is resistance to what is being taught. Sometimes it occurs best that way. Last Wednesday, in my evening World Literature class, one of my students complained that Gilgamesh was "stupid" and "meaningless." If you've read my blog, you know that Gilgamesh is fairly significant to me personally, so them's fightin' words. It turns out that it was the character Gilgamesh that bothered my student. It was his hanging on to his grief and acting like he was the only person who ever lost another, that bothered my student. I like to think we both learned something Wednesday. I think I learned that sometimes resistance comes as a result of not having the tools to appropriately analyze a text. My student simply did not have the vocabulary to critique; he thought "criticize" and "complain" were synonymous. I was also reminded that our pe...

My f2f (face to face) World Lit class is reading Gilgamesh . I first read this when Mom was dying of cancer. Every time I reread it, I am at another level of the grief. Someday, I think, I will write an essay about Gilgamesh as an instrument of measuring grief. My online World Lit class is reading The Tempest . Sometimes I don't know what to do with the constant complaints about how difficult it is to read Shakespeare. This is especially difficult in an online class where I cannot show a video; it is so much easier to read the play after you've seen or heard it. So I am left wishing we could get beyond talking about the difficulty and get on with the issues raised. In the car, I am listening to Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin . It is difficult to follow listening because it is not linear. But now that I have got the hang of it, I must say once more how I do love Atwood. It is clever, funny, and devastating. My "in line" or "waiting" book is...